Parents’ and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Participation in Family Decisions

SynopsisThis study compared adolescents’, mothers’ and fathers’ reports on involvement of different members in family decision making. A sample of 304 adolescents was tested on the Blood and Wolfe (1960) decision items which measure involvement in family decisions. These same decision items were mailed to parents for completion by fathers and mothers independently. Correlations were significant between adolescents and their parents on reported involvement in family decisions. Additional analysis suggested that younger female adolescents had the highest level of agreement with parents on parental participation in decisions, while younger male adolescents had highest level of agreement with parents on adolescent participation in decisions. Analysis of different combinations of parental involvement and adolescent participation in family decisions indicated that high parental involvement was associated with the highest adolescent participation, while low parental involvement was linked to the lowest adolescen...