Parent–Child Similarity in Common and Specific Components of Prejudice: The Role of Ideological Attitudes and Political Discussion

Hodson G., Dhont K.

Person-based factors influence a range of meaningful life outcomes, including intergroup processes, and have long been implicated in explaining prejudice. In addition to demonstrating significant heritability, person-based factors are evident in expressions of generalised prejudice, a robust finding that some people (relative to others) consistently score higher in prejudice towards multiple outgroups. Our contemporary review includes personality factors, ideological orientations (e.g., authoritarianism), religiosity, anxiety, threat, disgust sensitivity, and cognitive abilities and styles. Meta-analytic syntheses demonstrate that such constructs consistently predict prejudice, often at the upper bounds of effect sizes observed in psychological research. We conclude that prejudice theories need to better integrate person- and situation-based factors, including their interaction, to capture the complexity of prejudice and inform intervention development.

Dhont K., Hodson G.

Historically, leading scholars proposed a theoretical negative association between cognitive abilities and prejudice. Until recently, however, the field has been relatively silent on this topic, citing concerns with potential confounds (e.g., education levels). Instead, researchers focused on other individual-difference predictors of prejudice, including cognitive style, personality, negativity bias, and threat. Yet there exists a solid empirical paper trail demonstrating that lower cognitive abilities (e.g., abstract-reasoning skills and verbal, nonverbal, and general intelligence) predict greater prejudice. We discuss how the effects of lower cognitive ability on prejudice are explained (i.e., mediated) by greater endorsement of right-wing socially conservative attitudes. We conclude that the field will benefit from a recognition of, and open discussion about, differences in cognitive abilities between those lower versus higher in prejudice. To advance the scientific discussion, we propose the Cognitive Ability and Style to Evaluation model, which outlines the cognitive psychological underpinnings of ideological belief systems and prejudice.

Boonen J., Meeusen C., Quintelier E.

Research on the political development of adolescents is mainly focused on political engagement and attitudes. The more complex relationship between attitudes and voting behavior is less studied among citizens under the legal voting age. We investigate whether there is a link between social attitudes and voting propensities among Flemish adolescents, using data from the Parent–Child Socialization Study 2012. We observe attitude-vote consistency for three Flemish parties with a clear-cut ideological profile – the Green, radical rightist and Flemish Nationalist party. Findings show that adolescents' attitude-vote consistency is reinforced by their level of political sophistication. The correspondence between social attitudes and vote choice, however, is not impressive and significantly lower than among experienced adults, leaving room for other influential factors.

Dhont K., Hodson G.

• Right-wing ideology predicts acceptance of animal exploitation and meat consumption. • Two community-sample studies address why . • Human-supremacy beliefs and perceived vegetarianism threat explain the associations. • Findings hold after controlling for hedonistic pleasure from meat-eating. Despite the well-documented implications of right-wing ideological dispositions for human intergroup relations, surprisingly little is understood about the implications for human–animal relations. We investigate why right-wing ideologies – social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) – positively predict attitudes toward animal exploitation and meat consumption. Two survey studies conducted in heterogeneous community samples (Study 1, N = 260; Study 2, N = 489) demonstrated that right-wing ideologies predict greater acceptance of animal exploitation and more meat consumption through two explaining mechanisms: (a) perceived threat from non-exploitive ideologies to the dominant carnist ideology (for both SDO and RWA) and (b) belief in human superiority over animals (for SDO). These findings hold after controlling for hedonistic pleasure from eating meat. Right-wing adherents do not simply consume more animals because they enjoy the taste of meat, but because doing so supports dominance ideologies and resistance to cultural change. Psychological parallels between human intergroup relations and human–animal relations are considered.

Meeusen C.

The aim of this article is to investigate the role of parental cross-group friendships on the anti-immigrant prejudice of their children. It is hypothesized that the relation between parental cross-group friendship and the child’s prejudice can be mediated by two intergenerational transmission mechanisms: (1) via parent–child similarity in prejudice, and (2) via parent–child similarity in cross-group friendship. Data stem from the Parent–Child Socialization Study (2012), a representative sample among adolescents and both their parents in Belgium. Controlling for the mediating mechanisms, no direct relationship between parental cross-group friendship and adolescents’ prejudice was found. Parental cross-group friendships was, however, indirectly related via parent–child anti-immigrant prejudice and cross-group friendship similarity. It is concluded that prejudice is strongly related within families.

