The Impact of Watergate on Children’s Attitudes toward Political Authority

The question of how children acquire their opinions about their government and the political system in general has been of great concern to political scientists. One of the persistent findings of this research in political socialization has been that an American child's first awareness of the political system is of the president of the United States, and that the role and occupant are idealized to an overwhelming degree.' Especially at early ages (grades three, four, and five), the president is seen as benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent, protective, infallible, diligent, likable, and so on. In a 1969 study, after having interviewed more than 12,000 children, political scientists David Easton and Jack Dennis re-