A cross-sectional study by Rice, Cunningham, and Young (1997) found that the gender of the parent appears to predict the effects of parent-child relationships. The researchers sampled 630 Southern college students, of which 249 were African American and the rest were Caucasian American. The degree of a child's attachment to the father was found to be a more accurate predictor of social competence than his or her attachment to the mother. In this case, social competence is understood as the ability to develop relationships with peers, to access social support when needed, and to be comfortable in social situations, for example.