Are mother–child similarities in value orientations related to mothers' parenting? A comparative study of American and Romanian mothers and their adolescent children

Abstract

The current study investigated similarities between mothers' and their adolescent children's individualistic and collectivistic values by analysing data from 337 American mother-adolescent dyads and 100 Romanian mother-adolescent dyads. The two countries differ in the degree of socioeconomic and political changes as well as quality of intergenerational relationships, therefore differences in the extent of shared values between mothers and adolescents were expected. Similarities in value orientations between mothers and adolescents may be a result of actual transmission processes, but it may also be due to influences from the general value context in their society, an aspect often called Zeitgeist influence or cultural stereotype. Adolescents' perception of maternal parenting behaviours was hypothesized to moderate the similarities between mothers and adolescents. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that collectivistic values were transmitted more than individualistic values and that stronger value similarities were found within biological dyads compared to randomly assigned dyads or within the peer group. Additionally, maternal acceptance and control moderated the similarities between mothers and adolescents, and associations between perceived maternal parenting and adolescents' values were revealed.

Intergenerational Value Transmission Based on Culture

“…As mentioned earlier, collectivist values have shown to transmit much more effectively and more often than individualist values (Friedlmeier & Trommsdorff, 2011;Knafo & Schwarts, 2001). This success in value transmission stems from partially from the way children in collectivist societies are raised as well as the cultural pressures that influence the values they choose to adopt.…”

“…This research suggest that parents from collectivist cultures are passing down their values at a more successful rate than parents from individualist cultures. While this may be due to the authoritarian nature of collectivist parenting (Rudy & Grusec, 2006), where parents closely guide their children's belief systems, an important thing noted in Friedlmeier and Trommsdorff's (2011) study is that transmission of values was not only a result of parenting but also of the social environment or culture the child lived in.…”

“…While collectivism is not popular at a societal level in the United States, because of the integration of many immigrants from other nations in American society, there are families, social groups, and religious groups that still hold to the collectivist values they lived with in their native countries (Bowie et al, 2017;Friedlmeier & Trommsdorff, 2011).…”

“…The highly relationship-focused nature of collectivist societies make for strong family units and societies, however, it makes it difficult for those who want to pave their own path to do so. Collectivist societies are fervent about keeping traditional family values alive and well for generations to come (Friedlmeier & Trommsdorff, 2011).…”

“…Furthermore, in a study comparing value transmission in Romanian mother-adolescent dyads and American mother-adolescent dyads, Friedlmeier and Trommsdorff (2011) found that collectivistic values were detected in both Romanian and American dyads, but individualistic values were only present in American dyads. This finding shows that even in individualist societies, collectivist values are more often transmitted than are individualist values.…”