Dhont K., Hodson G., Costello K., MacInnis C.C.

Recent theorizing suggests that biases toward human outgroups may be related to biases toward (non-human) animals, and that individual differences in desire for group dominance and inequality may underlie associations between these biases. The present investigation directly tests these assumptions. As expected, the results of the current study ( N  = 191) demonstrate that endorsing speciesist attitudes is significantly and positively associated with negative attitudes toward ethnic outgroups. Importantly, individual differences in social dominance orientation accounted for the association between speciesist and ethnic outgroup attitudes; that is, these variables are associated due to their common association with social dominance orientation that underpins these biases. We conclude that social dominance orientation represents a critical individual difference variable underlying ideological belief systems and attitudes pertaining to both human–human intergroup and human–animal relations.

Meeusen C.

This article reports on the intergenerational transmission of environmental concern and the explanatory power of communication patterns within the family. Using representative data from the Parent-Child Socialization Study in Belgium (PCSS, 2012), this article focuses on the relative influence of the mother and the father, and gender-specific patterns in the transmission of environmental attitudes. The results clearly confirm the transmission hypothesis: both the mother and the father have a significant influence on the environmental concern of their offspring. No gender-specific transmission mechanisms were found. In families that communicate regularly about the environment, transmission was more effective. Nevertheless, the transmission effects were only moderate, indicating that environmental concern may not be a core attitude within Belgian families.

Lewis G.J., Kandler C., Riemann R.

In-group favoritism has often been conceptualized as the flip side of out-group derogation. Whereas research has dissociated these attitudes at the phenotypic level, it is currently unknown whether such dissociation is also evident at the biological level. Here, using an adult German twin sample, which provided ratings on patriotism, nationalism, and prejudice, we tested whether common or distinct heritable influences best explained variation in in-group love and out-group derogation. Results indicated that independent genetic effects accounted for individual differences in in-group love (i.e., patriotism) and out-group derogation (i.e., prejudice). In addition, we observed that nationalism showed common genetic links to both patriotism and prejudice, albeit through distinct pathways. These findings suggest that in-group sentiment is complex at the genetic level as well as at the behavioral level. Future work is recommended to further delineate the specific biological processes underlying these heritable effects.

Hooghe M., Boonen J.

The intergenerational transmission of political orientations has been the topic of considerable research over the past few decades, but much of the evidence remains limited to two-party systems. In this study, we use data from the first wave of the Parent–Child Socialization Study conducted among 3,426 adolescents and their parents in the Flemish region of Belgium. Even in this multiparty system, we find a strong correspondence between voting intentions of parents and children, enhanced by the degree of politicization within the family. Talking about politics among parents and children has a significant positive effect on parent–child party correspondence, and more particularly political discussion with one’s father seems to have a stronger effect on father–child party correspondence than discussion with one’s mother does on mother–child correspondence.

Lewis G.J., Bates T.C.

Research has shown that in-group favoritism is associated with concerns over the maintenance of social norms. Here we present two studies examining whether genetic factors underpin this association. A classical twin design was used to decompose phenotypic variance into genetic and environmental components in two studies. Study 1 used 812 pairs of adult U.S. twins from the nationally representative MIDUS II sample. Study 2 used 707 pairs of middle-age twins from the Minnesota Twin Registry. In-group favoritism was measured with scales tapping preferences for in-group (vs. out-group) individuals; norm concerns were measured with the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire-Traditionalism (Study 1) and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Study 2) scales. In Study 1, heritable effects underlying traditionalism were moderately (c. 35%) overlapping with the genetic variance underpinning in-group favoritism. In Study 2, heritable influences on RWA were entirely shared with the heritable effects on in-group favoritism. Moreover, we observed that Big Five Openness shared common genetic links to both RWA and in-group favoritism. These results suggest that, at the genetic level, in-group favoritism is linked with a system related to concern over normative social practices, which is, in turn, partially associated with trait Openness.

