An investigation into the object relations, self -esteem and separation -individuation process of black females from father-present and father-absent backgrounds.
Item
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Title
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An investigation into the object relations, self -esteem and separation -individuation process of black females from father-present and father-absent backgrounds.
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Identifier
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AAI3169894
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identifier
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3169894
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Creator
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Brooks, Sheila D.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Anderson J. Franklin
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Date
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2005
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Clinical | Women's Studies | Black Studies
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Abstract
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This study examined the effects that black fathers, either through their presence or absence, have on their daughters' psychological functioning in late adolescence and early adulthood. The psychological phenomena understudy were levels of object relations, self-esteem and separation-individuation, which were measured using the Bell Object Relations Inventory (BORI), the Separation Individuation Test of Adolescence (SITA) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). It was hypothesized that women from father absent backgrounds would have poorer object relations, lower self-esteem and be less separated and individuated. Subjects consisted of 35 black females, assigned to either a father present group (N = 25) or a father absent group (N = 10) based on the amount of contact they had with their fathers in childhood. All subjects in the father present group had at least biweekly contact with their fathers. Subjects in the father absent group had only monthly or less frequent contact with their fathers. All subjects had low to minimum levels of family violence which was a study criterion. Biological, step and surrogate fathers were all included in this study. Both multivariate and univariate t-tests were performed as well as a statistical test of effect size (partial eta squared) on the three dependent measures. No hypothesis was found to be significant and no significant difference was determined between the two groups at the p < .05 level. However, the test of effect size did find one meaningful difference between the two groups' means on the SITA dimension of rejection expectancy, suggesting that a father's absence from his daughter's life in childhood may cause her to have a higher expectation of being rejected by others later in life. This result, though, must be weighed against the fact that no other dimension of the SITA showed meaningful differences and the possibility that it was due to chance because of the small sample size. Discussion of the findings attributes the outcome of the study to the very small sample size. Given the importance of this topic, this study should be repeated using a much larger sample size.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
