| Abstract: | 67 mother–son dyads from father-absent families were divided into 3 groups: violent felon, nonviolent felon, and normal control. Adolescent sons had a mean age of 14.5 yrs, while mothers had a mean age of 39.3 yrs. During the assessment session, mothers and sons completed self-report inventories and engaged in an interaction task that was audio-recorded. Consistent with prior research, mother–son relationships in families with juvenile offenders were less warm and tended to evidence less positive communication and more negative communication than did those in families with nonoffenders. Marginally significant results suggest that the 16 violent juvenile felons had even poorer relationships with their mothers than did the 15 nonviolent felons. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