Ludeke S., Johnson W., Bouchard T.J.

Social attitudes, political attitudes and religiousness are highly inter-correlated. Furthermore, each is substantially influenced by genetic factors. Koenig and Bouchard (2006) hypothesized that these three areas (which they termed the Traditional Moral Values Triad) each derive from an underlying latent trait concerning the tendency to obey traditional authorities. We tested this hypothesis with data from a sample of twins raised in different homes. We assessed social attitudes with Altemeyer’s (1988) Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale, political attitudes with Wilson and Patterson’s (1968) Conservatism scale, and religiousness with Wiggins’ (1966) Religious Fundamentalism scale. The best-fitting model identified the three TMVT domains as different manifestations of a single latent and significantly heritable factor. Further, the genetic and environmental bases for this factor overlapped heavily with those for the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire Traditionalism scale, supporting the conception of traditionalism as the latent factor represented by the three scales in contemporary Western societies.

Dhont K., Roets A., Van Hiel A.

Previous research has identified need for closure (NFC) as an important motivational-cognitive basis of authoritarianism and prejudice. However, to date, the role of NFC in the intergenerational similarity in authoritarianism and prejudice has remained unclear. In a sample of 169 parent–child dyads, we investigated the similarity between parents and children in NFC and tested whether this intergenerational similarity may account for the intergenerational similarity in authoritarianism and anti-immigrant prejudice. Our results revealed that parental levels of NFC were indeed concordant with the levels of NFC in their children. Even more importantly, parental NFC was indirectly related to child authoritarianism and prejudice in two ways. The first pathway proceeded through the direct relationships between parental and children’s levels of authoritarianism and prejudice. The second pathway, however, bypassed parental levels of authoritarianism and prejudice and proceeded through the intergenerational similarity in NFC. Our findings thus indicate that a significant portion of children’s levels of authoritarianism and anti-immigrant prejudice can be explained by parent–child similarity in motivated cognition. Implications for developmental theories of prejudice acquisition are discussed.

Pratto F., Çidam A., Stewart A.L., Zeineddine F.B., Aranda M., Aiello A., Chryssochoou X., Cichocka A., Cohrs J.C., Durrheim K., Eicher V., Foels R., Górska P., Lee I., Licata L., et. al.

We tested the internal reliability and predictive validity of a new 4-item Short Social Dominance Orientation (SSDO) scale among adults in 20 countries, using 15 languages ( N = 2,130). Low scores indicate preferring group inclusion and equality to dominance. As expected, cross-nationally, the lower people were on SSDO, the more they endorsed more women in leadership positions, protecting minorities, and aid to the poor. Multilevel moderation models showed that each effect was stronger in nations where a relevant kind of group power differentiation was more salient. Distributions of SSDO were positively skewed, despite use of an extended response scale; results show rejecting group hierarchy is normative. The short scale is effective. Challenges regarding translations, use of short scales, and intersections between individual and collective levels in social dominance theory are discussed.

Degner J., Dalege J.

Understanding the formation of prejudice, stereotypes, and discrimination has long been a core topic of social psychology. Since the seminal theorizing by Allport in 1954, different views on childhood origins of prejudice have been discussed, in which the role of parental socialization varies on a scale from fundamental to negligible. This meta-analysis integrates the available empirical evidence of the past 60 years and critically discusses the current state of knowledge on parental socialization of intergroup attitudes. A random-effects model analysis of data from 131 studies on over 45,000 parent-child dyads indicated a significant medium-sized average effect size for the correlation between parental and child intergroup attitudes. The average effect size was related to study-specific variables, such as the source of parental attitude report (self vs. child reported), the conceptual overlap between measures, and the privacy of assessment. We also found significant moderations by ingroup status and size as well as child age. The latter was, however, mediated by measurement overlap. No significant effect size differences were found in relation to different components of intergroup attitudes (i.e., affective, cognitive, behavioral), nor to child or parent gender. The results unequivocally demonstrate that parent-child attitudes are related throughout childhood and adolescence. We discuss in detail whether and to what extent this interrelation can be interpreted as an indicator of parent-child socialization to allow a critical evaluation of the available contradicting theories. We furthermore address limitations of the available research and the current meta-analysis and derive implications and suggestions for future research.

