Father-daughter Relationship Research Articles

Incest Family Dynamics:

A self-administered questionnaire study in a self-help group for incest families focused on individual family members'perceptions of their interrelationships before and after participation in therapy. The results show that perceptions of the same relationships varied greatly among family members. Before therapy, the father-daughter relationship received the most divergent ratings,with fathers rating it as extremely good and daughters as extremely bad. The mother-daughter relationship was seen as the most neutral by all family members. After therapy, while the parents improved their perceptions of family relations, daughters (victims) continued to rate them as bad. It is suggested that the emphasis on teaching victims to externalize the blame in order to diminish unjust shame in effect means shifting the blame to the father (the offender), which again serves to maintain stressful family relations for the daughters in these families. The clinical implications of this dilemma are discussed.

Father-daughter emotional relationships and mathematical attainment in primary schools

Father-daughter emotional relationships and mathematical attainment in primary schools

Fathers and daughters: their relationship and personality characteristics associated with the daughter's smoking behavior.

This study examined the interrelationships of domains (i.e., sets) of paternal personality and father-daughter relationship variables and daughter characteristics and their impact on the daughter's smoking. In addition, the interactive effects of individual father and daughter variables on the daughter's smoking were studied. Female college student volunteers (N = 403) and their fathers were given closed-ended questionnaires that included a number of scales assessing father and daughter characteristics. Results indicated that the domains of father and daughter variables each had a direct impact on the daughter's smoking (an independent model). Interactive findings revealed that daughter protective factors (those conducive to her not smoking) could offset the negative impact of paternal risk factors (those conducive to her smoking), and that, to a lesser extent, daughter protective factors further enhanced the positive effect of father protective variables.

Épouses de boulangers-pâtissiers.

Family is viewed as a language mediated universe that provides core elements for the existence and the evolution of each individuum, mainly by identifications and by the history of the family. The case studied in this paper illustrates how by repetition over several generations the father's professional choice organizes the position of spouse and daughters. The paper concludes with a hypothesis on a specific feature of father-daughter relationship : the daughter's love for her father is love for an idealized father figure.

Parents' childhood experience, marital relations and parent-child relationships

This study sought to explore the long-term effects of and relationships between parental divorce, interparental conflict, and parent-child relationships on interpersonal and generalized trust, empathy, dependency, and depressive affect among late adolescents.Self-administered questionnaire data were collected from a sample of 288 college students (including 60 children of divorce). Participants were asked to rate current and past levels of interparental conflict, the current affective quality of their parent-child relationships, and present adjustment.Path analyses revealed that the effects of interparental conflict on psychological well-being were mediated by parent-child relationships. For women, however, parental divorce also was found to affect adjustment indirectly (via disrupted father-daughter relationships), although no such path emerged for men.The findings are part of a growing literature documenting the role of parent-child relationships in mediating the effects of marital disruption. In addition to efforts to resolve marital conflict, clinicians may want to focus on enhancing mother-child, father-child relationships as a way to modify the damaging effects of conflictual marital relations on children and adolescents. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 1993, 32, 5:1019–1027.

The Father-Daughter Relationship in Sigrid Undset's Writings

If you want to know more about femininity, enquire from your own experience of life, or turn to the poets, or wait until science can give you deeper and more coherent information. S. Freud: New Introductory Lectures XXXIII, 1933 I didn't realise how charming the psychoanalytical approach must seem to people of a certain level of intelligence until I read Inggjald Nissen's latest book. It suddenly dawned on me that a few of the old maids, and young people too, with whom I worked in an office back in the old days, were actually practicing psychoanalysis, while I in my youthful arrogance and ignorance thought they were horrrible old nags and gossips and terribly naive as well, when they thought they were smart and did not let themselves be fooled every time they were guessing and insinuating things about other people's most intimate business. And by this very act which consisted in putting their surmises into words, they became convinced that they were in fact true. S. Undset: letter to Ch. Kent, 1931

Implications of Parental Divorce for Female Development

Conflicting evidence regarding potential negative effects of divorce on daughters may be due in part to methodological differences across studies. Daughters from intact versus maritally disrupted families were compared at different developmental stages. Divorce sequelae among female subjects are more likely to be found when (a) adolescent and adult subjects are studied, (b) one looks beyond the short-term disequilibrium of divorce, (c) the dimensions investigated are related to feminine self-esteem and heterosexual adjustment, and (d) data are gathered in ways other than paper-and-pencil tests. Possible explanations based on developmental issues and aspects of the father-daughter relationship are discussed. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry , 24, 5:538–544, 1985.

Correlates of Midlife Career Achievement Among Women Physicians

In the context of a longitudinal study, we explored factors contributing to midlife career achievement among 108 women physicians. Three groups were formed, based on medical specialty, specialty board certification, and professorial appointment. Using analysis of variance procedures, the career groups were compared on measures obtained during medical school and on marital status, family size, and three health measures in midlife. Of the youthful measures, academic standing, father's socioeconomic status, and early family (specifically father-daughter) relationships were found to be associated with midlife achievement. Furthermore, a clear association was observed between success and good health in midlife. Married women formed the majority in all groups; no differences in family size were found. We conclude that career achievement among women physicians is influenced less by marriage and family size than by motivational and personality factors shaped in early life.

