Over the Past 30 Years, Researchers Have Learned Much About Father Absence and Father Involvement

Over the past 30 years, researchers have learned much about father absence and father involvement. Most of this work, however, is based upon the viewpoint of the father himself, the mother, or the researcher/observer. In this study, we examine father presence from the adult child's perspective. We provide a multidimensional definition of father presence and a conceptual framework with which to frame its three domains: Relationship with the Father, Beliefs about the Father, and Intergenerational Family Influences. We then describe the Father Presence Questionnaire (FPQ), a 10-scale instrument that examines the son's or daughter's experience with father. We establish the construct validity of the FPQ using a variety of analytic methods with a sample of adult children (N = 608) located in four regions of the United States. In addition to extremely high reliabilities of the individual scales, we establish the factorial validity of the FPQ by means of a second-order confirmatory factor analysis. We demonstrate the concurrent validity of the FPQ through correlations with existing measures assessing family relationships. The FPQ appears to be a theoretically grounded and reliable measure of the adult child's perception of and experience with father.

Keywords: father, father presence, father-child relationships, measurement

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Researchers have studied fathers and their offspring for over 30 years. Early empirical studies addressed father absence, not father presence. The conceptualization of father presence in these studies was simply understood as the father's coresidence with the child or, more aptly, the opposite of paternal nonresidence. Subsequent efforts to conceptualize and examine fathering focus on father involvement. Lamb, Pleck, Charnov, and Levine (1987) viewed paternal involvement as having three dimensions: interaction, or one-to- one father-child engagement with each other; accessibility, the father's physical presence near the child without direct interaction; and responsibility, the father's planning for and execution of plans for the child's benefit or welfare. Over the past 15 years, the work of Lamb et al. has informed and shaped much of the research on fathers (Doherty, Kouneski, & Erickson, 1998; Marsiglio, 1991; McBride, 1990; Palkovitz, 1997, 2002).

More recently, Palkovitz (1997), Amato (1998), Marsiglio, Amato, Day, and Lamb (2000), and Lamb (2004) show, through their own work or reviewed studies of others, the progress in understanding the contributions men make to children's lives. Fathers provide both economic and social capital to children that affects school-related behavior and academic achievement, career development, peer relationships, self-esteem, and adult outcomes such as achievement, marital happiness, and strength of social networks (Amato, 1998). The development of the Inventory of Father Involvement (IFI; Hawkins et al., 2002), which examines men's perceptions of their parenting, exemplifies the current focus on fathers' subjective views of their own parenthood.

The present study builds upon previous research on the father and introduces a new measure, the Father Presence Questionnaire (FPQ). This instrument adds to the body of research on the father in four ways. First, we redefine father presence to include aspects of paternal experience beyond the traditional measure of coresidence. We explicate our definition of father presence in the next section of the paper. Briefly, we view father presence as including the son's or daughter's relationship with the father, his/her beliefs about the father, and intergenerational family influences that may promote or undermine a positive father orientation. Second, in this work, we are interested in the adult child's experience with father. We focus on adult children and their perceptions of the fathering influences they have encountered. We are aware that most research on paternal experience focuses on children or youth. It is our belief that the father dimensions of the adult's life also merit consideration.

Examination of the father experience of adults is important because individuals bring these memories and experiences into their interaction and relationships with their spouses and children. Moreover, research findings show that the quality of early parent-child relations often shapes or "drives" current behavior in both familial and nonfamilial settings (Silverstein, Conroy, Wang, Giarrusso, & Bengtson, 2002; Whitbeck, 1994). Family interaction patterns and role behaviors exhibit a noteworthy stability and consistency over time (Whitbeck, Hoyt, & Huck, 1994). A growing body of research suggests that childhood relationships in one's family of origin shape and inform current intergenerational relationships in the family of procreation. Early parent-child relationships clearly and consistently influence current bonds between adult children and their older parents. This finding emerges in both prospective as well as retrospective studies (Silverstein, Conroy, Wang, Giarrusso, & Bengtson, 2002). Finally, a focus on the adult child's experience of father presence highlights the importance of the father-child relationship throughout life (Rossi & Rossi, 1990).

Third, empirical research on fathering reveals that other family of origin influences, particularly the parental marriage and the mother's view of the father, affect the quality of the son's or daughter's relationship with his/her male parent. Finally, the construction of our measure of father presence draws heavily from theory and research that examine not just what transpired between the child and the father but also takes into account the adult child's beliefs about the father and his/her perceptions of other family relationships that may color and affect the paternal bond. For example, some research suggests that each parent's paternal relationship affects the level of father involvement in his/her family of procreation (Cowan, & Cowan, 1987; Feldman, Nash, & Aschenbrenner, 1983; Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2004).

FATHER PRESENCE

One goal of the present study is to advance the work on father using a richer, more complex, and detailed description of father presence beyond its earlier residential meaning. The meaning of father presence in this work comes closer to the psychological presence of the father. We view father presence as a psychological construct in the offspring rather than as a reference to paternal characteristics or behavior. Father presence may correlate with certain attitudes and actions undertaken by the male parent, but we regard father presence as a quality in or characteristic of the son or daughter. Father presence manifests in the offspring's relationship with the father, is revealed in his/her beliefs about the father, and reflects intergenerational family influences about the importance of father. Thus, father presence is not a characteristic of male offspring only; females have father presence, too. However, its level or quality may vary from individual to individual (Krampe, 2003; Krampe & Fairweather, 1993).

