Author:
Rowlands Katie,Simic Mima,Treasure Janet,Cardi Valentina
Abstract
Abstract
Background
Prosocial behaviour can promote positive social interactions and it is a key skill in adolescence. People with emotional problems or psychiatric disorders, such as people with eating disorders might have impairments in prosocial behaviour, due to broader documented difficulties in underlying processes (e.g., mentalizing).
Methods
The aim of this study was to examine prosocial behaviour in adolescents with eating disorders compared to healthy controls, using a computerised behavioural task. Adolescents (N = 123) including patients with eating disorders (n = 61) and healthy adolescents (n = 62) played a four-player computerised Prosocial Cyberball Game with three pre-programmed avatar players. During the task, participants witnessed the exclusion of one of the players, and subsequently had the opportunity to compensate for this by throwing the ball more often to the excluded player. Throughout the game, participants rated the level of negative emotion in themselves and in the excluded player.
Results
Patients made significantly fewer ball tosses towards the excluded player during the compensation round compared to healthy controls (large effect size). Patients reported a significantly smaller increase in negative emotion after witnessing the exclusion and a significantly smaller decrease in negative emotion following the compensation round (large effect sizes). Patients also estimated a smaller decrease in negative emotion in the excluded player following the compensation round (medium effect size). There were no significant associations between these outcomes and eating disorder psychopathology in patients.
Conclusions
Compared to healthy adolescents, adolescent patients with eating disorders demonstrated less prosocial compensatory behaviour towards a computerised victim of social exclusion. In addition, they reported flatter negative emotion in themselves in response to witnessing and compensating for exclusion, and in the excluded player following compensation. If these findings are replicated, interventions to target these difficulties might contribute to improvements in social functioning in this patient group.
Funder
NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre
Dipartimenti di Eccellenza
Università degli Studi di Padova
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Subject
Behavioral Neuroscience,Psychiatry and Mental health,Nutrition and Dietetics
Reference49 articles.
1. Crone EA, Sweijen SW, Te Brinke LW, van de Groep S. Pathways for engaging in prosocial behavior in adolescence. Adv Child Dev Behav. 2022;63:149–90.
2. Decety J, Bartal IB-A, Uzefovsky F, Knafo-Noam A. Empathy as a driver of prosocial behaviour: highly conserved neurobehavioural mechanisms across species. Philos Trans R Soc B Biol Sci 2016;371(1686):20150077.
3. Somerville LH. The teenage brain: sensitivity to social evaluation. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2013;22(2):121–7.
4. Dryburgh NS, Ponath E, Bukowski WM, Dirks MA. Associations between interpersonal behavior and friendship quality in childhood and adolescence: a meta-analysis. Child Dev. 2022;93(3):e332–47.
5. Zhou Z, Shen R, Huebner ES, Tian L. The longitudinal reciprocal relations among friendship quality, positivity and prosocial behavior in Chinese early adolescents. Curr Psychol. 2022;66:1–15.