Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Susan Rarick

Abstract

There are more than 20 million children who are growing up in a fatherless home. It is understood that this population is more likely to experience a variety of intrapersonal and interpersonal issues when compared to children who grow up in a home with both parents. These issues include being twice as likely to drop out of school. Although few of these individuals pursue a higher education, very little understanding of the underlying variables that contribute to such education-seeking behaviors is available for this population. Guided by the theory of positive disintegration and the posttraumatic growth conceptual model, the purpose of the present study was to understand whether posttraumatic growth and the five overexcitability personality domains were related to education-seeking behaviors among individuals who grew up with an absent father. After data collection concluded with a sample of 146 participants, a binary logistic regression was conducted to understand the relationship between the variables of interest. Results indicated that posttraumatic growth, psychomotor overexcitabilities, imaginational overexcitabilities, and emotional overexcitabilities were significantly related to education-seeking behaviors among individuals who grew up with an absent father. Conversely, there was not a significant relationship found between sensual overexcitabilities and intellectual overexcitabilities and education-seeking behaviors. Insights from this study may promote positive social change by broadening the understanding of variables that may impact educational pursuits in this population, thus informing practitioners and educators of potential interventions and support methods to promote educational and career success and lead to a potential decline in student dropout rates.

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