Recent and future research on fathers and families

Please contact us for more information on any of the work outlined below:

Impact of Fathers on Daughters’ Sexual Development: A Testing for Causation through Sibling Comparisons. The current focus of this work is on testing for the causal effects of fathers (i.e., father presence vs. absence; father warmth and investment, coercive paternal behavior) on daughters’ sexual development and behavior.  Together with Jacqueline Tither of the University of Canterbury, Dr. Ellis has developed a genetically and environmentally-controlled sibling-comparison methodology.  Central to this methodology are comparisons between biological sisters, discrepant in age, who experienced the dissolution of their parents’ relationship while growing up and, consequently, spent different amounts of time living with their father.  The research examines the effects of this differential exposure to fathers on child developmental outcomes.  This ongoing project, which began in New Zealand and is continuing in the US, has demonstrated the influence of fathers in families on daughters’ age at menarche and risky sexual behavior.  Bruce J. Ellis, Ph.D.; Jacqueline Tither, Ph.D Candidate, from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Gabriel Schlomer, Graduate Research Associate; Elizabeth Tilley, Graduate Research Assistant.

Effects of Fathers and Families on Daughters’ Sexual Development: Descriptive Longitudinal Studies. This program of research focuses on advancing new models of how evolution has shaped the child’s brain to respond to specific features of family environments and the larger ecological context. Central to this theoretical work has been the development of paternal investment theory (Ellis, 2004), which articulates a special role for fathers in regulation of daughters’ sexual development.  Through a series of prospective, longitudinal studies that have been conducted over the last ten years, Dr. Ellis and colleagues have demonstrated reliable effects of family environments, and particularly father presence and investment, on timing of pubertal development and ages at first sex and pregnancy in daughters. These effects appear to depend on the amounts and timing of exposure to fathers and on child stress reactivity. Bruce J. Ellis, Ph.D.; Marilyn J. Essex, Ph.D., from the University of Wisconsin; W. Thomas Boyce, M.D., from the University of British Columbia.

Cross-Ethnic Study of Parenting and Adolescent Adjustment. The project investigates immigrant adolescents' understandings of relationships with their mothers and fathers, and the link between parent-adolescent relationships and adolescent well-being. Understanding the father-adolescent relationship has become an important focus of their study. A new publication from the study (1) explored Mexican American youths' understandings of good relationships with fathers. For Mexican-American youth in this study, good relationships with fathers were understood when fathers provided for the family; fathers showed emotional support, but only indirectly. At a recent conference, the study team presented the results of a study of European American and Asian American adolescents (2). The study showed that the measure and meaning of paternal support was similar for European and Chinese American adolescents, but distinct for Filipino American youth. Further, delinquency and depression were similarly associated with low support from fathers for European and Chinese American youth, but not for Filipino American youth. Stephen Russell, Ph.D. and Lisa Crockett, Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Husbands’ and Wives’ Representations of Marriage and Expectations of Parenthood: Predictors of Supportive Coparenting for First-Time Parents. In a study of couples and the transition to parenthood, Dr. Curran found that with high expectations of parenthood, men, but not women, with Positive Unaware marital representations (memories of the parents’ marriage as positive, but not supporting these positive memories with episodic examples, and lacking insight as to how their parents’ marriage affects their own marriage) were rated by coders as lowest on support of their spouses’ parenting of the couples’ 24-month-old toddler than all other men. Melissa Curran, Ph.D.

Partners to Parents: Exploring the Transition to Parenthood for Unmarried, Cohabiting Couples. This is a study of families going through the transition to parenthood using a synthesis of perspectives from attachment, interdependence,  commitment, and family systems. An important emphasis of this research will be on the understudied role of fathers, as well as on the coparenting relationship between the father and mother with their child, and the impact of these processes on commitment, relationship quality, and stability. Melissa Curran, Ph.D.

Secondary Caregiver Involvement in Urban Low-Income Families with Preschoolers. This study investigates associations among child, family and contextual characteristics in low-income families in which mothers nominate fathers or grandmothers as secondary caregivers. Specific research goals include: 1) comparing maternal characteristics, including demographics, employments and mental health, in families with father and grandmother secondary caregivers, 2) comparing child social and emotional development in families with father and grandmother secondary caregivers, 3) examining patterns of parenting and coparenting, including cooperation, observed parenting behaviors, and parenting beliefs among mothers and fathers and among mothers and grandmothers, and 4) examining independent and interactive associations among mother and caregiver parenting behaviors and children's social and emotional development. Melissa A. Barnett, Ph.D. and Laura Scaramella, Ph.D. from the University of New Orleans

Impact of Fathers on Daughters’ Age at Menarche: A Genetically- and Environmentally- Controlled Sibling Study Bruce Ellis, Ph.D.

Comparing Human and Gorilla Families, H. Dieter Steklis, Ph.D., and Netzin G. Steklis