Abstract
This study explores how well parents and their children recognize the social attitudes of one another. Mothers, fathers and youths were asked to state their own opinion on various social issues then predict their children's, fathers' and mothers' responses(attributed attitudes). Empirical evaluation of the possible socialization consequences of actual versus attributed attitudes leads to a series of hypotheses. The data were collected from single students at a university in Seoul and their parents. Included in the seven social attitude were sexuality, educational, economic, political, ecological, religious and family issues. Analysis of the responses 98-110 triads, each consisting a mother, a father and a young adult child showed that both mothers and fathers were limited in their ability to gauge the attitudes of their children. Guided by attribution theory, this study tested several hypothesized relationships between the actual response of mother, the actual response of the father, the perceived response of the mother, the perceived response of the father and the actual response of the child. The theoretical model was tested with AMOS 5.0, utilizing path analysis, which is a form of structural equation modeling with manifest variables. Overall model fit was assessed by examining GFI, NFI, TLI, CFI and RMR. Results of the data analysis can be summarized as follows. First, the children perceived their mothers and fathers to be highly similar in their opinions and the actual responses of the mothers and the fathers were considerably correlated. Second, the fathers' responses whether attributed or actual were more predictive than the mothers' responses to their children's opinions. The alternative model suggests considerable support for the attribution theory. Indeed, within a family, the actual opinions of parents appear to have little direct bearing on the child's orientations, except when the actual orientations are perceived and reinterpreted by the children. It is not what parents think, but what their children think they think that predicts their offsprings' attitudes.
