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Young Children's Prosocial Behavior Protects Against Academic Risk in Neighborhoods With Low Socioeconomic Status.

ABSTRACT: Children raised in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status (SES) are at risk for low academic achievement. Identifying factors that help children from disadvantaged neighborhoods thrive is critical for reducing inequalities. We investigated whether children's prosocial behavior buffers concurrent and subsequent academic risk in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Bradford, UK. Diverse children (N = 1,175) were followed until age seven, with measurements taken at four times. We used governmental indices of neighborhood-level SES, teacher observations of prosocial behaviors, and direct assessments of academic achievement. Neighborhood SES was positively associated with academic achievement among children with low levels of prosocial behavior, but not among children with high levels of prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior may mitigate academic risk across early childhood.

SUBMITTER: Armstrong-Carter E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8355008 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Young Children's Prosocial Behavior Protects Against Academic Risk in Neighborhoods With Low Socioeconomic Status.

Armstrong-Carter Emma E Miller Jonas G JG Hill Liam J B LJB Domingue Benjamin W BW

Child development 20210217 4

Children raised in neighborhoods with low socioeconomic status (SES) are at risk for low academic achievement. Identifying factors that help children from disadvantaged neighborhoods thrive is critical for reducing inequalities. We investigated whether children's prosocial behavior buffers concurrent and subsequent academic risk in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Bradford, UK. Diverse children (N = 1,175) were followed until age seven, with measurements taken at four times. We used governmental i ...[more]

PMID: 33594683

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Project description:ImportanceIdentifying early childhood behavioral problems associated with economic success/failure is essential for the development of targeted interventions that enhance economic prosperity through improved educational attainment and social integration.ObjectiveTo test the association between kindergarten teacher-rated assessments of inattention, hyperactivity, opposition, aggression, and prosociality in boys with their employment earnings at age 35 to 36 years as measured by government tax return data.Design, setting, and participantsA 30-year prospective follow-up study analyzing low socioeconomic neighborhoods in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Boys aged 5 to 6 years attending kindergarten in low socioeconomic neighborhoods were recruited. Teacher-rated behavioral assessments were obtained for 1040 boys. Data were collected from April 1984 to December 2015. Analysis began January 2017.Main outcomes and measuresMixed-effects linear regression models were used to examine the association between teacher ratings of inattention, hyperactivity, opposition, aggression, and prosociality at age 6 years and individual earnings obtained from government tax returns at age 35 to 36 years. The IQ of the child and family adversity were adjusted for in the analysis.ResultsComplete data were available for 920 study participants (mean age at follow-up was 36.3 years). Mean (SD) personal earnings at follow-up were $28 865.53 ($24 103.45) (range, $0-$142 267.84). A 1-unit increase in inattention (mean [SD], 2.66 [2.34]; range, 0-8) at age 6 years was associated with decrease in earnings at age 35 to 36 years of $1295.13 (95% CI, -$2051.65 to -$538.62), while a unit increase in prosociality (mean [SD], 8.0 [4.96]; range, 0-20) was associated with an increase in earnings of $406.15 (95% CI, $172.54-$639.77). Hyperactivity, opposition, and aggression were not significantly associated with earnings. Child IQ was associated with higher earnings and family adversity with lower earnings in all models. A 1-SD reduction in inattention at age 6 years was associated with a theoretical increase in annual earnings of $3040.41, a similar magnitude to an equivalent increase in IQ.Conclusions and relevanceTeacher ratings of inattention and prosociality in kindergarten boys from low socioeconomic neighborhoods are associated with earnings in adulthood after adjustment for hyperactivity, aggression, and opposition, which were not associated with earnings. Interventions beginning in kindergarten that target boys' inattention and enhance prosociality could positively impact workforce integration and earnings.

Project description:By the 3rd year of life, young children engage in a variety of prosocial behaviors, including helping others attain their goals (instrumental helping), responding to others' emotional needs (comforting), and sharing resources (costly giving). Recent work suggests that these behaviors emerge early, during the first 2 years of life (Svetlova et al., 2010; Thompson and Newton, 2012; Dunfield and Kuhlmeier, 2013). To date, however, work investigating early varieties of prosocial behavior has largely focused on Western samples and has not assessed the impact of poverty and inequality. In this work, we investigate prosocial behavior in 3-year-olds in Zambia, a lower-middle income country with high wealth inequality. Experiments were integrated into a larger public health study along with both objective and subjective (parent) measures of wealth and inequality. Three-hundred-seventy-seven children (Mean age = 36.77 months; SD = 2.26 months) were presented with an instrumental helping task, comforting task, and two steps of a giving task - one with higher cost (children could give away their only resource) and one with lower cost (children had three resources to give). As predicted, rates of prosociality varied hierarchically by the cost of the action: instrumental helping was the most common followed by comforting, lower cost giving, and higher cost giving. All prosocial behaviors were significantly correlated with one another (with the exception of high cost giving), and with general cognitive ability. Objective family wealth did not predict any of the child's prosocial behaviors. However, subjective beliefs showed that mothers who believed that they had more than others in their village had children who were more likely to engage in instrumental helping, and mothers who believed that village inequality was a problem had children who were more likely to engage in low cost giving. Low cost giving was also more likely for children whose parents reported reading storybooks to them. This suggests that costly giving in the context of pretend play may relate to children's experience with using stories as representations of real life events. The results suggest both cultural differences and universalities in the development of prosociality and point to environmental factors that influence prosociality.

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Young Children's Prosocial Behavior Protects Against Academic Risk in Neighborhoods With Low Socioeconomic Status.

Publications

Young Children's Prosocial Behavior Protects Against Academic Risk in Neighborhoods With Low Socioeconomic Status.

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