What role does the family play in political socialization?
Ouai asked:
In your opinion, is family the most important factor in shaping political attitudes and behavior? Why or why not?
Olivia
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In your opinion, is family the most important factor in shaping political attitudes and behavior? Why or why not?
Olivia
October 22nd, 2010 at 12:13 am
Kevin
Not necessarily. My parents are both conservative Republicans, my brother is a communist, and I’m an anarchist, so their political opinions obviously didn’t have much of an influence on us. As for religion, my parents are Christian, my brother is an atheist, and I’m a deist, and the same concept applies. My political opinions come from years of reading radical political books, being disappointed (at times outraged) by our government (and often its people) time and time again, finding hope and seeing a spark that I saw in myself in another group of people, and just generally soaking up news from various sources then interpreting it and processing it based on my own belief system and perception of morality.
I do, however, believe that parents indirectly effect your opinions in that their upbringing of you is what forms your personality and outlook on life. People with different personalities view the same concept differently from each other, and therefore have differing opinions. So in that respect, parents do help form your political opinions, because they help form you.
Those with whom you share political beliefs also influence you, for obvious reasons. For example, in my case I found solidarity with people with similar beliefs because we made sense to each other and shared a common passion for something, and we seemed to bounce off each other and help each other grow. It might seem small, but I also sight punk rock music as an influence because the people I met in that scene really cared about the direction of the world, they really wanted to make life better for everyone, and they gave me hope that maybe that better world we dreamed of would someday be attainable. So, I think that helped fuel the determination and the degree to which I cared about politics.
Ultimately, the factors which form your political opinions are your personality and moral beliefs (which are determined by your environment and upbringing), the things you see, hear, or are exposed to, and those which you identify with (because humans tend to be very social creatures).