Dissertation

Paternal emotional availability and relatedness in toddler sons

Vogel, Colin R

1997

Overview

This study carries forward the exploration of emotional transaction within the caregiving dyad by investigating the particular expression of emotional availability in the father-toddler son relationship. The purpose of the study was to determine whether a specific style of emotional availability, which has been found to foster development of a personal model of closeness and relatedness within same-sex, mother-toddler daughter dyads (Robinson, Little, & Biringen, 1993), is present as well in the father-toddler son relationship. Thirty fathers and firstborn 24-month-old sons were videotaped in their homes during semistructured play. The subjects were rated on dimensions of emotional availability and shared and nonshared affect displays. As predicted, the pattern of emotional communication within more emotionally available dyads promoted relatedness in toddler sons. Contrary to expectation, however, more emotionally available fathers, unlike more emotionally available mothers, promoted relatedness through a constellation of variables grouped around their structuring and positiveness rather than their sensitivity. While the data support the notion that relatedness in toddlers is promoted in the context of an emotionally available relation with the same-sex caregiver, there was evidence suggesting that autonomy is also promoted in the more emotionally available father-toddler son relationship. This contradicts developmental and psychoanalytic models that construe autonomy and relatedness in mutually exclusive terms (Freud, 1916; Gilligan, 1982; Miller, 1987).

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Developmental psychology / Families & family life / Individual & family studies / Personal relationships / Social psychology / Sociology
• ISBN: 9780591759280, 0591759284