[Why and with what intention did they do it? Parents' and adolescents' attributions about family conflicts]

Causal (locus, stability, and controllability) and intentional (positive, negative, and neutral) attributions about family conflict situations reported by father, mother, and adolescent were studied in a sample of 270 two-parent families according to the type of conflict (upsetting to adolescent or upsetting to parents). The relationships between attributions and use of strategies in conflict resolution (negotiation, dominance, and indifference) were also examined. Results indicated that, as compared to adolescents, parents blamed themselves less for the conflict and perceived it as less controllable, whereas adolescents (especially girls) perceived a more benevolent intention than parents (especially mothers). Transmission of the attributional pattern via father-son and father/mother-daughter was observed with a clear intentional structure only for daughters. The attributional pattern of the triad also varied according to the actor-observer bias. Lastly, moderate relations were obtained between intentionality and use of strategies of dominance and indifference in adolescents and use of the three strategies in parents (especially mothers), modulated by the type of conflict in all the cases.