Developmental and personality differences between two groups of fathers

Abstract

The aim of this research was to evaluate the effect of the father's level of ego development, his level of self esteem, his marital adjustment and his perception of his role on his child. The sample population consisted of two groups of fathers with 27 subjects in each group. The experimental group was defined by having a child who had been seen in a clinic for emotional or behavioural difficulties and the control group by having a child who had never had m y therapy for emotional or behavioural difficulties. The groups were broadly matched on age of the index child, standard of the child at school, age of the father, marital status and language. The data was analysed using t-tests to compare the groups ? Pearson Product Moment Correlations to examine the relationship between variables and a Discriminant Analysis in order to look at the findings from a multivariate perspective. Using a significance level of 0.05 as the criterion for significance, there were no significant differences between the groups. However there were distinct differences between the two groups when the subject variables from the biographical questionnaire were analysed. The results were discussed in the light of the negative findings and an attempt was made to account for the paucity of significant results. Finally the limitations of the study and the implications for further research were considered.