Acar B., Van Assche J.

AbstractWhy people develop prejudice has been under the spotlight of many political and social psychological studies. The current contribution bridges the gap between individual and contextual perspectives and conceptualizes attitudes as joint products of personal ideologies and social norms, as such adopting a person‐within‐context approach. In two US samples (total N = 1150), representative in terms of age, gender, ethnic background (Studies 1–2), and political orientation (Study 2), we examined whether perceived levels of Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) in one's close groups (family, friends, colleagues, and people in one's town) were related to outgroup warmth and avoidance through one's own RWA and SDO. We also included norm enactment as a moderator of close‐group ideologies' effect on one's own ideologies. The results showed that close‐group ideologies were positively linked to participants' own RWA and SDO, which, in turn, were associated with lower outgroup warmth and higher outgroup avoidance in both studies. Most importantly, these effects were strongest for those who have a high desire to enact close‐group norms, and weakest for those who have a low desire for norm enactment. These findings highlight the significance of situating personal ideologies within their contextual plenum while studying intergroup relations.

Demarest L., Langer A.

Maratia F., Crocetti E.

AbstractThis study aimed to examine the processes of intergenerational transmission of attitudes toward migrant integration policies in families with adolescents. Participants included 809 adolescents (Mage = 15.61, range: 13.87–20.04 years), 545 fathers (Mage = 51.19, range: 38–77 years), and 716 mothers (Mage = 48.11, range: 33–68 years) involved in a longitudinal study with two assessments and a time‐lag of 1 year between them. Each family member completed the Attitudes towards Migrant Integration Policies scale. In addition, adolescents reported their perception of discussion of current events with parents and the level of support they receive from them. The cross‐lagged model highlighted a unidirectional transmission, with fathers' but not mothers' attitudes toward migrant integration policies influencing adolescents' attitudes. Furthermore, it has been examined which factors can either amplify or reduce the strength of intergenerational transmission processes considering individual characteristics of both adolescents (i.e., sex, age) and their parents (i.e., political orientation), and cultural (i.e., family, ethnic background) and relational (i.e., discussion of current events, perceived support from fathers and mothers) family characteristics. Individual factors (i.e., fathers' political orientation) and family relational characteristics (i.e., perceived support from fathers) moderated the transmission processes. The transmission was bidirectional when fathers reported being left‐wing and politically oriented and stronger when adolescents reported high support from their fathers. Thus, this study underscores the complexity of the family context, highlighting that the transmission of inclusive attitudes does not always operate in one way (e.g., from parents to children) or another, but in some cases, simultaneously.

Carvalho S.A., Lima M., Pascoal P.

Abstract Introduction Attitudes towards transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals are associated with discrimination against TGD people and underly TGD minority stress. Despite Portugal’s progressive legal framework, anti-trans interactions and discourse are reported. Nonetheless, studies on trans attitudes are still incipient in Portugal. The Transgender Knowledge, Attitudes, and Beliefs (T-KAB) scale is a psychometrically sound measure of transgender attitudes. However, its convergent validity with transphobia is yet to be tested, and its ability to study sociopolitical factors driving pro-trans attitudes is unexplored. Methods We explored the psychometric properties of the European Portuguese version of T-KAB in an online collected (February 2022 to May 2022) sample of Portuguese adults (N = 447), and tested differences (ANOVA; t-test) in T-KAB according to sociopolitical factors. Results Results from the Principal Axis Factoring and Parallel Analysis showed a two-factor measure of acceptance, comfort, and social tolerance towards trans people. Both factors presented an excellent internal consistency (α = .94 and α = .95) and were significantly associated with the Genderism and Transphobia Scale. Conclusions Results found that participants with a heterosexual orientation, less contact with TGD people, less educated, religious, and who endorsed a right-wing or conservative political ideology showed lower T-KAB scores. These results corroborate the psychometric validity of the T-KAB, as well as its ability to identify sociopolitical segments of the population according to their attitudes towards TGD people. Policy Implications This study informs future research on tailored interventions to increase transgender acceptance, comfort, and social tolerance in the general population.

