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Father Absence, Perceived Matemal Behavior,and Moral Development
in
Boys
John
W.
Santroc^
UnioersUy
of
Georgia
SANTROCK, JOHN
W.
Father Absence, Perceived Matemal Behavior,
and
Moral
p
in Boys.
CaxLD
DEVEIX)PMENT,
1975, 46,
753-757.
The
rated
and
observed moral behaviwr,judgment,
and
affect
of 120
preadolescent, predominantly lower-dass boys from early-divorced (before
the
boys were
6),
late-divorced (between
6 and 10), and
parentally intacthom^ were investigated.
In
addition,
the
mothers' discipline (power assertive, inductive,
and
love withdrawal)
and
affection were examined
by
asking subjects about their mothers' methodsof dealing with their transgressions. Moral behavior
was
assessed with resistance-to-temptation,self-criticism, altruism, reparation,
and
teacher-rating measures, while moral judgment
was
evaluated with
3
Kohlberg items
and
moral affect
was
investigated with
2
story-completionitems maximizing guilt.
The
major findings were:
(1)
when relevant variables
(IQ, SES, age,
sibling status)
^gre
controlled,
few
differences were found between father-absaat
and
father-present boys;
^^
however, father-absent boys were reputed
by
their teachers
as
less
ad-
vanced
in
moralaevelopment than father-present boys; f^Othe sons
of the
divorced wom«ishowed more "social deviation," according
to
their teadkMSL
but
were more advanced
in
levelof moral judgment than were
the
sons
of
widows; '^4}/divorced women disciplined withmore power assertion than widows, according
to
their sons' reports.The intent
of
this investigation
was to
examine different aspects
of the
father-absentsituation
as
they relate
to the
male child'smoral development. Theoretical points
of
viewbased
on
power, defensive,
and
anaclitic iden-tification
as
well
as
social learning theory(McCandless 1967), although varied,
are con-
sistent
in
emphasizing
the
importance
of the
father
as a
transmitter
of
morality
to his son.
Based
on the
research literature, there
is
alsorelatively consistent support
for the
hypothesisthat father absence
has a
negative impact
on
the moral development
of
boys (Bacon, Child,& Barry
1963;
Glueck & Glueck
1950;
Gregory
1965;
Hoffman
1971;
McCord, McCord,
&
Thurber
1962;
Siegmann 1966),
but
thosestudies,
in
general, lack adequate demographiccontrols
to
conclude that father absence
isrelated significantly to less advanced moraldevelopment. In the best controlled of theaforementioned studies, Hoffman (1971)found that seventh-grade, father-absent boysscored lower than father-presenf Boys on in-dices of intemal moral judgment, guilt, accep-tance of blame, moral values, and rale con-formity, Although moral behavior was neverassessed directly in the Hoffman (1971) study,father-absent boys and father-present boys didnot differ on a resistance-to-temptation taskin another investigation (Mxmibauer & Gray
1970).
In sum, when global trait ratings,records, moral judgment, and guilt indiceshave been used to assess moral development,significant differences in favor of father-presentboys have occurred, but there is no support fordifferences in father-absent and father-present
This article
is
based
on a
dissertation submitted
to the
faculty
of the
graduate sdux}l
at
the University
of
Minnesota
in
partial fulfillment
of the
requirements
for the Ph.D
degree.
The
author
is
deeply appreciative
of the
extensive
and
competent direction offered
by Dr.
WillardW. Hartup, advisor
and
thesis chairman.
The
suggestions
of Drs.
John Masters, Shirley Moore,James Rest,
and
Joan Aldous were also helpfuT Without
the
many hours spent
by
DougThompson, director
of
psychological services, Cabell County Schools, Huntington, WestVirginia, this study would
not
have been possible. Also, thanks
are due for the
conscientiouseffort
by the
teachers
who
completed
the
ratings
on the
children. Mary
Jo
Santrock
and
Carol Rasch were very capable raters
of
moral judgment
and
guilt. This research was supportedin part
by
Public Health Service Traineeship
to the
author
(no. 5
T01-MN-(^8-13). Author'saddress: Department
of
Child
and
Family Developmrait,
123
Dawson Hall, University
of
Ceorgia, Athens, Ceorgia 30602.
