Now why'd he do that? The nature and correlates of mothers' attributions about negative teen behavior.

Full Abstract

This study examined the attributions that mothers make about their teens' negative behaviors and whether these attributions are related to their own attributional styles, as well as the relationship between mothers' attributions and parent-teen relationship conflict. Globality of mothers' attributions was particularly important: Globality of attributions about events in their own lives was correlated with globality of attributions about teens' behavior, and globality of mothers' attributions about teen behavior was correlated with conflict. The nature of the negative behavior (whether it directly involved the parent or did not) made a difference in predictable ways. The results highlight the ways in which a full understanding of the role of attributions in parent-teen relationships calls for more complex conceptualization of traditional attribution dimensions, notably, the internal-external dimension.

Author information

Author/s: Heatherington, Laurie (L); Tolejko, Natalie (N); McDonald, Margaret (M); Funk, Janette (J);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 02167, USA. Laurie.Heatherington(-atsign-)williams.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of family psychology : JFP : journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43) (J Fam Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Jun; vol 21 (issue 2) : pp 315-9

Dates: Created 2007/07/03; Completed 2007/09/06;

PMID: 17605554, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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