父親の対児感情と父性行動の関連性

Abstract

This study investigated the relationship between paternal sentiments toward the child and maternal assessment of paternal behavior. A questionnaire was sent to 343 couples with a 3-to 4-month-old infant. All infants were the couple's first normally born child. Fathers in their teens got high scores regarding avoidance of their children. The rivalry indices of these young fathers were also high. When the gender of the infant was what the father wanted, his wife gave a significantly higher scores to the item of accessibility of the father to the child than when the gender of the infant was contrary to what the father wanted. As the ages of the fathers advanced, the wives gave higher scores to their husbands' degree of psychological support, social dependability, and personal contact with the child. When the sibling order of the fathers was somewhere in the middle, they got significantly higher scores for affection in infant-rearing than when the father was the eldest or youngest son. The fathers who were neither the eldest nor youngest son also tended to help their wives more with infant-rearing activities and with housework. Our findings show that counseling of fathers should be conducted according to paternal behavior characteristics and the patterns of paternal sentiments toward their children.