Parent–Child Value Similarity: Broadening from Intergenerational Transmission to Reciprocal Influences, Genetics, and Environmental Antecedents

Parent–child value similarity is often considered a hallmark of successful intergenerational socialization. Traditional approaches to the study of relationships among generations view value socialization as a top-down phenomenon in which parents transmit their values to their children in a unidirectional and often deterministic manner. Instead, in this chapter, the authors argue for considering parent–child value similarity as the result of a complex network of mutual influences among parents, children, and their shared environments. In particular, we propose a framework that considers four interdependent pathways to parent–child value similarity: parental influence, child influence, genetic effects, and overlap among the environmental antecedents of values. For each of these pathways, as well as for their interactions and correlations, the authors provide and discuss some examples for a better understanding of the shared value development.