Father-adolescent relationship and self -development: Does gender mediate a difference

Theories of normative adolescent development have traditionally focused on describing desired outcomes of development. More recent models have shifted the focus toward understanding the processes involved. These models consider parental relationships as the fodder for adolescent development and growth. Within the body of research examining parent-adolescent relationship dyads, the father-adolescent relationship has been identified as having a stronger impact on functioning and development. To date, this sex-of-parent effect is the most consistent finding across several different types of investigations in the research literature. Examination of sex-of-adolescent effect also yields some differentiated yet consonant results. Combining outcomes of both sex-of-parent and sex-of-adolescent effects suggests that the quality of the father-adolescent relationship is more consequential to the developmental task of self-development and autonomous functioning and this relationship process may be experienced differently for males than females.;Using a relational model, this thesis assesses the distinct nature of the father-adolescent relationship and whether gender of the adolescent mediates a difference in that relationship process. A conceptual analysis is supported by the results of a quantitative study using 238 10th grade students. Using a measurement of self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-esteem scale) as the dependent variable and the adolescent's perception of their father's behavior along three different parenting constructs (Children's Report of Parent Behavior Inventory) as the independent variables, the study uses correlation and regression analysis to identify which paternal behaviors are more significant to self-development for each gender. Results indicate: (a) paternal behaviors have a significant relationship to both male and female self-esteem; (b) the paternal behavior of acceptance accounted for 20% of the variance in self-esteem for both males and females but beta coefficients indicate this is a much stronger relevance for females than males and; (c) once the paternal behavior of acceptance was accounted for, autonomy granting behaviors were significant only for males. These results are consistent with the literature and support a relational model for understanding development. Also supported by these results is the need to more fully understand how male and female adolescents experience the important paternal relationship processes differently and whether this difference indicates unique developmental needs.