Linking Self-Compassion and Prosocial Behavior in Adolescents: The Mediating Roles of Relatedness and Trust

Abstract

Self-compassion involves treating oneself with kindness rather than harsh judgement, viewing imperfection as an inherent part of shared human experience rather than seeing them as isolating, and being mindful of painful feelings rather than over-identifying with them. Abundant evidence has identified the adaptive role of self-compassion on multiple intrapersonal outcomes, such as mental health, emotional well-being and improvement motivation. However, relatively few is known about self-compassion’s interpersonal/social benefits, especially in adolescents. The present study examined the relationships between self-compassion, satisfaction of relatedness, general trust, and prosocial behavior in a relatively large Chinese high school adolescent sample (N = 3238, 47.8% boys; M_age = 15.66 years, SD = 0.80). We observed that self-compassion was positively associated with adolescents’ prosocial behavior, and that relatedness and trust mediated the positive association. Moreover, we found that boys maintained a slightly higher level of self-compassion than girls, and multi-group analysis showed that the relationship between self-compassion and trust was also slightly greater in boys than girls. The present study sheds light on how self-compassion is associated with positive social behavior in adolescents. We suggest that self-compassion intervention could be adapted and implemented during this critical developmental period. More research is encouraged to further discover the adaptive functions of self-compassion in social context.

The Differential Effects of Perceived Social Support on Adolescent Hope: Testing the Moderating Effects of Age and Gender

Abstract

In an effort to deepen our understanding of the development of one future-oriented psychological strength, hope, we examined how multiple sources of perceived social support (i.e., parent, teacher, classmate, friend) predicted hope and if these relations were moderated by age and gender in adolescents across a 1-year time span. Our sample was composed of adolescents in middle and high schools with ages ranging from 10 to 19 years old (M_age = 14.19, SD = 2.05) living in the United States (N = 991). The results showed that perceived social support from parents significantly predicted later hope in adolescents, and this relation was moderated by age but not gender. Specifically, the effect of perceived social support from parents on later hope declined as age increased. Perceived social support from teachers, classmates, and friends did not predict later hope, after controlling for baseline hope and race; neither age nor gender moderated the relation between these sources of social support and hope. These findings suggest that it is necessary to consider the developmental needs associated with ages within adolescence when promoting adolescents’ hope, especially in the family context. Future directions to extend the understanding of hope development and implications of the findings in mental health practices are discussed.

Exploring the Influence School Climate on the Relationship between School Violence and Adolescent Subjective Well-Being

Abstract

School climate plays a key, protecting role against adverse outcomes when young individuals face peer victimization. Here we examined the potential relationships among adolescent’s wellbeing, school violence, and school climate in a sample of 2006 Chilean students (48% female) aged 10–21 (M = 14.97, SD = 1.86) from 20 schools located in the same school department. Participants completed a self-report questionnaire assessing wellbeing, school violence, and school climate. Using multilevel (Hierarchical Linear Modeling; HLM) methods we found that positive interpersonal relationships (an indicator of school climate) were significantly associated to wellbeing at schools (γ01 = .24, p < .01). School bonding was also associated to peer victimization and wellbeing (γ₉₀ = .14, p < .10). Our results highlight the importance of improving school related factors in order to achieve a more supportive environment for youth wellbeing.

Childhood Economic Well-Being in South Africa: Construction of a Theoretically-Grounded Empirically-Derived Multidimensional Measure

Abstract

This study uses the bioecological framework and methodology to select items for and to test a multidimensional structure of a measure of children’s economic well-being in a multi-community sample of children (7–11 years) and their households (N = 1958) from KwaZulu-Natal, a poor and under-served region of South Africa. Economic well-being was assessed using questionnaires completed by children’s caregivers and household heads. Exploratory factor analysis of four random split halves identified three dimensions of economic well-being: Fiscal Appraisal (subjective experiences of access to/allocation of resources), Material Assets (durable goods and living environment), and Fiscal Capacity (traditional measures of poverty: income, expenditures, employment). Confirmatory factor analysis verified the higher order model of economic well-being with the three dimensions. Invariance testing using multiple group factor analysis indicated confidence for use of this measure with varying types of communities in South Africa. The results reflect the multidimensional nature of economic well-being. Thus, the often-used money metric measures of poverty likely paint an incomplete picture of children’s actual economic well-being. Because our sample consists of impoverished households, our measure of economic well-being is sensitive to variation at the deep end of poverty. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.

Patterns of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression Among Adolescents Following an Earthquake: a Latent Profile Analysis

Abstract

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) had been found to be comorbid with depression in victims following trauma. However, few studies have used latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine the comorbidity of PTSD and depression in adolescents exposed to natural disasters. Here, we used LPA to examine the comorbidity of PTSD and depression in 2059 adolescents who completed self-reported questionnaires 1.5 years after the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan Province, China. We found that the data were best fit by a four-class solution, including a depressive symptoms group (39.2%), a non-symptoms group (34.7%), a mild comorbidity symptoms group (20.7%), and a serious comorbidity symptoms group (5.4%). Compared with individuals in the non-symptoms group, those in the comorbidity symptoms groups were more likely to report lower levels of parental trust, a greater degree of parental communication, and greater alienation. Compared with individuals in the depressive symptoms group, those in the comorbidity symptoms groups were more likely to report parental alienation. These results indicate that PTSD and depression reflect independent posttraumatic responses rather than a single disorder structure. Further, parental attachment may be an important predictor for differentiating the distinct comorbid patterns of PTSD and depression.

