The relationships between several Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and prosocial behavior at national level have been investigated by some studies. Yet the roles of indulgence versus restraint (IVR) and long-term versus short-term orientation (LTO), two newly established cultural dimensions, have received insufficient interest. This study aimed to investigate whether the World Giving Index (WGI), a national level measure of prosocial behavior (including donating, volunteering, and helping a stranger) provided by Gallup, was affected by IVR and LTO. The results suggested a positive link between IVR and WGI, and a negative link between LTO and helping a stranger. Culture values can in a great extend account for why prosocial behavior varies across countries. Further analysis revealed interactions among IVR, LTO, and individualism versus collectivism (IND). Simple slope analyses found that: (1) a higher level of IND could enhance the positive influence of IVR on prosocial behavior; (2) a lower level of IND could weaken the negative impact of LTO on prosocial behavior; (3) a higher level of IVR could weaken the negative effect of LTO on prosocial behavior.

This study examined the reciprocal relations among maternal sensitivity, paternal sensitivity, and children’s social adjustment from 54 months of age to 5th grade. Using a subsample from the National Institute of Child Health and Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 829), we employed an autoregressive latent trajectory model with structured residuals (ALT-SR) to unpack the trait and state aspects in the relations between parental sensitivity and children’s social adjustment. After taking into account trait factors, among all the significant autoregressive and cross-lagged paths originally found in the autoregressive cross-lagged panel models, less than one third of them remained significant in the ALT-SR model. More specifically, in the ALT-SR model, more parent-driven effects were observed for fathers and child-driven effects were detected between children’s social skills and fathers’ sensitivity. Taken together, it appears that parents’ central tendency to be sensitive in the long term is a stable trait, and experiences less state-level fluctuations, and these appear to matter more for children’s general tendency to show well adjustment as opposed to change over time.

Using a large sample from the National Institute of Child Health and Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,178, 51% were male and 80% were White), the random intercept cross-lagged panel model was employed to unpack the trait and state aspects in the relations between mothers' depressive symptoms and children's behavioral problems from age 2 to 15. The transactional predictions among mothers' depressive symptoms and children's behavioral problems were largely attributed to their correlations at the underlying trait level (rs = .458-.528). At the state level, the mutual influences among mothers' depressive symptoms and children's behavior problems occurred more often during periods of transition. With that said, the child effects hypothesis was not supported.

No abstract

No abstract