Adolescents' Willingness to Forgive Their Parents: An Empirical Model

Objective. Drawing on prior social psychological and marital research this study tested a model of forgiveness in parent - adolescent relationships. Design. 164 adolescents from 2-parent families in north Italy (67 boys and 97 girls) reported on the positive affect experienced toward each parent and completed a relationship events questionnaire that included transgressions by each parent. Results. Support was obtained for a model in which the quality of the parent - adolescent relationship predicted benign attributions for negative parent behavior, which in turn, were related to forgiving directly and indirectly through affective reactions to the behavior. Adolescent forgiving, in turn, was associated with a decreased likelihood of subsequent parent - adolescent conflict. Direct tests of gender differences showed that the model was invariant across mother - son, mother - daughter, father - son, and father - daughter relationships. Conclusions. This study is the first to show that social-cognitive variables, such as relationship quality, attributions, and emotions, play a role in adolescents' willingness to forgive parents. The pattern of results is consistent with research on forgiveness in the marital relationship.