According to the Social Learning Theory, At What Age Can Parents Influence a Child's Political Views?

Overview

Objectives The purpose of this project is to determine at what age do children get politically influenced by their parents. Children at young ages are starting to have strong political beliefs, so at what age do children develop these same political values as their parents? According to Social Learning Theories, children observe the people around them as influential models. I tested to see if children of various ages from age 4 to age 18 would develop any political viewpoints from their parents. Statistics helped show that 67% of children starting as early as age 7 will begin to be influenced by their parent's political views. Methods Researched how social learning theories are understood and how children can be influenced by their parents according to Albert Bandura. Conducted 120 trials to determine one's political viewpoints. Asked Kindergarten students through 6th grade along with high school students and also their parents. Collected and organized all of the data into several different categories according to age, parent, gender, political party, and viewpoints on current President. Graphed and charted all the data using flow charts, pie charts, bar graphs and frequency tables. Checked for correlation between children and parents and also between different age groups. Results It was found that 67% of Elementary students had the same political views as their parents starting as early as age 7. Also found that 60% of High School students had the same political viewpoints as their parents. The correlation between the two studies was very strong, with a correlation of .994377. A combination of all subjects studied showed that 64% of children and teens will have the same political viewpoints as their parents. Conclusions I found that parents start to influence their child's political views 67% of the time as early as age 7. Parents are a big factor when influencing their kids' beliefs. According to a Gallop survey 70% of teens say their social and political ideology is about the same as their parents. I found that my project was very similar showing 67% perceived the same political views as their parents starting at age 7.

Competition history

• CSEF 2019 Behavioral & Social Sciences · Entry J0411

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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