About this poster

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Panel information
Panel 8. Social Intergroup Processes

Abstract

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Cultural stressors, such as ethnic/racial discrimination, may undermine Latinx adolescents’ prosocial behaviors (actions intended to benefit others; Davis et al., 2021). In the face of discrimination, Latinx adolescents may respond by endorsing adaptive factors, such as familism (Carlo & Conejo, 2019; Brittian et al., 2013), but may also experience increases in depressive symptoms (Stein et al., 2019). While familism may lead to increases in adolescents’ prosocial behaviors, depressive symptoms can result in declines in prosocial behaviors (Davis et al., 2016). More research is needed to understand how depressive symptoms and familism explain associations between discrimination and prosocial development, particularly during sensitive periods of development, such as the transition from middle to high school. Following a probability sample of Latinx adolescents surveyed at eight six-month timepoints from the 8th to 11th grade, we examined whether peer discrimination experienced at Time 1 (T1) was related to the intercept and slope of three forms of prosocial behaviors (emotional, dire, and compliant) from 8th grade (T2) to 11th grade (T8) directly and indirectly by way of T2 familism and depressive symptoms. Participants were 547 Latinx adolescents (Mage = 13.70 years, SD = .40) in suburban Atlanta, a new immigrant destination. Most participants (89.6%) were born in the U.S., and slightly under half (45.0%) were boys. At T1, adolescents reported experiences of ethnic/racial discrimination by peers/classmates at school (Fisher et al., 2000). At T1-T2, they reported on familism (Knight et al., 2010) and depressive symptoms (Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1991), and at T2-T8, adolescents reported on their engagement in emotional, dire, and compliant prosocial behaviors (Carlo et al., 2003).

Multiple-group latent growth curve models were conducted separately for each form of prosocial behaviors. Initial levels (i.e. intercepts) and change in prosocial behaviors (i.e. slopes) did not differ by gender. Findings from the three conditional growth curve models showed that discrimination was associated with increases in T1 to T2 depressive symptoms (Figure 1). In turn, depressive symptoms were associated with lower initial levels of dire prosocial behaviors and sharper declines in emotional prosocial behaviors for boys; however, the indirect effects from discrimination to initial levels of dire and to declines in emotional prosocial behaviors were marginally significant. While familism was related to higher initial levels of prosocial behavior in all models, it was not associated with discrimination or with changes in any prosocial behavior. Discrimination had direct effects. Specifically, discrimination was associated with lower initial levels of emotional prosocial behaviors for boys and with less of a decline of emotional and dire prosocial behaviors for both boys and girls.

Findings partially support prior work linking discrimination, depressive symptoms, and prosocial behaviors (Davis et al., 2016). Specifically, we found that discrimination was associated with increases in depressive symptoms for boys and girls and that depressive symptoms, for boys, were related to greater declines in emotional prosocial behaviors. The distinct pattern of findings across gender and across three forms of prosocial behaviors demonstrate the need for more nuanced developmental models. Although experiencing discrimination by peers was directly associated with less declines in emotional and dire prosocial behaviors, familism was not an adaptive factor that explained this slow decline. It might be that discrimination fosters cultural or socioemotional adaptive factors that enhance youth’s sense of shared suffering (Taylor & Hanna, 2018), such as ethnic pride or empathic concern, which in turn, promotes prosocial behaviors when others are most in need. Additionally, residual slope variances remained significant in each conditional model, suggesting there are other mechanisms that explain the association between discrimination and prosocial behaviors. Implications for culturally grounded developmental models of prosocial development in U.S. Latinx adolescents will be discussed.

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