Table 4:Correlations of Narratives with other Measures of Parenting

1. San Francisco State University First Findings On A New Narrative Instrument For Assessing the Father-Child Relationship in Young AdolescentsAmy A. Weimer, William V. Fabricius, Karina Sokol Jeff Cookston Delia Saenz Arizona State University San Francisco State University Arizona State University Method Study Overview Tables Method Discussion Overall Project Overview The Parents and Youth Study (PAYS) is an ongoing 5-year-longitudinal investigation of how fathers and stepfathers contribute to their adolescent’s development. This project included 393 families (fathers, mothers, and adolescents), half of whom are Anglo-American, and half of whom are Mexican-American. Half of the families are intact and half are stepfather families. Findings presented are from the first wave of data collection. Present Study Abstract One aspect of the PAYS project was to develop a new method of investigating children’s relationships with their parents. We asked them to describe “the story” of their relationship with each parent. Virtually all children spontaneously evaluated their parents on three dimensions: (parental investment, emotional quality, parental responsiveness). These three dimensions are core constructs in attachment theory. Results suggest that these dimensions remain important up through adolescence across family type (intact and stepfamilies), ethnic groups (Anglo- and Mexican-American), and parent (mothers, fathers, stepfathers). Table 1: Correlations and Means for Adolescents’ Narratives about Resident Fathers Anglo-American Mexican-American Intact Step Intact Step IN EQ RE (N=64) (N=52) (N=65) (N=50) Sig.Effects* Investment (IN) - 2.63 2.74 2.36 2.61 Step >Int; AA > MA Emotional Quality (EQ) .37*** - 2.76 2.76 2.65 2.76 Responsiveness (RE) .24** .41*** - 2.80 2.69 2.80 2.63 Mattering .37*** .43*** .40*** 33.42 31.17 31.46 29.90 Int > Step; AA > MA *p < .05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 Note: There were no significant interaction effects (Family Type X Ethnicity) • Participants: • Overall, participants included 393 self-identified Mexican- and Anglo-American adolescents ages 11 to 13 years. All participants were interviewed • individually in their home in their language of preference (English or Spanish) on all measures. • Measures: • 1.) Adolescent Narratives: Children were asked to describe their relationships with (a) their resident fathers, (b) their mothers, and, (c) their biological fathers (when appropriate). The following items include questions about the (step) father: • 1. I'd like you to take a few moments to think more about your (dad/step-dad). Tell me everything you can think of about your (dad/step-dad). Think of anything you want to say about who he is, what he likes to do, his work, anything like that. Say whatever comes to your mind. • 2. Now, think of your relationship with your (dad/step-dad). How he treats you, what he does for you, how he talks to you and about the time he spends with you. Tell me what kind of person he is and how you two get along together. Try to think of all of those things and think of it as the story of your (dad/step-dad) and your relationship with him. • 3. What else can you tell me about your (dad/step-dad) and your relationship with him? • 4. Think now of any changes in your relationship with your (dad/step-dad), or if the relationship has changed over the past few years. Tell me about that, and if the changes have been good ones or bad ones. Was that a good or bad change for you? • These narratives were audiotape-recorded at the time of the interview. Three themes appear in almost every child’s narrative, whether about the father, • stepfather, or mother: • (1) Investment (IN), which refers to the child’s evaluation of the time and energy the parent invests in the relationship, • (2) Emotional quality (EQ), which reflects the positive versus negative emotions the child feels toward the parent relationship, and • (3) Responsiveness (RE), which reflects the child’s evaluation of the parent’s responsiveness to their needs or requests. • Excerpts from children’s narratives with some codes added: • [My father] is one of those people who likes to do things for others, who is very nice (EQ3) and respectful (EQ3) and he is just a good person (EQ3) . If • you have a problem, like he will be the one who will sit down and talk to you about it (RE3), and if you need help with anything, he will always be there to • help you whether he is busy or not he will take the time (RE3). • She’s a nice mom (EQ3). I really like her a lot (EQ3). I don’t know where she works. Um...I don’t know what she really likes to do. She talks to me a • lot (RE3). She treats me good (EQ3) and we spend a lot of time together (IN3). She gets me what I want sometimes (RE2), and that’s just about it. • My birth father lives in another country. He, his, all the family members on his side are shorter than me. We get along (EQ3) and we have a good • relationship (EQ3). He buys me shoes (RE3) or he buys me other things I need (RE3). He, umm, he doesn’t spoil me. He, he likes to be around me (EQ3) • and I like to be around him (EQ3). • 2.) Mattering: Questions were scored on a 5-point scale with the following response categories: strongly agree, mildly agree, unsure, mildly disagree, • strongly disagree. Items included: • 1. My (dad/step-dad) really cares about me. • 2. I believe I really matter to my (dad/step-dad) • 3. I think my (dad/step-dad) cares about other people more than me. • 4. I'm not that important to my (dad/step-dad). • 5. There are a lot of things in my (dad/step-dad)'s life that matter more to him than I do. • 6. I know my (dad/step-dad) loves me. • 7. I am one of the most important things in the world to my (dad/step-dad) • Results are preliminary, but promising. • Correlations: • Dimensions of investment, emotional quality, and responsiveness positively correlated with the mattering scale for all three types of narratives (resident dads, moms, and bio-dads). • Average narrative scores (across all dimensions) positively correlated with the mattering scale, and with the acceptance and consistent discipline scales of the CRPBI for all three types of narratives about resident dads, moms, and bio-dads. Average narrative scores (across all dimensions) negatively correlated with the rejection scale of the CRPBI. • Validates narratives as a measure of parent-child relationships • Suggests that narratives offer further information about parent-child relations than survey data alone can offer. • Mean Differences: • Narratives about resident fathers among adolescents from stepfamilies were significantly higher in investment than those among intact families. Mattering was higher in intact families compared to stepfamilies. • Suggests differences among family types in father-child relations • Anglo-American adolescents’ narratives about resident fathers were rated higher in investment and mattering compared to narratives from Mexican-American adolescents. • Suggests differences in father-child relations among Anglo- and Mexican-American families • Narratives about mothers among adolescents from intact families were significantly higher in emotional quality and responsiveness compared to narratives from adolescents in step-families. • Suggests differences among family types in mother-child relations • Anglo-American adolescents’ narratives about mothers were significantly higher in investment and mattering when compared to narratives about mothers from Mexican-American adolescents. • Suggests differences in mother-child relations among Anglo- and Mexican-American families • Narratives about biological fathers among Anglo- and Mexican-American adolescents were similar in terms of investment, emotional quality, responsiveness, and mattering. • Suggests that these qualities are equally important aspects of Anglo- and Mexican-American families • Further research is necessary to draw conclusions because of small sample size • Limitations & Future directions • We will need to examine the significant effects, after covarying out socioeconomic differences among the groups. • We plan to conduct analyses to explore gender differences • Additional analyses comparing the narratives with other measures in the dataset will likely demonstrate how the narratives relate with child outcomes including internalizing and externalizing behavior. • These results are preliminary. Further conclusions can be drawn when the total dataset is available for analysis. Table 2: Correlations and Means for Adolescents’ Narratives About Mothers Anglo-American Mexican-American Intact Step Intact Step IN EQ RE (N=73) (N=59) (N=58) (N=42) Sig. Effects* Investment (IN) - 2.79 2.70 2.59 2.54 AA > MA Emotional Quality (EQ) .33*** - 2.80 2.77 2.91 2.74 Int > Step Responsiveness (RE) .21* .45*** - 2.74 2.68 2.92 2.67 Int > Step Mattering .40*** .43*** .26*** 34.20 33.63 32.79 32.46 AA > MA * p < .05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 Note: There were no significant interaction effects (Family Type X Ethnicity) Purpose To assess the child’s view of the parent-relationship through the use of a narrative instrument. Table 3: Correlations and Means for Adolescents’ Narratives About Biological Fathers Anglo-American Mexican-American IN EQ RE (N=51) (N=35) Investment (IN) - 2.31 2.36 Emotional Quality (EQ) .77*** - 2.63 2.59 Responsiveness (RE) .55*** .68*** - 2.62 2.41 Mattering .63*** .64*** .70*** 31.64 29.79 * p < .05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 Note: There were no significant effects Hypothesis Contact Information Adolescents’ narratives will provide insight into their relationship with their parents and will relate to other measures of parent-child relationships. Table 4:Correlations of Narratives with other Measures of Parenting [Mattering & Child Report of Parent Behavior Index (CRPBI)] Narrative: Resident Dad Mother Biological Dad CRBPI CRBPI CRBPI Mat Acc Rej Disc Mat Acc Rej Disc Mat Acc Rej Dis Resident dad .53*** .55*** -.42*** .24*** Mother .49*** .56*** -.43*** .23*** Bio-dad .71*** .62*** -.63*** .40* * * p < .05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001 Mat = Mattering Scale Child Report of Parent Behavior Index (CRPBI): Acc =Acceptance Rej = Rejection Disc = Consistent Discipline Results For more information please contact: Amy A. Weimer Department of Psychology Arizona State University Box 871104 Tempe, AZ  85287-1104 (480) 965-2207 amy.weimer@asu.edu PAYS website: devpsych.sfsu.edu/PAYS Source: Weimer, A. A., Fabricius, W.V., Sokol, K., Cookston, J., & Saenz, D. (2005).First Findings on a New Narrative Instrument for Assessing the Father-Child Relationship in Young Adolescents.Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting for the Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, Georgia. Preliminary analyses were conducted to examine narratives that have been coded to date: 549 narratives (231 about resident fathers, 232 about mothers, and 86 about biological fathers), a random subset of the total narratives from the PAYS project. Intercorrelations among investment (IN), emotional quality (EQ), and responsiveness (RE) for each narrative were examined. The relationship with each of these 3 dimensions and the total mattering scale score also was assessed. Multivariate analyses of variance were conducted to examine whether the 3 dimensions of the narratives about each parent (resident dad, mom, and biodad) and the matttering scale differed across family type (Step vs Intact) and by ethnicity (Mexican- vs Anglo-American). Results are presented in Tables 1-3. We also examined the relationship of average resident dad, mother, and biological dad narratives (averaging across the 3 dimensions for each parent) with other measures of parenting. These included the mattering scale and 3 subscales of the Child Report of Parent Behavior Index (CRPBI): acceptance, rejection, and consistent discipline. Results are presented in Table 4.