Poster #125 - Links Among Parenting Practices, Media Use, Empathy, Perspective Taking, and Prosocial Behaviors in College Students

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Among socialization agents, parents are generally recognized to be important contributors to the moral development of youth (Grusec et al., 2014). Parenting practices in particular have been shown to predict adolescents’ prosocial behaviors (i.e., actions intend to benefit others; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Knafo, 2015) (Carlo et al., 2007; Davis & Carlo, 2018). Research on prosocial behavior has demonstrated that these actions are associated with several positive outcomes including higher self-esteem, lower aggression and delinquency, and academic achievement (Carlo, 2014). Parents help to foster prosocial behaviors through practices such as social or material rewards to encourage prosocial behaviors or by discussing prosocial issues in conversations about school or in reading stories together (Davis & Carlo, 2018). However, children and adolescents are being exposed to increasing amounts of media content between 8 and 18 years of age with an average exposure to media of between 6-9 hours a day (Rideout, 2015). In addition, social media usage has increased dramatically over the last decade, with young adults being the earliest age group to begin using social media and to use it at high levels with 88% of young adults between 18 and 29 reported using at least one social media site in 2018 (Pew Research Center, 2018). Similar to parents, media can send strong messages regarding the desirability of prosocial actions and adolescents can be exposed to prosocial role models. With the increased exposure of media content on youth today, research is needed to examine the relative effects of media and parenting on prosocial traits (empathy, perspective taking) and behaviors. We explored the links among college students’ reports of parenting practices, media use, empathic concern, perspective-taking, and prosocial behaviors. The sample included 324 college students (Mage=19.47, SD=1.10; 79.6% female) from a large university in the Midwest U.S. Students completed measures of parents’ use of social and material rewards (Carlo et al., 2007), use of prosocial TV shows, social media and movies, empathic concern and perspective taking (Davis, 1983), and six types of prosocial behaviors (Carlo et al., 2003). Table 1 shows descriptives and correlations for the main study variables. A simultaneous regression model conducted in Mplus 8.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017) showed that parenting practices and media use were differentially linked to empathic concern, perspective-taking, and six types of prosocial behavior. Giving material rewards was negatively associated with empathic concern and altruistic prosocial behavior and parent-child discussions were positively associated with empathic concern, perspective taking, and anonymous prosocial behavior. College students’ exposure to helping behaviors in social media was positively associated with altruistic and compliant prosocial behaviors. Students’ exposure to TV shows with helping behavior content was positively associated with empathic concern, perspective taking, and dire prosocial behavior. Taken together, the findings generally suggest that specific forms of parenting practices and types of media are more strongly related to some prosocial behaviors as compared to others. The implications of parenting practices and types of media on the fostering of prosocial behavior during emerging adulthood will be discussed.

Authors

• Logan Dicus, University of Missouri
  Presenting Author

• Gustavo Carlo, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meredith McGinley, University of Wisconsin-Parkside
  Non-Presenting Author