Patterns of Interaction in Family Relationships and the Development of Identity Exploration in Adolescence

The purpose of this research was to develop a model of individuation in family relationships that focuses on communication processes, and to assess the links between them and adolescent identity exploration. Expressions of the 4 dimensions of the model--self-assertion, separateness, permeability, and mutuality--were predicted to be positively associated with identity exploration in adolescents. A sample of 84 Caucasian, middle-class, 2-parent families, each including an adolescent and 1 or 2 siblings, was observed in a Family Interaction Task designed to elicit the expression and coordination of a variety of points of view. Multiple regression analyses revealed differentiated results concerning father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, mother-daughter, and marital relationships as well as both positive and negative contributions of communication variables to identity exploration when verbal ability and sociability were controlled. Results are discussed in terms of recent formulations of the progressive redefinition of the parent-child relationship during adolescence.

Seductive father-daughter relationships and sex roles in women

The present study evaluated the relationship of three variables reportedly characteristic of families in which father-daughter incest occurs to women's sex-role functioning and attitudes toward heterosexual interactions. The results showed that a sexualized father-daughter relationship was correlated with negative male traits (e.g., arrogance), low levels of positive female traits (emotionality), and negative attitudes toward male sexuality and female competitiveness. Discord in the parental marriage was associated with positive female traits and negatively with attributions of danger to male sexuality. Low levels of paternal encouragement of autonomy correlated with negative female traits (spinelessness, subordination to others) and low positive masculine traits (competitiveness). The implications of the findings to our understanding of incest are discussed.

Parent-child relations and orientations toward sport

Same-sex (mother-daughter, father-son) and cross-sex (mother-son, father-daughter) parent-child relationships were examined with regard to whether these social interactions were differentially related to children's orientations toward sport. “Winning” and “achievement” were defined as traditional male sport orientations while “fair play” and “everyone participates” were viewed as traditional female sport orientations. The theory of parent-child interaction developed suggested that parents as a result of their own sex-role socialization transmit their own sex-value orientations to their same-sex children, but nonsex-linked sport orientations to their cross-sex children. Comparisons were made among 898 male and 800 female adolescents who participated in a nationally sponsored youth sports program. The analysis revealed that mother-son relationships were associated with more traditional female sport orientations in boys; contrary to expectation, father-daughter relationships were also related to stronger female sport orientations in girls. Explanations for why both parents may reinforce traditional sex-linked orientations in their daughters, but not their sons, are discussed.

The Father and the Bride in Shakespeare

Although sixteenth-century daughters were evidently an economic burden on their fathers, Shakespeare consistently depicts fathers whose love for their daughters is so possessive that it endangers the family unit. To delineate the tensions of this bond at its liminal moment, Shakespeare evokes the altar tableau of the marriage service. This paradigmatic substructure illuminates the central conflict in the father-daughter relationship: the father who resists the ritual's demands to give his daughter to a rival male destroys both his paternal authority and his family's generative future; yet the daughter who escapes without undergoing ritual severance violates the family structure and thus becomes both guiltlessly agentive in ruining her original family and tragically incapable of creating a new one. The marriage ceremony is designed to resolve this paradox. In Shakespeare's dramas, submission to this rite ensures the only possibility of freedom for the individual and of continuity for the family.

Delinquent Females' Perceptions of Their Fathers

Studies of delinquency repeatedly indicate that fathers are more inJluential than mothers in the development of delinquent behavior in their children. In order to determine the specific nature of the father-daughter relationship among adolescent delinquents, the responses of 90 Georgia delinquents and 85 Oklahoma delinquents concerning their fathers were analyzed. Delinquents from both groups indicated that they were not close to their fathers, and that their fathers were neither very interested in them, loving, kind nor understanding. More favorable perceptions were reflected if fathers were head of the family, average or above average in terms of masculinity, and if daughters felt loved by fathers.

Prevention of Unwanted Pregnancy Among Teenagers

A psychosocial constellation that appears to predispose many teenage girls to risk unwanted pregnancy includes hostility in the parents' marriage, alienation from the mother, and a seductive father-daughter relationship. The dynamics which lead into sexual acting out include attempts to (1) compensate for low self-esteem by seeking male approval and (2) reduce anxiety over sexual fantasies or behavior with the father by counterphobic coital contacts with other men. Provision of a contraceptive method alone is sometimes insufficient to protect a woman with these dynamics from unwanted pregnancy because her conflicts over dependency needs and sexuality may interfere with taking responsibility for reliable use of contraceptives. Supplementary intervention, either by the primary care physician, a psychiatrist, or other mental health professional, is recommended where the high risk family history is evident.

