Review of General Psychology Copyright 2001 by the Educational Publishing Foundation

2001, Vol. 5, No. 4. 382-405 1O89-2680/01/S5.O0 DOI: 1O.IO37//1089-2680.5.4.382

The Importance of Father Love:

History and Contemporary Evidence
Ronald P. Rohner Robert A. Veneziano
University of Connecticut Western Connecticut State University

This article explores the cultural construction of fatherhood in America, as well as the
consequences of this construction as a motivator for understudying fathers—especially
father love—for nearly a century in developmental and family research. It then reviews
evidence from 6 categories of empirical studies showing the powerful influence of
fathers' love on children's and young adults' social, emotional, and cognitive devel-
opment and functioning. Much of this evidence suggests that the influence of father
love on offspring's development is as great as and occasionally greater than the
influence of mother love. Some studies conclude that father love is the sole significant
predictor of specific outcomes after controlling for the influence of mother love.
Overall, father love appears to be as heavily implicated as mother love in offsprings'
psychological well-being and health, as well as in an array of psychological and
behavioral problems.

For most people, life's major satisfactions
and pain revolve around personal relationships
with others (Duck, 1988, 1991; Rohner, 1994,
1999). For children, the most powerful of these
others are parents.' A vast literature shows that
the quality of personal relationships—espe-
cially personal relationships with parents for
children—is a major predictor of psychosocial
functioning and development for both children
and adults. One dramatically important compo-
nent of the concept "quality of relationship" has
to do with warmth, supportiveness, comforting,
caring, nurturance, affection, or simply love. In
the context of parent-child relationships, we
summarize these elements under the construct
parental acceptance-rejection or, more broadly,
under the rubric of the warmth dimension of
parenting (Rohner, 1986, 1999). Four decades
of cross-cultural and intracultural research on
issues of parental acceptance-rejection by
Rohner (1960, 1975, 1986, 2001) show that
parents anywhere in the world can express their
Ronald P. Rohner, Center for the Study of Parental Ac-
ceptance and Rejection, University of Connecticut; Robert
A. Veneziano, Department of Social Work, Western Con-
necticut State University.
Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-
dressed to Ronald P. Rohner, Center for the Study of Pa-
rental Acceptance and Rejection, U-58 Family Studies, Uni-
versity of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-2058.
Electronic mail may be sent to Rohner@uconn.edu.
love or lack of love in any one or a combination
of four major ways. Parents can, for example,
be warm and affectionate (or cold and unaffec-
tionate), hostile and aggressive, or indifferent
and neglecting, or they can engage in undiffer-
entiated rejection. Undifferentiated rejection re-
fers to individuals' affectively charged belief
that their parents do (or did) not really care
about them, want them, or love them, without
necessarily having clear behavioral indicators
that the parents are (or were) unaffectionate,
aggressive, or neglecting toward them. These
and other such related concepts as parental sup-
port, nurturance, closeness, and caring—con-
cepts that are often used more or less inter-
changeably by researchers—are all central ele-
ments in the overarching construct of parental
acceptance-rejection or, simply, parental love.
Research in every major ethnic group of
America (Rohner, 2001), in dozens of nations
internationally (Khaleque & Rohner, in press;
Rohner & Britner, in press), and with several
hundred societies in two major cross-cultural
comparative samples (Rohner, 1975, 1986,
2001) has shown that children and adults every-
where—regardless of differences in race, lan-
guage, gender, or culture—appear to respond in
1
In this article, the term parents is defined as whoever
the most important caregivers are of a child. These people
are not necessarily mothers or fathers. But typically they

382
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE
the same way when they experience themselves
to be loved (accepted) or unloved (rejected) by
the people most important to them growing up.
The overwhelming bulk of research dealing
with parental acceptance-rejection concentrates
on mothers' behavior, however. Historically,
the possible influence of fathers' behavior has
been largely ignored.
This article discusses evidence regarding the
relative sparseness of research on fathers, espe-
cially on father love. It then explores the cul-
tural construction of fatherhood in America and
the consequences of this construction as a prin-
cipal motivator for overlooking fathers to a
large degree for nearly a century of develop-
mental studies. Finally, it discusses growing
evidence about and implications of the recent
recognition of the powerful influence of fathers'
love in child development (Rohner, 1998). Be-
fore continuing, we need to specify that this
article concentrates on evidence regarding the
influence of fathers' love-related behaviors—or
simply father love—in relation to the social,
emotional, and cognitive development and
functioning of children, adolescents, and adult
offspring. This emphasis on the importance of
father love should not be construed as minimiz-
ing the well-documented importance of mother
love. Rather, it is intended to emphasize the
need to consider the influence of fathers as well
as mothers whenever possible. Finally, where
relevant, this article also addresses some of the
antecedents of the effects of fathers' love, in-
cluding gender and ethnicity. Other anteced-
ents, including marital quality, separation and
divorce, and children's temperament, for exam-
ple, have been addressed elsewhere (Booth &
Crouter, 1998; Lupton & Barclay, 1997; Phares,
1996, 1997).
Fathers: The Historically Understudied
Little is known about parents' actual behav-
ior within American families before the 1930s,
when empirical research on children and fami-
lies had its fullest beginnings. Most of what is
known about child rearing before that time
comes from such sources as popular magazines,
medical and religious books, journals, and bi-
ographies. These texts tended to exhort par-
ents—almost always mothers—to behave in a
particular way. Or they claimed that parents
(mothers) behaved in a particular way without
383
providing evidence that the claim was true. In
addition, some authors made sweeping but un-
documented generalizations about the effects of
maternal (but rarely paternal) behavior. Some,
for example, went so far as to place the entire
burden of children's well-being in this life and
the next on mothers' shoulders. In 1849, for
instance, Elizabeth Hall wrote in Mother's As-
sistant magazine:
Yes, mothers, in a certain sense, the destiny of a
redeemed world is put into your hands; it is for you to
say, whether your children shall be respectable and
happy here and prepared for a glorious immortality, or
whether they shall dishonor you, and perhaps bring
your grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, and sink down
themselves at last to eternal despair! (p. 27)
Earlier, in the 1700s, Rousseau had already
proclaimed that "mothers love will cure soci-
ety's ills" (as cited in Kagan, 1978, p. 54).
For more than 200 years, mother love was
generally considered paramount in child devel-
opment (Kagan, 1978; Stearns, 1991; Stendler,
1950; Sunley, 1955). Moreover, mothers were
assumed to have nearly exclusive daily respon-
sibility for the care of children. Fathers were
seldom mentioned in the popular press before
the mid-1920s (Atkinson & Blackwelder,
1993), except occasionally as breadwinners,
disciplinarians, teachers, and moral preceptors.
Father love was virtually unrecognized by the
media. A dramatic shift occurred with respect to
gender-specific parenting articles in the mid-
1920s, however. To illustrate, Atkinson and
Blackwelder reviewed a sample of 1,482 popu-
lar magazine articles from 1900 to 1989. They
found that by the mid-1920s gender-nonspecific
"parenting" articles had begun to reach ascen-
dancy over "mothering" articles. That is, the
term parent began to supplant the term mother
in most articles. It is quite possible, though, as
noted by Atkinson and Blackwelder, that as
women began entering the labor force in in-
creasing numbers, popular writers found it more
appropriate to use the term parenting when in
fact they really meant mothering. In any case,
only 16% of all articles published dealt explic-
itly with fathers. This percentage fluctuated lit-
tle in the popular press throughout the course of
the 20th century.
This evidence regarding the rarity of reports
about fathers and especially about father love in
the popular press is supported by Ellner (1973),
who reviewed every article related to child rear-
384 ROHNER AND VENEZIANO
ing for the first 6 months of 1950, 1960, and
1970 in three family monthly magazines (La-
dies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and
Parents Magazine). Of the 177 articles re-
viewed, only 3 dealt with fathers. In these,
fathers were urged to participate in the disci-
pline of their children and in children's sex
education. Beyond that, fathers were viewed as
important role models for sons and as husband
models for daughters. None of the articles dealt
with father love.
Early professional publications in child de-
velopment and family studies reflect similar
trends to those found in the popular press. Peter-
son, Becker, Hellmer, Shoemaker, and Quay
(1959), for example, reviewed the professional
literature on parent-child relations from 1929
to 1956. They found about 169 publications
dealing with mother-child relationships but
only 12 (7%) dealing with father-child relation-
ships. Eron, Banta, Walder, and Laulicht (1961)
supported this conclusion when they estimated
that about 15 times as many publications dealt
with mother-child relations as with father-
child relations. Furthermore, they found that
when information was collected about fathers, it
was commonly obtained from men's wives, not
from fathers themselves. Nash (1965) argued
that this tendency to obtain information about
fathers from mothers (or from children) resulted
from the researchers' implicit assumption that
fathers themselves were inaccessible because of
out-of-home economic responsibilities.
It is difficult to determine from these early
reviews of professional literature what percent-
age of the few studies that dealt with fathers
also implicated father love in some way. An
estimate may be made, however, from the work
of Rohner and Nielsen (1978). These authors
completed a critical review of the literature
dealing with parental acceptance-rejection from
about 1930 through 1976. In their work they
found about 600 relevant studies. Of these, 108
(17%) mentioned fathers, but 70% of the latter
references occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, a
time when many other researchers were also
recognizing fathers as significant parenting fig-
ures. Phares and Compas (1992), for example,
reviewed every article in eight clinical and child
and adolescent journals from 1984 through
1991. The authors wanted to ascertain possible
gender bias in the reporting of parental influ-
ences in child and adolescent psychopathology.
They found that 48% of the articles reviewed
included only mothers, whereas 1% included
only fathers. However, 26% of the studies ob-
tained and analyzed data separately for both
mothers and fathers. These figures are represen-
tative of the fact that a virtual revolution has
occurred since the 1960s and 1970s in the rec-
ognition of fathers, albeit only minor recogni-
tion of the influence of father love (Biller, 1974,
1981, 1993; Hanson & Bozett, 1985, 1991;
Hewlett, 1992; Lamb, 1975, 1981, 1986, 1997;
Mackey, 1996; Radin, 1981). We turn now to an
exploration of the following question: Why has
father love been so understudied for nearly a
century in research on parent-child relations?
Fatherhood Is a Cultural Construction
Though usually unintended and often unrec-
ognized, much of behavioral science is a value-
laden enterprise (Kaplan, 1964; Silverstein &
Auerbach, 1999). Research questions that are
regarded as appropriate or sensible at a partic-
ular point in time are usually situated within a
matrix of cultural beliefs often widely accepted
within the dominant population at large, but
certainly within the scientific community more
specifically. The issue of fatherhood is a case in
point. Fatherhood is a cultural construction
(Doherty, Kouneski, & Erickson, 1998), and
once formulated it has implications for the sub-
sequent behavior of those who share the beliefs
and assumptions defining that construction.
The issue here is to understand the meanings
commonly associated in the United States with
the concepts of father, fatherhood, and fathering
and to recognize the constraints that are implic-
itly placed on one's behaviors as a result of
accepting these meanings (i.e., cultural con-
struction) as being true. Of course, to under-
stand fully the cultural construction of father-
hood, one must also understand its counter-
point, motherhood. And one must also
understand that both constructions are influ-
enced by cultural conceptions of masculinity
and femininity. It is not our intention here,
however, to disentangle the maze of meanings
and behavioral implications of all of these con-
ceptions and relationships, but merely to ac-
knowledge that they exist. For now we want
only to dwell on the cultural meaning of father-
hood in America in relation to motherhood and
to explore the implications of this conception
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE
for behavioral science research on parent-child
relationships.
For most Americans, the concepts father, fa-
therhood, and fathering appear to connote very
different domains of behavior and affect from
the concepts mother, motherhood, and mother-
ing. Semantically, the cultural construction of
"fathering," for example, implies nothing about
father love as does the genderized equivalent of
mother love that is contained semantically in the
construct "mothering." The word mothering
elicits, for many, a warm, fuzzy, nurtured feel-
ing, whereas the term fathering elicits feelings
of something stronger, colder, harder, and less
affectionate (Rohner, 1995). The term father
love is not used in everyday discourse, but
mother love is. Even the phrase "father love"
sounds strange to some, yet many feel com-
forted by "mother love" (Rohner, 1995). Popu-
lar literature is filled with references to both
mothering and parenting when referring to care-
giving. But the term fathering is almost never
used in this context. When used, the term is
typically found in the context of the question
"Who begot whom?" Even the gender-neutral
term parent is often used or interpreted as being
synonymous with mother. And we have found
in our own teaching that students—including
advanced graduate students—often misread and
even mishear the term paternal as being paren-
tal, which is then sometimes translated as
maternal/mother.
In some respects, the conception of father-
hood has shifted dramatically over the course of
the last 300 years of American history (Lamb,
2000). According to E. H. Pleck and Pleck
(1997), for example, the ideal image of the
colonial European American father in the 1600s
and 1700s was that of the stern patriarch. From
1830 to 1900 the ideal image of father was one
of the distant breadwinner. From 1900 to 1970
the ideal father was the genial playmate dad and
gender role model. And from the 1970s to today
the ideal image of father is said to be one who
is a co-parent, sharing equally with his mate in
the care of their children. This portrayal of the
cultural conception of the ideal father is greatly
oversimplified, of course, but it does contain
important ideas that have been widely shared,
and it shows how cultural conceptions of father-
hood have shifted over time.
One of the most enduring historical elements
defining fatherhood has nothing to do with rear-
385
ing children but deals with the assumption that
the major role of fathers within the family is as
economic provider: the breadwinner (La Rossa,
1997). Throughout much of the 20th century
and earlier—beginning with the advent of in-
dustrialization in the 19th century—many
American men judged themselves (and were
judged by others), judged their personal worth,
and judged their success as husbands and fa-
thers in relation to their ability to provide eco-
nomically for their families (Stearns, 1991).
Since the 1940s, this essential role has been
deemphasized somewhat, although it has not
been altogether abandoned or replaced. The
shared ideology of male breadwinning was used
by many researchers over the course of the 20th
century to explain fathers' apparently limited
involvement in child care (Griswold, 1993).
More important, however, many behavioral
scientists prior to the 1960s and 1970s assumed
that fathers were relatively unimportant for the
healthy development of their children in any
case (Cabrera, Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hof-
ferth, & Lamb, 2000; Nash, 1965; Rapoport,
Rapoport, Strelitz, & Kew, 1977). At the very
most, fathers were thought to be peripheral to
the job of parenting because children spent most
of their time with their mothers. Some even
argued that fathers have no biological aptitude
for child care, though women were said to be
genetically endowed for it (Amato, 1998; Bel-
sky, 1998; Benson, 1968). These conceptions
seemed to have led in the popular press and in
many television portrayals during the 1950s and
1960s to an image of the irrelevant, mindless,
ineffectual, sometimes bumbling and incompe-
tent father (Mackey, 1996). Not all literary and
visual portrayals of fathers were negative, how-
ever. For example, movies and television series
such as Make Room for Daddy, Father Knows
Best, The Cosby Show, and others portrayed
warm, loving, involved, and competent fathers.
Similarly, some 19th- and 20th-century novels
described loving, concerned, and competent fa-
thers. Bob Cratchit in Dickens's (1843) A
Christmas Carol and Atticus Finch in Lee's
(1960) To Kill a Mockingbird are two cases in
point. And even though comic strip fathers were
sometimes lampooned in the 20th century as
being bumbling incompetents, La Rossa, Jaret,
Gadgil, and Wynn (2000) also showed that
these characters were frequently portrayed from
386 ROHNER AND VENEZIANO
1940 to 1999 as being nurturant, supportive,
and capable fathers.
The cultural conception of fathers as being a
relatively inconsequential influence in child de-
velopment has its counterpoint in an assumption
about the primacy of mothers and mother love.
We commented earlier on the latter issue. Now
we amplify on the topic by pointing out that
virtually all of the influential theories of child
development during the past century accepted
the unproven premise that mothers are most
important in child development. For example,
psychoanalytic theory specifically and psy-
chodynamic theories more generally assume
that the mother-child relationship—especially
during the first 6 years of life—is crucial for
normal child development. Early attachment
theory too focused on the mother-child bond,
as did significant portions of learning theory and
cognitive developmental theory (Lamb, 1975,
1981,1986; Phares, 1992, 1996). With this pha-
lanx of distinguished theories converging on a
view that was widely believed in America any-
way, few developmental researchers in the first
half of the 20th century thought it essential to
inquire directly about fathers' influence in child
development. Shared wisdom asserted that
competent and nurturant mothering was all chil-
dren really needed for successful cognitive, so-
cial, and emotional development (Bronstein &
Cowan, 1988). Or, as one distinguished re-
searcher wrote in an anonymous review of this
article: "We spent a lot of time studying moth-
ers because we thought they were important, not
because we thought fathers weren't."
