Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Based on Piaget's equilibration theory, father dogmatism and empathy was hypothesized to influence sons' cognitive development through non-verbal behavior in father-son interactions. Subjects were 52 pairs of fathers and their sons drawn from first-year high school students of bi-parental families. Fathers' dogmatism and empathy was assessed by questionnaire, sons' cognitive development with Piaget's permutation task using the clinical procedure, and fathers' nonverbal behavior by videotaping father-son interactions while they worked on a computer terminal. A factor analysis of fathers' nonverbal behavior revealed two factors accounting for 59.3% of the variance. One factor is mainly loaded with fathers' visual behavior and body orientation toward their sons while keeping at a distance from them. The other factor is mainly loaded with fathers' smiling behavior. No relationship was found between fathers' dogmatism, empathy and sons' cognitive development, but the nonverbal factor "father smiles" was associated with both sons' cognitive development and fathers' dogmatism. A multiple regressions analysis revealed that together these traits account for 24% of the variance in the nonverbal factor "father smiles." This result is interpreted as not only showing once more children's effects on parents' behavior, but also as evidence that by using both some of the child's and some of the parents characteristics we can account for more of the variance in the parent's behavior with his child than if either are considered independently.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Altmann, J. (1974). Observational study of behavior: Sampling methods. Behaviour, 49, 227-267.

Bates, J. E. (1976). Effects of children's nonverbal behavior upon adults. Child Development, 47, 1079-1088.

Bates, J. E. (1975). The effects of the child's imitation versus nonimitation on adults' verbal and nonverbal positivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31 840-851.

Bates, J. E. & Pettit, G. S. (1981). Adult individual differences as moderators of child effects. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 9, 329-340

Bell, R. Q. (1968). A reinterpretation of the direction of effects in studies of socialization. Psychological Review, 75, 81-95.

Blishen, B. R. , & McRoberts, H. A. (1976). A revised socioeconomic index for occupations in Canada. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 13, 71-79.

Borduin, C. M. , & Henggeler, B. R. (1981). Social class, experimental setting, and task characteristics as determinants of mother-child interactions. Developmental Psychology, 17 209-214.

Bugental, D. E. , Kaswan, J. W. , & Love, L. R. (1970). Perception of contradictory meanings conveyed by verbal and nonverval channels. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 647-655.

Bugental, D. E. , Love, L. R. , & Gianetto, R. M. (1971). Perfidious feminine faces. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 17, 314-318.

10.

Clarke-Stewart, K. A. (1978). And daddy makes three: The father's impact on mother and young child. Child Development, 49, 466-478.

11.

Ekman, P. , & Friesen, W. V (1975). Unmasking the face. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

12.

Ekman, P. , Friesen, W. V , & Ancoli, S. (1980). Facial signs of emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1125-1134.

13.

Foa, V. G. , Foa, E. B. , & Schwarz, G. (1981). Nonverbal communication: Toward syntax, by way of semantic. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 6, 67-83.

14.

Gazzaniga, M. , & Ledoux, J. E. (1978). The integrated mind. New York: Plenum.

15.

Hall, E. T (1974). Handbook for proxemic research. Washington, D. C.: Society for the Anthropology of Visual Communication.

16.

Hall, E. T (1963). A system for the notation of proxemic behavior. American Anthropology, 65, 1003-1026.

17.

Hore, T (1970). Social class differences in some aspects of the non-verbal communication between mother and preschool child. Australian Journal of Psychology, 22, 21-27.

18.

Inhelder, B. , & Piaget, J. (1955). De la logique de l'enfant a la logique de l'adolescent. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

19.

Larivee, S. (1981). La methode clinique dans les epreuves operatoires, un chantier toujours ouvert. Revue Canadienne de Psychologie, 22, 330-345.

20.

Lautrey, J. (1980). Classe sociale, milieu familial, intelligence. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

21.

Longeot, F. (1978). Les stades operatoires de Piaget et les facteurs de l'intelligence. Grenoble: Les Presses Universitaires de Grenoble.

22.

Mehrabian, A. (1972). Nonverbal communication. New York: Aldine-Atherton.

23.

Mehrabian, A. , & Epstein, N. (1972). A measure of emotional empathy. Journal of Personality, 40, 525-543.

24.

Miller, T. W. (1971). Communicative dimensions of mother-child interaction as they affect the self-esteem of the child. Proceedings, 79th Annual Convention, APA, 6, 241-242.

25.

Neimark, E. D. (1975). Intellectual development during adolescence. In E D. Horowitz (ed.), Review of child development research, Volume 4. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

26.

Piaget, I. (1975). L'equilibration des structures cognitives. Etudes d'epistemologie genetique, XXXIII. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

27.

Piaget, J. , & Inhelder, B. (1963). Les operations intellectuelles et leur developpement. In P. Fraisse et J. Piaget (Eds.), Traite de psychologie experimentale, VII. L'intelligence. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

28.

Piaget, J. , & Inhelder, B. (1951). La genese de l 'idee de hasard chez 1 'enfant. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

29.

Radin, N. (1981). The role of the father in cognitive, academic and intellectual development. In M. E. Lamb (ed.), The role of the father in child development. New York: John Wiley.

30.

Rogers, C. R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 22, 95-103.

31.

Rokeach, M. (1960). The open and closed mind. New York: Basic Books.

32.

Schaefer, E. S. (1972). Parents as educators: Evidence from cross-sectional, longitudinal and intervention research. Young Children, 48, 227-239.

33.

Slater, P. J. B. (1978). Data collection. In P W Colgan (Ed.), Quantitative ethology. Toronto: John Wiley.

34.

Smith-Hannen, S. S. (1977). Effects of nonverbal behaviors on judged levels of counselor warmth and empathy. Journal of Counseling psychology, 24, 87-91.

35.

Spiegel, J. P & Machotka, P (1974). Messages of the body. New York: Free Press.

36.

Truax, C. G. , & Carkhuff, R. R. (1967). Toward effective counseling and psychotherapy: Training and practice. Chicago: Aldine.

37.

Vandenberg, S. G. , & Kuse, A. R. (1981). In search of the missing environmental variance in cognitive ability. In L. Gedda , P Parisis & W E. Nance (Eds.), Twin research 3, Part B: Intelligence, personality, and development. proceedings of the Third International Congress on Twin Studies. New York: Alan R. Liss.

38.

Van Hooff, J. A. R. A. M. (1972). A comparative approach to the the phylogeny of laughter and smiling. In R. A. Hinde (Ed.), Nonverbal communication. New York: Cambridge University Press.

39.

Von Cranach, M. (1971). The role of orienting behavior in human interaction. In A. H. Esser (Ed.), Behavior and environment: The use of space by animals and man. New York: Plenum Press.

40.

Yarrow, M. R. , Waxler, C. Z. , & Scott, P (1971). Child effects on adult behavior. Developmental psychology, 5, 300-311.

The Association between Early Adolescent Boys' Cognitive Development,Father Attitudes and Nonverbal Behavior

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References