In this formulation, father presence starts with characteristics of the child that orient him/her toward the father. Father presence has additional properties based on the offspring's experience with the personal father. The personal father is the adult male whom the son or daughter subjectively regards as the main father person in his/ her life. The personal father may be the biological parent, a stepfather, an uncle, or an unrelated male such as a teacher, therapist, or family friend. In this work, we regard the biological father as the personal father for reasons spelled out in earlier publications (Krampe, 2003, 2005; Krampe & Fairweather, 1993). We are interested in the relationship with the biological father because, in many studies of family relationships, researchers amalgamate the biological parent with other adult males such as the stepfather, the adoptive father, or another paternal figure or mentor. This may be a weakness of these other studies in that an all-inclusive definition of the father may mask or obscure specific effects related to the biological parent.

In this study, we examine father presence associated with the biological parent before looking at its operation with these other men. One dimension of experience with the personal father is coresidence during childhood, because when children do not live with their father, they typically have less contact with him. As a result, coresidence impacts the quality of the father-child relationship (Coiro & Emery, 1998; Furstenburg & Morgan, 1987; Munsch, Woodward, & Darling, 1995). In the present study, coresidence is measured demographically and is not a direct component of the FPQ; nevertheless, it is expected to have an effect on the quality of father presence in the individual.

Father presence is starts with the child's orientation to the father. First comes awareness of the father and his/her need for him. Awareness is accompanied by attending to the father, paying attention to his messages, and being open to him. Attending promotes the child's attunement to the father--feeling close to and identifying with him, understanding him--and from that comes a receptivity to other fathering influences in one's life such as from father figures, authority figures, and, finally, a recognition of a supreme being or Higher Power as father. These processes manifest in three dimensions or domains that we hypothesize operationalize father presence: the Relationship with the Father, Beliefs about the Father, and Intergenerational Family Influences on the offspring's father presence.

RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FATHER

The central feature of father presence in this model and in the FPQ is the child's relationship with the father. In our formulation, the relationship with the father is comprised of affective, behavioral, and cognitive/perceptual elements that we operationalize as the son's or daughter's feelings about the father, his/her physical relationship with the father, and the adult child's perception of the father's involvement with him/ her. The principal investigator (Krampe) developed three scales measuring these elements: the Feelings about the Father Scale, the Perceptions of the Father's Involvement Scale, and the Physical Relationship with the Father Scale. A preliminary principal components factor analysis revealed that the Relationship with the Father domain also contained two other scales: Mother's Support for the Relationship with Father Scale, and the Perceptions of the Father-Mother Relationship Scale. In an earlier conceptualization of the FPQ, these two scales seemed to be part of the third dimension, which we originally called other family influences. Since our data analysis aligned these two scales with the relationship with father domain, however, we modified our conceptualization to include them in the latter domain.

The first author identified basic elements of the individual's paternal bond from Duck's (1994, 1996; Duck & Vanzetti, 1996) and others' work on interpersonal relationships. For example, Duck underscores the role of "talk" in interpersonal relationships, and in the scales that measure the relationship with the father, a number of items address communication. Likewise, Duck and Vanzetti enumerate the basic features of personal relationships and specify the behaviors that typically occur between participants in any relationship, such as the quality or feelings about their interactions, the level of intimacy or self-disclosure, and interpersonal perception. One of the scales measuring the relationship with the father asks whether the individual feels close to the father, and six of the 10 scales in the whole FPQ ask for the participant's perceptions of other family members or other family relationships in his/her family of origin. Hobfoll (1996) analyzes social support and specifies its manifestations as emotional support, advice, help with completing specific tasks, and spending time together. Two scales of the FPQ contain items about the father's support for the participant. One scale centers around the individual's perception of the mother's support for his/her paternal bond.

The theoretical foundation of this work is spelled out in another article; here, we briefly sketch some of the theoretical linkages in our research (Krampe, 2005). The literature in developmental psychology and psychoanalysis specifies basic elements of parenting such as teaching, monitoring, and providing affection (Hovda, 1993; Lamb et al., 1987; Palkovitz, 1997, 2002; Tessman, 1982, 1989). Palkovitz's typology of parenting behavior identifies 15 categories of parental involvement. These categories in turn suggested topical areas to explore in the Perceptions of Father's Involvement Scale. Likewise, psychoanalyst Lora Tessman's work on "endeavor excitement," which develops in school-aged girls in their relationships with their fathers, also suggested areas to investigate in the aforementioned scale.

Psychoanalyst Richard Atkins's (1981, 1982, 1984) and object relations theorist Paul Fairweather's (1997) theoretical work on the mother's contribution to the father-child relationship was useful in constructing the Mother's Support for the Relationship with Father Scale. Atkins's research addresses the nonverbal messages mothers send to children about their father. He observed that the mother's nonverbal messages about the father may color the child's perception and mental representation of the male parent. Following his lead, our scale also contains items exploring the mother's verbal and nonverbal support. When the mother supports the child in his/her efforts to move toward the father and when her feelings about the father are positive, the son or daughter typically feel closer to him. Conversely, when the mother disparages the father and the parents have a more distant or even alienated connection, the child often pulls away from the father and may even fear him (Atkins, 1981, 1982, 1984). More recent research specifies the way in which women orient their offspring toward the father as interested and involved with them or as preoccupied and disengaged (Seery & Crowley, 2000).

Fairweather's work on the offspring's image of the parental relationship prompted us to include a scale measuring the adult child's perceptions of his/her parents' marriage (Krampe & Fairweather, 1993). Family studies show a consistent pattern supporting a link between the quality of the father-mother relationship and paternal involvement with offspring (Abelin, 1975; Coiro & Emery, 1998; Hewlitt, 1991, 1992, 2000; Orbuch, Thorton, & Cancio, 2000; Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2004). When the parents have a closer, more harmonious bond, the child typically feels closer to the father. Conversely, when there is distance in the marriage, often this distance is replicated in the relationship between father and child (Cummings & O'Reilly, 1997).