Cultural assumptions such as these about fa-
thering are related to widely shared assumptions
about appropriate gender role and gender iden-
tity of both men and women. In this regard,
most Americans—men as well as women—
seem to have associated child care with femi-
nine behavior. Until a decade or so ago, many
Americans regarded it as unmasculine for men
to spend much time caring for children, except
as a temporary backup and support to the moth-
ers. A common theoretical assumption found
even as recently as the 1970s and 1980s asserted
that fathers' major contribution to child devel-
opment was indirect, through their economic
and emotional support of mothers (Biller, 1993;
Maccoby & Martin, 1983). This premise may be
summarized as follows: The most important
contribution a father can make to his children is
achieved through providing for and loving their
mother. In summary, the widely held cultural
construction of fatherhood prior to the 1970s
(and still held by many today) has two strands.
One deals with fathers' competence as caregiv-
ers, and the other deals with the influence of
fathering on child development. The first strand
asserts that fathers are often incompetent and
maybe even biologically unsuited to the job of
child rearing. (The maternal counterpoint is that
women are genetically endowed for child care.)
The second strand asserts that fathers' influence
in child development is relatively unimportant
or at least peripheral or indirect. (The maternal
counterpoint is that mother love and competent
maternal care provide everything that children
need for normal, healthy development.)
The effect of internalizing these cultural be-
liefs as one's own personal beliefs seems to
have led to sometimes unintended and unrecog-
nized but nonetheless real consequences. The
most notable outcome of acting on these beliefs
throughout most of the 20th century was to
minimize fathers' presence in much of main-
stream behavioral science research as well as in
clinical research (Phares, 1997). Because it was
assumed that mothers but not necessarily fathers
were important in child development, research-
ers tended to study mostly mothers' behavior.
Of course, they found significant effects of ma-
ternal behavior that served to motivate research-
ers even further to study mothers. But a subtle
side effect of these results also seemed to rein-
force researchers' belief that fathers must not be
all that important because mothers were being
shown to be so very important. Moreover, be-
havioral scientists and clinical practitioners felt
further justified in excluding fathers from their
work because mothers spent the greatest amount
of time with children, and therefore it was rea-
soned that they must also have the greatest
influence on children's development as well as
on treatment outcomes (Ferholt & Gurwitt,
1982; Phares, 1996). Finally, fathers tended to
be omitted from research and treatment models
because they were assumed to be inaccessible as
a result of their out-of-home economic
responsibilities.
The relatively little research that included
fathers prior to 1970 dealt with a variety of
issues, but seldom with father love per se. This
omission seems to have been encouraged by the
widespread "tendency among both researchers
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE
and theorists to accept without question the
assumption that fathers express less affection
and understanding toward children than do
mothers" (Walters & Stinnett, 1971, p. 102).
Indeed, many behavioral scientists and clini-
cians seemed to accept the postulate that fa-
thers' major role in the family was in the instru-
mental domain, whereas mothers' major role
was in the expressive-affective domain (Par-
sons & Bales, 1955). Acceptance of these as-
sumptions resulted in very limited research spe-
cifically examining the relationship between fa-
ther love and child outcomes.
Growing Awareness of the Influence of
Father Love
Though it was not until the 1960s that re-
searchers began to find with any regularity that
father love was as predictive as mother love of
children's psychological and behavioral adjust-
ment, occasional note was made of this fact as
early as the 1940s. R. W. Lidz and Lidz (1949),
for example, claimed that faulty paternal influ-
ences were as common as maternal influences in
the development of child psychopathology.
Later, T. Lidz, Parker, and Cornelison (1956)
claimed that domineering, sadistic, and reject-
ing fathers were more implicated in the etiology
of schizophrenia than were mothers. Peterson et
al. (1959) completed one of the first studies
examining the attitudes of both fathers and
mothers and their effects on both disturbed and
normal children. From this research, the authors
noted that "contrary to general assumption and
our own original expectation, the attitudes of
fathers were found to be at least as intimately
related as the attitudes of mothers to the occur-
rence and form of maladjustive tendencies
among children" (p. 129).
Empirical evidence such as this about the
strong influence of father love led Becker,
Peterson, Hellmer, Shoemaker, and Quay
(1959) and Becker (1960) to make an emphatic
call for more systematic study of the role of
fathers in child development. And later, in his
classic review of the literature on parent-child
relations, Becker (1964) wrote, "where both
mothers and fathers have been studied, most of
the research has shown the father's influence on
the child's behavior to be at least equal to that of
the mother" (p. 204). For the most part, this
early evidence and call for additional research
387
about the possible influence of fathers' behavior
was ignored because the then current cultural
ideology continued to endorse the primacy-of-
the-mother doctrine.
Nearly a decade later, in a major review of the
1960s parent-child relationship literature, Walters
and Stinnett (1971) reiterated these observations:
Because we have believed that the impact of mothers
upon the development of children is greater than the
impact of fathers, we have investigated maternal im-
pact to a far greater extent than we have examined the
impact of fathers. Yet, much of the evidence of the past
decade suggests that the variability of children's be-
havior is more closely associated with the type of
father one has than the type of mother [italics added],
(p. 102)
Other early sources of evidence about the
importance of fathering and father love also
went more or less unheeded because of the
cultural bias in America emphasizing the singu-
lar importance of mothers. For example, anthro-
pologists have documented repeatedly the fact
that women the world over tend to be the major
caregivers of children, but they are not the ex-
clusive caregivers (Mackey, 1996; Rohner &
Rohner, 1981). Fathers, siblings, grandparents,
and others are common substitutes. As early as
1956 the noted anthropologist, Margaret Mead,
concluded that "anthropological evidence gives
no support.. .to the value of such an accentua-
tion of the tie between mother and child. On the
contrary, cross-cultural studies suggest that ad-
justment is most facilitated if the child is cared
for by many warm, friendly people" (pp. 642-
643). Fathers often rank among the most signif-
icant of these others.
In the same general domain, results from
Rohner's (1975) early research on the world-
wide antecedents and correlates of parental ac-
ceptance-rejection also went mostly unheeded.
More specifically, in a cross-cultural compara-
tive study of 101 societies representing a strat-
ified sample of the known and adequately de-
scribed sociocultural systems of the world,
Rohner found that children everywhere—across
the full range of the world's economic systems,
political systems, household types, and other
sociocultural factors—tend to be accepted by
mothers and other major caregivers to a greater
degree in households where fathers are present
on a day-to-day basis than in households where
fathers are present less often. Moreover, results
of this research showed that the more important
388 ROHNER AND VENEZIANO
fathers are as socializing agents in relation to
other caregivers such as mothers, siblings, and
grandparents, the greater the warmth children
receive from all major caregivers in that society.
In addition, the more time fathers willingly
spend tending their offspring in relation to other
caregivers, the more likely children are to be
accepted. These results were replicated but es-
sentially ignored in a subsequent holocultural
study of 186 societies worldwide (Rohner,
1986; Rohner & Rohner, 1982).
Acknowledging the Importance of Fathers
and Father Love
Gradually, many behavioral scientists began
to acknowledge that fathers should not be over-
looked in child development and family studies,
and especially in studies of parental accep-
tance-rejection. The inception and at times al-
most surprised and grudging recognition of this
fact began in the 1960s and 1970s because of
the convergence of three sources of influence.
First, as we noted earlier, spotty evidence was
already mounting about the importance of fa-
thers and father love, but behavioral scientists
had been able to ignore the evidence fairly
successfully until later. Second, the advent of
the feminist movement with its call for gender
equality in the workplace and partner equity in
the home led eventually to a reexamination of
the cultural construction of feminine gender
identity. Reexamination of the meaning of fem-
ininity soon called for a reexamination of its
counterpoint: masculine gender identity.
This interest in gender role redefinition was
fueled by the fact that mothers with children
were entering the out-of-home workforce in un-
precedented numbers. In 1960, for example,
fewer than 40% of American mothers worked
out of the home, but by 1972 almost 50% were
doing so (Biller, 1993). By 1997, 68% of the
mothers in the United States with children less
than 18 years old were engaged in full-time or
part-time employment (Child Trends, 2000). As
greater numbers of mothers began working, the
feminist movement called for fathers to become
more involved in child care and household tasks
(Biller, 1993; Bronstein & Cowan, 1988; Gris-
wold, 1993). To be successfully accomplished,
these changes required a partial redefinition of
traditional male and female gender roles (Jain,
Belsky & Crnic, 1996; Mackey, 1996). This in
turn brought the role of fathering and the influence
of father love into sharp research focus (Maccoby
& Martin, 1983). For the first time, some behav-
ioral scientists became keenly motivated to study
fathers directly (Bronstein & Cowan, 1988;
Giveans & Robinson, 1985; Parke, 1985).
It is not our purpose here to try to fully
disentangle the snarled web of competing so-
cial, political, economic, and cultural forces as-
sociated with the feminist movement that even-
tually politicized fatherhood in America (Gris-
wold, 1993). Here we simply want to recognize
that as a direct as well as indirect result of the
feminist movement, many behavioral scientists
began to study fathers and father love directly.
