Michael E. Lamb

The History of Research on Father Involvement: An Overview

SUMMARY Both our understanding and operationalization of fatherhood and father involvement have changed over time. Fatherhood has always been a multifaceted concept, although over time the dominant or defining motif has shifted in turn from moral guidance to breadwinning to sex-role modeling, marital support, and finally nurturance. As a result of these changing concepts, the extent of father involvement has been viewed and indexed in different ways at different times. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when societal concerns about the effects of fatherlessness were coming to the fore, social scientists also became much more interested in quantification of concepts such as father involvement, motivated in part by the emergence and popularity of time-use methodologies. This prompted a shift from a focus on qualitative dimensions (such as masculinity and dominance) to quantifiable dimensions (the amount of time spent by fathers with their children). This led to a restricted focus on paternal nurturance with little if any attention paid to the other functions or aspects of fatherhood. The narrowly focused view of fatherhood that resulted, ignored subcultural variation in the definition and understanding of fatherhood. Social scientists are only now beginning to seek a broader and more inclusive understanding of fatherhood-efforts that should permit more insightful research on the effects of variations in performance of the relevant roles.

Father-infant and mother-infant interaction in the first year of life.

LAMB, MICHAEL E. Father-Infant and Mother-Infant Interaction in the First Year of Life. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1977, 48, 167-181. 20 infants were observed interacting with their mothers and fathers at home when they were 7, 8, 12, and 13 months of age. Infants showed no preference for either parent in the display of attachment behaviors, though both parents were consistently differentiated from a relatively unfamiliar investigator on these measures. This indicates that the infants were clearly attached to both parents from the beginning of attachment relations. Preferences in the display of affiliative behaviors were accounted for largely by differences in the degree of adult activity in interaction with the infants. As they grew older, infants were increasingly likely to direct attachment behaviors to all 3 adults. Infants responded more positively to father-infant play, though there were few differences in the types of play the parents initiated. Mothers held the infants most often to engage in caretaking functions, while fathers held them most often to play. It is argued that the father-infant and mother-infant relationships may involve different kinds of experiences for infants, such that the two parents have differential influences on personality development from infancy onward.

Effects of Domestic Violence on Children's Behavior Problems and Depression

The Childrens Depression Inventory, Child Behavior Checklist, and Youth Self-Report were completed by mothers, fathers, and their 8- to 12-year-old children to assess the effects of various types of domestic violence on childrens behavior problems and depression. One hundred and ten Israeli children from lower-class families were identified through social service records. Thirty-three of the children had been physically abused by their parents within the last 6 months, 16 had witnessed spouse abuse, 30 had been both victims and witnesses of domestic violence, and 31 had experienced no known domestic violence. Overall, domestic violence had effects on child development that varied in magnitude and nature depending on the type of domestic violence and who reported the information about the childs adjustment. During the past 30 years, domestic violence and its effects on childrens development have received considerable attention in the scientific and popular media (Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989). Although there is some evidence that children who are victims and/or witnesses of domestic violence have more social and emotional problems than their nonabused counterparts, findings have varied across studies. Because of the difficulties in recruiting samples, investigators have usually studied children from violent families that are characterized by multiple stressors (e.g., histories of drug and alcohol abuse, single parenting, shelter residence, and poverty) and multiple forms of maltreatment (i.e., neglect, sexual abuse, spouse abuse, and child abuse; Aber & Cicchetti, 1984). Unfortunately, it has been difficult to systematically measure these stresses and to evaluate how they exacerbate, moderate, or mask the effects of maltreatment on

Child abusers' responses to infant smiles and cries.

14 child abusers and a matched group of non-abusers watched videotapes of crying and smiling infants. Their psychophysiological responses were monitored throughout the session. After each videotape, the subjects described their emotional responses on a mood adjective checklist. The crying infant elicited heart-rate acceleration and increases in skin conductance and diastolic blood pressure from both groups, although the abusers experienced greater increases in heart rate and reported more aversion and less sympathy. Like other parents tested in this paradigm, the nonabusers responded to the smiling infant with no change in or declines in physiological activation. The abusers, however, responded to the smile and cry stimuli similarly.

Fathers’ influences on children’s development: The evidence from two-parent families

