Abstract
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.
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McConaghy, N., Silove, D. Do sex-linked behaviors in children influence relationships with their parents?. Arch Sex Behav 21, 469–479 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542271
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01542271