Bobba B., Branje S., Crocetti E.

AbstractThe family and classroom are important contexts that can contribute to the socialization of ethnic prejudice. However, less is known about their unique, relative, and synergic contributions in influencing youth's affective and cognitive prejudice. The current longitudinal study examined these processes and possible moderators among 688 Italian youth (49.13% girls; Mage = 15.61 years), their parents (nmothers = 603, nfathers = 471; Mage = 49.51 years), and classmates between January/February 2022 and January/February 2023. Cross‐lagged panel models highlighted that parents and classmates exert unique and relative influences on different dimensions of adolescents' prejudice. Additionally, different interaction effects also emerged for affective (i.e., adverse compensatory effect) and cognitive (i.e., amplifying effect) prejudice. Thus, adolescents draw from the multiple contexts of development to orient themselves in the social world.

Huang F., Shamloo S.E., Li L., Cocco V.M., Vezzali L.

AbstractIn a multiethnic country like China, ethnic membership is an important dimension of social construction, and interethnic contact is a necessary component of social interactions. Family is the context where ethnic socialization takes place and where parents play a relevant role. The present study focused on the Hui‐Han interethnic context. Measures of perceived parent's ethnic socialization, interethnic contact, and essentialism were administrated to Hui minority (N = 560) and Han majority (N = 954) secondary students. Results indicated that parents' positive ethnic socialization (cultural socialization/pluralism, promotion of harmony) was associated with greater positive and lower negative contact, while negative ethnic socialization (preparation for bias, promotion of mistrust) had opposite effects. Essentialist views of ethnicity moderated the associations of perceived parents' positive ethnic socialization with positive contact: the association between positive ethnic socialization and positive contact was stronger among individuals with lower (vs. higher) essentialist views. Results did not differ across the majority and the minority group. Implications for prompting positive interethnic interactions and preventing negative contact are discussed.

Matić Bojić J., Bovan K.

In this paper, we explored how political knowledge related to generalised prejudice, defined as the common variance of three highly correlated specific prejudice concerning ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. We aligned our hypotheses with the Cognitive Ability and Style to Evaluation (CASE) model, which postulates the mechanism underlying the relationship between individual-level cognitive variables and intergroup outcomes. As knowledge in its many forms correlates with and serves as a proxy of cognitive abilities, we hypothesised that political knowledge, when considered a precursor of prejudice, can be expected to act similarly to cognitive variables within the CASE model. We performed an empirical test of the hypothesised relationships on a nationally representative sample of Croatian students in their final year of secondary education (aged 17–19). As expected, there was a significant negative association between political knowledge and generalised prejudice, both direct and indirect via right-wing authoritarianism. Youth with higher political knowledge had significantly lower levels of generalised prejudice. In addition, while there were differences in the overall levels of political knowledge, right-wing authoritarianism and generalised prejudice between students attending different secondary education programmes, the pattern of relationships between these concepts was found to be stable across educational settings.

Haselbach S., Beckmann L., Kliem S., Krieg Y.

AbstractRecent developments in society, together with an increase in the number of far-right motivated crimes in Germany, suggest that far right-wing attitudes are becoming increasingly popular within public opinion. Since political attitudes are shaped within the family and peer setting during the adolescent stage, assessing the potential interplay of family and peer relationships with regard to such attitudes appears essential. The present study aims to explore (1) the relationship between perceived parental far right-wing attitudes, as reported by adolescents, and adolescents’ self-reported far right-wing attitudes, as well as (2) the unique and moderating effects of variables related to the contact hypothesis (ethnic minority friends and exposure to ethnic minority group members in the social environment). Using data from a representative school survey of seventh and ninth grade German adolescents, multilevel linear regression models indicated a statistically significant positive association between adolescent-reported parental far right-wing attitudes and adolescents’ far right-wing attitudes. Furthermore, the analyses demonstrated a small but statistically significant moderating effect of friendship with individuals of an ethnic minority: the relationship between parental and adolescent far right-wing attitudes was weaker for adolescents who had more ethnic minority friends. Thus, adolescents who were friends with individuals of an ethnic minority appeared to be less congruent with their parents’ far right-wing attitudes, compared to adolescents without any ethnic minority friends. In contrast, the overall level of exposure to ethnic minority group members in the social environment did not affect the strength of the relationship between perceived parental and adolescent far right-wing attitudes.

