Examining the relationship between parental authoritarianism and children’s trusting preferences in China and the U.S.

Field: Psychology (Social Sciences)

Adults with high authoritarianism—the advocacy of obeying authorities—often defer to conventions and dominant figures (Stenner, 2005). As parents, adults’ authoritarianism can positively predict their children’s trusting behaviors towards conventional informants (Tagar et al., 2014). However, less is known about the relationship between parental authoritarianism and their children’s trusting behaviors towards informants who vary based on perceived dominance. Children’s selective preference for learning from dominant over subordinate informants also varies between Eastern and Western cultures (Charafeddine et al., 2019), which may be associated with societal variability in parental authoritarianism. Here, we examined the potential relationships between parental authoritarianism and their children’s preference for learning from dominant (versus subordinate) informants in China and the U.S. Thirty-two Chinese children (Mage = 5.81, SD = 0.32; 22 girls) and 19 European American (EA) children (Mage = 6.16, SD = 1.12; 13 girls) along with their parents participated in the study. Across three trials, children saw two puppet protagonists who proposed different locations to place objects in a park; the protagonists always placed the objects in the location proposed by one protagonist (i.e., the dominant) instead of the other protagonist (i.e., the subordinate). In each of four subsequent trials, children heard explanations from the two protagonists about the function of a novel object; children were then asked which explanation they would endorse. Parents were surveyed about their authoritarianism using parents’ authoritarian disposition questionnaire (Tagar et al., 2014). Results showed no cultural differences in children’s preference for novel explanations, F(1, 49) = 0.31, p = .58, η²p = 0.006. Chinese children (M = 2.28, SD = 0.73) were above chance (= 2) to endorse explanations from the dominant protagonist, t(31) = 2.18, p = .02, d = 0.39; EA children (M = 2.42, SD = 1.07) were also above chance (= 2) to endorse explanations provided by the dominant protagonist (see Figure 1), t(18) = 1.71, p = .05, d = 0.39. A Bayesian t-test result reaffirmed children’s selective trust, suggesting that Chinese and EA children were about 8.84 times higher than chance level (= .50) to endorse the dominant protagonist’s explanations, BF10 = 8.84, 95% credible interval: [0.11, 0.64]. Although there was little cross-cultural variance in children’s trust preferences, EA parents held less authoritarian beliefs compared with Chinese parents, F(1, 48) = 17.15, p < .001, η²p = 0.32. We ran a linear regression test to examine the relationship between parental authoritarianism and children’s trusting behaviors. The result indicated across both cultures, parental authoritarianism negatively predicted their children’s explanation endorsement from the dominant protagonist, B = -0.25, SE = 0.10, p = .02. That is, children with parents who scored highly in authoritarianism were less likely to endorse the explanations from the dominant informant (see Figure 2). Taken together, these findings suggest that across Eastern and Western cultures, parental authoritarianism is related to children’s decreased preference for dominant informants. We discuss how variability in the environment to which children are exposed across authoritarian families may serve as a mechanism in children’s trusting behaviors.