The Relationship between Individual's Perception of Father's Parenting and Formation of Object Relations and Defense Mechanisms

Subject Areas : Iranian Sociological Review

Mojtaba Habibi ¹ , Roghieh Nooripour ² , Fatemeh Rahmatian ³

1 - Department of Families with Special Needs, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2 - Department of Education and Psychology, Al-Zahra University, Tehran, Iran
3 - Department of Psychology, Allameh Tabatabae University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2016-08-27 Accepted : 2016-08-27 Published : 2016-06-01

Keywords:

Abstract :

This study investigated the association between Iranian university students' perception of theirfathers and their object-relation and defense mechanism. Participants were 438 students between 18-22 yearsfrom Allameh Tabatabae University, who agreed to fill the Fatherhood Scale out (Dick, 2004), Bell objectrelation inventory and defense mechanism style, and defense style questionnaire (DSQ-40). Using stepwiseregression indicated that positive Parental Engagement significantly would be able to predict alienation (ALN)and mature and immature defense mechanisms. Positive paternal engagement & negative paternal mangagementsignificantly predict alienation (ALN) and mature defense mechanism. Furthermore, negative paternalengagement can predict insecure attachment (IA) and egocentrism (ECG). The good provider role subscale offathering scale can predict social incompetence (SI) of object relation factors and neurotic defense mechanism.This subscale with negative paternal engagement can predict Social incompetence (SI). As a result, current studyemphasize on the critical role of fathering in forming object relation and defense mechanism duringdevelopment. In this processing, fathering as a facilitator lead to appropriate representation of reality in childmental structure. So, he can practice proper object relations and mature defense mechanism.