BELIEFS ABOUT THE FATHER

The second domain of father presence addresses the way the individual thinks about the father. We refer to this domain of father presence as Beliefs about the Father. These beliefs include the individual's views about the father's influence and importance. The Conceptions of Father's Influence Scale refers to the participant's attitudes about the father's salience in children's lives and the aspects of their lives in which fathers shape and influence child outcomes. These views may reflect broader cultural ideology about male parents, such as their legal rights and obligations and/or "folk wisdom" about what fathers can and cannot do. An example of such folk wisdom is the notion that mothers are more competent parents than fathers or that fathers should be disciplinarians. Conceptions of father's influence may also reflect messages the individual received from significant others about the father's significance. We propose that beliefs concerning the father, when held by others and introduced to the child, may influence his/her beliefs and values concerning the place and meaning of father (Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2004). When internalized by the child, these beliefs may both affect and reflect the quality of father presence in him/her.

A second element of the Beliefs about the Father domain in father presence concerns the perceived fatherhood of God. Israeli scholar Henry Abramovitch (1997) observes that the "God the Father" metaphor is the primary image of a Higher Power in Western religion. In Western tradition, God is depicted as a "sky father" who dwells in Heaven, intervenes in human affairs from afar, and remains unseen (Colman & Colman, 1981). Empirical support for this Western metaphor can be found. For example, an earlier version of the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) General Social Survey (SDA, General Social Survey Cumulative Codebook, 1972-2000) revealed that 86% of Americans thought it was "extremely likely" or "somewhat likely" that God was (like a) Father (Greeley, 1983; Hertel & Donohue, 1995; Roof & Roof, 1984). Because the fatherhood of God is a prevailing cultural as well as religious image, we added a second scale to the Beliefs about the Father domain that addresses participants' images of God as Father (Abramovitch, 1997; Colman & Colman, 1981; Sayers, 1990). We refer to this scale as the Conceptions of God as Father Scale. This aspect of father presence addresses the participant's belief in a Higher Power or benevolent being who watches over and helps the individual in his/her everyday life. Research findings indicate that parents are the primary influence on an adolescent's religious beliefs (Smith, 2005). In addition, studies show that highly religious individuals report more positive relationships with their fathers (Dollahite, 1998; Smith, 2005).

FATHER PRESENCE AND INTERGENERATIONAL FAMILY INFLUENCES

The third domain of father presence refers to the influence of other family members and their effects on the child's experience of father. Research findings show that the child's tie to his/her father is not exclusive and isolated from family processes.

Family relationships are intergenerational as well as triadic. Early contributors to the family systems perspective such as Murray Bowen (1966) called attention to the multigenerational transmission of family dynamics and difficulties. While these propositions have less empirical documentation, investigators have found that parents' relationships with their own fathers and mothers often shape and color their interaction with spouse and children in their families of procreation. The FPQ contains three scales that measure the son's or daughter's perception of his/her parents' paternal bonds. Originally we called these scales Perceptions of the Father's Relationship with His Father and Perceptions of the Mother's Relationship with Her Father. However, a factor analysis indicated that perceptions of the mother's paternal bond actually consisted of two scales: Perceptions of the Mother's Relationship with Her Father--Positive Sentiments, which reflected her positive experiences with her father, and Perceptions of the Mother's Relationship with Her Father--Negative Sentiments, which measured perceptions of the mother's negative feelings about him.

Some research exists on the effects of the father's and mother's paternal relationships. For example, Cowan and Cowan (1987) found that fathers' paternal experiences affected the way in which they interacted with their offspring. Likewise, Feldman, Nash, and Aschenbrenner (1983) found that fathers who engaged in care-taking activities with their infants had wives who got along well with their own fathers. In that study, men were more involved with their babies when both they and their wives had more positive bonds with the wife's father. The few investigators who have explored these relationships empirically show that parents' paternal relations both directly and indirectly influence father involvement with offspring.

Intergenerational family influences include each parent's experience with his/her own father, the adult child's experience with other "father figures" such as grandfathers, uncles, adult friends of the family, and, in the case of divorce and remarriage, stepfathers. This conceptual model of father presence is by no means exhaustive but includes examination of a number of attitudes and behaviors associated with fathering and men's influence in adult children's lives and on sons' and daughters' statements about their paternal relationships.

METHODS

This section provides an overview of the development of the FPQ, including the background, preliminary pre-testing, and factor analytic studies that ultimately resulted in the version of the instrument described here.

BACKGROUND

The development of the FPQ took place in several stages. Initially, the first author met with a group of psychotherapists familiar with the theoretical underpinnings of the instrument to generate items for the measurement of father presence. An early version of the FPQ was constructed with 11 scales, each representing different spheres of influence where father presence could operate. The therapists then filled out the FPQ and critiqued the items. Modifications were made, and the FPQ was administered to a group of students in a graduate-level sociology seminar. The students also critiqued the items, and the FPQ was developed from the second set of modifications. It consisted of 11 scales and contained 215 items. Table 1 lists the original 11 scales. Below we describe the evolution of the FPQ from these original 11 scales into the final 10 scales described in this study.

A preliminary study was conducted using the original FPQ. Data were collected in southern California from a multiethnic community sample of 818 respondents between the ages of 18 and 88. Students in the principal investigator's courses collected data for a voluntary in-class extra credit assignment. They were asked to administer the instrument to persons over the age of 18 who were not adopted. Each student was instructed to give the FPQ to individuals from a certain ethnic background and within a certain age range to assure a sample with ethnic and age diversity. Half of the questionnaires were to be given to males and half to females. When participants completed a questionnaire, they became eligible to enter a raffle to win $100, and they filled out a 3 x 5 card with their name, address, and telephone number for the drawing. Each student collected no more than 10 completed questionnaires.

The southern California sample was 33% white, 30% Hispanic, 21% Asian, 2% African American (reflecting the area's demographics), and 4% Pacific Islander. The ethnicity of the other 14% of the sample was of either mixed parentage or unknown. Data analyses, including principal components factor analysis, were then performed, and the FPQ was revised.

