Studies have found that the father is a child's preferred attachment figure in approximately 5–20% of cases.
[9] Research on whether or not paternal sensitivity has an effect on the security of father-child attachment has produced mixed results.
Some studies have shown significant correlations between paternal sensitivity and secure father-child attachments.
[17] One study has found that whether or not the father's beliefs about the importance of paternal caregiving affect the security of the father-child attachment relationship depends on the temperament of the child.
[9][18] Two important spousal factors have been found to have a relationship with father-infant attachment security: marital intimacy and supportive co-parenting.
[20] The authors of this study suggest that one possible explanation for this gender difference is that parents might try to hide their marital conflict more from their daughters than from their sons[21] causing sons to be more sensitive to differences in whether or not their parents engage in supportive co-parenting.
[13] In fact, these researchers believe that children may respond more positively to frightening behaviours exhibited by the father when their mother is nearby, although this has yet to be proven.
[28] Children who have a secure attachment to their father tend to have improved developmental outcomes in a variety of ways including having improved social abilities with their peers, having fewer problem behaviours, and the paternal effects on developing a greater level of emotional self-regulation are especially significant.
[30][31][32][33][34] Furthermore, one study found that 11–13 month old infants who were securely attached to their fathers were more sociable with strangers in the Strange Situation Test.
[38] Another study found that male infants who have little to no interaction with their fathers have significantly lower levels of social responsiveness, fewer secondary circular reactions, and lower levels of preferences for novel stimuli, while female infants were unaffected by the absence of their father.
[39] This second study, however, only looks at mother-only single-parent families in low socioeconomic circumstances so the results may not be generalizable to the greater population.