Social Psychology Research

Abstract Introduction: Parents are considered as the most important factor in socializing children and adolescents. Researches has confirmed the effectiveness of gratitude on the pro-social behavior; hence the purpose of this study is to explain the relationship between parent’s psychological control and children’s pro-social behavior by the mediation of the gratitude.
Methods: The research method is a descriptive correlation study. The statistical population of the study included all high school students in Yazd in the academic year ‎2020-2021‎. The sample size was 350 people who were selected with the multi-stage cluster sampling method and 308 people completed the questionnaires. Research Measurement included Dependency-Oriented and Achievement-Oriented Psychological Control Scale (Soenens et al, 2010), Multi-component Gratitude Measure (Morgan et al, 2017) and Pro-social Tendencies Measures (Carlo & Randall, 2002) that have been completed by students.
 Results: The findings using structural equation modeling showed that final model has a good fitness. Also, findings of research hypothesis analysis showed that psychological control of parents could negatively and statistically significant predict pro-social behavior and relationship between gratitude and pro-social behavior was negatively and significant Moreover, the mediation role of gratitude in the relationship between parental psychological control and pro-social behavior was confirmed.
Conclusion: According to the research findings, it can be concluded that less psychological control of parents in the family context, and more children's skills in gratitude, can promotes their pro-social behavior.