The importance of abuelos: Live-in grandparents predict prosociality in Latinx preschoolers

• In Event: How Caregivers Address Social Injustices to Promote Children's Wellbeing

Abstract

Theories of child development suggest that aspects of early prosociality have roots in grandparents’ interactions with grandchildren. Yet, the traditional developmental psychology focus on nuclear, European-American families has produced little empirical work on this topic. Recognizing the prevalence of live-in grandparents in Latinx communities, we conducted a preregistered study with Latinx preschool-aged children (N = 250, Mean child age = 5.02 years). The study was conducted within the super-majority Latinx neighborhoods of Los Angeles County. These are low-income, urban neighborhoods with high rates of grandparent involvement with grandchildren. The study took place over a 6-month period during the COVID-19 pandemic. We set up a mobile lab in an outdoor setting, which allowed us to use an experimental prosocial behavioral choice task (the Fehr task) that involved random assignment. Predicted probabilities from a logistic regression model showed that Latinx children with grandparents living at home were 1.56 times as likely to exhibit prosocial choice behavior as those who did not have a grandparent living at home, and this effect remained significant while controlling for a host of other preregistered covariates (education, economic insecurity, gender, age, etc.) That is, by testing in the neighborhoods of urban, Latinx Los Angeles, we found a connection between grandparents and early childhood prosociality—a connection that had not been found in traditional samples. This underscores the value of equity in studying diverse parenting and socialization approaches across cultural traditions, because they may be “hidden” strengths and assets that are not immediately visible when studying majority populations in university-centered laboratory settings wherein participants are primarily White, middle to upper-class families who have time to come to their nearby university. Seen in this light, the current findings suggest a hidden strength of multigenerational living arrangements that have a history of stigmatization (i.e., urban, low-income, Latinx multigenerational households). It is in these multigenerational contexts, and benefiting from the lived experiences of grandparents, that U.S.-based Latinx children may become motivated to act with prosociality, and thus contribute to the richness of cultures within the United States. As a whole, these findings highlight that focusing on understudied populations of children and their families has potential to contribute to advancing the field, while also contributing to contemporary discussions on diversity, equity, and social justice.

Authors

• Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, University of Washington
  Presenting Author

• Rechele Brooks, University of Washington

• Elizabeth A. Sanders, University of Washington

• Andrew N Meltzoff, University of Washington