Prosocial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of attachment and psychopathology

• In Event: Helping out while staying in: Prosocial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused countless global consequences for individuals (e.g., loss, health complications) and communities (e.g., school shutdowns, economic downturn). Although prosocial behavior generally decreases in response to adverse events (e.g., Kaufman & Cicchetti, 1989), a sizable subset of children evidence increases in other-oriented behavior (Raboteg‐šaric et al., 1994). Parents play an important role in how children view and interpret adverse life events, and, in turn, how they respond to them. Indeed, strong parent-child attachment relationships buffer the deleterious effects of adversity on prosocial behavior (Staub & Vollhardt, 2008). In addition, children who struggle with mental health problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, externalizing problems) are less likely to engage in prosocial actions (e.g., Caceda et. al., 2014). Thus, this study evaluated parent-child attachment at age 12 as a predictor of changes in prosocial behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, we explored lower-than-expected increases in child psychopathology in response to the pandemic as one mechanism by which parent-child attachment may promote increased prosocial behavior during the pandemic.
Participants were 205 children (48.3% female; 47.3% Latinx) drawn from an ongoing study of child development. At age 12 (Mage_W1 = 12.245 years, SD = 0.352), children reported their attachment security (i.e., their perceptions of their caregiver as responsive and available, their tendency to rely on their caregiver, and their ease of communication with their caregiver) on the Kerns Security Scale (Kerns et al., 1996; α = .730). In addition, parents reported on children’s prosocial behavior using the 5-item Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997; α = .737). At age 14 (Mage_W2 = 14.198 years, SD = 0.473), and ~one year later during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic (Mage_W3 = 15.228 years, SD = 0.571), children completed the 112-item Youth Self Report (YSR; McConaughy & Achenbach, 2004), which taps a variety of mental health symptoms (e.g., depression, anxiety, conduct problems). Residualized gain scores (RGS) indicated changes in psychopathology from age 14 to COVID-19 on the YSR broadband scale for total problems. During the COVID-19 assessment, children self-reported on their prosocial behavior since the beginning of quarantine using the same SDQ items.
Although all youths reported increased mental health problems in response to the pandemic, (t = 2.424, p = .006), a MANOVA revealed a significant main effect of gender (Wilks’ λ = .910, p = .021), such that girls evidenced greater increases in psychopathology than boys (F = 10.778, p = .013). There was no significant main effect of race, nor a significant race*sex interaction. Bivariate relations are reported in Table 1. Mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of early adolescent attachment security on prosocial behavior during the pandemic over and above pre-pandemic prosocial behavior and via lower-than-expected gains in child psychopathology in response to COVID-19 (see Table 2).
These findings highlight the importance of parent-child attachment in both psychopathological and prosocial outcomes during major adverse life events. Further, they suggest that the increased psychological problems that accompany adversity may render children less able to engage in other-oriented behavior.

Authors

• Brianne Coulombe, University of South Carolina Aiken
  Presenting Author

• Tuppett M. Yates, University of California - Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author