RESEARCH CENTRE: How fathers influence their daughters’ sexual behaviour
The study showed that girls who receive lower quality fathering will tend to engage in more risky sexual behaviour in their adolescence. PHOTO| FILE |NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
- The study, published in the journal Development and Psychopathology, showed that girls who receive lower quality fathering will tend to engage in more risky sexual behaviour in their adolescence.
- It was established that different amounts of exposure to fathers will tend to change their daughters’ sexuality and sexual behaviour.
- In divorced or separated families, a father was found to be more likely to have a stronger influence on an older daughter’s sexual behaviour than on a younger daughter.
In 2011, a study conducted by the University of Arizona found that girls’ sexual behaviour is greatly influenced by their fathers. The study, which was published in the journal Development and Psychopathology, showed that girls who receive lower quality fathering will tend to engage in more risky sexual behaviour in their adolescence. Now a new study conducted by the University of Utah and published in the journal Development Psychology last month has gone further in establishing how this works.
The new study compared pairs of sisters who spent different amounts of time with their fathers. The researchers also compared the outcomes of older and younger biological sisters who experienced the divorce or separation of their parents while growing up. Parents of younger sisters in divorced or separated families – including never married parents – stopped living together or seeing each other before the younger sister turned age 14. In each pair, the age difference between sisters was at least four years.
It was established that different amounts of exposure to fathers will tend to change their daughters’ sexuality and sexual behaviour.
“The quality of a father’s relationship with his daughter has implications for both the overall monitoring she receives from her parents as well as her likelihood of affiliating with more promiscuous or more pro-social friends,” says Danielle J. DelPriore, a post-doctoral fellow in the University of Utah’s department of psychology.
In divorced or separated families, a father was found to be more likely to have a stronger influence on an older daughter’s sexual behaviour than on a younger daughter.
Apparently, older daughters were more vulnerable to observing and assuming their dad’s behaviour. When fathering was high quality, parental monitoring was increased and older sisters were less likely to affiliate with sexually risky peers during adolescence compared to their younger sisters. Where older sisters spent longer periods living with low-quality fathers, they were found to be more likely to engage in risky sexual tendencies.
“There’s a lot of emphasis on the effects of divorce and parental separation on children, but what may be more important is what the girls’ father is doing while he is around home,” the study noted.
