The Relationship Between College Students’ Parental Ideological Beliefs
Session Title
Poster Session 2
Faculty Mentor
Tara Collins, Ph.D.
College
College of Arts and Sciences
Department
Psychology
Abstract
How parents raise their children may have impact how they think or behave later as adults. The possible factors affecting adult children's beliefs are caregiver parenting styles, child-caregiver relationships, as well as caregiver political and/or religious beliefs. We wanted to examine the factors related to changes in college students’ political and religious beliefs from childhood to adulthood. We hypothesized that stronger caregiver beliefs would predict more change in children’s beliefs, away from their caregiver’s beliefs, in adulthood. Participants were a convenience sample of 156 college student participants from a small South Carolina liberal arts University (29 men, 106 women, and 17 other) recruited through email, professors, and social media to complete an online survey about parenting style, religious, and political views of parents and themselves. From our results we can conclude that parents reported higher on the liberal-conservative scale influenced students feeling more loved and cared for but impacted negatively with authoritarian parenting styles. We can conclude that political affiliation has no effect on the parent-child relationship, but strong caregiver religious beliefs does have an effect on the child to change beliefs. Our research adds an amount of new information to existing research for new college students and parents of those students to prioritize their relationship as parent and child over ideological beliefs.
Course Assignment
PSYC 302 – Collins
Previously Presented/Performed?
2023 Southeastern Psychological Association Conference, New Orleans, LA, April 2023 | Winthrop University Showcase of Winthrop University Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors, Rock Hill, SC, April 2023
Type of Presentation
Poster presentation
Start Date
15-4-2023 12:00 PM
The Relationship Between College Students’ Parental Ideological Beliefs
How parents raise their children may have impact how they think or behave later as adults. The possible factors affecting adult children's beliefs are caregiver parenting styles, child-caregiver relationships, as well as caregiver political and/or religious beliefs. We wanted to examine the factors related to changes in college students’ political and religious beliefs from childhood to adulthood. We hypothesized that stronger caregiver beliefs would predict more change in children’s beliefs, away from their caregiver’s beliefs, in adulthood. Participants were a convenience sample of 156 college student participants from a small South Carolina liberal arts University (29 men, 106 women, and 17 other) recruited through email, professors, and social media to complete an online survey about parenting style, religious, and political views of parents and themselves. From our results we can conclude that parents reported higher on the liberal-conservative scale influenced students feeling more loved and cared for but impacted negatively with authoritarian parenting styles. We can conclude that political affiliation has no effect on the parent-child relationship, but strong caregiver religious beliefs does have an effect on the child to change beliefs. Our research adds an amount of new information to existing research for new college students and parents of those students to prioritize their relationship as parent and child over ideological beliefs.
