Predicting Authoritarianism in Prison Psychologists based on Family Educational Structure: Case Study in Shiraz

One of the strongest tendencies in human beings is "authoritarianism" or "power-seeking", which emerges from the first years of human life in a child and it is activated to the extent that one can expose power and it directs their deeds and behavior. The purpose of this study is to determine authoritarianism in prison psychologists.

This descriptive correlation study was performed by simple random sampling in Shiraz Central Prison. The research population was all the prisoners in Shiraz, 374 of whom were selected through simple random sampling, The information was collected through a questionnaire including authoritarianism and parenting style questionnaire which was measured with 82 questions. The reliability of the authoritarianism questionnaire was 86% and that of the parental questionnaire was 82%, both of which were measured by Chronbach’s alpha. SPSS, correlation coefficient, and regression analysis were used for data analysis.

The findings showed that there is a significant positive correlation between family structure in parenting (for prison psychologists) and their authoritarianism (p = <0.01) in a way that the more negative the value of family educational structure (considering the probability of 0.01% error), the more authoritarianism people have.  Although positive constructs can reduce children's authoritarianism, negative parenting in raising children can directly predict the prison psychologists’ authoritarianism (P < 0.01 and Beta = 0.20). There is a significant correlation between the structure of exclusionary families and authoritarianism with r = 0.223 and p < 0.01, between chaotic families and authoritarianism with r = 0.167 and p < 0.05, and between coercive families and authoritarianism with r = 0.146 and p < 0.05.  Although positive constructs can lead to a decline in children's authoritarianism, the dimensions of negative constructs of family structure in education including  exclusionary families (P

The results show that family educational structure is effective on children’s bullying and authoritarianism and that negative parenting has a direct effect on authoritarian behavior. In addition, families with exclusion or coercion constructs have a higher percentage of authoritarian behavior of their children. This confirms the impact of family and family education on children's future behavior and on society’s mental health.