Does family experience influence political beliefs? Relation between interparental conflict perceptions and political efficacy in late adolescence

Warning

This publication doesn't include Faculty of Education. It includes Faculty of Social Studies. Official publication website can be found on muni.cz.

Authors	ŠEREK Jan LACINOVÁ Lenka MACEK Petr
Year of publication	2012
Type	Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source	Journal of Adolescence
MU Faculty or unit	Faculty of Social Studies
Citation
Web	http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.10.001
Doi	http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.10.001
Field	Psychology
Keywords	Political efficacy; Civic development; Interparental conflict; Depressive mood
Attached files	Serek_et_al_2012.pdf
Description	The study examined the relation between adolescents’ interparental conflict perceptions and their political efficacy regarding local issues. Longitudinal data (age 15 and 17) from 444 adolescents were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results showed that young people experiencing frequent interparental conflict reported an increase in depressive mood during late adolescence, which was associated with lower level of political efficacy. Moreover, adolescents who felt more efficacious when dealing with fighting parents felt more efficacious in local politics, even when controlling for personality traits and depressive mood. One possible explanation is that family perceptions generalize to politics because both contexts share certain similar features. Our results underscore that also seemingly nonpolitical experiences can matter in adolescents’ civic and political development.
Related projects:	Psychological and social characteristics of children, youth and families, development of the personality in the time of changes of modern society