Parent-Daughter Relationships in Fiction

Family life educators have used literature as a teaching tool and also as a field for research. Such usage is not novel, for literature offers the scholar an opportunity to study how a culture is portrayed by lay authors. It is assumed by some people that fiction about the family presents a picture of how society perceives the family as to its customs, strengths, structure, and/or evolvement. Is this a valid assumption? We wondered about it, and we became interested in developing a research methodology which might be used by teachers or researchers to systematically explore literature. Our particular purpose was to see how mother-daughter and father-daughter relationships have been portrayed in families in fiction literature. We wanted to know if such relationships influenced the parental relationships in the stories, and also what types of families were being focused upon in the novels.

Promiscuity as a function of the father-daughter relationship.

A 20-item semantic differential describing sexual behavior and attitudes toward parents was completed by 320 women in a school of nursing and categorized as promiscuous or not. Data showed a strong relation between the rated fathers' behavior and subsequent behavior of daughters. Disruption of the relationship was associated with promiscuity.

The father-daughter relationship and the personality development of the female.

The father-daughter relationship and the personality development of the female.

Coefficients of Relationship and the Identity of Genes by Descent in the Hymenoptera

Hamilton (1964a) has pointed out that social behavior can evolve through kinship selection, wherein the probability of an altruistic act is proportional to the probable genetic relationship between altruist and recipient. Therefore, to calculate likelihoods of altruistic behavior being evolved in certain situations, the probable proportions of genes identical by descent in the individuals involved must be known. Haplodiploidy, the basic genetic system in Hymenoptera, is particularly favorable for the evolution of altruistic behavior, since full sisters have three-fourths of their genes identical by descent (Hamilton 1964b). This is because they each receive the same haploid set of chromosomes from their father, making up half their genotypes, while genes from their mother, being the products of a normal meiosis, are identical by descent half of the time. Full sisters under normal autosomal inheritance, where both sexes are diploid, have only half their genes identical by descent. When I compared a number of other coefficients of relationship calculated by Hamilton (1964b) with those given by Li (1955), however, I observed several discrepancies. In some cases it was also clear that Hamilton's values must be in error. For example, since brothers, being haploid and impaternate, are the equivalents of gametes produced by the meiosis of one individual, they clearly have half their genes in common; yet Hamilton (1964b) gives a coefficient of relationship of r 1/4 for this relationship. This erroneous result is due to Hamilton 's treatment of males in calculating coefficients of relationship: each male is artificially "made diploid" by the addition of a "cipher " gene that is unique to it. Although Hamilton 's calculations are in error for some relationships involving males, the coefficients of relationship given by Wright (1922; see Li 1955) are also inadequate for determining the optimum strategy of an individual based on the probable degree of relatedness of another to it. This is because the coefficient of relationship as usually employed is actually a measure of phenotypic correlation assuming simple additive gene effects, rather than an estimate of the proportion of genes held in common through identical descent, although in normal autosomal inheritance the values obtained are correct for either purpose. Another failing of the coefficient of relationship is that it makes no distinction between the relationship of a given male to a given female and the converse female-male relationship. Thus the value r = 1/2 is obtained for the father-daughter relationship (Li 1955), whereas in fact all the father's genes are identical by descent with genes present in the daughter, while only half the daughter's genes are identical by descent with genes present in the father. The situation is, however, clearly indicated by Lji's diagrams (1955, p. 182). Letting GA(B) be the proportion of individual A's

Authority and Sex Roles in the Family

Parental and child roles in families characterized by distinctive marital authority patterns are studied in two samples (486 adolescents, 201 parents) by questionnaire and interview. If the authority roles of husband and wife are highly differentiated, the boy and girl roles and (with respect to open expression of affection and democracy) the adult and child roles, are more sharply differentiated. The father-daughter relationship is especially affected. However, these parents are not less permissive. The dominant-sex adolescent is more controlled by parents and the focus of more parental conflict. General sex differences are also reported.

The Landlady:A New Interpretation

The Landlady1 is still one of Dostoevsky's most enigmatic works. Various interpretations have been offered. While they do explain some aspects of the novella, its theme has remained as ambiguous as ever. One frequently met interpretation takes its clue from discussion of the genre of The Landlady. Apart from the realistic framework, which approaches the style of the physiological school, the novella exhibits, it is said, the characteristics of the romantic Kunstmarchen and the arabesque. Aside from the fairytale trio of prince, princess, and wizard there are several fairytale plots and motifs mentioned in the story. If we add the folklorisms in the speech of the major characters, the interpretation of The Landlady as literary recreation of various folklore subjects seems quite plausible. Professor S. Gibian has approached The Landlady on this level; for him the novella is a recreation of folktale diction and imagery ... its plot is based on the three folklore motifs, man-woman dominance, the incestuous fatherdaughter relationship, and the Volga outlaw's tale. ( Gibian, 245, 248 ) . Other scholars have undertaken very detailed research in the subject matter of the novella with the aim of detecting its ultimate meaning by comparative study of Dostoevsky's characters and motifs and their literary antecedents. In the course of their research they have unearthed great number of literary sources, parallels, allusions, and the like. C. E. Passage has summarized the results of this approach to The Landlady.2 As if to justify the title of his book, Dostoevsky: