Left behind, not alone: feeling, function and neurophysiological markers of self-expansion among left-behind children and not left-behind peers.

ABSTRACT: Four in 10 young rural Chinese children are 'left behind' by parents migrating for economic opportunities. Left-behind children do as well academically and imagine as many possible futures for themselves as their peers, implying that they must compensate in some ways for loss of everyday contact with their parents. Three studies test and find support for the prediction that compensation entails self-expansion to include a caregiving grandmother rather than one's mother in self-concept, as is typical in Chinese culture. We measured self-expansion with feeling, function and neurophysiological variables. Twelve-year-old middle school left-behind children (Study 1, N = 66) and 20-year-old formerly left-behind children (now in college, Studies 2 and 3, N = 162) felt closer to their grandmothers

SUBMITTER: Bi C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7308663 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature