Heralding the Authoritarian? Orientation Toward Authority in Early Childhood

Michal Reifen Tagar; Christopher M. Federico; Kristen E. Lyons; Steven Ludeke; Melissa A. Koenig

doi:10.1177/0956797613516470

Heralding the Authoritarian? Orientation Toward Authority in Early Childhood

Michal Reifen Tagar¹; Christopher M. Federico^1,2; Kristen E. Lyons³; Steven Ludeke⁴; Melissa A. Koenig⁵

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota · ² Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota · ³ Department of Psychology, Metropolitan State University of Denver · ⁴ Department of Psychology, Colgate University · ⁵ Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota

Psychological Science 2014

In the research reported here, we examined whether individual differences in authoritarianism have expressions in early childhood. We expected that young children would be more responsive to cues of deviance and status to the extent that their parents endorsed authoritarian values. Using a sample of 43 preschoolers and their parents, we found support for both expectations. Children of parents high in authoritarianism trusted adults who adhered to convention (vs. adults who did not) more than did children of parents low in authoritarianism. Furthermore, compared with children of parents low in authoritarianism, children of parents high in authoritarianism gave greater weight to a status-based “adult = reliable” heuristic in trusting an ambiguously conventional adult. Findings were consistent using two different measures of parents’ authoritarian values. These findings demonstrate that children’s trust-related behaviors vary reliably with their parents’ orientations toward authority and convention, and suggest that individual differences in authoritarianism express themselves well before early adulthood.

DOI: 10.1177/0956797613516470
Volume: 25 (4)
Pages: 883-892
Language: en
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