Scottish Schools Ethos NetworkHow Good is our Ethos?

7 June 2005

Redressing the balance: promoting prosocial behaviour in schools

Donald Christie

University of Strathclyde

The importance of interpersonal relationships

“Because a class is fundamentally a group of people, the relational dynamic is central to how positive the class is, how positive each of its its members feels about belonging to this group” (Bill Rogers, quoted in Ethos Network Newsletter 23)

Question: How can we foster positive interpersonal relationships?

Context

• Concern about children’s antisocial behaviour, especially bullying in schools.

• Recognition of importance of emotional, personal and social development

“Character is higher than intellect” (Emerson)• Evidence showing need for constructive, preventative

measures to tackle bullying and victimisation (e.g. Eslea and Smith, 1998)

• Need a better understanding of children’s social competence and how to promote prosocial behaviour

Education for Personal and Social Development

• Respect and caring for self• Respect and caring for others• A sense of social responsibility• A commitment to learning • A sense of belonging

SCCC (1995) “The Heart of the Matter”

What are we doing to achieve these aims?

Starter questions..

We all know what words like bullying and antisocial behaviour mean.

But what does prosocial behaviour mean?

Why is there such a gap?

Theory of Mind

Key question: Does child have a sense of how other people think?

Social Perspective Taking:Children’s ability to take into account others’

beliefs and desires when judging how others are likely to react in certain situations.

(Can have emotional and cognitive component)

What is Prosocial Behaviour?Categories of prosocial behaviour episodes elicited from children, teachers and parents (Warden and Christie, 1997)

• Sharing sharing possessions, giving gifts• Helping physical or practical help, e.g. after

an accident• Caring psychological support, sympathy or

comfort, showing empathy, loyalty• Inclusion befriending, making someone welcome,

playing with, talking to someone, preventing isolation

Prosocial BehaviourDefinitions“Prosocial behaviours may be uncontroversially defined

as behaviours in which an individual uses his or her resources to achieve positive outcomes for someone else.”

(Warden and Christie, 1997)

“..intentional, voluntary behaviour intended to benefit another”

(Eisenberg, 1992)

Promoting Prosocial Behaviour

• Create a loving and warm ethos

• Explain why and give rules

• Provide prosocial attributions

• Have children do helpful things

• Model thoughtful and generous behaviour

Also..

• TALK about interpersonal relationships and prosocial behaviour – develop a vocabulary

The Importance of Peer Relationships

• Parental influences said by some to be grossly exaggerated – peers are even more influential?

• Children spend increasing amounts of time with peers and less with adults/parents

• Social impact – identity, self-esteem, behaviour norms, attitudes, tastes, language

• Intellectual impact – collaborative learning enhances understanding

Intervention Study

Promoting interpersonal relationships through peer interaction

David Warden, Donald Christie, Bill Cheyne, Helen Fitzpatrick and Katie Reid, University of Strathclyde

ESRC Award R000237811

Aims of the Study

• To identify by peer nomination four groups of children:- prosocial, antisocial, victims and neutral

• To compare these groups on measures of social competence: perspective taking; social problem solving; moral reasoning and empathy

• To introduce a structured peer interaction training programme, Let’s Be Positive! into classrooms

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention

Design of Study

Stage 1 - Identification of target groups of children (Participant Role Scale, N=159 from 321)

Stage 2 - Initial assessments of Social Competence

(Battery of 5 principal measures)

Stage 3 - Intervention -

(2 experimental and 2 control groups)

Stage 4 - Immediate post-intervention assessments

Stage 5 - Delayed post-intervention assessments

Assessing socio-moral reasoning

• Three picture-story dilemmas similar to those developed by Eisenberg. Positive options: (1) Sharing toy and including someone in group play;

(2) Helping someone who is hurt;

(3) Caring/Protecting someone who is being bullied

• Individual interview:

(a) what course of action should the character take?

(b) why this course of action?

• Coding: modified version of Eisenberg’s scheme.

Assessing Perspective Taking

• Assessing children’s ability to understand the emotional and cognitive states of others

• 4 vignettes based on Happé (1994) incorporating “false belief” situations

• Children awarded scores for emotional perspective taking based on rated appropriateness of emotion descriptors and elaborations

• Children also awarded score for cognitive perspective taking based on accuracy of answer

Assessing Social Problem Solving

• 3 types of ambiguous social situation created:

provocation, rejection and unexpected befriending

• Multiple-choice interviews to assess:

attributions of intent - Why did he do that?

solution strategies - What would you do here?

evaluation of outcomes - What would be good about doing that?

Characteristics of prosocial children

• Help, share with, care for, and include others• Emotionally “intelligent”• Emotionally “literate”• Better at taking someone else’s perspective,

and being aware of other child’s feelings• Better at dealing with tricky social situations

without conflict

Intervention: ‘Let’s Be Positive’

• Six teacher-led weekly activities (c.60 mins) 1. Comparing prosocial and antisocial behaviours

2. Emotional responses to depicted prosocial and antisocial behaviours

3. Ways of responding to interpersonal behaviours

4. Reflecting on personal experiences of pro- and anti-social behaviour

5. Reflecting on reasons for nice and nasty behaviour

6. Comparing girls’ and boys’ behaviour

Intervention: ‘Let’s Be Positive’

• Resources supported whole-class and individual work as well as structured peer activity

• …with or without role play• Peer group work “Golden Rules”

– Be sure you agree on what you have to do– Try to keep your discussion focused on the task– Give everyone a chance to speak– Listen carefully to what everyone is saying– Be prepared to change your ideas– Complete the task as a group

Results on measures of social competence

• Children’s sociomoral reasoning– More prosocial choices of action (e.g. helping

responses)– Overall reasoning scores also improved

• Perspective Taking (Theory of Mind task)– Overall improvement especially in emotional

perspective taking• Social Problem Solving

– Shift away from negative attributions of intent– Shift away from aggressive towards passive or

constructive responses

Teacher evaluations

• “Most groups cooperated well in their social groupings and good quality discussion work was possible.”

• “Children enjoyed the freedom to discuss their feelings and opinions without always having to discuss them with teacher or with whole class.”

• “Cartoon format kept children focused and gave them a situation they could relate to.”

• “Children showed interest and enthusiasm for each week’s activities. They responded well to initial input learnt to discus well and enjoyed completing written activities in a thoughtful manner.”

General findings

• We can with confidence identify prosocial children as well as bullies and victims (NB gender differences)

• Overall the children involved in the programme showed significant gains in our measures of social competence

Fostering Prosocial Behaviour

1. Whole school approaches – ethos!– The school as a caring community– Community action projects

2. Cross-curricular approaches– Genuinely collaborative group work– Peer tutoring and peer assessment

3. ‘Special focus’ activities– E.g. ‘Let’s Be Positive’; role play;– Developing emotional vocabulary;

Implications: questions for discussion

• How can schools do more to promote emotional literacy and prosocial behaviour?

• Is there scope for more curricular resources to support interpersonal awareness and empathy?

• Do we need to continue to develop sensitive measures of social competence?

• What is the relationship between socio-moral understanding and moral behaviour?

• Gender issues and social identity – is it uncool to be “good”?