Toward Disentangling Fathering and Mothering: An Assessment of Relative Importance

Abstract

This study employed dominance analysis to assess the relative importance of maternal and paternal support, behavioral control, and psychological control in explaining depression, antisocial behavior, and social initiative within 644 adolescents. We noted the lack of replicated findings concerning differential effects of mothers and fathers and employed an approach that considered mothers’ and fathers’ overlapping predictive abilities in determining their relative importance. Results lend support to the overall parental framework and additionally suggest (a) mothers’ behavioral control is relatively more important than fathers’ in explaining sons’ subsequent antisocial behavior, (b) fathers’ support is relatively more important than mothers’ support in explaining subsequent youth social initiative, and (c) mothering and fathering tend to have a cross‐gendered effect on early adolescents’ depression.