Abstract

Despite gratitude being abundantly studied in literature, few contributions have focused on the familial factors that support it. The present study is based on the relational-symbolic approach of Scabini and Cigoli (2000, 2012). Our aim is to analyze the relation between the affective and the ethical-normative qualities of parents-child relationships with respect to gratitude and life satisfaction in a sampling of Italian adolescents, keeping account of gender. To that end, an explicative model of those relations will be presented. A self-report questionnaire was administered to 279 adolescents in North Italy, between the ages of 15 and 19 years old (M = 16.79, SD = 0.85; 46.9% males). The results show how both the affective and the ethical-normative qualities are correlated to gratitude, and the latter also to the life satisfaction. The model shows more than satisfying fit indices and it is invariant with respect to gender. Limitations, future development, and operative implications have been discussed.