Quality of Paternal Investment and Adult Sons’ Beliefs About Romantic Relationships

Patterns of paternal investment, including low quality of father involvement and biological father absence, tend to repeat across generations with important consequences. Past research has identified daughters’ reduced expectations for long-term investment from male relationship partners as contributing to these patterns; however, it is unknown whether sons reared with low paternal investment experience analogous psychological shifts that function to calibrate their investment in romantic partners as adults. In the current research, we test the hypotheses that (1) lower quality of paternal investment received while growing up will be associated with sons’ beliefs that men invest minimally in romantic relationships and that women require minimal male relationship investment, and (2) these beliefs will mediate sons’ decreased willingness to invest in their romantic partners. Participants were 486 heterosexual cisgender men ages 18–36 (M_age = 29.08 years, SD = 4.86) recruited online from the United States using Prolific Academic. Lower father warmth/involvement predicted adult sons’ beliefs that men invest minimally in relationships and that women require minimal relationship investment. Further, sons’ relationship beliefs predicted their decreased willingness to invest in romantic partners. Follow-up analyses suggested that the statistical effects of father warmth/involvement were independent from the effects of father presence/absence and mother warmth/involvement. In all, this work suggests novel psychological pathways via which low quality of paternal investment and its associated outcomes may be transmitted across generations.