Three critical modifications were made as a result of this preliminary investigation. First, the Father Figures Scale was eliminated due to the extremely high number of "no such person in my life" responses. The role of nonbiological father figures in understanding father presence will be discussed in the final section. Second, the scale Mother's Relationship with her Father was divided into two scales, one reflecting positive sentiments about this relationship and one reflecting negative sentiments. These items did not factor as unidimensional scales, and the reliability of the 12-item total with negative items reverse scored was lower than the reliability of each 6-item scale assessed individually. This may reflect both measurement-related variance and the fact that positive and negative sentiments about the relationship between one's mother and her own father are communicated independently to the child. Third, originally there were two scales, the Instrumental Father Scale and the Expressive Father Scale that assessed the child's perception of his/her father's involvement in both of these areas of fathering. A factor analysis revealed that both of these scales actually comprised one factor. We renamed the combined scales Perception of the Father's Involvement Scale. Thus, of the original 11 scales, one was eliminated, one was divided into two scales based on factor analytic and reliability analyses, and two were combined into one scale. We used the revised FPQ consisting of 134 items in 10 scales in the present study.

The current version of the FPQ (134 items, 10 scales) can be conceptualized as representing three more general domains of father presence. In the language of confirmatory factor analyses, these are often referred to as "higher-order factors." To avoid confusion we will consistently refer to these as "domains" and to the 10 scales as "scales." Below we describe the reasoning behind our conception of the FPQ as composed of three domains.

The first domain, Relationship with the Father, includes five scales: the Feelings about the Father Scale, the Physical Relationship with the Father Scale, the Perceptions of Father's Involvement Scale, the Mother's Support for Relationship with Father Scale, and the Father-Mother Relationship Scale. These scales capture the affective, behavioral, and cognitive experiences of the son or daughter in the family of origin. For example, the Feelings about the Father Scale asks the research participant to respond to such statements as, "I looked up to my father" "I felt or feel inspired by my father" "I felt/feel close to my father." These statements tap the affective domain of the relationship. The Physical Relationship with the Father Scale measures the physical bond shared by the child and his/her male parent. In this scale, participants addressed statements such as, "My father would hold my hand or put his arm around me," "My father hugged and/or kissed me," "I liked being held by my father." The Perceptions of the Father's Involvement Scale explores participants' responses to such statements as, "My father encouraged me" "My father helped me learn new things" and "My father helped me think about my future." This scale examines how participants thought about or viewed their father's involvement with them.

The Relationship with the Father domain of father presence also contains a scale assessing the child's perceptions of the parental marriage. In this scale, participants respond to such statements as, "My father's and mother's relationship made me feel good,' "My father and mother supported and helped each other," and "My mother and father really enjoyed each other's company." The final scale included in the first domain of the FPQ assesses the adult child's perception of the mother's recognition of the father's importance. A number of researchers now regard the mother as the "gatekeeper" of the father-child bond (DeLuccie, 1995; Levine, 1993; Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2004). Here, participants respond to statements such as, "My mother had high regard for and respected my father," "My mother appreciated the things my father did for us," and "My mother respected my father's judgment."

The second domain of father presence measured by the FPQ, Beliefs about the Father, assesses other cognitive aspects of father presence. We are interested in the way these ideas and beliefs operate in the individual and how they inform him/her about the father. There are two scales that represent Beliefs about the Father: the Conceptions of Father's Influence Scale and Conceptions of God as a Father Scale. The first of these contains statements such as, "Fathers affect their sons' and daughters' moral values or behavior," "Girls need their father," and "Boys need their father." Items on the second scale include, "I believe there is a Father Presence or God who watches over all life," "I have a hard time believing God can or wants to help me with my life," "I pray or otherwise commune with God," and "My religious or spiritual life is important to me."

The third domain of father presence, Intergenerational Family Influences, refers to the effects of the mother's and father's relationships with their own fathers. Here we measure the individual's perception of his/her father's and mother's paternal relationships. One scale contains statements from the Feelings about the Father Scale that were reworded to fit the perception of the father's feelings for his male parent. Two scales measured the adult child's perception of his/her mother's relationship with her father, and both of these scales were comprised of positive and negative items from the Feelings about the Father Scale.

SAMPLE AND PROCEDURE

The FPQ was administered to community samples in four cities located in the northeastern, southeastern, central plains, and northwestern regions of the United States. The percentage distribution by region for the 608 cases used in the major analyses were as follows: northeastern (20%), southeastern (37%), central plains (20%), and northwestern regions (23%).

The research methodology was similar to that used in the preliminary study. Undergraduate students at a university located in each city volunteered to participate in data collection as an extra credit assignment. The difference in the four-city study was that faculty members at universities located in these four regions assisted the principal investigator in collecting data. The researcher provided an introductory letter for participating faculty members and obtained consent to conduct human subject research from the Institutional Review Boards of these respective universities. These local faculty members in turn recruited students from their classes for a voluntary extra credit assignment and, as in the earlier study, instructed students to administer the FPQ to adults aged 18 and over. An introductory letter from the principal investigator was also given to each undergraduate who collected data, which explained the student's role in the data collection procedure and defined informed consent, assurance of confidentiality, and the right of participants to refuse to answer questions. To study participants from diverse ethnic backgrounds in the four cities, the students once again were asked to give the instrument to individuals from specific ethnic backgrounds and within specific age ranges and to provide questionnaires to both men and women. In two locations (the southeast and central plains), African Americans were over-sampled since the southern California data had such a small number from this ethnic category and since these cities had fairly large African American populations. Each student again administered an average of 10 questionnaires. Participants again filled out 3 x 5 cards with identifying information if they completed the FPQ and became eligible to enter a raffle to win $150. Six hundred eighty-five questionnaires were completed. The principal investigator called more than one research participant, as in the earlier study, to verify that the telephone number and identifying information matched the information on the card he/she completed. In an informal manner, we considered these telephone calls a check on the veracity of the data. We describe our strategy for eliminating invalid cases in a later section.

