Parental status anxiety drives children’s prejudice through class-distinction grooming

Evidence

It is easy to see that parents who are insecure about their own status may produce children who are bent on success. This is little more than a simple transmission of values. But what is the connection between status anxiety and prejudice? Parents who are anxious about their own status should be very concerned to see that their children are properly brought up; that they are children no one could confuse with the offspring of the lower classes. They will want little ladies and gentlemen, not dirty, brawling brats. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 559

Categorization

• XREF: This is the Authoritarian Personality’s mechanism linking status insecurity to outgroup prejudice — echoes the Frankfurt-school theory of fascism. — connects to: Parents’ racist normalization and views often precede a son’s radicalization — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America:…, 310
• DEEPTHINKING: The leap from ‘parents want well-bred children’ to ‘therefore those children become prejudiced adults’ is a dense, argued chain worth sitting with — status anxiety is converted into class-distinction grooming that seeds lifelong prejudice.