The effect of substitution on the properties of a chemical group

The effect of the substituent R(R = F, OH, NH₂, CH₃) on the electron distribution of the C=C group of ethylene and acrylonitrile may be fairly well represented in terms of classical interactions between the and components of this group and the molecular remainder. A distinction between direct and indirect effects is made, and an estimate of the relative importance of conjugative versus inductive effects is done.This analysis has been performed on a set of 22 SCF wavefunctions calculated with the 4-31G basis set.