ICkUd
Devehpment,
197S, 46,
7S3-7S7.rights reserved.]1975
by the
Society
for
Research
in
Child Development,
Inc. AH
754 C3iiMboys on specific behavioral indices of moralbenavior.There is every expectation that the psy-dbolo^cal consequences of such varied circum-stances as divorce and death are differ^it for
the child, i^br
instax^oSj^ijou^iixsffGe^^the
motiier
often speaks negatively to the chiH aBout £h dd h h hp gyfather.flfi the widowed hiSme, the inothennaypresent the father model more positively thandoes the divorced woman, even if the fatherwas "immoral." The research literature d^Jingwith the effects of divorce or death is sparse.Tuckman and Regan (1966) found that chil-dren from widowed homes had more anxietyand neurotic symptoms, whereas children fromdivorced homes displayed abnormally highrates of aggressive and antisocial behavior. In
eye ^_..,
~~ -
another well-controlled study, boys from di-vorccSI
homes
~ delayed" p^attftcatlSff'i^^b fr dd h
yp^^
boys from widowed homes (Santroclclit"WoKrford I97)The departure of the father places aheavy burden on the mother, which may even-tually affect both the quantity and quality ofher interaction with her children. In the pres-ent study, the mother's disciplinary ta;hniquesand affectional relations with her child wereexamined for their possible influence on theson's moral development in father-absent situ-ations. Disciplinary activity was assessed viaHoffman's classification of techniques (1970)involving power assertion, induction, and lovewithdrawal, while affection was also evaluatedby asking the boys to report the frequency ofa variety of affectional behaviors displayed bytheir mothers.Based on the aforementioned theory anddata, the following specific hypotheses aremade: (1) father-absent boys are less ad-vanced in moral development than father-present boys; (2) boys from divorced homesdisplay a lower level of moral developmentthan boys from widowed homes; (3) per-ceived matemal induction and affection arerelated positively to moral devek>pment,whereas power assertion and love withdrawalare negatively related.Mediod
Subjects
The subjects were 120 boys, half fromfather-absent homes and half from father-present homes. One-third of the father-absentDoys were from homes in which the father haddied when die boy was betwe^i 6 and 10years old, another one-third were from homesin which the parents were divorced before theboy was 6 years old, and a final one-thud werefrom homes in which the parents were di-vorced when the boy was between 6 and 10years old. The subjo^ts were attending the fifthand sixth grades in a rural-urban school systemin a county in West Virginia with a popuktionof approximately 125,000.Information about the father-absent boyswas obtained by requesting all fifth- andsixth-grade teachers in the school system tocomplete a questionnaire. The information ob-tained enabled a close matching of the sam-ples of father-present and father-absent boysfor age, race, school, IQ, social class, familysize,and the presence of older male siblings.In addition to these controls, father-absentcases included only ones in which no step-father was, or had ever been, present. Eachfather-absent boy was living with his mother.For the father-present boys, the father had notbeen absent from the home more than 6months at one time. Although one-to-onematching was carried out only between father-absent (regardless of age of onset or cause)and father-present boys, the group means ofearly- and late-divorced and divorced andwidowed boys were close.Once the final sample was obtained, twosessions, one for individual (session A) andone for group (session B) measures, were ad-ministered to the boys. Session A includedthree resistance-to-temptation tasks, an altru-ism measure, and behavioral measures of
self-
criticism, self-reward, reparation, delay ofgratification, trust, and paranoid blame. Thealtruism measure was always given first, andthe other measures were presented in randomorder, with the sole restriction being that thethree resistance-to-temptation measures werenever given consecutively. Session B includedguilt-completion, Kohlberg moral-judgment,matemal-discipline, and matemal-aff«;tionitems. The testing sequence was varied ran-domly across subjects to eliminate possibleorder effects. Because many of the boys hadlow IQs and reading problems, all of theinstructions and items were read by theexaminer.Sixty-four boys received session A first,and 56 received session B first. At least 1 weekintervened between the two sessions. All test-ing was conducted by the author in a private
room at the boy's school. A maximum of fourboys were tested from a single room, and theteacher was requested to keep the boys sep-arated from eadi other until aU of them hadcompleted the individual testing. Informationconceming the boys' father status was notgiven during the testing sequence.
