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

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.