And when they did, they found that fathers are
as capable as mothers of being competent and
nurturant caregivers (Bronstein & Cowan,
1988; Silverstein & Auerbach, 1999). They also
found that the father-child bond often parallels
the mother-child bond both emotionally and in
intensity (Fox, Kimmerly, & Schafer, 1991;
Hanson & Bozett, 1991).
A number of the studies reviewed subse-
quently continued to show, as in earlier decades,
that fathers' influence was as great as mothers'
for specific developmental outcomes. But it was
not until the 1990s that the third source of
influence came into full play, causing many
behavioral scientists to fully recognize that fa-
thers should be included in studies dealing with
parent-child relations. This source of influence
derived from research results based on readily
accessible, easily used, and powerful multivar-
iate statistical packages. Use of multivariate sta-
tistics, including multiple regression and struc-
tural equation modeling (SEM), allowed inves-
tigators to control simultaneously for the
influence of a variety of variables. In doing so,
researchers discovered that father love some-
times explains a unique, independent portion of
the variance in specific child outcomes, over
and above the portion of variance explained by
mother love. Indeed, some studies reviewed
later found that father love is the sole significant
predictor of specific child outcomes after re-
moving the influence of mother love.
Six Categories of Studies Show the
Influence of Father Love
Six categories of empirical studies show the
influence of father love on specific child out-
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE
comes: (a) Some studies look exclusively at the
influence of variations of father love without
examining the influence of mother love too; (b)
some conclude that father love is equally as
important as mother love in predicting specific
child outcomes; (c) some conclude that father
love predicts specific child outcomes better than
mother love; (d) some conclude that father love
is the sole significant predictor of specific child
outcomes after removing the influence of
mother love; (e) some conclude that father love
moderates (Baron & Kenny, 1986) the influence
of mother love on specific child outcomes; and,
finally, (f) some conclude that paternal versus
maternal parenting may be associated with a
single outcome or with different outcomes in
sons and daughters. These six categories
emerged naturalistically from the growing body
of empirical research dealing with the influence
of father love. Three of the categories (the sec-
ond through fourth) are especially noteworthy
because they show that father love continues to
make a unique and significant contribution to
child outcomes after statistically controling for
the influence of mother love.
We briefly review each of these six categories
of evidence. Of course, many other aspects of
fathers' behavior, some of which may be
closely related to father love—such as father
involvement, father absence, and fathers' psy-
chological and behavioral state—also influence
child development. Here, though, we focus on
the impact of father love (or paternal accep-
tance-rejection) per se because, as studies re-
viewed subsequently show, father love by itself
is implicated in a wide array of developmental
issues. These include youths' psychological ad-
justment, behavior problems, delinquency, gen-
der role development, cognitive/academic/intel-
lectual development, achievement, and social
competence. Moreover, father love has also
been shown to be associated with children's and
adults' psychological health and sense of well-
being. Even though some of these studies con-
clude that father love is the sole significant
predictor of specific outcomes—after control-
ling for the influence of mother love—none
suggest that mother love is unimportant in other
contexts. We should note here that authors of
the articles reviewed subsequently use a variety
of terms to discuss different aspects of the father
love (paternal acceptance-rejection) construct.
Many of these concepts, such as paternal
389
warmth, nurturance, support, caring, and affec-
tion, are used more or less interchangeably and
synonymously with paternal acceptance-rejec-
tion. Because of this, we generally retain the
major terms used by the various authors. Sam-
ple characteristics of the empirical studies cited
in this article are provided in Table 1.
Studies Looking Exclusively at Variations
in the Influence of Father Love
Many studies looking exclusively at the in-
fluence of variations in father love deal with two
topics: (a) gender role development (Fish &
Biller, 1973; Green, 1982; Huttenen, 1992;
Millen & Roll, 1997; Musser & Fleck, 1983)
and (b) father involvement (Amato & Rivera,
1999; Biller, 1993; K. N. Harris, Furstenberg, &
Marmer, 1998; Radin, 1981). Studies of gender
role development emerged prominently in the
1940s and continued through the 1970s (Lamb,
1997, 2000). This was a time when fathers were
considered to be especially important as gender
role models for sons. Commonly, researchers
assessed the masculinity of fathers and of sons
and then correlated the two sets of scores. Many
behavioral scientists were surprised to discover
that no consistent results emerged from this
research until they examined the quality of the
father-son relationship. Then they found that
when the relationship between masculine fa-
thers and their sons was warm and loving, the
boys were indeed more masculine. Later, how-
ever, researchers found that the masculinity of
fathers per se did not seem to make much dif-
ference after all.2 As summarized by Lamb
(1997):
Boys seemed to conform to the sex-role standards of
their culture when their relationships with their fathers
were warm, regardless of how "masculine" the fathers
were, even though warmth and intimacy have tradi-
tionally been seen as feminine characteristics. A sim-
ilar conclusion was suggested by research on other
aspects of psychosocial adjustment and on achieve-
ment: Paternal warmth or closeness appeared benefi-
cial, whereas paternal masculinity appeared irrelevant,
(p. 9)
2
It would be misleading to imply that all studies of boys'
gender role development dealt with father-son relationships
only. The mother-son relationship was sometimes included.
Overall, however, results suggested that a nurturant father-
son relationship is more important to a boy's development
of masculinity than is the mother-son relationship (Biller &
Borstelmann, 1967).
390 ROHNER AND VENEZIANO

Table 1
Sample Characteristics of Empirical Studies Cited
Respondent Sample Respondent Socioeconomic Father
Author(s) Year sex size age status Ethnicity residence
Amato 1994 Both 471 >19yrs. Representative Representative of n/a
of U.S. U.S.
Amato & Gilbreth 1999 Both 63 studies Children & Representative Representative of Non-residential
adolescents of U.S. U.S.
Amato & Rivera 1999 Both 994 Adults Not reported European, African, Residential
Latino American
Andry 1962 Male 160 11-15 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Arrindell et al. 1983 Both 367 Not reported Not reported Not reported Not reported
Barber & Thomas 1986 Both 527 College students Not reported Not reported Not reported
Barnes 1984 Both 120 12-17 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Barnett et al. 1992 Male 285 25^10 yrs. n/a European American n/a
Barrerra & Garrison-Jones 1992 Both 94 12-17 yrs. Not reported European American Not reported
Bartle et al. 1989 Both 147 10-19 yrs. Middle class European American Residential
Becker 1960 Both 123 M = 5.7 yrs. Middle class Not reported Residential
Becker et al. 1959 Both 57 6-12 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Brody et al. 1994 Both 592 11-16 yrs. Representative Representative of Not reported
of U.S. U.S.
