One of the differences in child development caused by the mother-dominant, father-absent structure of disadvantaged Negro families might be the differential development of resistance to temptation in male and female children. It would be expected that girls would be more resistant than boys, that girls would show no difference whether their father was at home or not, and that father-present boys would be more resistant than father-absent boys. To test these hypotheses, 96 disadvantaged Negro 5-year-olds (evenly divided for sex, father presence, and sex of the experimenter) were taken individually to a room and left alone to play a bean bag game after an experimenter had explained the rules to them and how they could win a prize. Resistance to temptation, in terms of not cheating, was recorded by a hidden observer. The results failed to support the hypotheses. In one of the few significant findings, father-present children resisted temptation more with an opposite sex rule-giver. Also, there appeared to be a trend for father-absent children to resist temptation more with male rule-givers. This effect is explainable by the concept of deprivation of adult male social rewards. (MH)