The Frequency and Comfort of Political Conversations with Parents as Mediators of Family Communication Patterns and Relational Quality in Parent–Child Relationships

ABSTRACT

Using Family Communication Patterns (FCP) theory, this study examined the frequency and comfort of young adults’ political conversations with their parents as mediators of family communication patterns and relational quality in parent–child relationships. Participants included 235 young adults from the United States who were predominantly White, college-educated, and conservative Republicans. After controlling for divorce status, political ideology, party affiliation, and political similarity with mother and father, the results indicated that conversation orientation positively predicts the comfort young adults have with discussing politics with both parents. Comfort discussing politics, in turn, mediated the positive association between conversation orientation and both indicators of relational quality. No evidence of mediation was observed for the frequency with which young adults talk politics with both parents, although frequency of political talk predicted closeness and satisfaction with father but only dissatisfaction with mother. Implications for FCP theory and political socialization are discussed.

Notes

1. The decision to use PROCESS to test for significant indirect effects was guided by two factors: (1) LISREL 8.80 does not generate accelerated, bias-corrected confidence intervals; and (2) the measures produced high internal reliability estimates, thereby producing negligible differences in the magnitudes of the path estimates in the model (cf. Hayes, Montoya, & Rockwood, 2017).

2. Parameter estimates control for the effects of divorce status on closeness (b* = −.19, p <.01) and satisfaction (b* = −.15, p <.01), as well political similarity on comfort discussing politics with mother (b* = .26, p <.01), closeness (b* =.15, p <.05), and satisfaction (b* = .12, p <.05).

3. Parameter estimates control for the effects of: (a) divorce status on comfort discussing politics with father (b* = −.14, p <.05), closeness (b* = −.20, p <.01) and satisfaction (b* = −.19, p <.01); political orientation (i.e., liberal vs. conservative) on frequency of discussing politics with father (b* = .28, p <.05), closeness (b* = −.35, p <.01), and satisfaction (b* = −.26, p <.05); party affiliation on frequency of discussing politics with father (b* = −.38, p <.01 for Democrat vs. Republication; b* = −.28, p <.05 for “Neither” vs. Republication) and closeness (b* = .26, p <.05 for Democrat vs. Republication); and perceived political similarity on comfort discussing politics with father (b* = .19, p <.01).