The intergenerational transmission of authoritarianism: The mediating role of parental goal promotion

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Abstract

This study examined the intergenerational transmission of adolescent authoritarian submission (Right-Wing Authoritarianism or RWA) and authoritarian dominance (Social Dominance Orientation or SDO). It was hypothesized that the type of goals that parents promote (i.e., conservation versus openness to change and extrinsic versus intrinsic goal promotion) would mediate any direct association between parents’ and adolescents’ authoritarian attitudes. This hypothesis was examined in a sample of middle adolescents and their parents. First, a significant parent–child concordance was found for RWA and SDO. Second, whereas parental RWA predicted parental promotion of conservation goals (rather than openness to change goals) as well as the promotion of extrinsic goals (rather than intrinsic goals), parental SDO predicted parental promotion of extrinsic goals only. Third, process analyses showed that, whereas parental conservation goal promotion mediates the relationship between parent and child RWA, parental extrinsic goal promotion mediates the relationship between parent and child SDO.

Section snippets

1. Introduction

Contemporary authoritarianism theory (Altemeyer, 1998) tends to view authoritarianism as a two-sided coin, with authoritarian submission or Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) providing submissive followers and authoritarian dominance or the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) providing power-seeking leaders. Several studies have investigated the correlates and consequences of RWA and SDO, converging on the conclusion that, albeit positively correlated, RWA and SDO represent independent and

2. Present study

The present study examines patterns of intergenerational transmission of authoritarian attitudes as well as the explanatory (i.e., mediating) role of parental goal promotion in these patterns. First, we hypothesized that there would exist intergenerational similarity in RWA and SDO. More specifically, we expected parent RWA to be uniquely and specifically related to adolescent RWA and parent SDO to be uniquely and specifically related to adolescent SDO (Hypothesis 1). Second, we expected parent

3.1. Participants

Participants were 905 high-school students who were recruited in six different secondary schools in the Flemish speaking part of Belgium (Mean age = 14.94; 51.22% male) and took part during regular school hours. All participants had the Belgian nationality. Of these participants, 747 came from intact families, 128 had parents that were divorced, 26 had a deceased parent, and one was an orphan. All students received additional questionnaires for their parents, and were asked to return these in a

4.1. Preliminary analyses

Before turning to the analyses that directly address our research questions, preliminary analyses were conducted. First, in order to get an indication of how the study variables are related and in order to check whether it would make sense to use adolescent and parent reports of the parental goal promotion dimensions as multiple indicators of the same underlying constructs, the raw correlations between the different constructs were investigated. Second, in order to decide whether it is whether

5. Discussion

This study aimed to examine (a) patterns of intergenerational transmission of dimensions of authoritarianism (i.e., RWA and SDO), and (b) the contribution of dimensions of parental goal promotion (i.e., extrinsic versus intrinsic and conservation versus openness to change goal promotion) in this transmission process. Findings favor a fairly specific intergenerational transmission model. Specifically, it was found (1) that there exists similarity in both parent and child RWA and parent and child

6. Conclusion

The present study attests to an importance sequence of events leading adolescents to adopt authoritarian attitudes. If parents hold authoritarian submissive attitudes, they are more likely to promote conservation rather than openness to change goals. In turn, being raised in a climate in which parents stress conservation goals at the expense of openness to change goals seems to lead adolescents to form authoritarian submissive attitudes themselves too. If parents hold authoritarian dominant

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    The contribution of the first author was supported by the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (FWO).

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