The four-city sample was 46.5% male, and 67.9% were Caucasian. Almost 22% of the sample was African American. The remainder was Hispanic (1.9%), Asian (2.4%), Native American (1.4%), and Pacific Islander (.8%), or was of mixed ethnic origins. Almost 40% of the sample had some college training, and 41.3% had at least a college degree. Median income was between $30,000 and $45,000 per year. The sample ranged in age from 18 to 88 (M = 34.7, SD = 13.0). About one-fifth of the sample reported their parents as divorced, with a mean age of divorce of 6.6 years (SD = 4.9 years). As might be expected given the diversity of sampling locations, there were significant differences in major demographic categories by region. These included race/ethnicity, level of education, current marital status, income level, and sex of respondent. Over 70% of all respondents in all regions grew up in families with both biological parents, and there were no significant regional differences in the structure of the respondent's family of origin.

In a few cases, individuals adopted in infancy filled out the FPQ and noted their adopted status. These individuals were deleted from the data analysis, since in this study the questionnaire instructions specified that questions referred to biological parents.

MEASURES: THE FATHER PRESENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

The 134 items in the FPQ were divided into 10 scales. Each item in the questionnaire was followed by five possible responses: never, seldom, occasionally, frequently, and always. Theoretically, we proposed that these 10 scales organized themselves into three higher- order factors (domains) we named the Relationship with the Father, Beliefs about the Father, and Intergenerational Family Influences.

Over 90% of the data were complete on the five scales that compose the Relationship with the Father domain and the two scales that compose the Beliefs about the Father domain; however, the scales that comprise the Intergenerational Family Influences domain contained considerable missing data. It appears that many respondents in this sample did not know much about the relationships between their parents and grandparents. For these scales, we report data only for those who provided complete information, as shown in Table 3.

Of the 685 completed questionnaires, only 608 were used in the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) reported below. Cases that contained more than one missing item on any of the scales were eliminated. For those cases containing only one missing item, the mean of the remaining items for that case was substituted for the missing item. Of the 685 cases, 77 contained more than one missing item on one or more scales and were eliminated, leaving a sample of 608 cases. Differences in descriptive statistics for scales with and without the imputed values were negligible. These 608 cases were used for all statistics describing the sample demographics and all CFA models.

ADDITIONAL MEASURES

In addition to the FPQ, three other measures designed to assess constructs of family relatedness were administered. These include the Parental Bonding Index (PBI; Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979), the Inventory of Family Feelings (IFF; Lowman, 1980), and the O'Leary-Porter Scale (OPS; Porter & O'Leary, 1980). Note that the IFF contains subscales that assess mother, father, mother's feelings about father, father's feelings about mother, mother's feelings about her father, and father's feelings about his father. Table 2 summarizes the descriptive information for these measures. Because of space considerations, we are unable to describe these instruments in greater detail here. Further information about these scales' properties can be found in the references for these instruments.

RESULTS

RELIABILITY OF THE FPQ

Table 3 presents the descriptive statistics and alpha reliability for each of the 10 FPQ scales, grouped into three conceptually distinct domains that compose the higher-order factors of father presence: Relationship with the Father, Beliefs about the Father, and Intergenerational Family Influences. As can be seen in Table 3, all 10 scales produced alpha reliabilities of .89 or higher.

We also examined the reliability of the FPQ independently for male and female respondents. Gender differences were extremely small, typically less than .05, and all values for both genders were above .88. Gender differences in scale scores were not statistically significant.

CONSTRUCT VALIDITY OF THE FPQ

Our original goal was to test the validity of a 13-factor model with 10 first-order factors and three higher-order factors (Relationship with the Father, Beliefs about the Father, and Intergenerational Family Influences), as suggested by the conceptual framework. The method of choice to answer these questions was confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). We made the decision not to include Intergenerational Family Influences, the third organizing higher-order factor suggested by our conceptual framework, in the CFA because of the considerable missing data. As stated above, many respondents were unable to provide complete information regarding their parents' relationships with their own parents. Our approach to construct validity is based on an examination of (1) item-to-total correlations, (2) the correlation matrix of all 10 scales, (3) confirmatory factor analysis of the items representing two of the three higher-order factors in our conceptual framework, and (4) examination of the relationship of FPQ scales to other well-validated indicators of family relationships.

The Appendix contains items from the scales composing the FPQ with their item-to-total correlations. (We also provide the observed factor loadings derived from the CFA for those seven scales defined under the first two higher-order factors [i.e., domains].) All but one of the item-to-total correlations was above .5, and 77.8% were .7 or higher (factor loadings will be discussed below). The evidence provided by the item-to-total correlations and the high reliabilities shown in Table 3 support the argument for a reliable set of scales and provide some support for the validity of the three-domain model of father presence serving as the basis of our conceptual framework.

To address the validity of the theoretical model further, we first examined the correlation matrix of the 10-scale scores that compose the FPQ. This correlation matrix is shown in Table 4. To support our theoretical framework, Table 4 should exhibit a pattern of convergent and discriminant validity represented by scale correlations higher within their own higher-order domain and lower across the remaining two domains (with one exception, discussed below). The pattern of correlations for the Relationship with the Father domain exhibits this standard ideally. All but one of the 10 correlations within the five scales representing this domain are .6 or higher (the lowest is .548). All correlations of these five scales with scales in the remaining two domains (Beliefs about the Father and Intergenerational Family Influences) are lower than .36.

