Caring About Others: Teens Who Receive Support From Others More Likely To Be Caring

A study from the University of Rochester has shown that, while young people tend to be the least caring for others while they're in their adolescence, teens who receive support from their friends and social circles are more likely to show that same concern for others.

"Young people often perceive relationships they have as being less supportive during middle and early high school years," said Laura Wray-Lake, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Rochester. "Our study showed that youth perceptions of supports from parents, school, friends, and the community decreased across adolescence. Social responsibility - values that support caring for the welfare of others - declined in concert with these decreases in support."

Wray-Lake and the research team also looked at how volunteering impacted teenagers level of caring, seeing that those who participated in it over time saw rising levels of caring. From what the team saw, "the actual experience of being civically engaged appears to enhance social responsibility values," according to a news release.

They also found that, somewhat more obviously, an increase in substance use tends to lead to a lower level of social responsibility. Teens who were more involved with riskier behavior end up having conflicting social values that lower levels of caring for and helping others.

The team used a sample size of 3,500 American adolescents from rural, suburban and urban neighborhoods, where those participating were asked to rate beliefs with a scale ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disgree" on five points. The questions were based on things considered "very important to me," and included the following:

• to help those who are less fortunate.
• to help people in my community.
• to me to serve my country.
• to me to help my society.
• to me to help other students in school.

The study showed that values of social repsonsibility fell from ages 10 to 16, and leveled off later on. The participants were also asked to report on their relationships with their parents, community, friends, peers and school.

"What was really striking to me was that we were able to predict change in social responsibility over time," Wray-Lake said. "Increases in young people's perceptions of positive relationships related to increases in social responsibility. It's also true that decreases in positive relationships resulted in declines in social responsibility."

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