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Impact of political conflict on trajectories of adolescent prosocial behavior: Implications for civic engagement.

ABSTRACT: Counterbalancing the narrative of youth as either helpless victims or ruthless perpetrators, a new generation of research in conflict settings focuses on their peace-building potential, including constructs such as prosocial behaviors and civic engagement. Previous research on the impact of political violence on prosocial behaviors in mixed, finding both positive and negative links. This study examines this relation using a launch and ambient approach, which helps to disentangle these effects over time. To do so, the article prospectively examines trajectories of adolescent prosocial behaviors (N = 999; Time 1: Mage = 12.18 years, SD = 1.82, range = 10-20) over 6 consecutive years in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a setting of on-going sectarian conflict. A dual change model, which combines the strengths of auto-regressive and latent growth curves approaches, found an initial shallow decrease in prosocial behaviors that dropped more sharply in later adolescence. Exposure to sectarianism related to an accelerated decrease in prosocial behaviors. Trajectories of prosocial behaviors positively related to later social and political engagement. Intervention implications address how to promote youth prosocial behaviors and civic engagement amid protracted political conflict. This type of research is needed because participation in civic life is a good indicator of youth agency and has positive implications for society. (PsycINFO Database Record

SUBMITTER: Taylor LK

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6110962 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Impact of political conflict on trajectories of adolescent prosocial behavior: Implications for civic engagement.

Taylor Laura K LK Merrilees Christine E CE Baird Rachel R Goeke-Morey Marcie C MC Shirlow Peter P Cummings E Mark EM

Developmental psychology 20180730 9

Counterbalancing the narrative of youth as either helpless victims or ruthless perpetrators, a new generation of research in conflict settings focuses on their peace-building potential, including constructs such as prosocial behaviors and civic engagement. Previous research on the impact of political violence on prosocial behaviors in mixed, finding both positive and negative links. This study examines this relation using a launch and ambient approach, which helps to disentangle these effects ov ...[more]

PMID: 30058816

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Project description:Parent-adolescent conflict can be intense, yet parents and adolescents do not always agree on the intensity of conflict. Conflict intensity tends to change during adolescence and is thought to be an indicator of how the parent-adolescent relationship transforms. However, parents and adolescents might differently perceive change in conflict intensity, resulting in changing discrepancies in conflict intensity throughout adolescence. Also, personality characteristics of parents and adolescents might affect the extent to which there are discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity. This multi-informant longitudinal study investigated a) the trajectories of parent-adolescent conflict intensity, b) the trajectories of informant discrepancies, and c) the prediction of these trajectories by parental and adolescent personality. Dutch adolescents (N?=?497, 43.1% female, Mage?=?13.03 at T1), their mothers, and their fathers reported on parent-adolescent conflict intensity and personality for six years. Latent Growth Curve Modeling and Latent Congruence Modeling revealed curvilinear changes in conflict intensity, as well as in discrepancies thereof. Two cycles of discrepancies emerged. First, in early-to-middle-adolescence discrepancies in perceptions of parents and adolescents increased, reflecting that adolescents' perceived conflict intensity increased. Second, in middle-to-late-adolescence, father-adolescent discrepancies increased further, reflecting that fathers' perceptions of conflict decreased. Resilient adolescents, mothers, and fathers reported lower levels of conflict intensity than Undercontrollers and Overcontrollers, but personality was not associated with the rate of change in conflict intensity. Finally, undercontrolling fathers and overcontrolling adolescents showed higher father-adolescent discrepancies. This study showed that parents and adolescents differentially perceive conflict intensity and that in the adolescent-father relationship, the extent of the differences depends on adolescent and father personality.

Dataset Information

Impact of political conflict on trajectories of adolescent prosocial behavior: Implications for civic engagement.

Publications

Impact of political conflict on trajectories of adolescent prosocial behavior: Implications for civic engagement.

Similar Datasets

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