Although it is often assumed that men have an important influence on their children’s development, the supportive evidence can be difficult to locate and summarize. In this paper, we analyse the evidence with respect to four emergent themes. First, men often appear to interact with their children less sensitively than mothers do, and many children thus appear to form closer attachments to their mothers than to their fathers. Second, the data also indicate that fathers may play specific and important roles, with men in some cultures having clearly defined roles as playmates to their children. Third, paternal play styles predict later socio-emotional development while paternal involvement seems to predict adult adjustment better than maternal involvement does. Such evidence suggests, fourth, that we need appropriate measures of fatherhood that are not simply borrowed from the study of motherhood.RésuméMalgré on pense que les pères ont une influence importante sur le développement de leurs enfants, les evidences qui le rapportent peuvent être difficiles de trouver et d’expliquer. Dans cet étude, on analyse l’évidence concernant quatre conclusions importantes. En premier, les pères font apparemment une interaction avec leurs enfants avec moins de sensibilité que les mères, et donc beaucoup d’enfants forment apparemment une relation plus proche avec leurs mères que leurs pères. En second, les renseignements indiquent aussi que les pères peuvent jouer de rôles spécifiques et importantes, avec des gens placés en quelques cultures avec des rôles bien tracés comme copins de leurs enfants. En troisième, les styles d’action des pères prévoient plus tard le développement socio- emotionnel, tandis que l’engagement paternel parait prévoir l’ajustement adulte mieux que l’engagement maternel l’en fait. Une évidence comme ça suggère, en quatrième, qu’on a besoin de mesures parentaux appropriés qui ne soient pas seulement pretés des études sur la maternité.

Fathers: Forgotten Contributors to Child Development

Theoretical and research literature on the role of fathers in child development is reviewed. The first section points out that there is little known about father-infant interaction, and the impact of the father on infant social development, though diverse theoretical perspectives all assume that the father’s role is minimal, and, at best, indirect. It is suggested that this assumption is unsubstantiated. Fathers are believed to play an influential role in later child development, though the theoretical assumptions, again, are inadequately validated by research. A new hypothesis is proposed whereby fathers are seen as playing a vitally important role in socialization, yet one which is qualitatively different from that played by mothers. Various research designs are suggested whereby this hypothesis can be subject to empirical validation.

Effects of Introductory Style on Children's Abilities To Describe Experiences of Sexual Abuse.

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to evaluate the relative effectiveness of two rapport-building techniques for eliciting information from children who made allegations of sexual abuse. METHOD Fourteen interviewers conducted 51 investigations of child sexual abuse with children ranging from 4.5 to 12.9 years of age. In 25 of the investigations, interviewers used a script including many open-ended utterances to establish rapport, whereas in 26 of the investigations the same interviewers used a rapport-building script involving many direct questions. Both rapport-building scripts took about 7 minutes to complete. All children were asked the same open-ended question to initiate the substantive phase of the interview. RESULTS Children who had been trained in the open-ended condition provided 2 1/2 times as many details and words in response to the first substantive utterance as did children in the direct introduction condition. Children in the open-ended condition continued to respond more informatively to open-ended utterances in the later (unscripted) portion of the interview. Two-thirds of the children mentioned the core details of the incident in their responses to the first substantive utterance and a further 20% mentioned core details more vaguely. CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate that children respond more informatively to an open-ended invitation when they have previously been trained to answer such questions rather than more focused questions. These results demonstrate the sensitivity of children to the goals and expectations of forensic interviewers. Structured interview protocols also increase the amount of information provided by young interviewees.

Effects of Investigative Utterance Types on Israeli Children's Responses

This field study is concerned with the effect of interviewing style on childrens reports of sexual abuse. Detailed psycholinguistic analyses of 22 front-line interviews of 5- to 11-year-old Israeli children by a number of interviewers focused on the length (number of words) and richness (number of new details) provided in responses to different types of utterances by the interviewers. As predicted, open-ended invitations yielded significantly longer and more detailed responses than directive, leading, or suggestive utterances, regardless of age. The younger children provided briefer and less detailed responses, however. These findings underscore the value of open-ended prompts in investigative interviews.

Use of a structured investigative protocol enhances young children's responses to free-recall prompts in the course of forensic interviews

One hundred alleged victims of child sexual abuse (ages 4-12 years; M = 8.1 years) were interviewed by police investigators about their alleged experiences. Half of the children were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Developments structured interview protocol, whereas the other children--matched with respect to their age, relationship with the alleged perpetrator, and seriousness of the alleged offenses--were interviewed using standard interview practices. Protocol-guided interviews elicited more information using open-ended prompts and less information using option-posing and suggestive questions than did standard interviews; there were no age differences in the amount of information provided in response to open-ended invitations. In 89% of the protocol interviews, children made their preliminary allegations in response to open-ended prompts, compared with 36% in the standard interviews.

Age differences in young children's responses to open-ended invitations in the course of forensic interviews

To elucidate age differences in responses to free-recall prompts (i.e., invitations and cued invitations) and focused recognition prompts (i.e., option-posing and suggestive utterances), the authors examined 130 forensic interviews of 4- to 8-year-old alleged victims of sexual abuse. There were age differences in the total number of details elicited as well as in the number of details elicited using each of the different types of prompts, especially invitations. More details were elicited from older than from younger children in response to all types of prompts, but there were no age differences in the proportion of details (about 50%) elicited using invitations. Cued invitations elicited 18% of the total details, and the number of details elicited using cued invitations increased with age. Action-based cues consistently elicited more details than other types of cues.