1. Attributions of Fathering Behaviors Among Adolescents: The Role of Depressive Symptoms, Ethnicity, and Family Structure Andrea K. Finlay 1, Jeffrey T. Cookston 1, Delia Saenz 2, Melinda E. Baham 2, Ross D. Parke 3, & William V. Fabricius 2 1 San Francisco State University, 2 Arizona State University, 3 University of California, Riverside METHODS Participants 183 girls (M age = 12.40, SD = 0.54 ) and 199 boys (M age = 12.52, SD = 0.59). Mexican American (N = 195) or European American (N = 199) descent and were from either intact two-parent biological families (N = 217) or from stepfamilies (N = 175). Attribution Measure 24 questions about specific positive (fathers said something nice, fathers did something nice) and negative (fathers said something that upset them, fathers did something that upset them) events involving their fathers. Stable attributions for positive behaviors: (a) he’s a positive person, (b) he likes to make you happy, (c) he cares about you. Unstable attributions for positive behaviors: (a) you really deserved it, (b) he happened to be in a good mood, (c) someone else told him to or wanted him to. Stable attributions for negative behaviors: (a) he’s a mean or difficult person, (b) he’s ALWAYS down on you, (c) he doesn’t care if something he says bothers or hurts you. Unstable attributions for negative behaviors: (a) you really deserved it, (b) he happened to be in a bad mood, (c) it was just one of those times that he really got upset. Depressive Symptoms Measure 8 questions from the Child Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs, 1985). Table 1. Regression Analyses for Stable and Unstable Attributions for Positive Events, Depressive Symptoms (DS) and Ethnicity BACKGROUND Whereas important work has delineated the relative contributions of quantity versus quality of father involvement (Amato, 1994; Grossman, Pollack, & Golding, 1988; Pleck, 1997), considerably less attention has been paid to children’s social constructions; namely their cognitive efforts to make sense of their relationships with their fathers (Parke et al., 2003). One important form of social construction is how the child makes attributions for the behaviors of others. Past research has shown that child depression (Gladstone Kaslow, Seeley, & Lewinsohn, 1997) and gender (Matthews & Conger, 2004) are both associated with adolescent attribution patterns. The depression attribution association varies by gender of child. Gladstone et al., (1997) observed gender differences in attributional styles with boys being more likely to attribute positive events to unstable causes and to attribute negative events to stable causes. Girls were more likely to attribute positive events to local terms (e.g., a person was nice to her only in that situation) and to attribute negative events to global terms (e.g., people were mean to her all the time). Overall, depressed adolescents attributed positive events to more specific, unstable, or external factors and attributed negative events to more global, stable, or internal factors. In this study we examine how adolescent attributions for father or stepfather behaviors of positive and negative real-life events are influenced by adolescents’ gender, depressive symptoms, ethnicity, and family structure. RESULTS Attribution styles of boys and girls differed such that boys appeared to make more negative attributions for the behaviors of others. Adolescents from intact homes were more likely to make stable attributions for fathers’ positive behavior than were the adolescents in stepfather homes. Mexican American adolescents were much more likely than European Americans to endorse unstable attributions for positive events and stable attributions for negative events. Four separate multiple regression analyses were conducted. For each of the four attribution models, family type and adjusted income level were entered at Step 1 as control variables; ethnicity, depression, and sex were entered at Step 2; the two-way interactions for depression by sex, depressive symptoms by ethnicity, and ethnicity by sex were entered at Step 3; and a three-way ethnicity by depressive symptoms by sex interaction was entered at Step 4. Table 2. Regression Analyses for Stable and Unstable Attributions for Negative Events, Depressive Symptoms (DS) and Ethnicity Figure 1. The association between depressive symptoms and stable attributions for positive events of fathering behaviors among adolescent girls and boys. Figure 2. The association between depressive symptoms, ethnicity, and stable attributions for fathering behaviors during negative events among adolescent girls and boys. ABSTRACT Although many studies have documented the role of the father in children’s development, little research has examined children’s attributions concerning their fathers’ behavior, nor the factors that alter those attributional patterns. The goal of this study is to examine how adolescents’ gender, ethnicity, family structure, and depressive symptoms interact to explain adolescents’ attributions for their residential father’s positive and negative behaviors. 382 adolescents, grouped by ethnicity (European American, Mexican American) and family structure (intact or stepfamilies), were surveyed and attributions for fathers’ actual positive and negative behaviors were obtained. Results indicated that girls made significantly more stable attributions for positive events than boys, whereas boys tended to endorse unstable attributions. Mexican American adolescents and adolescents from stepfamilies made more unstable attributions for positive events and stable attributions for negative events. Significant interactions of depressive symptoms, ethnicity, and sex were found such that Mexican American males made more stable attributions for negative events when depression symptoms were high. Implications are considered for how adolescent attributions may affect family relationships and father-adolescent relationships. DISCUSSION Depressed adolescents may view their fathers’ positive behaviors as less intended or enduring than nondepressed adolescents. Adolescent-stepfather relationships may be more disrupted because the stepfathers have more negative views of their children which leads adolescents to make more negative attributions of their fathers’ behaviors. Adolescents from stepfamilies may have higher levels of depressive symptoms than adolescents from intact families because they may have developed more pessimistic attributional styles after negative interactions with their stepfathers. As Mexican American youth are at higher risk for negative mental health and suicide behaviors (Chapman & Perreira, 2005), understanding the links between father- adolescent interactions, attributions, and depressive symptoms become particularly urgent for these families. Father-adolescent cohesion, or lack thereof, may also influence the interactions between adolescents and their fathers (Kaslow, Deering, & Racusin, 1994). Adolescents who do not get along with their fathers may make more hostile attributions for fathering behaviors which, in turn, may increase their conflict and lead to further depressive symptoms. Author Correspondence: Andrea Finlay Human Development & Family Studies The Pennsylvania State University Electronic mail: akf134@psu.edu