Fostering prosocial development in Rohingya refugee children

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Solicited Content: Refugee Children

Abstract

Human migration has risen exponentially as multiple global crises, including violent conflict, force millions of families from their homes. UNHCR (2019) reports that 34 million children live in forced migration contexts. Much of the research on war- and conflict-related trauma focuses on mental health, confirming devastating effects on several mental health indicators (Masten et al., 2015). Positive impacts of interventions designed to mitigate these negative consequences are also reported (Purgato et al., 2018). However, very few studies (e.g., Taylor et al., 2018) ask how conflict-related trauma impacts the positive side of human nature – prosociality (e.g., helping, sharing, empathy). Prosocial behaviors emerge early in development and undergo important shifts over childhood depending on contextual and sociocultural factors (Callaghan & Corbit, 2018). Theoretical views suggest that while humans appear to be predisposed toward prosocial behavior, important shifts occur across childhood as foundational psychological abilities develop within sociocultural niches (Tomasello, 2019).

The current study asks how the human predisposition toward prosociality can survive in the context of extreme conflict-related trauma. We investigated prosocial development in Rohingya children forced to flee genocide. Rohingya are a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority of Myanmar subjected to systematic persecution for more than half a century, with close to 1 million now in the world’s largest refugee camp (Bangladesh); our sample (N=122, aged 3-11 years, Females = 57) was from a smaller (pop. 4.5 K) refugee settlement in Hyderabad, India.

We measured helping, sharing and comforting, and the effectiveness of interventions that had previously been reported to foster prosociality in typically developing children (emotion perspective taking [Paulus & Moore, 2015], collaboration [Corbit et al, 2017]). The study was conducted in Canada with Rohingya immigrant children (N=20, aged 4-12 years, Females = 9), to compare overall prosociality. Children received a helping score out of 6 (number of trials helped, with/without cueing), a sharing score out of 12 (2 allocation trials of 6 items), and a comforting score of 6 (spontaneous or cued on 2 trials). These were summed for overall prosociality scores.

Rohingya children living in Canada showed significantly higher levels of overall prosociality than refugee children (p<.0006). The main analyses found that refugee children shared more and helped less over development, with comforting constant (see Figure 1). Intervention analyses added the categorical variable of Birthplace as a proxy for level of trauma experienced (high – born in Myanmar; moderate – born in the Camp). Children born in Myanmar helped less than those born in the camp (p<.011), with no differences found in sharing or comforting. For children born in Myanmar the Emotion intervention was marginally more effective than Collaboration, whereas for children born in Camp, the reverse was found (p<.08, see Figure 2).

These findings support the view that levels of prosociality were lower in Rohingya refugee children compared to Rohingya children who had immigrated to Canada and suggest several promising avenues for developing more extensive programs of support for Rohingya and other children who face the extreme trauma of war and conflict.

Authors

• Tara C Callaghan, St. Francis Xavier University
  Presenting Author

• John Corbit, Dalhousie University
  Non-Presenting Author