van de Rozenberg T.M., Kroes A.D., van der Pol L.D., Groeneveld M.G., Mesman J.

Kudrnáč A., Eger M.A., Hjerm M.

According to scapegoat theory, individuals tend to attribute personal or social problems to an out-group (real or imagined). This self-serving bias protects the ego or social identity from responsibility while increasing prejudice towards the out-group blamed for feelings of frustration. In this research note, we test this theory using five waves of the Czech Household Panel Study (CHPS 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020), which captures the tail end of the 2015–2016 refugee crisis in Europe through the lockdown in response to COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We focus attention on both personal and professional domains, asking if factors like subjective health, work stress, relationship dissatisfaction, life dissatisfaction, and unhappiness contribute to attitudes towards immigrants over time. We also ask whether socio-political attitudes such as distrust in the government, social distrust, and political disinterest are associated with changes in anti-immigrant sentiment. Results show that personal and professional domains help explain between-individual differences in attitudes towards immigrants, while trust in the government and society are related to both within-individual change and between-individual differences in anti-immigrant sentiment.

Salmen A., Dhont K.

Oliver A., Navarro-Perez J., Tomás J.M., Rodrigo M.F.

Previous research on the antecedents of sexism against women have not considered simultaneously the effects of sex, personality, and cognitive variables (need for closure and critical thinking disposition) in relation to sexism. We evaluated whether in adolescence, these indicators could predict sexist attitudes towards women using structural models. The sample comprised 709 Spanish high-school students (mean age = 16.79). 51.5% were female. Sex (being male), need for closure and critical thinking were the most relevant predictors of sexism. The disposition to think critically is as relevant as the motivational dimension of cognition (need for closure) to predict sexism. Multi-group structural models by sex were estimated, and a moderator effect was found between openness to experience and sexism. We suggest future lines of research to disentangle the effects of personality and cognition on sexism and to guide intervention programs to reduce sexist attitudes among adolescents.

Reifen‐Tagar M., Cimpian A.

Saarinen A., Keltikangas‐Järvinen L., Dobewall H., Cloninger C.R., Ahola‐Olli A., Lehtimäki T., Hutri‐Kähönen N., Raitakari O., Rovio S., Ravaja N.

Low education, low cognitive abilities, and certain cognitive styles are suggested to predispose to social intolerance and prejudices. Evidence is, however, restricted by comparatively small samples, neglect of confounding variables and genetic factors, and a narrow focus on a single sort of prejudice. We investigated the relationships of education, polygenic cognitive potential, cognitive performance, and cognitive styles with social intolerance in adulthood over a 15-year follow-up.We used data from the prospective population-based Young Finns Study (n = 960-1679). Social intolerance was evaluated with the Social Intolerance Scale in 1997, 2001, and 2011; cognitive performance with the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery in 2011; cognitive styles in 1997; and socioeconomic factors in 1980 (childhood) and 2011 (adulthood); and polygenic cognitive potential was calculated based on genome-wide association studies.We found that nonrational thinking, polygenic cognitive potential, cognitive performance, or socioeconomic factors were not related to social intolerance. Regarding cognitive styles, low flexibility (B = -0.759, p < .001), high perseverance (B = 1.245, p < .001), and low persistence (B = -0.329, p < .001) predicted higher social intolerance consistently in the analyses.When developing prejudice-reduction interventions, it should be considered that educational level or cognitive performance may not be crucial for development of social intolerance. Adopting certain cognitive styles may play more important roles in development of social intolerance.

Zych I., Nasaescu E.