Poster #150 - What Predicts Helping, Sharing, Comforting Behaviors of Children and Adolescents During the Pandemic?

• In Event: Poster Session 01

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting the lives of people all around the world in various aspects. In Turkey, because of school closures, education was carried out through distance learning platforms, and youngsters under the age of 20 were not allowed to leave their houses. Such changes have dramatically affected the social lives of children and adolescents. As one of the social skills, prosocial behaviors were found to be affected by traumatic events (Li et al., 2013; Usami et al., 2014). However, studies investigating changes in prosocial behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic are very limited. In one study, results indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic did not have a significant effect on adolescents’ prosocial behaviors, but it might be associated with the underlying mechanisms (van de Groep et al., 2020). In another study conducted with adults, results revealed an increase in the levels prosocial behaviors during the pandemic (Hellmann et al., 2021). Moreover, since working conditions have changed to remote, the time family members spent together at home increased, which may have led to increased stress, especially for mothers. This increased stress may also impact parenting practices (Chung et al., 2020). Changes in parenting practices and experiences related to the COVID-19 pandemic such as anxiety, losses, and diagnoses of family members and acquaintances may be predictive of prosocial behaviors of children and adolescents. Additionally, some individual characteristics such as temperamental traits may make children more susceptible to their environment, and in contemporary literature, negative affect and sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) has been labeled as “susceptibility markers” (Slagt et al., 2018). This study intends to analyze these relationships with the moderating roles of these traits. In the light of these, it is aimed to address four research questions; 1) whether the level of prosocial behaviors of children and adolescents would change during the pandemic; 2) whether COVID-19 experiences of mothers and children would predict the levels of prosocial behaviors; 3) whether change in parenting practices of mothers (inductive reasoning, parental warmth, psychological control) between Time 1 and Time 2 would predict the levels of prosocial behaviors; and 4) whether temperamental characteristics of children and adolescents (negative affect, SPS) would have a moderating role in the association between parenting and prosocial behaviors. As a part of a national project, data were collected at two time points (pre-pandemic and during the pandemic) from a total of 249 children and their mothers from 17 cities of Turkey. Results indicated that 1) between Time 1 and Time 2, while sharing behaviors of children and adolescents increased, helping and comforting behaviors decreased; 2) while mother-reported losses due to COVID-19 were positively associated with helping, sharing and comforting behaviors, maternal COVID-19 anxiety was positively associated only with sharing, and diagnosis of family members was negatively associated with helping and sharing; 3) while change in parental warmth was negatively associated, change in inductive reasoning was positively associated only with helping; 4) only SPS was a marginally significant moderator in the relationship between change in parenting practices and prosocial behaviors.

Authors

• Beril Kiyak, Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi (METU)
  Presenting Author

• Bilge Onursal Ozer, Middle East Technical University

• İlayda Çalışkan, Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi (METU)

• Basak Sahin-Acar, Middle East Technical University

• Aysun Dogan, Ege University

• Deniz Tahiroglu, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi (BOUN)

• Sibel KazakBerument, Middle East Technical University