Materials^Resistance-to-temptation task
1.
—^This
consisted of the ray gun, a shooting-gallerygame, devised originaffy by Crinder (1962).
Resistance-to-temptation task
2.
—^The
dy-namon-.eter, a device which measures physicalstrength, was administered under conditionswhich would foster cheating.
Res^ance-to-temptation task
3.
—^A
list of20 vocabulary words was presented to thechild under conditions which would allowcheating.
Guilt.
—^The guilt measure consisted oftwo story-completion items used by Hoffman(1971) and rated for maximum guilt. Pearsonr's were calculated to obtain interrater reliabil-ity, which for maximum guilt was -f.92 forstory 1 (negligence) and -I-.93 for story 2(swimming race).
Moral judgment.
—^Three stories devel-oped by Kohlberg (1958) were selected forassessing stage of moral judgment. One con-cemed the classic dilemma of Heinz and thedruggist, a second focused on a continuationof that story, and a third involved a boy whosefather had told him he could go to summercamp if he worked at a paper route, but laterchanged his mind and told the boy he neededthe money. Interrater reliability consisted ofPearson-f intercorrelations ranging from -I-.67to +.94, with a mean of
-I-.83.
Self-criticism, reparation, and self-reward.
—A procedure was constructed in which eachsubject pushed a smaU car up a roadwaythrough four gates with a pusher and then offthe top of the road so that the car fell into abox. The procedure was designed and instmc-tions were administered foUowing a task con-structed by Aronfreed, Cutick, and Fagen(1963). Self-reward was measured by thenumber of Tootsie Rolls taken by the childduring his performance, self-criticism was eval-uated via self-critical verbal remarks followingthe breaking of the car, and reparation was
W. Santrodk
assessed through verbal
rennurks
and tibe volun-tary return of any Tootsie RoUs accimiulatedduring performance.
Altruism.
—^This behavior was evalaatedby giving each boy five pieces of candy on twooccasions. He was then asked to decide howmany he wanted to keep for himself and howmany he wanted to give to (a) his best friendor (o) a poor boy from an orphanage.
Trust and paranoid
blame,
—^A
self-ratingscale for trust in
oneself,
trust in othere, andothers' trust in oneself was devised, and theboy was asked to rate on a five-point scale howmuch he felt he got blamed for doing thingsthat were not his fault.
Delay of
gratification.
—^This
measure fol-lowed Mischel's (1961) tasks involving fourdifferent objects (game, notebook, money, andcandy).
Teacher ratings.
—Each boy's homeroomteacher was asked to fill out a teacher ratingsheet covering a number of moral behaviorsand related attributes. Reliability of theteachers' ratings was assessed by asking theteachers to rate the boys on the same items1 year after the initial ratings had been made,or approximately 7-8 months after the boyshad left the teacher's room. The teacher-ratingreliabilities ranged from +.13 for delay ofgratification to +.71 for social participation,with a mean of +.46. The mean correlation ofitems which comprised factor 1, "social con-science" (see results), was +.385; for factor 2,"social deviation," it was
-¥.51;
and for fac-tor 3, "sociability," it was + .66.
Matemal discipline.
—Each boy was pre-sented with four concrete examples of trans-gressions. Three were taken directly fromHoffman (1971), and the fourth concemed aboy taking money from his mother's pursewithout asking her. Each transgression wasfollowed by 12 concrete behaviors the mothermight use in disciplining him. Four reflectedpower assertion, four induction, and four lovewithdrawal. He was then asked to check howfrequently the mother behaved in each of theseways:usually, sometimes, rarely, or never.
Matemal affection.
—Each boy was askedto check the frequency with which his motherbehaved toward him in a variety of concreteways. Affectionate behaviors mentioned in this
1 The materials are described very briefly here. Detailed information about them isavailable from the author upon requ^t.
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