LAUSR

Abstract Strategic perspectives on moral and political attitudes suggest that people often tailor such attitudes to serve the current or future needs of themselves and their families. Given the critical importance of parenting in human life, we were interested in whether parenthood was associated with individual differences in political and moral attitudes, and whether parenthood and parenting motivation might partly explain age differences in these attitudes. Given that a key element of social conservatism is vigilance towards uncertainty and threat and, given that parenting is often associated with risk aversion, we predicted that parents (and those high in parenting motivation) would be more morally vigilant and more socially conservative. Across four studies including over 1500 participants, both objective parenthood and subjective parenting motivation independently predicted both outcomes. Further analyses revealed that both parenthood and parenting motivation mediated the relationships between age and both social conservatism and moral vigilance.