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The Malevolent Leader: Political Socialization in an American Sub-Culture*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Dean Jaros ,
Herbert Hirsch  and
Frederic J. Fleron Jr.
Dean Jaros
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
Herbert Hirsch
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
Frederic J. Fleron Jr.
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky
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Extract

Perhaps the most dramatic finding of recent research on the political socialization of children is that youngsters appear to be overwhelmingly favorably disposed toward political objects which cross their vision. Officers and institutions of government are regarded as benevolent, worthy, competent, serving and powerful. The implications of such findings are striking indeed. Childhood political dispositions may represent the roots of later patriotism; we may be observing the building of basic regime-level supportive values at a very young age.

These findings are by no means new; in fact, they might be classified as part of the conventional wisdom of the discipline. Moreover, they are extremely well documented, and the study of childhood political socialization has advanced to consider far more than basic regime-level norms. Despite all this, however, there are still many empirical questions to be asked about such norms. Perhaps the recent assertion that the political scientist's model of socialization is “static and homogeneous” is particularly apropos here. Consider two closely related characteristics of the appropriate literature: 1) the “positive image” which children have about politics and political figures has been synthesized from data gathered largely in the United States and to some extent in urban, industrialized communities within the United States; and 2) empirical explanation of the favorable disposition which children manifest has not progressed very far. Though there may be hypotheses about how children get this way, there has been little systematic testing of the relationships between variables.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 564 - 575
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1968

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Footnotes

*

The data on which this paper is based were collected under Contract #693 between the University of Kentucky Research Foundation and the Office of Economic Opportunity.

References

1 Hess, Robert D. and Easton, David, “The Child's Changing Image of the President,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 14 (Winter, 1960), 632–642 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greenstein, Fred I., Children and Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965), pp. 27–54 Google Scholar; Hess, Robert D. and Tourney, Judith V., “The Development of Basic Attitudes Toward Government and Citizenship During the Elementary School Years: Part I,” (Cooperative Research Project No. 1078; University of Chicago, 1965), pp. 102–105 Google Scholar; Jaros, Dean, “Children's Orientations Toward the President: Some Additional Theoretical Considerations and Data,” Journal of Politics, 29 (05, 1967), 368–387.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Easton, David and Hess, Robert D., “The Child's Political World,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 6 (08, 1962), 243 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greenstein, op. cit., 53.

3 Sigel, Roberta S., “Political Socialization: Some Reactions on Current Approaches and Conceptualizations,” (Paper presented at the 1966 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 09 6–10, 1966), p. 14.Google Scholar

4 The Chicago area, New Haven, and Detroit provided the research environments for some of the studies cited in Note 1.

5 Hess, Robert D., “The Socialization of Attitudes Toward Political Authority: Some Cross-National Comparisons,” International Social Science Journal, 14 (No. 4, 1963), 542–559.Google Scholar

6 Almond, Gabriel A. and Powell, G. Bingham Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1966), pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

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8 Several analyses contributory to this assertion are: Jones, Virgil C., The Hatfields and the McCoys (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1948)Google Scholar; Weiler, Jack E., Yesterday's People (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Caudill, Harry M., Night Comes to the Cumberlands (Boston: Little, Bowrn and Co., 1963).Google Scholar

9 Greenstein, op. cit., pp. 45–46; Easton, and Hess, , Midwest Journal of Political Science, 6 (11, 1962), 229–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Hyman, Herbert, Political Socialization (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1959), Chapter 4Google Scholar; Doob, Leonard W., Patriotism and Nationalism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), pp. 119–126.Google Scholar

11 Weller, pp. 33–56, 163; Also Ford, Thomas R. (ed). The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1960), pp. 12–15.Google Scholar These may characterize the entire American South. Indeed, some basic socialization data from the South could be most interestingly compared with that gathered else where. But apart from South-wide considerations, there are historical reasons why one would expect such values to be especially strong in Appalachia.

12 Greenstein, op. cit., p. 44.

13 Lasswell, Harold D., Power and Personality (New York: Viking Press, 1962), pp. 156–159 Google Scholar; DeGrazia, Sebastian, The Political Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 11–21 Google Scholar; Davies, James C., “The Family's Role in Political Socialization,” Annals, 361 (09, 1965), 10–19.Google Scholar

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15 The effects of widespread unemployment in the coal industry and other economic malaises are well known. Because they are unable to provide, men reportedly invent physical disabilities or contrive “abandonments” of their dependents in order to qualify their families for public assistance. Such men become ciphers: Weiler, op. cit., pp. 76–78; Ford, op. cit., pp. 245–256. In addition to anecdotal accounts of such situations, there are some hard data which are consistent with these assertions. The great proportion of Appalachian men who are not in the labor force (23% in Knox County, site of the present study, as opposed to 11% in the U.S. as a whole) plus a high unemployment rate (11% in Knox County) suggests a large number of non-providing fathers (Source: U.S. Census of Population, 1960). A high incidence of incomplete families can also be confirmed. Fully 22% of the Appalachian children sampled for the present study reported father-absence, while only 12% of the Survey Research Center's national sample of high-school seniors are from fatherless homes. The authors wish to thank Richard Niemi for the last datum.

16 At this point, it should be noted that these two general hypotheses do not exhaust the list of suggested socialization processes. In fact, some observers stress the efficacy of altogether different agencies, for example the public school: Hess and Tourney, op. cit., pp. 193–200. But even with this emphasis, such observers believe that some political values are implanted in youth by their parents, namely, those which “insure the stability of basic institutions” (p. 191). This is a reference to what we have called “regime level” values, which are the sole topic of this paper. At least for socialization to this kind of political affect, testing of family-related hypotheses is of undoubted importance. See Jennings, M. Kent and Niemi, Richard, “Family Structure and the Transmission of Political Values,” (Paper presented at the 1966 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, New York, 09 6–10, 1966).Google Scholar

17 A few schools, not accessible by road, did not participate in the study. The cost of including them would have been very high and the returns realized very small. These schools had a total enrollment of less than fifty and a somewhat smaller number than this in grades five through eight. The questionnaire was administered by regular classroom teachers who had been instructed in its use. Every attempt was made, however, to convince the subjects that despite the context, they were not being tested. Teachers were asked explicitly to communicate this notion. This mode of administration probably produced fewer invalid responses than exposing the subjects to a non-indigenous investigator who would have aroused suspicion.

Knox County was chosen as the site for this study because it to some extent typifies Appalachia. That is, it is isolated, rural, and poor. No air or rail passenger transportation is available and only one U.S. highway crosses the county. Knox county has an annual per capita income of $501 as compared with $2223 for the U.S. as a whole. It is 84% rural while the nation is only 30%. (Source: U.S. Census of Population, 1960).

18 For commentary on images of the President, see Greenstein, Fred I., “More on Children's Images of the President,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 25 (Winter, 1961), 648–654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 For remarks on political cynicism, see Agger, Robert E., Goldstein, Marshall N., and Pearl, Stanley A., “Political Cynicism: Measurements and Meaning,” Journal of Politics, 23 (08, 1961), 477–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Fred I. Greenstein, “The Benevolent Leader: Children's Images of Political Authority,” this Review, 54 (December, 1960), 936; Easton, and Hess, , Midwest Journal of Political Science, 6, 241.Google Scholar

21 Greenstein, , Children and Politics, p. 54.Google Scholar

22 Hess, and Easton, , Public Opinion Quarterly, 14, 639.Google Scholar

23 Jennings and Niemi, op. cit., p. 13.

24 Ibid., footnote 30.

25 The evaluation of the Community Action Program in Knox County involved the solicitation of data from a sample of adults. These data can be arranged with those on youngsters to form parent-child pairs. These data are being exploited by Herbert Hirsch.

26 David Easton and Jack Dennis, “The Child's Acquisition of Regime Norms: Political Efficacy,” this Review, 61 (03, 1967), 25–38.

27 Ibid., p. 32.

28 Greenstein, this Review, 54, 938–939.

29 Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), Chapter 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Horton, John E. and Thompson, Wayne, “Powerlessness and Political Negativism,” American Journal of Sociology, 67 (03, 1962), 435–493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Easton and Dennis, op.cit.

32 Hess, and Easton, , Public Opinion Quarterly, 14, 635–642.Google Scholar

33 On father-absence see: Lynn, David B. and Sawrey, William L., “The Effects of Father-Absence on Norwegian Boys and Girls,” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59 (09, 1959), 258–262 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Bach, George R., “Father-Fantasises and Father-Typing in Father-Separated Children,” Child Development, 17 (03, 1946), 63–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

34 Hess, and Easton, , Public Opinion Quarterly, 14, 635–642.Google Scholar

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid., p. 639.

37 See for example, Greenstein, Children and Politics, Chapter 5.

38 No reliable information on social class could be secured from the children themselves. Information on occupation or estimated family income simply was not given by these youngsters. As signing class on the basis of the neighborhood in which individuals live, as Greenstein did, requires that virtually every subject be placed in the lowest social stratum. These rural residents are universally poor. Only 9% of the county's families have incomes over $6,000, and these are almost entirely to be found in the “urban” county seat, which was not sampled. (Source: U.S. Census of Population 1960).

39 Jennings and Niemi, op. cit., p. 15.

40 Greenstein, , Children and Politics, pp. 39–40.Google Scholar

41 This non-variance, a preliminary look at our data suggests, may be due to the homogeneity and isolation of the area. Family, peer groups, schools and other possible agents of socialization indigenous to the region probably manifest substantially the same configuration of values. Thus if families transmit an initial set of political notions to children, subsequent exposure to school, peers, etc., is likely to reinforce rather than change values. The remote location of the county probably insulates it from electronic or printed media and other external stimuli. Any value implications at variance with indigenous norms which such sources might transmit are thus prevented from having a widespread effect on maturing children.

42 In the absence of additional data, it is difficult to show empirically that the parents of this sample have negative dispositions toward political authority. However, responses to the family political value items, when the distribution is dichotomized, reveal about equal number of agreements (negative dispositions) and disagreements (positive dispositions). Following each item is the percentage of respondents expressing agreement:

“I don't think people in the government care much about what people like my family think,” 58%;

“My family doesn't have any say about what the government does,” 43%.

The authors are fully aware of the precarious nature of the family value measures. Their proxy nature makes them somewhat suspect. The data they generate are displayed, however, because they are suggestive and because they indicate the kind of research which, in the authors' opinions, should be performed more often. In subsequent publications based on the Appalachian data, direct information on parental values and children's perceptions thereof will be available (See note 25).

43 The father image items are analogous to the Presidential image items used by Hess and Easton. Though there are five Presidential image items, only three father image analogues are used because of objection to asking respondents to evaluate their fathers' honesty or diligence at work.

44 Hess, and Easton, , Public Opinion Quarterly. 14, 640.Google Scholar

45 Davies, op. cit., 13–15.

46 Tourney, Judith V., The Child's Idealization of Authority (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1962).Google Scholar

47 Greenstein, , Children and Politics, p. 119 Google Scholar; Langton, Kenneth P., The Political Socialization Process: The Case of Secondary School Students in Jamaica, (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oregon, 1965), p. 119.Google Scholar On the other hand, male dominance in the political learning of the young fails to appear in some research: Hyman, , Political Socialization, pp. 83–89 Google Scholar; Maccoby, Eleanor E., Matthews, Richard E., and Morton, Anton S., “Youth and Political Change,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 18 (Spring, 1954), 23–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 The forthcoming doctoral dissertation by-Herbert Hirsch explores other socialization agents at greater length.

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