Parental Influences on Adolescents' Negative Attitudes Toward Immigrants

Attitudes toward immigrants are a core component of adolescents' social identities. Although in a globalized world positive attitudes are functional, negative views toward immigrant are widespread. This study investigates the parent-adolescent transmission of attitudes toward immigrants between age 12 and 16. In a longitudinal five-wave cohort-sequential multi-informant survey study on German adolescents (N = 1289; 52.9 % female) and their parents (mothers N = 772; fathers N = 654), self-reported attitudes toward immigrants were measured at each time point. Changes in the adolescents' attitudes were predicted by maternal and paternal self-reported attitudes across time. Predictions of short-term changes revealed that the major effect of the parents' attitudes takes place in early adolescence (between grade 6 and 7). The prediction of the adolescents' long-term attitude changes indicates that these effects sustain until the age of 16. No between-parent differences were found. The results are discussed in terms of early adolescence being a sensitive period for parental effects on the development of adolescents' attitudes toward immigrants.