Do sex-linked behaviors in children influence relationships with their parents?
When relationships are found between parents' and children's behaviors it is usually assumed the parents' behaviors produced those of the children. Forty-four young adult males and 36 young adult females reported the degree to which they showed various sex-linked behaviors and feelings of same versus opposite sex identity in childhood, and adolescence, and currently. These behaviors accounted for up to 57% of the variance of measures of the quality of relationships with parents. In men, opposite-sex-linked behaviors and identity correlated most strongly with current negative parental and particularly paternal relationships. They also correlated strongly with negative paternal relationships in childhood. Some sex-linked behaviors and sex identity items in men correlated positively with maternal overprotection in childhood and adolescence. Correlations between women's sex-linked behaviors and sexual identity items and their parental relationships were weaker but more consistently negative. As in men, opposite-sex-linked behaviors and identity in women correlated most strongly with current negative paternal relationships. The pattern of the associations and the finding that many opposite-sex-linked behaviors in subjects' childhood correlated most strongly with negative parental relationships in early adult life suggest that the parents' feelings could be partly a response to, rather than totally causal of, the subjects' sex-linked behaviors.
McConaghy
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Department of Psychiatry, Prince of Wales Hospital, Randwick, N.S.W., Australia.
Silove
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D
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006716:Homosexuality / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009517:New South Wales; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities