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The effect of parenting styles on the level of political trust among
adolescents.
Smets & Quintelier
Abstract
In this article we want to examine the effect of parenting styles on the political trust among
adolescents. Based upon Baumrind’s conceptualization of parenting styles and previous
studies we formulate three hypotheses. Using the Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012, we
find that adolescents raised in families with an authoritative parenting style have higher levels
of political trust, whereas adolescents raised in families with an authoritarian and a permissive
parenting style have lower levels of political trust. Second, we find that it is not the actual
parenting style of the parent, but the way adolescents perceive the parenting styles that has an
effect on their level of political trust. Third we find that the homogeneity of parenting styles
between parents does not intensify the levels of political trust among adolescents.
Keywords
Socialization, family, parenting styles, political trust
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Introduction
Most political attitudes are only expressed when reaching adulthood, yet they are
primarily developed during childhood and adolescence. Therefore, to fully understand how
political attitudes are formed, it is important to study the development of these attitudes
among children and adolescents. Most scholars agree that children learn political attitudes
through interactions with various socialization agents, such as the family, school and class
environment, media, peers, etc. Even though all of these agents have an influence on the
socialization process, scholars consider families, and parents in particular, to be one of the
main socialization agents (McIntosh, Hart, & Youniss, 2007; Padilla-Walker, 2007; Sherrod,
Flanagan, & Youniss, 2002; Steinberg & Silk, 2002; Steinberg, 2001). Ever since the 1960s,
when the study of political socialization started to receive scholarly attention, researchers
have tried to study the influence of the family on the development of various social and
political attitudes and behavior. In this article, we want to focus on the effect of parenting
styles on the level of political trust among adolescents. Previous research has shown that
adolescents already have a clear notion about the political institutions and are able to judge
the functioning of these institutions, resulting in a certain level of political trust, which
remains rather stable throughout adulthood (Claes, Hooghe, & Marien, 2012; Hooghe &
Wilkenfeld, 2007; Kokkonen, Esaiasson, & Gilljam, 2010; Torney-Purta & Amadeo, 2003).
Additionally, although previous research has shown that parents have an effect on the
development of these levels of political trust among adolescents (Jennings & Niemi, 1974;
Jennings, Stoker, & Bowers, 2009), most scholars do not tend to take parenting styles into
account in their research, while it has been demonstrated that this can have a favorable impact
on young people’s attitudes (Flanagan, 2013; Miklikowska & Hurme, 2011; Stattin, Persson,
Burk, & Kerr, 2011). In addition, when scholars do focus on parenting styles in their research,
they most often use data reported by mothers or the adolescents themselves (Dalhouse &
Frideres, 1996; Wray-Lake & Flanagan, 2012). However, this could bias the results, since
scholars found that the father also has an influence on the development of his child (Carlson,
2006; Gryczkowski, Jordan, & Mercer, 2009; Phares, Fields, Kamboukos, & Lopez, 2005). In
this study we will use data from adolescents, mothers as well as father to avoid this limitation.
A crucial factor in this socialization process is the quality of the parent-child
relationship. There already exist a long withstanding tradition to study the influence of the
parent-child relationship on the development of behavior and attitudes of the child. These
studies usually follow Baumrind’s notion that parenting styles are considered to be a subtle
process of socialization (Baumrind, 1968). In other words, through the ways of parenting,
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adolescents’ political values are influenced since they will transcend their experiences in the
family system onto the political system.
In sum, we want to examine the effect of parenting styles on the development of
political trust. Since interactions with authorities play an important role in the development of
political trust (Gniewosz, Noack, & Buhl, 2009) and family, and more specifically parents,
can be considered as authority figures during adolescence, we can assume that the
development of levels of political trust among adolescents could be affected by the parenting
styles of the parents. We will also examine whether parenting styles as perceived by the
adolescents affect the development of political trust, or rather the actual parenting styles (as
reported by the parents). In addition, we investigate whether the effects of the socialization
process are stronger in families with homogeneous parenting practices.
We will first give on overview of the existing studies on parenting styles and
socialization literature, resulting in three hypotheses. Next, we will operationalize the
variables we will use during the analyses. Next we perform multivariate regression analyses
to investigate our hypotheses. We end we an in-depth discussion about our findings.
The role of parenting styles in the socialization process
Individuals’ social and political behavior and attitudes are developed several years
before they can take part in politics as a full member of the political system (Davies, 1965).
This development is often driven by several socialization experiences. These experiences can
occur in different contexts: the school or classroom, with peers, through media or in family
context. Without diminishing the importance of other socialization agents, scholars often
consider parents as primary socialization agents (Maccoby, 1992; Sherrod et al., 2002;
Torney-Purta & Amadeo, 2003), even well beyond childhood (Jennings et al., 2009; Steinberg
& Silk, 2002). It is already widely accepted among scholars that the quality of family
relationships is crucial for the social and cognitive development of children and adolescents
(Luengo, Gómez-Fraguela & Romero, 2006). The family can be considered as a mini-system,
in which these experiences take place: experiences within this mini-system are transcended
onto the political system (e.g. Flanagan, 2013; Miklikowska & Hurme, 2011; Stattin et al.,
2011). In other words, what children or adolescents learn or feel within the family system,
will affect their behavior and attitudes towards the political system.
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One major influence in this mini-system is the style parents use to raise their children.
Feeling valued and respected are psychologically important experiences that adolescents
associate with the contexts in which they occur and these associations help motivate
adolescents’ choices in other contexts (Persson, Kerr, & Stattin, 2007). Parenting styles are
defined as a “constellation of attitudes towards the child that are communicated to the child
and that, taken together, create an emotional climate in which the parents’ behaviors are
expressed” (Darling & Steinberg, 1993: 488). In other words, parenting styles describe the
way parents interact with their child in different situations. Baumrind (1968) identified three
main typologies of parenting styles, based on parental control: the permissive, the
authoritarian and the authoritative parenting style. The permissive style implies that parents
tend to behave in a freely, non-punitive and acceptant way. They are open to their child’s
needs, but have very few demands and rules. In terms of control, the permissive parent tries to
avoid exerting control over their children. The authoritarian style implies that the parents do
exercise control over their child, by exerting power though strict rules and punishment. They
value obedience and respect and do not encourage any parent-child dialogue. The
authoritative style tries to find middle ground between the permissive and authoritarian style.
Authoritative parents are open for parent-child dialogue. They exercise control over their
children, but always attempt to explain their actions. In other words, parents use reason as
well as power when raising their children (Baumrind, 1968, 2005). Even though researchers
in this field often use a different operationalization to measure parenting styles, they have
consistently found that an authoritative style has positive effects on the personal, social and
political development of the child or adolescent (e.g. Allen, Porter, McFarland, McElhaney, &
Marsh, 2007; Baumrind, 2005; Kim-Spoon, Longo, & McCullough, 2012; Miklikowska &
Hurme, 2011; Wray-Lake & Flanagan, 2012), while authoritarianism and permissiveness have
a negative effect (e.g.Gniewosz et al., 2009; Persson et al., 2007; Raja, McGee, & Stanton,
1992).
In this article we want to examine whether parenting styles influences the development
of levels of political trust among adolescents. Previous research has shown that parental
warmth and involvement have a positive effect on the development of democratic behavior
and attitudes, while a controlling environment and personal attacks have shown to encourage
anti-democratic behavior and attitudes Research has also shown that being raised in an open
family system, with room for discussion and dialogue is positively linked to the adolescents’
feelings of parental trust. Subsequently, when adolescents are raised in a controlling family
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system with limited or harsh communication and (physical) punishment, this leads to lower
feelings of parental trust among adolescents (Kerr, Stattin, & Trost, 1999). Following these
findings and considering that the family functions as a mini system, it seems reasonable to
assume that parenting styles will affect the level of political trust among adolescents.
Following this, we formulate our first hypothesis.
H1: Adolescents raised in families with an authoritative parenting style will have
higher levels of political trust, while adolescents raised in families with an
authoritarian parenting style will have lower levels of political trust
However, there are most likely discrepancies between the parenting style the parents
think they use and how the adolescents interprets the style (Knafo & Schwartz, 2003; Padilla-
Walker & Carlo, 2004; Wray-Lake & Flanagan, 2012). It is therefore possible that
adolescents report different parenting styles than their parents, because they perceive it
differently. The question then is: which parenting style matters for the attitudes of the child,
the actual parenting style as intended by the parents or the parenting style as perceived by the
adolescent? Previous research found that, the democratic climate the youths perceive in the
family might be more important than the individual behavior of their parents (Dalhouse &
Frideres, 1996; Stattin et al., 2011). Following this, we have formulate our second hypothesis.
H2: It is not the intended parenting practices of the parent, but the way adolescents
perceive the parenting styles that has an effect on their level of political trust.
In addition, we also have to consider that both parents do not necessarily use the same
parenting style. It could very well be, for example, that the mother uses a more authoritarian
parenting style, while the father is more authoritative or vice versa. Therefore, it is equally
important to examine the dynamics between parents to have a complete and correct overview
of the effect of parenting styles on the development of political trust among adolescents.
There is little debate among scholars on the positive effects of parental homogeneity on the
intergenerational transmission of political behavior and attitudes, such as party preferences
(Jennings et al., 2009; Rico & Jennings, 2012; Zuckerman, Dasovic, & Fitzgerald, 2007) or
academic achievement (Gniewosz & Noack, 2012). Following this, it seems possible that
homogeneity of parenting styles also has an effect on the development of political behavior
and attitudes. We assume that the homogeneity of an authoritative parenting styles will have a
positive effect on the development of the adolescents’ level of political trust. Subsequently,
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homogeneity of an authoritarian and a permissive parenting style will have a negative effect
on the development of levels of political trust among adolescents. Following this, we have
formulate our final hypothesis.
H3: The homogeneity of parenting styles between mothers and fathers will have an
intensifying effect on the level of political trust among adolescents.
Data and methods
Data
To examine these hypotheses, we will use data from the first wave of the Parent-Child
Socialization Study (PCSS). This is a Belgian study among 3,426 adolescents and their
parents, which was conducted in the Spring of 2012. The aim of this survey is to examine the
development of various social and political behavior and attitudes among adolescents and the
influence of their parents on this development.
Participants
Adolescents. A total of 3,426 adolescents completed the questionnaire during one class
hour (50 minutes) in 59 Dutch language schools. The adolescents were selected by a stratified
random sample, based upon the location of the school and educational track (general,
technical, artistic and vocational) (Hooghe, Quintelier, Verhaegen, Boonen, & Meeusen,
2012). The respondents closely mirrored the distribution in the Flemish population among
educational tracks (44% general education, 3% artistic education, 33% technical education,
20% vocational education) and gender (54% boys, 46% girls) (Hooghe et al., 2012). 76.4% of
the adolescents reported that their parents are married or living together as if married, 6.3%
reported to spend equal time with their mother and father through co-parenting arrangements,
13% reported to mainly live with their mother and only 1.7% reported to mainly live with
their father. 1,5% of the adolescents marked “others” to describe their home situation (N =
2,063).
Parents. The adolescents received two additional questionnaires for their parents,
which could be filled out at home. The parents could send the questionnaires back via mail
free of charge. Parents who did not respond spontaneously were reminded twice through
telephone or e-mail. For 72.2% of the adolescents one parent answered. For 60.8% of the
adolescents both parents filled out the questionnaire. This results in a total of 2,085 complete
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child-mother-father triads. To be able to examine the influence of both mothers and fathers,
only these complete triads will be used during the analyses.
Advantages and limitations of the PCSS
Besides questions about political and social attitudes, such as political and social trust,
the adolescents’ and parents’ surveys entailed questions about the family structure and
parenting styles. This means we have direct information about adolescents and both parents in
regard to our hypotheses. Since most other research tends to focus on the influence of only
one parent (Dalhouse & Frideres, 1996; Wray-Lake & Flanagan, 2012), the PCSS provides us
with a great advantage since we are able to examine the effects of both parents. In addition,
some questions about parenting styles were asked about mother and father separately in the
adolescent’ survey. This means we can examine the effects of the mothers and fathers
separately. Moreover, our design allows us to examine the perceived as well as the actual
parenting practices of the parents. All of the former described reasons make the PCSS utterly
appropriate to examine our hypotheses. A disadvantage of the survey is that the study is
limited to Dutch language adolescents in Belgium and therefore cannot be generalized toward
other political systems.
Methods
First we conducted exploratory and bivariate analyses. Second, we conducted several
OLS multivariate regression analyses on the PCSS to examine our hypotheses.
Operationalization
Parenting styles.
Baumrind (1968) defined three types of parenting styles: permissive, authoritarian and
authoritative. In this article, we consider three variables to measure these parenting styles:
communication with parents, encouragement from parents and strictness of the parents. A
high score communication and encouragement and a low score on strictness coincide with a
permissive parenting style. A low score on communication and encouragement and a high
score on strictness correspond with an authoritarian style. A high score on communication
and encouragement, and a low score on strictness coincide with an authoritative style. I will
briefly discuss the operationalization of these variables (for a full overview of the questioning
see Appendix A).
Communication with parents. This variable consists out of three questions, ranging
from 1 (I never agree with this) to 4 (I always agree with this). The questions were posed in
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the adolescent’ and parents’ questionnaire, leading to three different variables: the
adolescents’ communication with their parents (eigenvalue: 1.99; explained variance: 66.21%;
Cronbach’s alpha: .74), communication with adolescent’ child reported by the mother
(eigenvalue: 2.03; explained variance: 67.98%; Cronbach’s alpha: .76) and communication
with adolescent’ child reported by the father (eigenvalue: 1.98; explained variance: 66.06%;
Cronbach’s alpha: .77). For the first hypothesis, the variable adolescents’ communication with
the parents was used, for the third hypothesis the variables communication with adolescent’
child reported by the mother and communication with adolescent’ child reported by the
father was used.
Encouragement from parents. This variable also consists out of three questions
ranging from 1 (I never agree with this) to 4 (I always agree with this). The variable was only
asked in the adolescents’ survey, but for mother and father separately, leading to the creation
of two variables: encouragement from mothers (eigenvalue: 2.33; explained variance:
58.32%; Cronbach’s alpha: .75) and encouragement from fathers (eigenvalue: 2.43; explained
variance: 60.62%; Cronbach’s alpha: .74). To examine the second hypothesis, we constructed
an interaction term between the variables encouragement from the mother and encouragement
from the father.
Strictness of the parents. This variable consists out of three questions, ranging from 1
(I never agree with this) to 4 (I always agree with this). This question was posed for both
parents combined and only in the adolescents’ survey. It leads to the creation of one new
variable: strictness of the parents (eigenvalue: 1.63; explained variance: 54.31%; Cronbach’s
alpha: .57).
Political trust
In the survey, the standard question to measure political trust was used: “to what
extent do you have trust in the following institutions ranging from 0 to 10” (0 meaning ‘no
trust at all’, 10 meaning ‘completely trusting’)? The included institutions are the police, the
courts, the Belgian parliament, the regional parliament, the Belgian government, the European
Union and political parties.
We constructed a sum scale to create a variable levels of political trust of the
adolescent (eigenvalue: 4.47; explained variance: 63.84%; Cronbach’s alpha: .90). We
repeated the same method to construct the variables levels of political trust of the mother
(eigenvalue: 4.95; explained variance: 70.70%; Cronbach’s alpha: .93) and levels of political
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trust of the father (eigenvalue: 4.95; explained variance: 70.66%; Cronbach’s alpha: .93),
which were used as control variables.
Control variables
Gender. Some scholars have found that gender has an effect on the level of political
trust (Hetherington, 1998; Zmerli & Hooghe, 2011). Girls were coded as one, boys were
coded as zero.
Educational track. We used educational track as indicator for the adolescents’
education level1. We recoded the original variable into dummy variables grouped by
education tracks. There are four main educational tracks in Flanders: general, technical,
artistic and vocational track. We constructed three dummy variables (technical, artistic and
vocational education track). The general education track was the largest group and hence
selected as reference category.
Analyses
Table 1 shows that the mean scores of the levels of political trust are more or less
similar for the mother and the father (p<.001). This indicates that gender does not have an
strong effect on the level of political trust. Adolescents, however, have a slightly higher mean
score for their level of political trust in comparison with their parents (p<.000).. This is in line
with previous research that found that children tend to be more positive towards authority and
that these positive feelings decline while growing up (Easton & Dennis, 1969).
Looking at the parenting styles measures, we can conclude that parents tend to report
overly positive about their parenting styles (Table 1). The mean scores of communication
with the adolescent are close to the maximum, meaning that most parents tend to agree with
the propositions about communication. In this regard, we notice discrepancies between
parents and their children, since the adolescents tend to report more negatively about their
parents’ communication patterns (p<.000)..
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for the sample
Mean Minimum Maximum SD
1 We also controlled for the parents educational level, which also has an significant effect on the adolescents’
level of political trust. However, the significance disappears when educational track is included in the model,
suggesting that the education level of the adolescent has a more significant effect on the level of political trust
than the parents’ education level.
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Level of political trust of the
adolescent
5.51 0 10 1.695
Level of political trust of the mother 4.99 0 10 1.785
Level of political trust of the father 4.82 0 10 1.956
Communication with parents 2.89 1 4 .715
Encouragement from mother 3.06 1 4 .667
Encouragement from father 2.86 1 4 .594
Strictness of the parents 2.76 1 4 .594
Communication with adolescents
(mother)
3.46 1 4 .513
Communication with adolescents
(father)
3.31 1 4 .490
Source: Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012. Entries are means and standard deviations of the
dependent and independent variables.
The bivariate analyses show that there is a significant correlation between the
adolescents’ level of political trust and our measures for parenting styles as reported by the
adolescents, while there is no significant correlations between the measures for parenting
styles as reported by the parents (Table 2). This shows that the parenting styles as perceived
by the adolescents affect their levels of political trust, while the parenting styles as intended
by the parents do not have an effect on the development of political trust among adolescents.
These results strongly indicate that our first and second hypothesis could be confirmed.
However, to examine our hypotheses correctly we have to perform a multivariate analysis,
which allows to control for other influential variables.
Table 2. Correlations with adolescents’ level of political trust and the independent variables
Level of political trust of
adolescents
N
Level of political trust of the mother .132** 1991
Level of political trust of the father .128** 1931
Communication with parents .197** 2026
Encouragement from mother .121** 2019
Encouragement from father .159** 1960
Strictness of the parents .150** 2019
Communication with adolescents (mother) -.002ns 2011
Communication with adolescents (father) .011ns 1923 Source: Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012. Entries are Pearson correlations with political trust of
the child. Sign: * p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001.
Next, we performed three multivariate regression analyses to examine the hypotheses.
The first model (Table 3) investigates whether parenting styles as reported by the adolescents
have an effect on the level of political trust among adolescents (hypothesis 1) and whether
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parenting styles as reported by the parents have a larger effect on the level of political trust
among the adolescent (hypothesis 2).In addition, we also examined the hypotheses for
families where parents live together and families where parents do not live together
separately, but the results were similar to the overall analyses (for a full overview of the
results, see Appendix C). The second model (Table 4) tests the effect of the interaction
between the parenting style of the mother and the father (hypothesis 3).
The first model (Table 3) shows that parenting styles significantly affect the level of
political trust among adolescents. We used three measures to examine the effect of parenting
style: communication with parents, encouragement from parents and strictness of the parents.
The results show that communication with parents has a positive and significant effect on the
adolescents’ level of political trust (β= .132, p<.000). This means that if parents have more
dialogue with their child and are open to discussion with their child, the higher the level of
political trust will be for the adolescent. Similar results were found for encouragement from
parents (β= .061, p=.012). When parents encourage their child to be independent and make
their own decisions and when they comfort them when they feel sad, this will also lead to
higher levels of political trust among adolescents. However, it is important to know how
parenting styles influence the political trust of the child: is it the parenting style as reported by
the parent or the parenting style as reported by the child that matters?. This analysis showed
that while encouragement from the father has a significant, positive effect on the adolescents’
levels of political trust (β= .100, p<.000), encouragement from the mother is not significant
(β= -.004, p=894) (for full overview of the results see Appendix B). Even if we only include
encouragement from the mother into the model, the effect remains not significant. A possible
explanation for this could be that fathers are traditionally seen as authority figures, while
mother are seen as more encompassing (Easton & Dennis, 1969; Phares et al., 2005). So if the
father is more encouraging, this will have a stronger effect because it is less expected by the
adolescent. The adolescents also perceive the mother as more encouraging than fathers (on
average). It could be that a lack of variance on the mother variable also affected the results.
The strictness of the parents also has a positive and significant effect (β= .126, p<.000). This
result indicates that when parents have strict rules and punish their child when it does not
respect these rules, this will also lead to higher levels of political among adolescents.
Consequently, adolescents raised in households with few rules and no punishment, will have
lower levels of political trust.
These findings are in line with previous findings: while more communication, more
encouragement and more strictness (i.e. an authoritative parenting style) has a positive effect
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on the development of levels of political trust among adolescents, low communication and
encouragement and high strictness (i.e. an authoritarian parenting style) and high
communication, high encouragement and low strictness (i.e. a permissive style) lead to the
development of lower levels of political trust among adolescents. These results confirm the
hypothesis that an authoritative style leads to higher levels of political trust, while an
authoritarian or permissive style lead to lower levels of political trust. The results of our
separate analysis provide additional proof for the hypothesis (see Appendix C).
Table 3 also shows whether parenting styles as reported by parents have an effect on
the adolescents’ level of political trust. By examining the parenting styles as reported by the
parents we can investigate whether the actual parenting style or the perceived parenting style
affects the development adolescents’ levels of political trust (hypothesis 2). We could only
use one measure to examine this hypothesis: communication with the adolescent reported by
parents.
The results show that communication with adolescents as reported by parents does not
have a significant effect on the adolescents’ level of political trust (β= -.011, p= .621). Even
when we examine the communication with the adolescent for mothers and fathers separately,
we do not find a significant effect (for full overview of the results see Appendix B). This
confirms our second hypothesis: the parenting style as perceived by the adolescent affects the
development of their level of political trust, not the actual parenting style as it was reported by
the parents. This result is in line with previous studies, which found that parents do not
always send clear messages to the adolescents, which causes discrepancies between the
original message of the parents and the interpretation of this messages by the adolescents.
However, how adolescents interpret the messages are more influential than the actual
messages the parents send, even if the interpretation is inconsistent with the original intend
(Padilla-Walker & Carlo, 2004; Wray-Lake & Flanagan, 2012).
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Table 3: the effect of the perceived and actual parenting styles on the development of levels of
political trust among adolescents.
Effect of parenting styles on
adolescents’ levels of political
trust
B β
Parenting practice
Communication with
parents (reported by the
adolescents)
.314 (.059) .132***
Encouragement from
parents (reported by the
adolescents)
.174 (.070) .061*
Strictness of the parents
(reported by the
adolescents)
.361 (.062) .126***
Communication with
adolescent (reported by
parents)
-.036 (.074) -.011ns
Control variables
Girl .035 (.074) .010ns
TSO -.288 (.083) -.080***
KSO -.877(.239) -.079***
BSO -.611(.115) -.120***
Political trust of the
parents
.144 .023) ,133***
Intercept 2.633 (.368)***
R² 9.5%
N 2013 Source: Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012. The entries in the first column are unstandardized
coefficients with standard errors between brackets. The second column contains standardized
coefficient to enhance the comparability between the variables. Note: * p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001.
The second model (Table 4) investigates how the interaction between the mother’s and
father’s parenting style affects the adolescents’ levels of political trust (hypothesis 3). We
examined this by calculating an interaction term between the variables encouragement from
the mother and encouragement from the father. In addition, we also tested interaction terms
between the perceived parenting styles of the adolescents and the actual parenting styles as
reported by the parents, for results see Appendix D. The interaction term between
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encouragement from the mother and encouragement from the father has no significant effect
on the adolescents’ levels of political trust (β= -.006, p= .964). In addition, we tested an
interaction term for the parenting styles as reported by the parents, which also was not
significant (β= -.403, p= .096). This means that parents do not necessarily have to utilize the
same parenting style in order to have an effect on the adolescents level of political trust, for
example, an authoritarian mother will not influence the effect of an authoritative father on the
development of political trust. Following these results, we cannot confirm the third
hypothesis. These finding are in contrast with previous research on parental homogeneity,
which found that when parents have the same political preferences the socialization will be
stronger (Jennings et al., 2009; Rico & Jennings, 2012; Zuckerman et al., 2007). A possible
explanation is that adolescents transcend the experiences they have with their mother and
father individually onto the political system. That we found similar findings for families
where parents live together and families where parents live apart further strengthens this
assumption, since in the latter group parents do not fit their parenting styles as much as in the
former group.
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Table 4. The effect of interaction between the parenting style of the mother and father on the
development of levels of political trust among adolescents.
Effect of homogeneous parenting styles on
adolescents’ levels of political trust
B (s.e.) Β
Parenting practice
Encouragement from mother (reported by
the adolescent) .176 (.196) .069ns
Encouragement from father (reported by
the adolescent) .349 (.217) .149ns
Communication with adolescent
(reported by the mother)
.756 (.521) .228ns
Communication with adolescent
(reported by the father)
.904 (.558) .261ns
Interaction term
Encouragement from
mother*encouragement from father
-.003 (.067) -.006ns
Communication with
mother*communication with father
-.260 (.156) -.407ns
Control variables
Girl .011 (.078) .003ns
TSO -.303 (.086) -.085***
KSO -.936 (.269) -.079***
BSO -.560 (.125) -.106***
Political trust of the mother .068 (.023) .071**
Political trust of the father .067 (.021) .077***
Intercept .926 (1.968)ns
R² 7.6%
N 1863 Source: Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012. The entries in the first column are unstandardized
coefficients with standard errors between brackets. The second column contains standardized
coefficient to enhance the comparability between the variables. Note: * p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001.
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Discussion
At the beginning of the article, we formulated three hypotheses concerning the effect
of parenting styles on the level of political trust among adolescents. Following previous
research, we examined whether parenting styles have an effect on the adolescents’ level of
political trust (hypothesis 1), whether it is the actual or the perceived parenting styles that
affects the development of levels of political trust among adolescents (hypothesis 2) and
whether the interaction between parents affect the development of levels of political trust
(hypothesis 3). We investigated these hypotheses by performing multiple multivariate
regression analyses.
Our analyses confirmed the first and second hypotheses, but we did not confirm the
third hypothesis. This means parenting styles have an effect on the levels of political trust
among adolescents: an authoritative style will lead to higher levels of political trust, while a
permissive or authoritarian style will lead to lower levels of political trust. In addition we
found that there are discrepancies between the style parents report they use and the style the
adolescents perceive their parents use. It is the parenting style that the adolescents perceive
that affects their development of levels of political trust. Finally, parents individually affect
the development of levels of political of their child. The interactions between the parenting
styles of both parents does not have an effect.
These findings have several implications. First, our findings clearly show that parents play
an important role for the development of political trust. Even though, some scholars propose
that the influence of the family declines during adolescence and other socialization agents
take the foreground (e.g. Vandell, 2000), our results suggest that what parents are still
important influences on the political development of adolescents. Adolescents remain part of
the family system and transcend the experiences within this system onto the political system.
Second, parents have to be aware that adolescent sometimes interpret the message they
send differently than how they originally intended. When looking at the means of the
variables, we already found discrepancies between the reports of the parents and adolescents,
indicating that parents and children do not always interpret things the same way. When further
analyzing this mechanism, we found that the parenting style as perceived by the adolescent is
influential. Parents therefore have to be aware of how they come across. Communication in
this regard is of the utter importance to make sure that there is as less inconsistencies as
possible between parents and adolescents.
17
Third, children transcend their individual experiences within the family system onto the
political system. Parents do not have to adopt the same parenting style to influence their child.
In addition, the parenting style of the father seems to affect the development of political trust
more than the parenting styles of the mother.
However, this study has some limitations we have to take into account. First, we based
ourselves on Flemish data for the analyses, which means we cannot make conclusions about
other political systems than the Flemish one. Second, to study the development of political
attitudes, such as trust, longitudinal data is required to control for trust in prior years (Wray-
Lake & Flanagan, 2012). Third, the measures for the first and second hypotheses are not
completely equal, since we have no information about the encouragement or authority
measures reported by the parents. This could perhaps bias the findings, since the models are
not completely identical. However, since the communication measures are identical, the
results are a proper indication of the hypothesis.
18
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Appendix A
Question wording for the variable “communication with parents”
To what extent do you agree with the following propositions? Ranging from 1 (never agree)
to 4 (always agree).
1. When I have a problem, I talk about it with my parents
2. My parents try to understand my point of view
3. My parents answer truthfully to all of my questions
Question wording for the variable “communication with adolescent”
To what extent do you agree with the following propositions? Ranging from 1 (never agree)
to 4 (always agree).
1. If my child has any problems, I talk about it with him/her
2. I try to understand the point of view of my child
3. I always answer truthfully to all of my child’s questions
Question wording for the variable “encouragement from parents”
To what extent do you agree with the following propositions? Ranging from 1 (never agree)
to 4 (always agree).
1. My mother/father encourages me to make my own decisions
2. My mother/father encourages me to do things my own way
3. My mother/father helps me to be independent
4. When I’m sad or blue, my mother/father notices this
Question wording for the variable “authority”
To what extent do you agree with the following propositions? Ranging from 1 (never agree)
to 4 (always agree).
1. There are clear rules at home about what is allowed and what is not allowed
2. Even when I have a different opinions, I shall do what my parents ask me
3. I know I will be punished at home when I do something I’m not allowed to do
23
Appendix B
Table 5. The effects of perceived and actual parenting styles on the development of
adolescents’ levels of political trust for mother and father examined separately.
Effect of parenting styles on
adolescents’ levels of political
trust
b β
Parenting practice
Communication with parents
(reported by the adolescents) .329 (.063) .140***
Encouragement from mother
(reported by the adolescents) -.009 (.068) -.004ns
Encouragement from father
(reported by the adolescents) .235 (.059) .100***
Strictness of the parents
(reported by the adolescents) .319 (.064) .112***
Communication with
adolescent (reported by the
mother)
-.130 (.075) -.039ns
Communication with
adolescent (reported by the
father)
-.032 (.078) -.009ns
Control variables
Girl .039 (.085) .011ns
TSO -.311 (.085) -.087***
KSO -.967 (.265) -.081***
BSO -.534 (.124) -.101***
Political trust of the mother .065 (.023) .068**
Political trust of the father .070 (.021) .080***
Intercept 3.123 (.415)***
R² 10.4%
N 1857 Source: Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012. The entries in the first column are unstandardized
coefficients with standard errors between brackets. The second column contains standardized
coefficient to enhance the comparability between the variables. Note: * p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001.
24
Appendix C
Table 6. The effect of perceived parenting styles on the development of adolescents’ levels of
political trust for parents living together or not..
Effect of parenting styles on
adolescents’ levels of
political trust (non-divorced)
Effect of parenting styles on
adolescents’ levels of
political trust (divorced)
B β b β
Parenting practice
Communication with
parents (reported by the
adolescents)
.304 (.071) .130*** .449 (.144) .186**
Encouragement from
mother (reported by the
adolescents)
-.026 (.078) -.010ns .063 (.144) .025ns
Encouragement from father
(reported by the
adolescents)
.216 (.069) .091** .271 (.122) .122*
Strictness of the parents
(reported by the
adolescents)
.299 (.071) .107*** .419 (.159) .138**
Communication with
adolescent (reported by the
mother)
-.111 (.084) -.034ns
-.076 (.176) -.022ns
Communication with
adolescent (reported by the
father)
-.009 (.088) -.003ns
-.275 (.176) -.081ns
Control variables
Girl .054 (.085) .016ns .043 (.184) .012ns
TSO -.377 (.094) -.106*** .031 (.205) .009ns
KSO -1.356
(.313) -.108*** .044 (.520) .004ns
BSO -.550 (.412) -.100*** -.318 (.570) -.067ns
Political trust of the mother ,044 (.026) .047ns .130 (.052) .136*
Political trust of the father ,068 (.024) .078** .094 (.046) .107*
Intercept 3,357 (.457)*** 2,171 (1.005)*
R² 9.8% 15.2%
N 1503 354 Source: Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012. The entries are results from a multivariate regression
analysis with a split file between divorced or non-divorced families. The first column are
unstandardized coefficients with standard errors between brackets. The second column contains
standardized coefficient to enhance the comparability between the variables. Note: * p<.05; ** p<.01;
*** p<.001.
25
Appendix D.
Table 7. Interaction effects between the parenting style of the parents and the perceived
parenting style of the adolescent on the development of levels of political trust among
adolescents.
Effect of homogeneous parenting
styles on adolescents’ levels of
political trust
B Β
Parenting practice
Communication (reported by the adolescent) -.038 (.479) -.016ns
Encouragement from mother .027 (.197) .011ns
Encouragement from father .272 (.217) .116ns
Communication with adolescent (reported by the
mother)
.765 (.592) .231ns
Communication with adolescent (reported by the
father)
.640 (.607) .185ns
Interaction term
Encouragement from mother*encouragement from
father
-.006 (.066) -.013ns
Communication with mother*communication with
father
-.283 (.157) -.438ns
Communication (reported by adolescent)*
communication (reported by mother)
.008 (.105) .014ns
Communication (reported by adolescent)*
communication (reported by father)
.114 (.112) .195ns
Control variables
Girl .013 (.077) .004ns
TSO -.270 (.085) -.076**
KSO -.976 (.267) -.082***
BSO -.487 (.125) -.092***
Political trust of the mother ,068 (.023) ,071**
Political trust of the father ,069 (.021) ,079***
Intercept 1. 649 (2.230)ns
R² 9.3%
N 1863 Source: Parent-Child Socialization Study 2012. The entries in the first column are unstandardized
coefficients with standard errors between brackets. The second column contains standardized
coefficient to enhance the comparability between the variables. Note: * p<.05; ** p<.01; *** p<.001.