THE RIGHTIST ATTITUDE - FAMILY-RELATED CO NDITIONS OF AUTHORITARIAN ORIENTATIONS AMONG YOUNG-PEOPLE FROM EAST-GERMANY AND WEST-GERMANY

Discussions of possible antecedents of rightist attitudes and violence mainly focus on sociostructural conditions while little attention is paid to influences of the socialization in the family. The present stu dy inquires into variations of adolescents' rightist orientations as a function of the quality of family relationships and parents' politica l attitudes. Subjects were 86 15-year-olds attending middle-track scho ols in Mannheim and Leipzig as well as their fathers and mothers. Ques tionnaire assessments included a measure of family connectedness, i. e ., the strength of family bonds, as perceived by adolescents as well a s scales addressing family members' nationalist/authoritarian attitude s, ethnocentrism and proneness to use violence. East- and West-German families differed neither in the strength of family ties and in their political attitudes nor as regards the fact that weak family bonds cor relate with adolescents' rightist orientations. Moreover, a substantia l association was observed between adolescents' and parents' political orientations, particularly among those families high on connectedness . Differences between East- and West-German families as regards the pa ttern of these correlations are reported and discussed.