Poster #19 - How Does Father Affect Child’s Social Competence?

• In Event: 3-001 - Poster Session 2 during Breakfast

Abstract

This study investigates the mediation effects of father-child interaction on the link between father’s psychological factors and child social competence. The existing literature has mainly paid attention to the direct effect of father-child interaction on child social competence (Attili et al., 2010). The implication of father-child interaction has offered child can foster social competence by having a close relationship with father. It has been particularly discussed child who is actively interacted with father knows is confident and knows how to have a relationship with others. However, antecedents to father-child interaction have been less understood when it comes to child social competence.
It has been theorized father’s psychological factors including father’s well-being, marriage satisfaction, and self-esteem impact father-child relationship (Cabrera et al., 2014; Roy, 2014). Following this expectation, this study hypothesizes that the father’s psychological characteristics affect father-child interaction and thus determine child social competence. It is imperative to find the mediation effect of father-child interaction on child social competence since the direct effect of father-child interaction on child social competence has been overemphasized. However, father’s psychological characteristics may be critical variables in child social competence.
The secondary data, obtained from Korean Children Panel Data (KCPD), is utilized to measure the study variables. The KCPD has released its 7th annual data, began in 2008 and continued to 2014, and initially surveyed 1478 families who have a newborn baby in South Korea. Structural equation model is employed to test the study hypothesis using Mplus.
Findings show that father-child interaction mediates the link between father’s well-being and child’s social competence, 95% CI [0.034, 0.081], the relation between father’s marriage satisfaction on child’s social competence, 95% CI [0.041, 0.096], and the association between father’s self-esteem and child’s social competence, 95% CI [0.001, 0.019]. Interestingly, father’s marriage satisfaction directly impacts on child’s social competence.
The direct effect of father-child interaction on child social competence is consistent with previous studies. But, this study extends the existing literature by showing that father’s psychological factors affect the relationship with child and further impact child social competence. In particular, it is notable father’s marriage satisfaction is directly and indirectly significant. This implies the relationship between father and mother can affect child social competence in that the marriage satisfaction is interdependent on each spouse. The role of mother in promoting child social competence has been less studied, but this study calls for future research that comprehensively discusses the role of both father and mother in fostering child social competence.

Author

• Hyerim Shin, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Presenting Author