Examining intra-family communication and emotion regulation as predictors of forgiveness flexibility in adolescents

The first aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of reappraisal, which is the emotion regulation sub-dimension, in the relationship between the family communication dialogue and cohesion sub-dimension and forgiveness flexibility. The second aim of the study is to examine whether family communication and emotion regulation are predictors of forgiveness flexibility in adolescents. The third aim of the study is to examine whether there are differences in forgiveness flexibility according to gender, grade and parental education status. The study group of the study consists of volunteer high school students studying at science high school, fine arts high school, social sciences high school, Anatolian high school and vocational and technical Anatolian high school in three districts. The study group consists of 495 students, 300 girls and 195 boys. The ages of the students range from 14 to 18. Personal Information Form, Forgiveness Flexibility Scale High School Form, Family Communication Patterns Scale and Emotion Regulation Scale were used as data collection tools in the study. The data were analyzed using a package program. According to the results of the mediation analysis, the cognitive reappraisal subdimension of emotion regulation was found to play a partial mediating role in the relationship between the dialogue subdimension of family communication and forgiveness flexibility. Based on this finding, dialogue influences forgiveness flexibility both directly and indirectly through cognitive reappraisal. According to the results of the regression analysis, the cognitive reappraisal subdimension of emotion regulation significantly predicted forgiveness flexibility, whereas the dialogue and harmony subdimensions of family communication and the suppression subdimension of emotion regulation did not significantly predict forgiveness flexibility. Based on this finding, it can be said that that as adolescents' cognitive reappraisal scores increase, their forgiveness flexibility scores also increase. When it was examined whether there was a significant difference in forgiveness flexibility according to gender, grade and parental education status, it was seen that the forgiveness flexibility scores of adolescents differed significantly according to gender. It was found that the forgiveness flexibility scores of male students were significantly higher than female students. It was observed that the forgiveness flexibility scores of adolescents did not differ significantly according to class and parental education status.