We examined the relation of White parents' color-blind racial attitudes (a global composite score and its subscales) and their implicit racial attitudes to their young children's race-based sympathy ...toward Black and White victims. One hundred and nighty non-Hispanic White children (54% boys, Mage = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) reported their sympathy in response to short films depicting bullying toward White or Black children. Their primary caregivers' (mostly mothers') color-blind racial ideology (CBRI) was assessed through a questionnaire (reflecting global color blindness, as well as denial of institutional racism, White privilege, and blatant racial issues), and their implicit racial attitudes were assessed with a computerized test. Children's sympathy toward Black victims and their equitable sympathy (difference score toward Black vs. White victims) was predicted by parents' color blindness, implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction. Results indicated several interaction effects, such that parents' denial of blatant racial attitudes and global CBRI were negatively related to children's sympathy toward Black victims and equitable sympathy toward Black versus White victims, only when the parents held implicit racial attitudes that favored White people. In addition, parents' denial of White privilege was negatively related to children's sympathy toward Black victims. The findings are discussed in terms of potential ways to shape children's race-based sympathy and compassion, particularly with an eye toward ways White parents might socialize sympathy toward historically marginalized youth.
In Turkey, responsive behaviors toward kin are expected from children. Despite this, we know little about the factors that influence young Turkish children's prosocial behaviors. The goal was to ...explore how temperament and parenting are related to children's prosocial development in Turkey. A total of 293 Turkish children (Mage = 49 months; 48.12% females) were followed up for 3 years. Mothers completed measures of their child's prosocial behaviors, as well as measures of their warmth, inductive reasoning, and the child's approach and reactivity. Maternal warmth predicted children's reactivity, and maternal induction predicted children's sociability. Children's reactivity was inversely related to children's helping behavior and sociability was related to more prosocial behavior. Maternal warmth had indirect links with helping through lessening children's reactivity.
Bidirectional theories of social development have been around for over 40 years (Bell, 1968), yet they have been applied primarily to the study of antisocial development. In the present study, the ...reciprocal relationship between parenting behavior and children's socially competent behaviors were examined. Using the National Institute of Child Health and Development Study of Early Child Care data set (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2005), bidirectional relationships between parental sensitivity and children's prosocial behavior were modeled using latent variables in structural equation modeling for mothers and fathers, separately. Children and their parents engaged in structured interactions when children were 54-month-olds, 3rd graders, and 5th graders, and these interactions were coded for parental sensitivity. At 3rd, 5th, and 6th grades, teachers and parents reported on children's prosocial behavior. Parental education and child gender were entered as covariates in the models. The results provide support for a bidirectional relationship between children's prosocial behavior and maternal sensitivity (but not paternal sensitivity) in middle childhood. The importance of using a bidirectional approach to examine the development of social competence is emphasized.
The current study examined the influence of multiple factors on individual differences in empathy; namely, attachment, negative emotionality, and emotion regulation. A total of 63 mothers completed ...the Attachment Q-set and questionnaires about their children's empathy, negative emotionality, and emotion regulation when children were 3 years old. Prosocial behavior was observed during a baby-cry procedure. Results of path analyses indicated that a model with attachment predicting empathy through the mediation of emotion regulation was the best fit for the data. Specifically, more-secure children were rated higher in emotion regulation and, consequently, higher in empathy. Furthermore, the optimal model was used to test empathy as a predictor of observed prosocial behavior. Here, children higher in empathy were observed to behave more prosocially. Overall, the results support the notion that more-secure children are more empathic because they are better emotion regulators.
White children's effortful control (EC), parents' implicit racial attitudes, and their interaction were examined as predictors of children's prosocial behavior toward White versus Black recipients. ...Data were collected from 171 White children (55% male, Mage = 7.13 years, SD = 0.92) and their parent in 2017. Prosocial behavior toward White peers was predicted by children's higher EC. When predicting prosocial behavior toward Black peers and prosocial disparity (the difference between White and Black recipients), parents' implicit racial attitudes moderated the relation between children's EC and children's prosocial behavior. Specifically, children's EC was positively associated with prosocial behavior toward Black peers (and negatively related to inequity in prosocial behavior) only when parents exhibited less implicit racial bias.