Bronson 1959 Male 42 9-13 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Bronstein et al. 1994 Both 136 Fifth graders Not reported European American Both
Brook & Brook 1988 Both 510 9-18 yrs. Low to upper European American Not reported
Brook et al. 1981 Male 71 16-20 yrs. Not reported African & European Not reported
American; British
West Indian
Buri 1989 Both 128 M = 19 yrs. Middle class European American Not reported
Buri et al. 1992 Both 784 M = 16.7 yrs. Not reported European American Residential
Buri et al. 1988 Both 230 18-19 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Campo & Rohner 1992 Both 80 15-32 yrs. Lower to middle Not reported n/a
class
Carroll 1973 Both 30 Kindergarten Not reported White and Black Residential
Chen et al. 2000 Both 258 M = 12 yrs. Not reported Chinese Residential
Cole & McPherson 1993 Both 107 10th-12th Lower to middle European American Residential
graders class
DeKlyen, Birnbaum, et al. 1998 Male 38 4 yrs. Middle class European American Residential
DeKlyen, Speltz, & 1998 Male 102 4 yrs. Middle class European American Residential
Greenberg
Dekovic & Meeus 1997 Both 508 12-18 yrs. All Dutch Mostly
residential
Dickie et al. 1997 Both 49 4-10 yrs. Middle to upper European American Residential
middle class
Distler 1965 Both 275 M = 19.59 yrs. Low to upper Caucasian and non- Both
class Caucasian
Dominy et al. 2000 Female 113 M = 45yrs. Not reported European, African, n/a
Native American,
Latino
DuBos et al. 1994 Both 159 9-14 yrs. Lower class African & European Residential
American
Easterbrooks & Goldberg 1984 Both 75 19-21 mos. Middle class European American Not reported
Eldred et al. 1974 Male 40 M = 24.3 yrs. n/a African American n/a
Emmelkamp & Heeres 1988 Both 43 19 to 35 yrs. Unemployed to Caucasian European Not reported
working class
Emmelkamp & Karsdorp 1987 Both 237 M = 45.2 yrs. Not reported Dutch Not reported
Eron et al. 1961 Both 158 Third graders Low to middle Not reported Not reported
class
Fine et al. 1993 Both 565 >19 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Fish & Biller 1973 Female 106 18-22 yrs. Not reported Not reported Residential
Fitz-Simmons 1935 Both 96 Not reported Not reported Not reported Not reported
Forehand & Nousiainen 1993 Both 70 11-18 yrs. Lower middle to Not reported Residential
middle class
Grant et al. 2000 Both 224 12-15 yrs. Lower to African American Both
working class
Green 1982 Female 4 Young adults Not reported Not reported Not reported
Greenberger & Chen 1996 Both 470 13-mid-20s Lower to upper European, Chinese, Not reported
& Korean
American
Harris et al. 1998 Male 584 14-16 yrs. Not reported African & European Residential
American
Heilbrun et al. 1966 Male 137 19 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Huttenen 1992 Male 113 12 yrs. Not reported Finnish Not reported

(table continues)
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE 391

Table 1 (continued)
Respondent Sample Respondent Socioeconomic Father
Author(s) Year sex size age status Ethnicity residence
Jacobs et al. 1972 Male 179 College students Not reported Not reported n/a
Jordan et al. 1975 Both 180 M = 4 yrs. Low to middle European American Residential
class
Kelly & Worell 1976 Both 481 18-19 yrs. Not reported n/a
Not reported
Komarovsky 1976 Male 62 College seniors Not reported African & European n/a
American
Kroupa 1988 Female 62 M = 16.4 yrs. Not reported European, Hispanic, Both
African, and
mixed Americans
Lefkowitz & Tesiny 1984 Both 427 8 and 19 yrs. Middle class Not reported Not reported
Lidz & Lidz 1949 Both 50 <32 yrs. Not reported Not reported n/a
Lidz et al. 1956 Both 16 Adults Middle to upper Not reported n/a
families class
Matsuda & Ritblatt 1998 Both 269 18-83 yrs. Not known Primarily European Not reported
American
McPherson 1974 Both 28 M = 16 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Millen & Roll 1997 Male 413 College students Not reported Not reported Not reported
Monkman 1958 Both 62 6-12 yrs. Not reported Not reported Residential
Mussen 1961 Male 39 High school Not reported Not reported Not reported
seniors
Mussen & Distler 1959 Male 20 Kindergarten Lower to upper European American Not reported
class
Musser & Fleck 1983 Female 72 18-26 yrs. Not reported Not reported Residential
Orlofsky 1979 Both 228 > 9 yrs. Not reported Not reported Residential
Paley et al. 2000 Both 451 Adolescents Middle class European American Residential
Patterson et al. 1992 Male 206 Fourth, seventh, Lower to middle Not reported Residential
& tenth class
graders
Payne & Mussen 1956 Male 72 M = 17 yrs. Not reported Not reported Not reported
Peppin 1962 Both 72 M = 10.7 yrs. Working to European American Residential
middle class
Peterson et al. 1961 Both 77 M = 5.6 yrs. Not reported Not reported Residential
Peterson et al. 1959 Both 80 M = 8.9 yrs. Not reported Not reported Residential
Prendergast & Schaefer 1974 Both 83 16-19 yrs. Lower to middle African & European Not reported
class American
Radin 1981 Both 59 Preschoolers Middle class European American Residential
Radin & Sagi 1982 Both 119 M = 54 mos. Middle class American & Israeli Residential
Radin et al. 1993 Both 19 Preschool to Lower to middle Native American Mostly
fifth graders class residential
Renk et al. 1999 Both 126 2-18 yrs. Not reported European, African, Not reported
Hispanic, Asian
American
Reuter & Biller 1973 Male 172 18-25 yrs. Lower to middle Not reported n/a
class
Richter et al. 1990 Both 72 Adults Not reported Not reported n/a
Rohner 1975 Both 101 2-6 yrs. All known All known All known
societies variation
Rohner & Brothers 1999 Female 35 23-59 yrs. Low to middle European American n/a
class (1 Hispanic
American)
Rohner & Rohner 1982 Both 180 3-6 yrs. All known All known All known
societies variation
Russell & Russell 1996 Both 57 6-7 yrs. Middle to upper European American Residential
class
Sears 1970 Both 159 Sixth graders Not reported Not reported Not reported
Siantz & Smith 1994 Both 60 3-8 yrs. Lower class Mexican American Mostly
residential
Stagner 1933 Male 250 College Not reported Not reported Residential
freshmen
Tacon & Caldera 2001 Female 155 18-24 yrs. Not reported Hispanic American, Not reported
European
American
Veneziano 1998 Both 32 Adolescents All known All known All known
societies variation variation
Veneziano 2000 Both 280 8-18 yrs. Low to upper African & European Both
middle class American
Veneziano & Rohner 1998 Both 63 8-18 yrs. Lower to upper African & European Residential
middle class American
Wagner & Philips 1992 Both 74 Third graders Middle to upper European American Not reported
middle class

(table continues)
392 ROHNER AND VENEZIANO
Table 1 (continued)
Respondent Sample
Author(s) Year sex size
Williams & Finley 1997 Both 1,072
Williams & Radin 1993 Both 32
Yamasaki 1990 Both 250
Young et al. 1995 Both 640
Note, n/a = not applicable.
The second domain in which a substantial
amount of research has been done on the influ-
ence of variations in father love deals with
father involvement, that is, with the amount of
time that fathers spend with their children (en-
gagement), the extent to which fathers make
themselves available to their children (accessi-
bility), and the extent to which they take respon-
sibility for their children's care and welfare
(responsibility; Lamb, Pleck, Chernov, & Le-
vine, 1987). Many studies conclude that chil-
dren with highly involved fathers, in relation to
children with less involved fathers, tend to be
more cognitively and socially competent, less
inclined toward gender stereotyping, more em-
pathic, and psychologically better adjusted
(Biller, 1981, 1993; Easterbrooks & Goldberg,
1984; Lamb, 1997; J. H. Pleck, 1997; Radin,
1981; Radin & Russell, 1983; Radin & Sagi,
1982; Radin, Williams, & Coggins, 1993; Re-
uter & Biller, 1973; E. Williams & Radin, 1993;
S. Williams & Finley, 1997). Commonly, these
studies investigate both paternal warmth and
paternal involvement and find—using simple
correlations—that the two variables are related
to each other and to youth outcomes.
It is unclear from these studies whether in-
volvement and warmth make independent or
joint contributions to youth outcomes. More-
over, "caring for" children is not necessarily the
same thing as "caring about" them. Indeed,
Lamb (1997) concluded from his review of
studies of paternal involvement that it was not
the simple fact of paternal engagement (i.e.,
direct interaction with the child), availability, or
responsibility for child care that was associated
with these outcomes. Rather, it appears that the
quality of the father-child relationship made
the greatest difference (Cabrera et al., 2000;
Lamb, 1997). J. H. Pleck (1997) reiterated this
conclusion when he wrote:
Respondent Socioeconomic Father
age status Ethnicity residence
13-19 yrs. Not reported African, East Not reported
Indian, and mixed
in Trinidad
Children & Middle class European American Residential
adolescents
3-6 yrs. Middle class Japanese Not reported
12-16 yrs. Not reported Not reported Residential
The critical question is: How good is the evidence that
fathers' amount of involvement, without taking into
account its content and quality, is consequential for
children, mothers, or fathers themselves? The associa-
tions with desirable outcomes found in much research
are actually with positive forms of paternal involve-
ment, not involvement per se. Involvement needs to be
combined with qualitative dimensions of paternal be-
havior through the concept of "positive paternal in-
volvement" developed here. (pp. 66-67)
Research by Veneziano and Rohner (1998)
supports these conclusions. In a biracial sample
of 63 African American and European Ameri-
can children, the authors found from multiple
regression analyses that father involvement by
itself was associated with children's psycholog-
ical adjustment primarily insofar as it was per-
ceived by youths to be an expression of paternal
warmth (acceptance). These results varied by
ethnicity, however. In the European American
families, fathers' loving acceptance signifi-
cantly mediated (Baron & Kenny, 1986) the
way offspring experienced their fathers' in-
volvement. In the African American families,
however, father involvement made no signifi-
cant contribution to youths' psychological ad-
justment, but perceived paternal warmth (accep-
tance) did. Neither parenting nor youths' psy-
chological adjustment varied significantly,
however, by social class.
