The intergenerational transmission of racism: The role of Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation

Developmental theory and research suggest that racism is transmitted from one generation to the next. Research also suggests that prejudice dispositions such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) are transmitted across generations. Accordingly, we examined whether the intergenerational similarity in RWA and SDO accounts for the intergenerational similarity in racism. In a sample of adolescents and their parents, significant parent–adolescent concordance in racism was found and it was shown that this concordance could largely be explained by the parent–adolescent concordance in RWA and SDO. Results thus suggest that the parent–adolescent similarity in racism largely results from a more fundamental intergenerational transmission of ideology.