Relations among White (non‐Latinx) children's empathy‐related responding, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes toward White and Black peers were examined. In 2017, 190 (54% boys) White 5‐ to ...9‐year‐old children (M = 7.09 years, SD = 0.94) watched a series of videos that depicted social rejection of either a White or Black child. Empathy‐related responses, prosocial behaviors, and racial attitudes were measured using multiple methods. Results showed that younger children showed less facial concern toward Black than White peers and greater increases with age in concern and prosocial behaviors (sharing a desirable prize) for Black, compared to White, targets. Children's facial anger increased with age for White but not Black targets. The findings can extend our understanding children's anti‐racism development.
The goal of this study was to examine both the direct and indirect relations of parent and peer attachment with self-esteem and to examine the potential mediating roles of empathy and social ...behaviour. 246 college students (
M
age
=
18.6
years,
s.d.
=
1.61
) completed self-report measures of parent and peer attachment, empathy, social behaviour, and self-esteem. Structural equation modelling revealed that parental attachment had mostly direct effects on self-esteem. Among females, the links between peer attachment and self-esteem, however, were entirely mediated by empathy and prosocial behaviour. The findings from this study suggest that although close supportive relationships with parents and peers are related to adolescent self-esteem, these links are complex.
The current study examined the direction of the association between children’s attachment security and empathic responding. At 42 and 48 months of age, 69 children’s empathic concern was observed, ...and mothers reported the children’s attachment. Results indicated that attachment at 42 months predicted empathic concern at 48 months even after controlling for the influence of previous empathic concern. Similar analyses to predict attachment at 48 months from previous empathic concern were not significant, implying that a secure attachment predicted empathic concern and not the reverse. The findings suggest that a secure attachment relationship might be one context in which children learn to respond empathically to others.
Sparse research suggests that children's social information processing has links not just with aggressive behavior but also with children's prosocial behavior (e.g., Nelson & Crick, 1999). However, ...the past work that has been done has not been longitudinal, so the direction of links between social information processing and prosocial behavior remains unclear. In this study, we used data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2010) to examine longitudinally the links between prosocial as well as aggressive behaviors and social information processing. Children completed multiple assessments of social information processing (including attribution biases and strategy response selection) from the 3rd to 5th grades. Mothers and teachers completed measures of children's prosocial and aggressive behavior from the 3rd to 6th grades. Overall, the findings demonstrated that some of the links between social information processing and social behavior are bidirectional but that the direction of effects depends on when such links were assessed. At Grade 3, it was mostly children's social behavior that predicted social information processing. At Grades 4 and 5, however, social information processing predicted children's social behavior.
Although scholars are increasingly building empirical evidence that helps us understand racism, they have conducted surprisingly little research on White children's prosocial behavior toward ...historically marginalized people. 190 White, non-Hispanic children (M = 7.09 years, 54.2% boys) participated in the study. We examined whether both parents' reported values for racial diversity in their children's friendships and parents' and teachers' reports of children's cross-race friendships were related to children's sharing behaviors toward Black or White peers. We found that parents' valuing of diversity was positively related to older, but not younger, children's sharing behavior toward Black peers but not White peers. Further, for children of all age, parental diversity values were positively related to teachers' and parents' report of children's cross-race friendships. Our findings indicate that interventions to improve White children's positive behavior toward Black peers should include a focus on contexts that promote equity (i.e., parents' values and friendships).
•We aimed to examine how parents' diversity values were related to White children's race-based prosocial outcomes.•In a laboratory visit, we assessed children's race-based prosocial outcomes using two resource distribution tasks.•Parents' valuing of diversity positively predicted White children's sharing with Black peers.•Parents' valuing of diversity positively predicted prosocial behavior for older children.•Parents' valuing of diversity positively predicted White children's cross-race friendships.
