Culture and Social Change in Mothers’ and Fathers’ Individualism, Collectivism and Parenting Attitudes

Jennifer E. Lansford, Susannah Zietz, Suha M. Al-Hassan, Dario Bacchini, Marc H. Bornstein, Lei Chang, Kirby Deater-Deckard, Laura Di Giunta, Kenneth A. Dodge, Sevtap Gurdal, Qin Liu, Qian Long, Paul Oburu, Concetta Pastorelli, Ann T. Skinner, Emma Sorbring, Sombat Tapanya, Laurence Steinberg, Liliana Maria Uribe Tirado, Saengduean Yotanyamaneewong and Liane Peña Alampay
Additional contact information
Jennifer E. Lansford: Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Susannah Zietz: Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Suha M. Al-Hassan: Department of Special Education, Hashemite University, Zarqa 13110, Jordan
Dario Bacchini: Department of Humanistic Studies, University of Naples “Federico II”, 80127 Naples, Italy
Marc H. Bornstein: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD 20810, USA
Lei Chang: Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Macau 999078, China
Kirby Deater-Deckard: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01002, USA
Laura Di Giunta: Department of Psychology, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, 00017 Rome, Italy
Kenneth A. Dodge: Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Sevtap Gurdal: Centre for Child and Youth Studies, University West, 46131 Trollhättan, Sweden
Qin Liu: Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China
Qian Long: Global Health Research Center, Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan 215300, China
Paul Oburu: Department of Psychology, Maseno University, Maseno 879-6112, Kenya
Concetta Pastorelli: Department of Psychology, Università di Roma “La Sapienza”, 00017 Rome, Italy
Ann T. Skinner: Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Emma Sorbring: Centre for Child and Youth Studies, University West, 46131 Trollhättan, Sweden
Sombat Tapanya: Peace Culture Foundation, Chiang Mai 50000, Thailand
Laurence Steinberg: Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19019, USA
Liliana Maria Uribe Tirado: Department of Psychology, Universidad de San Buenaventura, Medellín 050001, Colombia
Saengduean Yotanyamaneewong: Department of Psychology, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50000, Thailand
Liane Peña Alampay: Department of Psychology, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City 1008, Philippines

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-20

Abstract: Cultures and families are not static over time but evolve in response to social transformations, such as changing gender roles, urbanization, globalization, and technology uptake. Historically, individualism and collectivism have been widely used heuristics guiding cross-cultural comparisons, yet these orientations may evolve over time, and individuals within cultures and cultures themselves can have both individualist and collectivist orientations. Historical shifts in parents’ attitudes also have occurred within families in several cultures. As a way of understanding mothers’ and fathers’ individualism, collectivism, and parenting attitudes at this point in history, we examined parents in nine countries that varied widely in country-level individualism rankings. Data included mothers’ and fathers’ reports ( N = 1338 families) at three time points in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. More variance was accounted for by within-culture than between-culture factors for parents’ individualism, collectivism, progressive parenting attitudes, and authoritarian parenting attitudes, which were predicted by a range of sociodemographic factors that were largely similar for mothers and fathers and across cultural groups. Social changes from the 20th to the 21st century may have contributed to some of the similarities between mothers and fathers and across the nine countries.

Keywords: authoritarian; collectivism; culture; historical perspective; individualism; international; parenting attitudes; social change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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