Student Scholarship

Document Type

Research Paper

Abstract

This research paper explores the process of political socialization, specifically examining how political orientations, attitudes, and values are transmitted from parents to children. The author argues that political beliefs begin to form much earlier than traditionally assumed, with the period between ten and eighteen months being critical for intellectual development and fifty percent of intelligence being set by age four. Because children are highly dependent on the family for physical and emotional needs, they readily adopt the political identities and value systems of their parents to gain approval and avoid conflict. 

The document includes a study of 235 children in St. Charles, Missouri, conducted between 1969 and 1973. The findings indicate that children frequently mirror their parents' party preferences, though they often possess more information about their father’s political leanings than their mother’s. When asked for voting advice, children consistently identified their fathers as the primary authority figure, followed by their mothers. The author suggests this reflects a lingering social taboo against women in politics, as even young children perceive the father as the more dominant political actor. 

Furthermore, the paper details how child-rearing practices and the fulfillment of basic needs—physical, social, self-esteem, and self-actualization—shape an individual's future relationship with authority. Children initially view the government and figures like the President or policemen as benevolent, protective entities analogous to parents. As they mature, this personalized view transitions into an understanding of impersonal, institutionalized authority. The author concludes that while the family is the primary matrix for political maturation, environmental forces and social changes also influence whether a child moves toward democratic autonomy or remains in a state of authoritarian dependency.

Research Highlights

  • The Problem: This research examines political socialization and how families transmit political knowledge, attitudes, and values to children to ensure the persistence of a political system. 

  • The Method: The researcher conducted a study at various elementary schools in St. Charles, Missouri, interviewing 235 children aged four to sixteen between 1969 and January 1973. 

  • Quantitative Finding: 50% of a person's intelligence is set by age four; 75% of offspring in the United States share the same partisan preferences as their parents; out of 235 children, 114 did not know their party choice, 76 chose Democrat, and 43 chose Republican; 52 out of 76 Democratic children believed their fathers would also vote Democrat; 24 out of 43 Republican children believed their fathers would also vote Republican. 

  • Qualitative Finding: Children transition from personalized conceptions of authority, like the President or a policeman, to impersonal, institutionalized forms such as Congress or the Supreme Court; fathers are identified as the primary source for political guidance and advice over mothers; early childhood dependency on the family creates a "value screen" that influences political behavior and the ability to trust or cooperate in adulthood. 

  • Finding: Political socialization begins as early as age three, with children forming emotional attachments to the political community and its symbols before reaching a plateau of abstract conceptual identification by age nine or ten.

Publication Date

5-1973

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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