Helicopter parents also support paternalistic social policies

Parenting styles clearly speak, to some degree, about the way we see the world, what we value, and our past experiences. Now a new study has linked parenting styles to beliefs about how government and society should work too.

Writing in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Christian Lindke and Daniel Oppenheimer find that proponents of helicopter parenting also support more paternalistic policies.

The first study sought to explore a potential link between "helicopter parenting" — taking an overprotective approach to childcare — and support for paternalistic policies: those that infringe on autonomy for apparently "greater good". First, participants answered questions about their parenting style, indicating whether or not they endorsed various behaviours like giving their child an unrestricted allowance, and also specified the age at which they would allow their child to do specific things such as ride a bike alone across the city.

They then indicated how much they agreed with 28 different paternalistic policy statements, such as "I believe it is the government's job to protect its citizens from engaging in unhealthy eating behaviours". Finally, the participants completed a measure designed to evaluate their authoritarian tendencies, and provided demographic information including ideology and party preference.

As the team anticipated, people who endorsed helicopter parenting also showed stronger support for paternalistic policies. In fact, helicopter parenting was a better predictor of support for these policies than any other factor, including participants' political ideology and political party.

A second study looked at whether manipulating a preference for helicopter parenting would influence attitudes towards paternalistic policies. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions. In the "anti-helicopter" condition, participants read a news article stating that helicopter parenting actively undermined children's attempts to find jobs. In the "interview etiquette"' condition, participants read about unprofessional clothing for an interview, with no mention of parenting at all. And in the "bad parenting" condition, participants read about bad parenting behaviours unrelated to helicoptering, and which occurred outside of a job interview setting. Finally, participants completed a measure on attitudes towards paternalistic policy.

However, participants in the anti-helicopter condition did not show any reduction in paternalistic attitudes compared to the other conditions. This suggests that there may not be a causal link between the two, but rather that some other variable — some aspect of our personality, for instance — leads to both paternalistic attitudes and to helicopter parenting.

A third study suggested that this underlying part of us may leave us predisposed to support paternalistic behaviours in a range of scenarios. Participants were first asked whether certain paternalistic behaviours were appropriate for various different individuals: in teachers, clergy, doctors, peers, coaches, employers, and caregivers. For example, they indicated to what extent they believed it is the responsibility of an employer to ensure its employees are saving for retirement, or a doctor's responsibility to limit drug addiction by refusing to prescribe repeated pain medication. They also completed the helicopter parenting and government paternalism measures used in previous studies.

The results replicated that of the first study: attitudes towards helicopter parenting were closely linked to support for paternalistic behaviours across all areas. And the team's analysis suggested that there was indeed a single underlying predisposition towards paternalism that drove this support as well as attitudes towards helicopter parenting.

This could have an impact beyond the political, in the personal realm. The team particularly points out the role of paternalism towards older people — if, as the third study suggested, helicopter parenting is linked to approval of paternalistic behaviour on the part of caregivers, helicopter parents may also be behaving in paternalistic ways towards elderly parents. Future research could look at the impact on older people when they are looked after by other members of their family.