Correlates of authoritarian parenting in individualist and collectivist cultures and implications for understanding the transmission of values

Measures of authoritarianism, collectivism, warmth, anger, attributions for children's misbehavior, and parental feelings of control over failure were administered to Egyptian Canadian and Angle-Canadian men and women living in Canada. The Egyptian Canadians were higher on authoritarianism, collecti vism. anger and the men were higher on perceived control over failure. The best predictor of authoritarian parenting for the Egyptian Canadian group w as collectivism. For the Angle-Canadian group, the best predictors were col lectivism and lack of warmth. Differences in the meaning of authoritarianis m in collectivist and individualist groups and their meaning for the transm ission of values are discussed: Higher levels of authoritarianism are not n ecessarily accompanied by overall lower levels of warmth; more negative (di spositional) attributions about children; or more automatic, maladaptive, a nd inflexible processing of information. Thus, the conditions that promote transmission of values-warmth and benign ways of thinking-are just as likel y to be present in groups using authoritarian parenting.