Family Discipline and its Link to Political Orientation

Key Insight

Attitudes toward family disciplinary strategies are powerful predictors of political ideology, with a strong correlation between approval of corporal punishment for children and political conservatism. A 2005 SurveyUSA poll found that all 25 US states above the median level of spanking approval voted conservatively in the 2004 presidential election. The Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) scale consistently shows that right-wing individuals agree that 'old-fashioned physical punishment is still one of the best ways to make people behave properly' and emphasize 'obedience and respect for authority' as crucial virtues for children.

Conservative families typically employ a hierarchical morality, leveraging external, physical advantages to coerce children through fear of parental anger, threats, and aggressive punishments like spanking. Children in authoritarian homes often feel more relaxed when strict parents are absent. Liberals, in contrast, prefer egalitarian families that mediate conflict differently, emphasizing intrinsic equal worth. Liberal parents use guilt and withdrawal of affection to motivate desired behaviors, believing 'bonds of affection and earned mutual respect are stronger than bonds of dominance,' and encourage open two-way communication, viewing children's questioning as a desired trait.

The connection between authoritarian discipline and political radicalism is illustrated by 'The White Ribbon' film and social scientists linking early twentieth-century German fascism to rigid, obedience-oriented child-rearing. Studies found that anti-Nazis were more likely to have fathers who did not use corporal punishment and had easy relationships with their children, while authoritarians 'monotonously' spoke of strict patriarchal early environments. On the extreme right of the US political spectrum, members of white hate groups often have histories of abusive, alcoholic fathers. Conversely, egalitarian child-rearing, seen in cultures like the Machiguenga tribe of the Peruvian Amazon, which values equality and allows children to question authority, was also characteristic of families that raised left-wing anti-war protestors in the 1960s, whose 'career-type' mothers fostered 'nurturant identification' and 'empathy...with the underdog'.