Intergenerational value transmission within the family and the role of emotional relationship quality

Abstract

Emotional relationship quality of adolescents/emerging adults toward their mothers is addressed: (1) as a transmission belt for the intergenerational transfer of general values and (2) regarding the two-step model of value internalization. The sample consisted of N = 73 dyads of mothers and their 12–25–year-old children (51 daughters, 22 sons) living in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Mothers and adolescents/emerging adults reported on their general value orientations; in addition, adolescents/emerging adults reported on emotional relationship quality toward mothers. In a subsample of n = 46 mother-adolescent/emerging adult dyads, additional information was available regarding maternal socialization goals, adolescents'/emerging adults' perceptions of these goals, and adolescents'/emerging adults' perceived value similarity with mothers. Attachment/closeness of adolescents/emerging adults toward their mothers was related to higher, whereas dislike and worry were related to lower value consensus/congruence. Furthermore, dislike was linked to lower accuracy of value perception, whereas closeness/attachment and worry corresponded with higher perceived similarity to mothers.

Keywords:

• intergenerational value transmission
• emotional relationship quality
• mothers
• adolescents
• emerging adults

Acknowledgments

This study is part of the project “Intergenerational Relations in Luxembourg: Solidarity, Ambivalence, Conflict?” and was supported by a grant from the Fonds National de la Recherche (FNR) Luxembourg to the second author (FNR/06/02/11).

We thank Dipl.-Psych. Elisabeth Ketter, Dipl.-Psych. Isabelle Wolff, and Anne Glodt (B.A.) for their valuable work in data collection. We thank Dipl.-Psych. Lisa Trierweiler for her editorial help and we thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Notes

1. Inconsistent findings may also be attributed to different definitions of the term “conflict” itself which may comprise manifest versus latent conflicts, acute or chronic.

2. A similar factor solution has been reported by Boll (1999). He applied the present value list to two subsamples: in the first subsample with N = 236 participants, he extracted two factors, namely, prosocial orientations and conservatism as well as hedonism, whereas in the second subsample with N = 295 participants, these factors were further subdivided into a four-factor solution with conservatism, prosocial orientations, self-fulfillment, and hedonism.

3. Correlations were computed across all items of the two value dimensions. Thus, mother and adolescent/emerging adult ratings on items measuring conservatism and prosocial orientation as well as self-fulfillment/hedonism were correlated resulting in 73 correlations altogether (see Bernieri et al., 1994). To use the dyadic correlation indicator in further analyses, Fisher's Z-transformation was applied.

4. For each dyad, the sum of the absolute differences between scores of mothers and adolescents/emerging adults was calculated for each of the two scales and divided by the number of items per value scale. The difference score could theoretically range between 0 (perfect similarity) and 5 (no similarity).