Further evidence in support of Pleck's con-
clusion about the importance of paternal
warmth versus levels of paternal involvement is
shown in Veneziano's (1998) cross-cultural
comparative, holocultural study. Using multiple
regression analysis, in a sample of 32 societies
representing the world's known and adequately
described sociocultural systems, he found that
the lack of paternal warmth—not the amount of
time that fathers were involved with children—
predicted young males' interpersonal violence.
Finally, Amato and Gilbreth's (1999) meta-
analysis of 63 studies that explored the relation-
ship between nonresidential fathering and chil-
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE
dren's well-being showed that paternal encour-
agement, support, and closeness were more
predictive of youths' social, emotional, and psy-
chological well-being than the frequency of
contact between children and their nonresident
fathers.
Father Love Is as Important as
Mother Love
As we indicated earlier, many of the studies
concluding that father love is as influential as
mother love go back to the 1940s. Most of these
conclusions, especially those prior to the 1980s,
are drawn from correlational studies in which
the simple correlation between a specific mea-
sure of paternal love and a specific child out-
come is as great as or greater than the simple
correlation between the same measure of ma-
ternal love and the child outcome. More re-
cently, however, the 1980s and 1990s saw be-
havioral scientists use forms of multivariate
analyses that allowed them to conclude that
both fathers' and mothers' behaviors are asso-
ciated significantly and uniquely with specific
child outcomes.
The great majority of studies showing that
father love is as important as mother love deal
with one or a combination of the following five
issues among children, adolescents, and young
adults: (a) personality and psychological adjust-
ment problems including issues of self-concept/
self-esteem, emotional stability, and aggression
(Amato, 1998; Becker, 1960; Becker et al.,
1959; Buri, 1989; Buri, Louiselle, Misukanis, &
Mueller, 1988; Buri, Murphy, Richtsmeier, &
Komar, 1992; Dekovic & Meeus, 1997; Em-
melkamp & Karsdorp, 1987; Fine, Voydanoff,
& Donnelly, 1993; Jacobs, Spilken, & Norman,
1972; McPherson, 1974; Monkman, 1958;
Nash, 1965; Peppin, 1962; Peterson et al., 1959;
Peterson, Becker, Shoemaker, Luria, &
Hellmer, 1961; Sears, 1970; Yamasaki, 1990);
(b) conduct problems, especially in school
(Becker, 1960; DeKlyen, Biernbaum, Speltz, &
Greenberg, 1998; DeKlyen, Speltz, & Green-
berg, 1998; McPherson, 1974; Paley, Conger, &
Harold, 2000; Patterson, Reid, & Dishion,
1992; Renk, Phares, & Epps, 1999; Russell &
Russell, 1996; Siantz & Smith, 1994); (c) cog-
nitive and academic performance issues
(Amato, 1998; Carroll, 1973; Easterbrooks &
Goldberg, 1984; Heilbrun, Orr, & Harrell,
393
1966; Peppin, 1962); (d) mental illness (Arrin-
dell, Emmelkamp, Monsma, & Brilman, 1983;
Crook, Raskin, & Eliot, 1981; Greenberger &
Chen, 1996; R. W. Lidz & Lidz, 1949; T. Lidz
et al., 1956; Richter, Richter, & Eisemann,
1990); and (e) substance abuse (Barnes, 1984;
Prendergast & Schaefer, 1974).
Only newer studies in the 1980s and 1990s
used complex multivariate analyses to system-
atically test for the relative influence of fathers'
love in contrast to mothers' love. The work of
Young, Miller, Norton, and Hill (1995) illus-
trates this. These authors drew from a national
sample of 640 adolescents 12 to 16 years old
living in two-parent families. Employing SEM
techniques, they found that perceived paternal
love and caring were as predictive of sons' and
daughters' life satisfaction—including their
sense of well-being—as maternal love and car-
ing. Review of a broad range of studies such as
these led Lamb (1997) to conclude that
fathers and mothers seem to influence their children in
similar rather than dissimilar ways. Contrary to the
expectations of many psychologists, including myself,
who have studied paternal influences on children, the
differences between mothers and fathers appear much
less important than the similarities. Students of social-
ization have consistently found that parental warmth,
nurturance, and closeness are associated with positive
child outcomes whether the parent or adult involved is
a mother or a father. The important dimensions of
parental influence are those that have to do with pa-
rental characteristics rather than gender-related charac-
teristics, (p. 13)
Father Love Predicts Specific Outcomes
Better Than Mother Love
Two types of studies are common in this
category. First, results of some bivariate corre-
lational studies have led researchers to conclude
that fathers' love is more strongly associated
than mothers' love with specific child behaviors
such as those noted subsequently. Second, the
1980s and especially the 1990s saw a prolifer-
ation of studies using multiple regression and
SEM. As these analytic procedures became
more commonplace, it also became more com-
mon to discover that the influence of father love
explains a unique, independent portion of the
variance in specific child outcomes—detailed
subsequently—over and above the portion of
variance explained by mother love.
Studies in this category tend to deal with one
or more of the following six issues among chil-
394 ROHNER AND VENEZIANO
dren, adolescents, and young adults: (a) person-
ality and psychological adjustment problems
(Amato, 1994; Dominy, Johnson, & Koch,
2000; Komarovsky, 1976; Stagner, 1933; Tacon
& Caldera, 2001), (b) conduct problems (Chen,
Liu, & Li, 2000; Eron et al., 1961; Grant et al.,
2000), (c) delinquency (Andry, 1962), (d) men-
tal illness (Barrera & Garrison-Jones, 1992;
Lefkowitz & Tesiny, 1984), (e) substance abuse
(Brook & Brook, 1988; Emmelkamp & Heeres,
1988), and (f) psychological health and well-
being (Amato, 1994). We briefly review an ex-
ample of each issue.
Research by Dominy et al. (2000) illustrates
the first issue. In this work, the authors studied
the relation between perceived childhood expe-
riences of parental (maternal and paternal) ac-
ceptance-rejection and the presence or absence
of binge eating disorder (BED) among a group
of 113 women. Eighty-three of these women
were obese. Of these, 32 suffered from BED.
Thirty women, however, neither were obese nor
had an eating disorder. The authors found that
women with BED perceived their fathers to be
significantly more rejecting than did women in
either of the other two groups. In addition, the
women with BED perceived their fathers to be
significantly more rejecting than their mothers.
A 2-year longitudinal study of 258 sixth-
grade students (at Time 1) in the People's Re-
public of China serves to illustrate the second
issue: dealing with conduct problems. In this
study Chen et al. (2000) found that paternal but
not maternal warmth at Time 1 was negatively
associated with youths' disruptive aggression
toward peers at Time 2. In addition, they found
that paternal but not maternal warmth was pos-
itively associated with children's academic per-
formance and social competence as judged by
teachers.
An older work by Andry (1962) illustrates the
third type of study: the link between paternal
and maternal rejection and delinquency. Here
Andry found in a matched sample of 80 delin-
quent boys 11 through 15 years of age that the
great majority of delinquents felt rejected by
their fathers but not necessarily by their moth-
ers. Nondelinquents, on the other hand, tended
to feel loved by both parents. Of special interest
in Andry's study is the fact that fathers as well
as mothers in the two groups tended to corrob-
orate the youths' perceptions of parenting.
Research by Rohner and Brothers (1999) il-
lustrates the fourth issue, dealing with the link
between parenting and mental illness. These
authors examined the relation between per-
ceived parental (paternal and maternal) accep-
tance-rejection and self-reported psychological
adjustment in a sample of 17 women diagnosed
as suffering from borderline personality disor-
der. This group was compared with a control
sample of 18 nonclinical women. Results
showed that women in the clinical group tended
to perceive qualitatively more paternal rejection
than acceptance in their families of origin. Per-
ceived maternal rejection was also elevated
somewhat, but not to the point where these
women experienced qualitatively more mater-
nal rejection than acceptance. And, as is gener-
ally true throughout much of America (Rohner,
1986,2001), most of the women in the nonclini-
cal control group tended to perceive substantial
paternal as well as maternal love and overall
acceptance.
Research by Campo and Rohner (1992) illus-
trates the fifth issue, dealing with the relation
between parenting and substance abuse. These
researchers studied 40 drug abusers in relation
to a control sample of 40 nonabusers. On the
average, the poly drug-addicted group—both
males and females—had experienced qualita-
tively more paternal rejection than acceptance
before the onset of serious drug use as adoles-
cents. The substance abusers had also experi-
enced significant love withdrawal at the hands
of their mothers, but not to the point of having
experienced qualitatively more rejection than
acceptance. Participants in the nonabuse group,
on the other hand, had experienced substantial
paternal as well as maternal love and acceptance
in their families of origin. Discriminant function
analysis showed that perceived paternal accep-
tance-rejection, self-reported psychological ad-
justment, perceived maternal acceptance-rejec-
tion, and level of education (in that order of
importance) predicted with 91.2% accuracy
who among the 80 participants were drug abus-
ers versus nonabusers. Perceptions of father
love and love withdrawal were overwhelmingly
the best single predictor.
