Jennings, Stoker (2008) Politics Across Generations: FamilyTransmission Reexamined

Four conclusions: (1) despite changes in environment (technology etc) parental influence is as strong in the 90s as in was in the 60s (2) the direct transmission model is robust (3) adoption of parents political orientation is strongest with the home is highly politicized and when it is a two-arent home (4) the earlier the adoption, the longer it lasts. Summary of Jennings & Niemi (1968) findings: "Transmission rates tended to vary in a systematic fashion according to type of political trait. The more concrete, affect-laden, and central the object in question, the more successful was the transmission. More abstract, ephemeral, and historically conditioned attributes were much less successfully passed on. Salience of the political object for the parents was an important conditioner of successful reproduction, as was perceptual accuracy on the part of the child (Acock and Bengston 1980; Percheron and Jennings 1981; Tedin 1980; Westholm 1999). The presence of politically homogeneous parents, and other agents allied with the parents, enhanced the fidelity of transmission (Jennings and Niemi 1974, ch. 6; Tedin 1980). Contextual properties such as larger opinion climates (Jennings and Niemi 1974, 81-82, 161-62) and party systems (Westholm and Niemi 1992) also affected within-family consonance. These specifications and qualifications also lent support to social learning theory explanations of how children come to resemble their parents more in some respects than others" Five new questions, which are the motivation of the paper: (1) are transmissions cohort specific? this question is answered by comparing the original Jennings & Niemi pairs to other pairs. (2) Two-parent home transmissions v. One-parent home transmissions answered by using diad v. triad data from original dataset (3) does the strength of the cue matter (i.e. how highly politicized the home is) (4) how much of the similar parent-child environment is actually at play? (5) how long does the early adoption of political characteristics sustain? Do those who have adopted their parents’ orientations differ later in life from those who do not?