Patterns are not as clear within the Beliefs about the Father and Intergenerational Family Influences domains. While the observed patterns are in the expected direction (i.e., scales correlate more strongly within, than across, their respective domains), both exhibit correlations with the scales composing the Relationship with the Father domain that are similar to and sometimes higher than their own domain correlations.

There is evidence for the independence of the domains of Beliefs about the Father and Intergenerational Family Influences from one another; however, there is one scale in each of these domains that correlates in the range of .25 to .35 with scales from the Relationship with the Father domain. We see no empirical reason for predicting a strong positive relationship between the scales that assess the mother's relationship with her father and the father's relationship with his father, as these relationships may in fact be independent; however, conceptually both scales clearly represent our conceptualization of other family influences. Thus, the weak relationships between the two scales assessing mother's relationship and the one assessing father's relationship (-.17 and .24) are consistent with what we would predict.

In sum, the validity of the Relationship with the Father domain is demonstrated by its relative independence from the other two domains and pattern of strong within domain relationships. The validity of the remaining two domains is derived from additional statistical analyses. We discuss the significance of these findings for the validity of the FPQ in a later section, following our presentation of CFA analyses.

CONFIRMATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS OF THE FPQ

We utilized maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis with the EQS computer program to examine the hypothesized structure of the FPQ (Bentler & Wu, 1995). Given our desire to focus on the factorial validity of the Relationship with the Father and Beliefs about the Father domains as higher-order factors, we made a number of theoretically generated assumptions that guide these analyses. Responses to the FPQ could be explained by a model with two higher-order factors (domains) and seven first-order factors (scales), as shown in Figure 1. For all first-order factors, items load only on the factor it was designed to measure; all other loadings would be fixed to zero (i.e., factor complexity is fixed to 1 for each item). An oblique solution would be theoretically justified, and first-order factor disturbance terms would be allowed to covary when theoretically justifiable. Finally, given the known skew and kurtosis of some items, the Satorra-Bentler Scaled Chi-Square Statistic (S-B[chi square]) and its associated fit index, the Robust Comparative Fit Index (RCFI), were used (Satorra & Bentler, 1988). This statistic uses a scaling correction for the chi-square statistic when distributional assumptions are unwarranted. Byrne and colleagues (1994) argue that the RCFI should be the measure of choice when the Satorra-Bentler scaling correction for the [chi square] (S- B[chi square]) statistic is warranted as "it allows for a more cogent assessment of factorial validity than is possible with the uncorrected (i.e., biased) statistic" (Byrne, Baron, & Campbell, 1994, p. 171). As suggested by many researchers, assessment of fit includes additional fit indexes to provide a comprehensive picture of overall model adequacy.

Results for the fully restricted model are presented in Figure 1 and the Appendix. Figure 1 presents the higher-order factor loadings, factor correlations, and fit statistics. The Appendix presents item wording and item-to-factor loadings. The RCFI suggests an acceptable fit (.905), and the root mean squared error of approximation and its associated 90% confidence interval is just outside the .05 threshold suggested by Quntana and Maxwell (1999) for a "very good" fit (90% CI = .052, .055 [smaller values are better]). In addition, the factor loadings shown in the Appendix, with few exceptions, were extremely high, and the loadings of the first-order factors on the higher-order factors (Relationship with the Father and Beliefs about the Father) ranged from .735 to .983. The only exception was the .344 loading of the Conceptions of God as Father Scale (factor 6) on the second higher-order factor (Beliefs about the Father). This statistically significant (p < .001) but relatively low loading raises the question of whether or not a model with only one higher-order factor would fit the data as well. To examine this question, we tested the relative fit of a one-factor model against a two-factor model using a chi-square difference test. This test is appropriate because a one-factor model is nested within a two- factor model. All evidence from this comparison strongly supports the relatively better fit of the two-factor model ([DELTA][chi square] [1, N = 608] = 30, p < .001). In addition, the loadings of the two scales associated with the Beliefs about the Father higher-order factor are both less than half their value in the single higher-order factor alternative (for Conceptions of God as Father, .160 versus .344; for Conceptions of Father's Influence, .373 versus .822.).

These latter results counter the suggestion, as discussed in the previous section, that the Beliefs about the Father domain is not independent of the Feelings about the Father domain. Results from the CFA suggest that an oblique higher-order factor model provides a significantly better representation of the data than a model that integrates either of the two scales composing the Beliefs about the Father domain with the Relationship with the Father domain and thus supports the construct validity of the conceptual framework.

CONCURRENT VALIDITY OF THE FPQ

We tested the concurrent validity of the FPQ by correlating the 10 FPQ scales with the PBI, IFF, and OPS, all well-recognized instruments designed to assess the Relationship with the Father and/or similar constructs of intrafamilial relationships. These instruments and their associated descriptive statistics were presented in Table 2. Their correlations with the FPQ are presented in Table 5.

A number of observations available from Table 5 provide support for the concurrent validity of the FPQ. First, all relationships are in the predicted direction. The only FPQ scale in which a high score represents a negative relationship with one's father (i.e., negative items reflecting mother's relationship with her father) correlates negatively with all of the scales representing positive paternal and family relationships and positively with the OPS, the only scale in which higher scores represent more negative family relationships. In addition, the OPS correlates negatively with all FPQ scales representing positive relationships with father. Second, scales designed to assess specific types of intra-familial relationships correlate strongly and in the predicted direction with the FPQ scales also designed to assess the same or similar relationships.

