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Associations Between Father Temperament, Character, Rearing, Psychopathology and Child Temperament in Children Aged 3–6 Years

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Abstract

Temperament refers to the totality of individual characteristics present from birth that determine a child’s unique style of behavior. Maternal personality and attitudes, one of the factors affecting temperament traits in children, is a frequently investigated subject. However, paternal variables have remained insufficiently studied. The purpose of this study is to investigate the associations between the fathers’ temperament, character, attitudes, psychopathology and temperament of the 3–6 years-old children. The parents of 36–60 months-old children in the preschool settings in Samsun were included in the study (n:200). Their mothers completed “Maternal Sociodemographic Form” prepared by the researcher, and the temperament of children “Children Behaviour Questionnare” were scored by the mothers. Their fathers completed “Paternal Sociodemographic Form”, and to assess father psychopathology “Brief Symptom Inventory”, to determine father temperament and character “Temperament and Character Inventory” and to determine attitudes “Parenting Attitudes Scale” were scored by the fathers. In this study, we found several significant associations between children’s temperament and fathers temperament and character, attitudes styles and psychopathology. The scores of paternal harm avoidance increase and self directedness decrease were found to be significantly positivily correlated with negative temperamental charecteristics of the children. The democratic attitudes of fathers were significantly correlated with positive temperamental scores of the children. All domains of paternal psychopathology were found to be in significant association with negative temperamental characteristics of the children. Our findings showed the complex interplay between determinants of parenting. Specifically, this study is one of the first to investigate paternal personality, psychopathology and attitudes, alone and in interaction with preschool child temperament.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Health and Diseases, Emel Mehmet Tarman Children’s Hospital, Kayseri, Turkey

    Zehra Babadagi

  2. Faculty of Medicine Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Ondokuz Mayıs University, Samsun, Turkey

    Koray M. Z. Karabekiroglu, Filiz Ucar, Gokce Nur Say & Murat Yuce

  3. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Iğdır State Hospital, Iğdır, Turkey

    Zeynep Gulcin Yildirim

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  1. Zehra Babadagi
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  2. Koray M. Z. Karabekiroglu
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  4. Gokce Nur Say
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  6. Zeynep Gulcin Yildirim
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Correspondence to Zehra Babadagi.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Babadagi, Z., Karabekiroglu, K.M.Z., Ucar, F. et al. Associations Between Father Temperament, Character, Rearing, Psychopathology and Child Temperament in Children Aged 3–6 Years. Psychiatr Q 89, 589–604 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-017-9556-1

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