Authoritarianism,child-rearing practices and ethnocentrism in seven Pacific Islands groups

Data were collected from seven cultural groups in the South Pacific in order to examine the relationship between authoritarian child-rearing practices and ethnocentrism. An analysis of the data within each cultural group showed that there were inter-cultural differences in the structure of child-rearing pratices. In particular authoritarianism scales were obtained in the Tahitian, Cook Islands and Samoan groups and these scales were significantly correlated with measures of ethnocentrism. Scales which were close variants of authoritarianism were obtained in the Tongan and Fiji-Indian groups and these scales were also significantly correlated with ethnocentrism. The scales obtained in the Fijian and New Hebrides groups, however, did not appear to be closely related to authoritarianism and these two groups showed less inter-individual variation than the other cultural groups.