Parents’ Political Ideology Predicts How Their Children Punish

Abstract

From an early age, children are willing to pay a personal cost to punish others for violations that do not affect them directly. Various motivations underlie such “costly punishment”: People may punish to enforce cooperative norms (amplifying punishment of in-groups) or to express anger at perpetrators (amplifying punishment of out-groups). Thus, group-related values and attitudes (e.g., how much one values fairness or feels out-group hostility) likely shape the development of group-related punishment. The present experiments ( N = 269, ages 3−8 from across the United States) tested whether children’s punishment varies according to their parents’ political ideology—a possible proxy for the value systems transmitted to children intergenerationally. As hypothesized, parents’ self-reported political ideology predicted variation in the punishment behavior of their children. Specifically, parental conservatism was associated with children’s punishment of out-group members, and parental liberalism was associated with children’s punishment of in-group members. These findings demonstrate how differences in group-related ideologies shape punishment across generations.

Parent and community political orientation predicts children's health behaviours

“…Though researchers have examined whether people's political ideologies are informed by their parents' politics (e.g., Jennings & Niemi, 1968), surprisingly little work has examined the direct impact of parents' and communities' political leanings on children's psychology. Do Several studies in developmental and political psychology suggest that political ideologies and partisanship can inform children's psychology (Guidetti et al, 2021;Leshin et al, 2022;Reifen Tagar et al, 2014;Hammond & Cimpian, 2021;Rhodes & Gelman, 2009;Segall et al, 2015). For instance, in terms of moral behaviour, parental conservatism (vs. liberalism) is linked to greater out-group punishment in children (Leshin et al, 2022).…”

“…Several studies in developmental and political psychology suggest that political ideologies and partisanship can inform children's psychology (Guidetti et al., 2021; Leshin et al., 2022; Reifen Tagar et al., 2014; Hammond & Cimpian, 2021; Rhodes & Gelman, 2009; Segall et al., 2015). For instance, in terms of moral behaviour, parental conservatism (vs. liberalism) is linked to greater out‐group punishment in children (Leshin et al., 2022). And, in terms of prejudice, children living in conservative (vs. liberal) communities more strongly reject claims of varying race individuals as being part of the same category (Rhodes & Gelman, 2009).…”

“…When examining the proposed parental–child link, we also exploratorily examined whether theoretically relevant variables, specifically children's age and COVID‐19 severity in participants’ locations, moderated this proposed link. Doing so contributes to the existing debate on whether parental influences become stronger with age (Gelman et al., 2004; Berndt, 1979; Leshin et al., 2022), and helps elucidate whether the predictive power of parental political ideology remains even during periods of heightened health risks – periods of high viral spread in which failing to protect against COVID‐19 had substantial consequences, including increased mortality (e.g., Woolf et al., 2020). By examining these moderations, we go beyond solely establishing the expected connection between parental political ideology and children's responses to COVID‐19; we also learn under which circumstances political orientation more or less strongly predicts children's health behaviours.…”

Preregistered Replication and Extension of "Moral Hypocrisy: Social Groups and the Flexibility of Virtue"

“…However, we could find a "black sheep effect" by which people who were highly identified with their groups judge in-group members more harshly for committing a moral transgression (Marques et al, 1988). This effect may also depend on political ideology-prior work suggests that conservatism is associated with out-group punishment, whereas liberalism is associated with in-group punishment (Leshin et al, 2022). Thus, we examined the effect of both political extremism and political ideology on the level of in-group and out-group fairness judgements in an exploratory analysis.…”

Naturalistic Generative Narratives Reveal Effects of Social Characteristics on Decision-Making

“…While attitudes are often prone to contrast effects (Hovland et al, 1957) and ingroup beliefs (Efferson et al, 2008), these ingroup preferences and outgroup dislikes can also be reflected in our demographics, including our political leaning (Leshin et al, 2022). Thus, contrast effects, ingroup favoritism, and political preferences provide additional rich contexts that can influence attitudes.…”