Longitudinal Associations among Early Childhood Father-Child Relationship Closeness, Early Adolescent Socioemotional Functioning, & Young Adult Emotional & Behavioral Health

      Longitudinal links have been shown both prospectively and retrospectively for the enduring effects of childhood parent-child relationship quality (i.e., before age 18) for multiple domains of youth psychosocial wellbeing throughout adulthood. The majority of longitudinal parent-child research has focused only on the potential influence of mother-child relationships or joint parent-child relationships, but very little work has examined the independent contributions of father-child relationships for youth development and behavioral health.  Furthermore, process-level, theory-driven investigation of father-child relationships and vulnerabilities in children from early childhood through young adulthood is quite limited. To address this lack of process-oriented, prospective research on father-child relationships, this dissertation examined the independent and longitudinal contributions of early childhood father-son relationship qualities on markers of early adolescent socioemotional functioning (i.e., maladaptive social-cognitive processing, heightened cortisol reactivity) and young adult emotional and behavioral health. These research aims were examined in a community sample of boys in low-income families followed from birth through age 22 (n = 171). There were no significant associations between early father-child closeness and conflict at age 5 and later youth outcomes. However, important links emerged from hostile attribution bias (HAB) and HPA-axis reactivity at ages 10 and 12 to depression, antisocial behavior, and substance use at ages 20 and 22. The results of this study highlight the long-term predictive validity of HAB and HPA-axis reactivity in youth from low-income families and suggest the importance of developmental timing for father-child contributions. Implications of these biopsychosocial mechanism-driven findings for young adult emotional/behavioral health and future research directions for father-child study will be discussed.