For example, the Mother's Feelings about Her Father Scale OFF), correlates .673 with the FPQ Mother's Relationship with Her Father--Positive Sentiments Scale and -.631 with the FPQ Mother's Relationship with Her Father--Negative Sentiments Scale. Similarly, the IFF Father's Feelings about His Father Scale correlates .728 with the FPQ Father's Relationship with His Father Scale. Third, the two IFF scales designed to assess Mother's Feelings about Father and Father's Feelings about Mother correlate strongly and in the predicted direction with the FPQ Mother-Father Relationship Scale, .741 and .725, respectively. These two scales also correlated strongly and in the predicted direction with the FPQ Mother's Support for the Relationship with the Father Scale, .745 and .727, respectively. Fourth, the PBI, a general measure of positive parent-child relationships and emotional closeness, correlates strongly and in the predicted direction with all scales composing the Relationship with the Father domain (relationships in the .6 to .7 range).

As would be expected, correlations with the PBI are much weaker with scales composing the more abstract Beliefs about the Father and Intergenerational Family Influences domains (relationships in the .1 to .2 range), with the exception of the Father's Relationship with His Father Scale that correlates .495 with the PBI. Taken as a whole, these relationships provide support for the concurrent validity of the FPQ.

DISCUSSION

The FPQ is a three-domain, 10-scale instrument that allows researchers to examine the father-adult child relationship, the offspring's beliefs about the father, and perceptions of each parent's feelings about his/her father. Family scholars using this instrument will be able to study the multiple experiences in family life and in the individual's belief system that influence his/her sense of father presence and the meaning of father to him/her. The FPQ specifically addresses a wide range of attitudes and behaviors that comprise the adult child's relationship with the father, beliefs about the father, and intergenerational family influences on his/her paternal bond. The FPQ is unique because it is a questionnaire for adult children rather than the school-aged or adolescent offspring. To our knowledge, no other instrument exists that specifically focuses on the quality of psychological father presence in the adult child.

We believe that the statistical evidence, taken as a whole, provides considerable support for the reliability and construct validity of the 10 scales composing the FPQ and the three-dimensional model we utilize to organize these scales. Evidence is provided in the form of extremely high reliabilities of the 10 scales, the similarly high concurrent validities shown by correlations with a wide range of other instruments, and the support for the discriminant validity provided by both the scale correlation matrix and the CFA analyses. A more complete CFA incorporating the three scales composing the Intergenerational Family Influences domain awaits the collection of data from a larger sample. A sample of nearly 650 respondents failed to produce sufficient data to reliably conduct these analyses. Given the numerous critiques of CFA models with small sample sizes, we made the decision to exclude this domain from our model and conduct the CFA with a sample of 608.

One of our goals in this study was to extend the continuum of work on the father. At the outset of this article, we noted that early investigations about the father examined father absence and found empirical evidence about the effects of growing up without a male parent (Back 1946; Lynn & Sawrey, 1958). Lamb et al.'s (1987) three-factor model of father involvement generated support for the effects of fathers' engagement with, accessibility to, and responsibility for their children (Marsiglio, 1991; McBride, 1993). We also identified more recent research showing that paternal contributions to children increase their level of social capital and enhance their adult outcomes. We proposed that father presence is a rich, complex, and multifaceted construct that extends this work. We integrated theoretical work about the father, the family, and family relationships along with findings from empirical research to both develop and operationalize our construct. We also devised an instrument that allowed us to examine the adult child's perspective. It was our belief that father presence as we define it can be measured and studied in adults. Our results support that belief. The above analyses point to a set of scales, all of which are highly reliable and that demonstrate considerable evidence for the construct validity of the theoretical model upon which the instrumentation is based and for the ability of the instrumentation to operationalize the theoretical model.

We hypothesized a three-domain model--Relationship with the Father, Beliefs about the Father, and Intergenerational Family Influences--to represent father presence. Thus, the analyses reported here support our proposition that these distinct domains are a part of the father experience of an individual. These findings allow us to further explore and understand the processes involved in the sense of father presence. The results of our analysis suggest that we can move beyond the coresidence definition of father presence to a more content-specific understanding of what the father means to the son or daughter. Moreover, we can continue to examine the father experience from the adult child's perspective, which adds to those studies that address the male parent himself, the mother's view of him, and the viewpoint of the younger child or adolescent. An understanding of father presence may help us identify the specific factors that shape children's openness to the father and the conditions that lead to the son's or daughter's repudiation of his importance to them. In other words, the concept of father presence may be a link between the father's behavior and how the child (of any age) experiences him.

LIMITATIONS OF THE FPQ

There are two content-related limitations in our research on the FPQ. They concern the family members as well as nonrelated persons who may influence an individual's quality of father presence. The FPQ contains five scales that concern the father's and mother's influences. In this instrument, we have no scale to study the effects of siblings on the development of father presence. Conceivably, older siblings, particularly older male siblings, may shape and color a brother's or sister's sense of father and his importance. In our study, this remains an empirical question and one that may need attention in the future.

A second content-related limitation concerns the effects of "father figures" on one's quality of father presence. We recognize that family relationships are complex open systems. Not only are there effects from previous generations that may influence a given family, but there can also be influences from nonbiological members as well, such as stepparents, adoptive parents, or other emotionally significant adults in children's lives. The scale we eliminated from the CFA and the model discussed here was, in fact, the Father Figures Scale, and it asked about these other individuals. We did not include it in the CFA because of the relatively small number of individuals in our sample who reported having such a father figure in his/her life. This scale is currently under development. We believe that a separate examination of father figures should be conducted, as some offspring may regard the father figure as the only male parent they know. As of now, this, too, is an empirical question.

A third limitation of the FPQ pertains to the target offspring--adult children--and to issues of remembering childhood relationships with the father. The work of Offer, Kaiz, Howard, and Bennett (2000) and others challenges the reliability of autobiographical memory around areas such as family relationships. Based on their research, Offer et al. suggest that memory is both constructed and reconstructed. We acknowledge this limitation and, at the same time, argue that these mental constructions color and affect present-time relationships and functioning as well as perceptions of past experience. For example, the work of Silverstein et al. and Whitheck et al., cited earlier, attest to the persistence of childhood perceptions of the father and mother and the effect of these images on paternal relationships years later. Because these perceptions drive and motivate many of the adult's attitudes and behaviors in the present, we are interested in the perceptions themselves rather than seeking some type of "objective reality" about the participant's past. Thus, these retrospective issues do not impede our use of the FPQ for understanding father presence in adults.

