(WITHDRAWN) The Differential Impacts of Shame and Guilt on Father Involvement in Families with Special Needs Children

Background and Purpose:

Fathers in the family of disabled children play a crucial role in fostering child development. Previous studies addressing emotions of father involvement in rearing children with special needs have been rare. With reference to the cultural orientation and masculine idea of Chinese fathers, shame and guilt are probable causal emotions that affect fathers’ psycho-behavioral reactions, and thus father involvement. Basing on the findings of our earlier qualitative studies, the current study aims to develop and validate a multi-item scale of guilt of shame, and explore their relations with and fatherhood in families with children with special needs.

A model is proposed to understand the roles that shame and guilt play in affecting fathers’ involvement in their family system. The severity and type of the child’s special needs are regarded as independent variables affecting the father’s emotional responses – shame and guilt. It is hypothesized that shame and guilt, under the the influence of masculinity, lead to avoidance and compensation respectively, which subsequently decrease and increase father involvement with children with special needs.

Methods:

A cross-sectional online questionnaire survey of fathers with children with special needs recruited by convenience sampling was conducted. Potential participants were reached by bulk emails, related groups on the Internet and education/social services providers.

Findings:

Totally 537 valid sets of online questionnaires were collected from fathers of children with special needs. EFA on the items pool of shame and guilt was performed, resulting in a x-item single factor solution and y-item single factor solution respectively. Further path model analysis revealed that shame and guilt, under the influence of masculinity, showed differential avoidance and compensation responses, and results in decrease and increase in father involvement with special needs children. Demographic and key confounding variables were controlled in the analysis.

Conclusion and Implications:

The shame and guilt scales developed show good psychometric properties. Furthermore they showed significant differential impacts, under the influence of masculinity, on avoidance and compensation behaviours, and consequently resulting in decrease/increase in father involvement in the expected directions. The findings have important theoretical and practical implications. In community and policy level, the findings inform design of strategies for strengthening the role of men in family with special needs children.