Finally, Amato's (1994) work serves to illus-
trate the sixth issue. Here, Amato showed that
father love is sometimes implicated to a greater
extent than mother love in adult offsprings'
overall psychological health and well-being.
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE
Drawing from telephone interviews with a na-
tional sample of 471 young adults, he found that
perceived closeness to fathers for both sons and
daughters made a unique contribution—over
and above the contribution made by perceived
closeness to mothers—to adult offsprings' hap-
piness, life satisfaction, and low psychological
distress (i.e., overall psychological well-being).
In the author's words, "Regardless of the qual-
ity of the mother-child relationship, the closer
adult offspring were to their fathers, the happier,
more satisfied, and less distressed they reported
being" (p. 1039).
Father Love Is the Sole Significant
Predictor of Specific Outcomes
A growing number of studies using a variety
of multivariate statistics have begun to conclude
that father love is occasionally the sole signifi-
cant predictor of specific child outcomes after
removing the influence of mother love. Studies
in this category tend to deal most often with one
or more of the following three issues among
children, adolescents, and young adults: (a) per-
sonality and psychological adjustment problems
(Barnett, Marshall, & Pleck, 1992; Bartle,
Anderson, & Sabatelli, 1989; Dickie et al.,
1997; DuBos, Eitel, & Felner, 1994; Matsuda &
Ritblatt, 1998; Wagner & Philips, 1992), (b)
conduct and delinquency problems (Kroupa,
1988), and (c) substance abuse (Brook, White-
man, & Gordon, 1981; Eldred, Brown, & Ma-
habir, 1974).
Cole and McPherson (1993), for example,
concluded from their SEM analysis of 107 ad-
olescents and parents that father-child conflict
but not mother-child conflict (each controlling
for the other) was positively associated with
adolescent depressive symptoms. Moreover, fa-
ther-adolescent cohesion was positively associ-
ated with the absence of adolescent depressive
symptoms. These results are consistent with
Barrera and Garrison-Jones's (1992) conclusion
that adolescents' satisfaction with paternal sup-
port was related to adolescent depression,
whereas maternal support was not. A similar
study by Barnett et al. (1992) was conducted
among 285 married adult sons with two living
parents. When measures of the quality of both
mother-son and father-son relationships were
entered simultaneously into a regression equa-
tion, only the father-son relationship was sig-
395
nificantly related to adult sons' psychological
distress (a summed measure of anxiety and
depression).
In a sample of 70 middle- to lower-middle-
class adolescents, Forehand and Nousiainen
(1993) assessed relations between school func-
tioning, as evaluated by teachers, and youths'
perceptions of parental (paternal and maternal)
acceptance-rejection. Using stepwise multiple
regression, the authors found that teachers' rat-
ings of youths' social competence and conduct
problems were associated with the adolescents'
perceptions of paternal but not maternal
acceptance.
A 6-year longitudinal study begun in 1981 by
Brody, Moore, and Glei (1994) showed that
paternal (but not maternal) warmth had a sig-
nificant long-term effect in shaping adolescents'
attitudes in 1987 toward such social issues as
marriage, divorce, sex roles, child support, wel-
fare, and teenage childbearing. More specifi-
cally, the warmer fathers were and the more
adolescents were allowed to participate in fam-
ily decision making in 1981, the more adoles-
cents internalized their parents' values over
time as being their own. This relationship was
true only for warm father-adolescent relation-
ships. Warm mother-adolescent relationships
had no significant effect on youths' later atti-
tudes. Results from this study were based on
592 families participating in a nationally repre-
sentative household survey of 11- to 16-year-
old youths.
Finally, Veneziano (2000) found in a sample
of 281 African American and European Amer-
ican families that only paternal warmth was
significantly related to the European American
youths' psychological adjustment when control-
ling for the influence of maternal warmth. In-
deed, maternal warmth dropped from the re-
gression model altogether. However, in the Af-
rican American families, paternal as well as
maternal warmth was significantly related to
youths' psychological adjustment, making both
independent and joint contributions.
Father Love Moderates the Influence of
Mother Love
Fathers' behavior may moderate and be mod-
erated by—that is, interact with (Baron &
Kenny, 1986; Hull, Tedlie, & Zahn, 1992)—
other influences within the family. Apparently,
396 ROHNER AND VENEZIANO
however, only one study so far has addressed
the issue of mother love having different effects
on specific child outcomes depending on the
level of father love. Here, Forehand and Nou-
siainen (1993) found in a sample of 70 adoles-
cents and their parents that the relative level of
fathers' love and acceptance moderated the con-
tribution of mothers' loving acceptance to ado-
lescent functioning. Specifically, variation in
father love contributed to adolescents' cognitive
competence as well as to anxiety-withdrawal
(internalizing problems) through its interaction
with maternal acceptance. Regarding cognitive
competence, for example, when mothers were
high in acceptance but fathers were low, teach-
ers judged youths' cognitive competence to be
quite low, lower even than when mothers' ac-
ceptance was also low. But when fathers' loving
acceptance was high, mothers' loving accep-
tance was associated with the most positive
levels of cognitive competence. From this
study, the authors drew the important inference
that "simply including fathers in parent-adoles-
cent research is insufficient. Instead, the poten-
tial ways in which each parent's style contrib-
utes to the other parent's style must be consid-
ered" (p. 219).
Paternal Versus Maternal Parenting May
Be Associated With Different Outcomes in
Sons and Daughters
Two types of research tend to be found in this
category. First, some research shows that one
pattern of paternal behavior and a different pat-
tern of maternal behavior is associated with a
single outcome in sons, daughters, or some-
times both offspring. Second, other research in
this category shows that a single pattern of
paternal love-related behavior is associated with
one outcome for sons and a different outcome
for daughters. We briefly review examples of
both types.
The work of Barber and Thomas (1986) il-
lustrates the first type. These authors found in a
sample of 527 adolescents that daughters' self-
esteem was best predicted by fathers' physical
affection (kisses and hugs) and by mothers'
general support, including maternal praise, ap-
proval, encouragement, use of terms of endear-
ment, and helping behaviors. Sons' self-esteem,
on the other hand, was best predicted by fathers'
sustained contact (e.g., picking up the boy for
fun and safety) and by mothers' companionship
(i.e., spending time with the boy and sharing
activities with him). In addition, in perhaps the
earliest study ever done of this type, Fitz-Sim-
mons (1935) found that paternal rejection and
maternal overprotection characterized the par-
enting styles among 96 emotionally withdrawn
children being treated in child guidance clinics.
Moreover, a substantial literature finds differ-
ences in paternal versus maternal love-related
behaviors influencing different aspects of the
gender role development of both boys and girls
(Biller & Borstelmann, 1967; Bronson, 1959;
Distler, 1965; Kelly & Worell, 1976; Mussen,
1961; Mussen & Distler, 1959; Orlofsky, 1979;
Payne & Mussen, 1956).
The work of Jordan, Radin, and Epstein
(1975) serves to illustrate the second type of
study in this category, that is, studies conclud-
ing that a single pattern of paternal love-related
behavior is associated with different outcomes
for sons versus daughters. These authors found
in a sample of 180 European American chil-
dren 4 years of age that paternal nurturance was
positively associated with middle-class sons'
performance on the Stanford Binet Intelligence
Scale (Terman & Merrill, 1960). Paternal nur-
turance was unrelated, however, to daughters'
performance on the scale.
Finally, a second study is also broadly illus-
trative of this second type of research. Here
Booth and Amato (1994) found in a longitudi-
nal study of 419 parents and their adult children
that a poor relationship between spouses while
children were living at home was associated 12
years later with somewhat different outcomes
for sons and daughters. Specifically, adult sons
felt somewhat less close to both parents than did
sons whose parents had had a good marital
relationship. Daughters, on the other hand, felt
much less close to their fathers but only slightly
less close to their mothers. Thus, the authors
concluded, the father-daughter tie tends to be
especially vulnerable in the context of serious
marital problems between parents, whereas the
mother-daughter tie tends to be especially
resilient.