The fourth limitation we recognize concerns the use of undergraduates for purposes of data collection. Recent studies show that college students admit to cheating on academic work, so questions about the reliability of sampling may arise in the reader's mind. In our methods section, we spell out the process of training students in data collection responsibilities and techniques. Asking respondents to fill out a card with information about their location for the sample seemed to be a reliable method for ensuring that the students sampled "real people" and not just friends. The telephone calls to raffle winners further establish the veracity of the data. Furthermore, since the FPQ is a self- administered questionnaire, we avoided the reliability pitfalls that may ensue if undergraduates conduct interviews. With self-administered questionnaires, any invalidity that occurs in the data collection process is not due to questionnaire administration but to failure to follow directions about whom to sample. Any questionnaire that was filled out by a participant under the age of 18 or who was adopted was excluded from the analyses. We do not claim to have a representative sample but, instead, have a community sample that more closely resembles a "snowball" sample.

Finally, some may argue that the Conceptions about God as Father Scale may have no place in a study of father presence. We believe otherwise. Our findings regarding the Conception of God as a Father Scale provide empirical grounds for retaining this scale in the FPQ. Moreover, the concept of father presence, as delineated here, is not restricted to the child's perspective on his/her personal father alone. We regard father presence as encompassing a wide range of father-related experiences that begin with the personal father but include multigenerational family relationships, attitudes, and an orientation to other fathering experiences in one's life. In the United States, the concept of God as father is an important part of American culture. Moreover, research suggests that individuals who are highly religious strongly value the importance of the father in family life, and their own father as well (Blankenhorn, 1995; Dollahite, 1998; Horn, Blankenhorn, & Pearlstein, 1999; Smith, 2005). We argue that a fuller comprehension of father presence in our society takes into account one's image of the Creator as Father when applicable.

FUTURE RESEARCH

The literature reflects, and we recognize, that father encompasses more than meets the eye and that he must be understood from a family systems perspective (Atkins, 1984; Cowan, 1997). There is still a great deal of work to do to understand the relationships, attitudes, and events that shape and influence the subjective experience of being fathered, that is, father presence. Next steps might include using the FPQ to study populations who have experienced diminished fathering, such as individuals who are incarcerated or on probation/parole, and those with alcohol and drug or other addiction problems (Phares, 1997).

We also see the need for a new instrument in future research that investigates father figures such as stepfathers, male relatives, or sports or other male mentors. These males often provide most, if not all, the primary fathering that many offspring experience. For this reason, studying a sample of participants whose personal fathers were nonbiologically related males may enhance our understanding of father presence.

While not examined in the CFA described here, the third higher-order factor, Intergenerational Family Influences, and the three scales it encompasses are an important component of the FPQ. While most sample participants had limited knowledge of their parents' paternal relationships and/or limited experience with other fathering persons in their lives, we believe these areas are important dimensions of the individual's sense of father. Conceptually, knowledge of each parent's paternal bonds is a part of the social construction of one's family relationships and sense of family continuity. Many families have rich stories about the parents' childhoods and the persons who were important in those lives. At the same time, other parents may downplay their past and discourage questions about their family experiences.

We hypothesize that perceptions of interpersonal and intergenerational dynamics in one's family of origin may be linked to different developmental pathways and life experiences in adulthood. These remain empirical questions. In addition, the presence of father figures or other fathering persons in an individual's life may moderate the loss of father when the biological parent is absent or emotionally unavailable. In this way, the FPQ may have clinical applications.

Continuing research with a larger sample will help us determine whether this third higher-order factor fits into the CFA model of father presence as we hypothesize it will.

USES OF THE FPQ

The FPQ may be useful as a way to more specifically understand the individual's paternal experience and the aspects of this experience that may correlate with prosocial or antisocial behaviors and trajectories. For example, an investigator might ask whether feeling close to the father or wanting to be like him is more likely to lead to a prosocial orientation or to lower the probability of engaging in delinquent behavior. In other words, by using one or more scales of the FPQ, we may be able to identify the specific dimensions of the father-offspring relationship that are directly involved in particular adult outcomes.

One advantage of the FPQ is that it permits a more detailed examination of the paternal experience of adults than other instruments that address the parent-offspring bond. Thus, we are leaving the 10 scales intact as other researchers may wish to use one or two of them to study specific components of the paternal experience more fully. Alternatively, we may create a shorter version of the FPQ that uses fewer items from each scale so that investigators can measure all of the dimensions that make up the sense of being fathered as specified in this model. While fathers and offspring have been increasingly studied over the past 25 years, we have relatively little information about the adult child's father experience.

The father is an important contributor to children's lives at all ages. The FPQ may be a useful instrument for furthering our understanding of the importance and the effect of father presence on the individual and his/her family.

An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, 2004. We would like to thank Mary-Elizabeth Curtner-Smith, Jay Fagan, Alan Hawkins, Twyla Hill, and Karen Seccombe for their assistance with data collection for development of this instrument. We would also like to thank Jay Fagan and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback about previous drafts of this article.

APPENDIX

THE FATHER PRESENCE QUESTIONNAIRE: ITEMS, ITEM-TO-TOTAL CORRELATIONS AND FACTOR LOADING FOR CFA STANDARDIZED SOLUTION

Note: Loadings are not shown for items excluded from confirmatory factor analysis. An "R" preceding an item indicates reversed scoring of that item.

Relationship with the Father

Scale: Feelings about the Father (N = 608)