Helping Others and Receiving Help: Refugee Children's Narration of Post-Transition Prosocial Experiences

This study examined refugee children’s narratives about giving and receiving prosociality. Children and their primary caregivers (N = 86, 5 – 12-year-olds, M = 8.05, SD = 2.22, 47 girls; 55%) were asked to recount a time they provided help to someone and a time they received helped from someone else. Narratives were coded for themes (e.g., behaviours and prosocial motives) that reflected prosocial tendencies. Both children and their caregivers also completed measures assessing children’s dispositional sympathy and overt prosocial behaviour. Children most frequently reported providing direct help and receiving teaching help. The motivations children reported did not significantly differ between providing and receiving help narratives. We also found developmental differences in the types of help and prosocial motives children reported. No overt links between narrative themes with sympathy and prosocial behaviour were observed. The findings will be discussed in relation to previous research on prosocial development in adverse contexts.M.A