Discussion
The body of work reviewed in this article
shows that paternal acceptance-rejection (father
love) is heavily implicated not only in chil-
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE
dren's and adults' psychological well-being and
health but also in an array of psychological and
behavioral problems. Moreover, this body of
work suggests that father love may affect off-
spring development at all ages from infancy
through at least young adulthood. More specif-
ically, evidence discussed here shows that fa-
ther love is often associated as robustly as
mother love with a variety of outcomes. For
example, both father and mother love-with-
drawal (parental rejection) have been signifi-
cantly implicated in offsprings' personality and
psychological adjustment problems, including
issues of negative self-concept, negative self-
esteem, emotional instability, anxiety, social
and emotional withdrawal, and aggression; con-
duct problems, including externalizing behav-
iors and delinquency; drug and alcohol abuse;
cognitive and academic difficulties; and forms
of mental disorder such as depression, de-
pressed affect, and borderline personality
disorder.
On the other hand, both paternal and maternal
love (parental acceptance) have been shown to
be effective buffers against many of these prob-
lems, as well as being associated with a sense of
happiness and well-being in adolescence and
adulthood, physical and psychological health,
social competence, academic achievement, and
the internalization of parental values as one's
own values. Even though mother love is asso-
ciated with all of these outcomes, evidence re-
viewed in this article suggests that father love is
even more strongly associated with many.
Moreover, multiple regression and SEM analy-
ses conclude that the influence of mother love
sometimes disappears altogether, leaving father
love as the sole significant predictor of such
outcomes as personality and psychological ad-
justment problems, conduct and delinquency
problems, and substance abuse.
Several problems and limitations characterize
this body of research. First, most of the work
appears to deal with middle-class European
American parents. Research on the influence of
father love among African Americans, Hispanic
Americans, Asian Americans, and Native
Americans is relatively uncommon, and it is
equally rare in cross-cultural studies. As a re-
sult, it remains for future research to determine
the extent to which results reported here can be
generalized beyond middle-class European
American families. Second, many of the studies
397
reviewed here relied on a single source (e.g.,
youths' or parents' reports) to provide informa-
tion about both parental acceptance-rejection
and the relevant outcome variable(s). As noted
by Campbell and Fiske (1959); Marsiglio,
Amato, Day, and Lamb (2000); and others,
however, shared-method variance in studies
such as these might artificially inflate the cor-
relation between variables, resulting in an over-
estimate of the true effect size.
Third, even though it seems unmistakably
clear that father love makes an important con-
tribution to offsprings' development and psy-
chological functioning, it is not at all clear why
paternal acceptance-rejection is sometimes
more strongly associated with specific child
outcomes than is maternal acceptance-rejec-
tion. And it is unclear why patterns of paternal
versus maternal parenting are sometimes asso-
ciated with different outcomes for sons, daugh-
ters, or both children. Part of the reason for
these differences no doubt lies in the fact that
fathers and mothers often interact with their
children in somewhat different ways (Fagot,
1995). Fathers generally interact with children
less frequently than do mothers, for example,
and they generally tend to be less involved in
caregiving (Fagot, 1995; K. N. Harris et al.,
1998). Moreover, when they do interact with
their children, fathers often initiate different
types of behaviors from those of mothers. For
example, fathers tend to engage in more phys-
ical, rough-and-tumble, and idiosyncratic play
than do mothers (Collins & Russell, 1991; Fore-
hand & Nousiainen, 1993; Parke, 1996). In ad-
dition, fathers are more likely than mothers to
encourage children's competitiveness and inde-
pendence and to encourage their children to take
risks (Cabrera et al., 2000). Nothing in these
behaviors per se, however, appears to explain
why father love sometimes has different effects
from mother love.
Possibly, evolutionary and behavior-genetic
influences should be considered in attempts to
explain some of these effects (Collins, Mac-
coby, Steinberg, Hetherington, & Bornstein,
2000, 2001; J. R. Harris, 1998; Rowe, 1994,
2001). Some of these differences, however, are
probably related to the fact that fathers are often
perceived to have more power and authority
within the family than do mothers (Radin,
1981). It remains for future research to inquire
directly about the relevance of these mecha-
398 ROHNER AND VENEZIANO
nisms. Until then we can know that father love
is often as influential as mother love—and
sometimes more so—but we cannot know for
sure why this is true.
Proper recognition of the influence of fathers
and father love should have several salutary
effects. First, widespread recognition of fathers'
influence may help motivate many men to be-
come more involved in nurturing child care.
Simons, Whitbeck, Conger, and Melby (1990)
supported this point when they found that "fa-
thers are more likely to engage in nurturing
activities when they believe such behaviors will
make an important difference in the life of their
child" (p. 387). Of course, the degree to which
men are likely to become involved in nurturing
paternal behavior is at least partly a function of
their mates' internalized cultural beliefs about
the maternal role (Parke, 1995). That is, because
of the enormous cultural emphasis placed on the
role of motherhood in America, some women
are ambivalent about encouraging fathers to be-
come heavily involved as nurturing parents
(Allen & Hawkins, 1999; Biller, 1993; Cowan
& Bronstein, 1988; Doherty et al., 1998; Mar-
siglio et al., 2000). And of course, as already
mentioned, some men have difficulty redefining
masculinity to include nurturing paternal behav-
ior. Nonetheless, the evidence seems clear that
mothers are more effective parents when fathers
are both supportive partners and nurturing par-
ents. And children are major beneficiaries when
both parents are warm and loving.
A second salutary effect of widespread rec-
ognition of the influence of fathers and their
love should be to help reduce the incidence of
"mother blaming" common in the clinical field.
That is, according to Phares (1997) and others
(Caplan, 1986, 1989; Caplan & Hall-McCor-
quodale, 1985; Phares & Compas, 1992), the
great emphasis on mothers and mothering in
clinical research and practice—without examin-
ing the influence of fathers and fathering—has
led to a tendency toward blaming mothers for
children's maladjustment and psychopathology.
The emphasis in this review on fathers should
not be construed to suggest that mother love is
generally less important than father love. In-
deed, some studies discussing the effects of
father love relative to mother love conclude that
mother love has greater influence than father
love for specific developmental outcomes. For
example, in their meta-analysis of 15 studies
dealing with the relation between gender of
parent and youths' externalizing behaviors,
Rothbaum and Weisz (1994) found that the
correlation between caregiving and externaliz-
ing was larger—but apparently not statistically
so—for mothers than for fathers in 80% of the
studies reviewed. According to a related meta-
analysis of the relation between caregiving and
conduct problems-delinquency by Loeber and
Stouthamer-Loeber (1986), however, 64% of
the 75 studies reviewed reported that fathers'
love-related behaviors had a stronger associa-
tion with these child outcomes than did moth-
ers' behavior.
Evidence such as this punctuates the need to
include both fathers (and other significant
males, when appropriate) and mothers in future
research and then to analyze the data for possi-
ble father and mother effects separately (K. N.
Harris et al., 1998). It is only by separating data
in this way that behavioral scientists can discern
when and under what conditions paternal and
maternal factors have similar or different effects
on specific child outcomes (Cole & McPherson,
1993; Kim & Rohner, 2001; Phares, 1996;
Phares & Compas, 1992). This call for separate
measurement and analyses of maternal and pa-
ternal influences is contrary to the argument
made by some (Kurdek & Fine, 1994; Kurdek
& Sinclair, 1988; Schwartz, Barton-Henry, &
Pruzinsky, 1985) that behavioral scientists
should combine mothers' behavior and fathers'
behavior into a single, composite index.
Beyond this, evidence cited in this article
makes even more compelling the call by Silver-
stein and Phares (1996) and others (e.g., Jessor,
1993; Kerr & Bowen, 1988; Parke, 1995;
Phares, 1996) to "transform the dominant theo-
retical paradigm in the social sciences from a
dyadic [i.e., mother-child] to a triadic [i.e.,
father-mother-child], or larger systems model"
(Silverstein & Phares, 1996, p. 48). This trans-
formation would include a paradigm shift in
guidelines for conducting research as well as in
graduate training and clinical programs to auto-
matically include fathers as well as mothers in
all parenting matters. In addition, this call rec-
ognizes the need to explore social policy impli-
cations of research showing the powerful influ-
ence of father love as well as mother love.
Finally, we should note that many questions
remain unresolved and even unexplored in the
research literature assessing the relative contri-
 IMPORTANCE OF FATHER LOVE
butions of mothers' and fathers' love and love
withdrawal. For example, little is known about
the question of whether children might be dif-
ferentially affected by mother love in compari-
son with father love at different ages or at
different developmental stages. Similarly, it is
unclear whether the magnitude of the effect of
mother love or father love varies across off-
springs' life span. And, as already mentioned,
little is yet known about why the influence of
father love is sometimes greater than the influ-
ence of mother love. Answers to these and
many other such questions await future
research.
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Received October 27, 2000
Revision received April 10, 2001
Accepted April 10, 2001