Adolescents’ Personality Traits and Positive Psychological Orientations: Relations with Emotional Distress and Life Satisfaction Mediated by School Connectedness

Abstract

Contemporary models emphasize linkages between malleable positive psychological orientations and enhanced quality of life. As such, it is important to consider if these positive orientations provide unique explanatory power beyond the long-established relations between quality of life and within-person, less malleable personality traits. This study contributed to the literature by examining the relations among adolescents’ personality traits, positive psychology orientations, and self-reported quality of life indicators. These relations were further examined by considering the mediating effects of the important contextual influences of school connectedness. Self-report responses of 1867 California high school students to an 88-item schoolwide online survey that included the Big Five Inventory-10 (Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness), the Social Emotional Health Survey-Secondary (Belief in Self, Belief in Others, Emotional Competence, and Engaged Living), the School Connectedness Scale, the Brief Multidimensional Life Satisfaction Scale, and the Social Emotional Distress Scale-Secondary were used to examine relations. Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that after controlling for demographic variables (Block 1: sex, grade, and ethnicity) the personality traits (Block 2) were, as expected, significantly associated with life satisfaction and emotional distress. Supporting study hypotheses, the inclusion of positive psychological orientations (Block 3) explained significantly more variance of students’ life satisfaction (△R² = 26%) and emotional distress (△R² = 5%). Mediation analyses using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) found that only positive psychological orientations had significant indirect relations with quality of life through school connectedness. Implications and future research and practice are discussed.

Gender, Age and Cross-Cultural Differences in Life Satisfaction: a Comparison Between Spain and Mexico

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore latent mean differences regarding country, gender and age in life satisfaction. The sample was composed by 701 adolescents (M_age = 14.93, SD = 1.83) from Spain (74.2%) and Mexico (25.8%). Confirmatory factor analysis modeling was used to test for multigroup measurement invariance. To compare groups two methods were used: (1) fitting two models and running an Anova; and (2) the Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes Model (MIMIC) which links an observed covariate (country, gender and age) with a latent variable such as the SWLS score. Results supported a single-factor structure. The internal consistency of the SWLS, and the tests of measurement invariance supported its strict invariance regarding country and gender, and strong invariance regarding age. Latent mean differences showed better perceptions in life satisfaction for males and the youngest, while no cross-cultural differences were found between adolescents from Spain and Mexico.

Early Poverty and Children’s General Health at 8 Years of Age in the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study

Abstract

There are growing concerns about the effects of poverty on children’s health, but few studies have examined how the long-term experience of poverty affects the general health of children. We sought to investigate the relationship between children’s poverty experience from birth to school age and their general health status. Data from the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study (TBCS), a nationally representative sample of 17,853 children born in 2005 were used. Mother-rated health of children at age 8 was assessed. We used logistic regression to examine how the duration and timing of child poverty are related to children’s general health, controlling for child and maternal characteristics. Of the 17,853 cohort members, 23.6% experienced early poverty (persistent, 5.9%; occasional, 17.7%) before age 5, and 11.4% experienced concurrent poverty at the age of 8. Children born into poverty and remaining poor were more likely to have poor health than those who were never poor. Early poverty (persistent poverty: odds ratio (OR) = 1.50; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.27–1.78; occasional poverty: OR = 1.25; 95% CI 1.12–1.39) was more detrimental to children’s general health than concurrent poverty (OR = 1.23; 95% CI 1.09–1.40). A long-lasting gradient effect of early poverty on the general health of children was detected, suggesting an urgent need to prevent children from growing up in persistent poverty.

‘It’s Not Something I Can Change…’: Children’s perceptions of inequality and their agency in relation to their occupational choices

Abstract

Despite the increasing recognition of the significance of children’s own perceptions of inequality and critical theorisations of, and much research on, the impact of inequality on human agency, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the impact of inequality on children’s agency. This paper contributes to addressing this gap by exploring how children’s perceptions of inequality impinge upon their perceptions of the efficacy of their agency with regard to their occupational choices. It uses questionnaire data from a sample of 862 South Korean school children aged 10–18 from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and follow-up semi-structured interviews with 42 selected children. The findings suggest that, while most of the children held meritocratic beliefs about academic and economic inequalities, some subtle but significant relationships existed between the children’s perceptions of inequality, their socioeconomic status and their perceptions of their agency. The older children were significantly more likely both to be aware of their relative academic and economic positions and to have given up a desired occupation in response to their perceptions of the inefficacy of their agency. Across the sample as a whole, in the processes by which the children adjusted their future occupational ambitions, while their socioeconomic status (especially in terms of the father’s occupation) had a significant impact, the children’s awareness of their relative positions, especially their economic position, showed a more pervasive and significant relationship with their likelihood of having given up a desired occupation due to having perceived the inefficacy of their agency.