Parental Monitoring, Parent-Adolescent Communication, and Adolescents' Trust in Their Parents in China.
OBJECTIVE
Trust is an important aspect of interpersonal relationships, but little is known about adolescents' interpersonal trust. The aim of the present study was to examine the associations among parental monitoring, parent-adolescent communication, and adolescents' trust in their parents in China.


METHODS
Data in this study were collected as part of the cross-sectional study of children in China. 3349 adolescents (female 48.6%, age range of 12-15 years) were randomly selected from 35 secondary schools in April, 2009 and administered to the Adolescent Interpersonal Trust Scale, the Parental Monitoring Scale, and the Parent-Adolescent Communication Scale.


RESULTS
Adolescents' trust in their parents was positively related to parental monitoring and parent-adolescent communication. Furthermore, parent-adolescent communication mediated the association between parental monitoring and adolescents' trust in their parents. The mediation model fit data of both genders and three age groups equally well.


CONCLUSIONS
Parental monitoring and parent-adolescent communication play an importance role in fostering adolescents' trust in their parents.
Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PRC.
Liuhua
L
Ying
Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PRC.
Fengling
F
Ma
Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PRC.
Huahua
H
Huang
National Innovation Center for Assessment of Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, PRC.
Xiaolin
X
Guo
Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, United States of America.
Chuansheng
C
Chen
Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PRC.
Fen
F
Xu
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D003142:Communication; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D035502:Trust