Integrating concepts from family systems theory, attachment theory, and family socialization theory within a systems theory of public opinion and social movements, this paper concentrates on linkages between family socialization and political attitudes, adding the influence of social structure. The paper holds that family systems theory contributes 2 concepts in particular--"dysfunction," maladaptations of families responding to stress arising from normal life events; and "multigenerational transmission process," by which positive and negative elements are transmitted to future generations, especially unresolved emotional conflicts and their role in the formation of political ideology. Noting that the family is a major socialization agent of attitudes toward authority (parents are the first authorities children know), the paper states that this topic was highly popular between 1940-1960, and that the 1950 work, "The Authoritarian Personality" (criticized for its psychoanalytic approach) is still relevant today. The paper suggests that family systems theory demonstrates how authoritarian, punitive, restrictive responses can develop as people pass through normal life stages. The paper also states that new research on family socialization, attachment theory, and authoritarianism has been published, and new scales have been proposed, although problems remain in determining the concepts at the "left" end of the scale and in researchers' being objective about their own political ideology. Future work on the theory will concern the relationship between political attitudes and social movements, especially the primarily leftist student activist movements of the 1960s and the newer right-wing movements. (Contains a theoretical model, 2 tales of data, and 105 references.) (NKA)