Poster #129 - Kindness in digital and IRL: Prosocial behaviors predicting longitudinal mental health among middle school students

• In Event: Poster Session 17

Abstract

Research on associations between digital social interactions and socioemotional health has focused on the deleterious effects of negative peer interactions in digital environments (e.g. Twenge, Haidt, Lozano, & Cummins, 2022). While instances of cyberaggression and digital addiction have been shown to be negatively associated with socioemotional adjustment over time, negative peer experiences comprise only a small portion of adolescent digital interactions (Kowalski, Limber, & McCord, 2019). Adolescents engage in a variety of prosocial behaviors when interacting with their peers through digital technologies (Wright & Li, 2011). While digital and face-to-face interactions frequently correspond, peer interactions in each context have been shown to have unique effects for girls and boys (Sasson & Mesch, 2014). Furthermore, prosocial behaviors have been shown to be related to enhanced adjustment for both the adolescent engaging in the behavior and those benefiting from the prosocial interaction (Dirks, Dunfield, & Recchia, 2018). Prosocial actions taken toward others require intentionality, while experiencing others’ prosocial behaviors may occur spontaneously. Thus, engaging in prosocial behaviors and receiving prosocial behavior may have distinctive effects depending on social context and adolescents’ self-identified gender.
The current study examined the extent to which prosocial behaviors in face-to-face and digital contexts predict adjustment for adolescents identifying as girls or boys. Specifically, associations between engagement in prosocial behavior (i.e., face-to-face, digital), reception of prosocial behavior (i.e., face-to-face, digital), and subsequent adjustment (i.e., depression, loneliness, self-esteem) for girls and boys in adolescence. As prosocial behaviors are related to different adjustment outcomes for girls and boys, associations were modeled separately for each.
Data were obtained from a sample of 7th and 8th grade students in Western Pennsylvania in the United States. A total of 110 (58 identified girls, 52 identified boys) adolescents participated. Of the final sample, 52.8% of the students were in 7th grade, 47.2% were in 8th grade. Engagement in prosocial behavior in face-to-face and digital environments and reception of face-to-face and digital prosocial behaviors were assessed through peer nominations (Wright, 2016). Adolescent adjustment was assessed using self-reported depression (Radloff, 1977), loneliness (Russell, 1996), and self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965).
Controlling for fall levels of adjustment, the reception of prosocial behaviors from peers in both face-to-face and digital environments was associated with dampened depression and loneliness, and heightened self-esteem for adolescent boys, while engagement in face-to-face prosocial behaviors was associated with higher levels of depression and loneliness, and marginally lower self-esteem. Conversely, for adolescent girls, engagement in prosocial behavior face-to-face predicted dampened depression and marginally higher levels of self-esteem. Digital engagement in prosocial behavior is associated with dampened subsequent depression and loneliness for girls. Adolescent girls evidenced heightened levels of depression related to receiving prosocial behavior face-to-face.
The current study demonstrates the differential effects of prosocial behaviors in face-to-face and digital environments. Adolescent boys and girls demonstrate contrasting effects of prosocial behaviors in digital and face-to-face environments depending on whether they are the beneficiaries or the initiator of the behavior. The findings of the current study have implications for promoting adaptive behaviors across a variety social environments.

Author

• John Ranney, Gannon University
  Presenting Author