Father-absent and father-present families of disturbed and nondisturbed adolescents.

Abstract

In a study of intact and of father-absent families, male adolescent disturbance in both groups was found to be related to less warm, supportive, and expressive intrafamilial relations; less of a family orientation toward personal growth; and less successful participation in extrafamilial involvement. Disturbance in father-absent boys was not related to negative father-typing by the mother or maternal restrictions, and the findings do not support the assumption of family conditions peculiar to the father-absent home as a factor in adolescent pathology.