Perceptions of Fathers’ Confirmation and Affection as Mediators of Masculinity and Relational Quality in Father-Child Relationships

ABSTRACT

This study tested confirmation and affection as mediators of father’s traditional and new masculinity and young adults’ satisfaction and closeness with father. Participants included 227 young adult children from the Southwest region of the United States. After controlling for divorce status and average talk time with father, the results indicated that perceptions of father’s traditional masculinity are inversely associated with satisfaction and closeness, as well as indirectly associated with closeness through confirmation. Perceptions of father’s new masculinity, however, are positively associated with both indicators of relational quality, as well as indirectly associated through confirmation and affection. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• masculinity
• confirmation
• affection
• satisfaction
• closeness
• father-child relationship

Notes

1. The decision to use PROCESS to test for significant indirect effects was guided by two factors: (1) LISREL 8.80 does not generate accelerated, bias-corrected confidence intervals; and (2) the measures produced high internal reliability estimates, thereby producing negligible differences in the magnitudes of the path estimates in the model (cf. Hayes et al., 2017).