Politics

One way to look at politics across the life span is to consider the links between political structure and culture, on the one hand, and political socialization, on the other hand. There is some congruence to be found here. As is the case with language (e.g., if you grow up in an English-speaking country, you learn to speak English), political culture naturally and usually leads to congruent political socialization—for the most part. Consider how children’s moral judgments reflect the politics of the society in which they live. For example, one research study posed moral dilemmas to 12-year-old children from societies around the world, societies that differed in how authoritarian versus democratic they were. The results indicated a positive correlation between how pluralistic and democratic a ...