Correlates of Authoritarian Parenting in Individualist and Collectivist Cultures and Implications for Understanding the Transmission of Values

Abstract

Measures of authoritarianism, collectivism, warmth, anger, attributions for children’s misbehavior, and parental feelings of control over failure were administered to Egyptian Canadian and Anglo-Canadian men and women living in Canada. The Egyptian Canadians were higher on authoritarianism, collectivism, anger, and the men were higher on perceived control over failure. The best predictor of authoritarian parenting for the Egyptian Canadian group was collectivism. For the Anglo-Canadian group, the best predictors were collectivism and lack of warmth. Differences in the meaning of authoritarianism in collectivist and individualist groups and their meaning for the transmission of values are discussed: Higher levels of authoritarianism are not necessarily accompanied by overall lower levels of warmth; more negative (dispositional) attributions about children; or more automatic, maladaptive, and inflexible processing of information. Thus, the conditions that promote transmission of values—warmth and benign ways of thinking—are just as likely to be present in groups using authoritarian parenting.