Relative Deprivation and Prosocial Tendencies in Chinese Migrant Children: Testing an Integrated Model of Perceived Social Support and Group Identity.

Meng Xiong,Yiduo Ye,Lei Xiao

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.658007

Meng Xiong, Yiduo Ye + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.658007

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Abstract

As a particularly vulnerable group, children from rural areas in China whose families migrate to urban areas often encounter social exclusion, prejudice, and discrimination as they adjust to city life. Hence, migrant children may experience a sense of relative deprivation when they feel they are treated unjustly when compared to their urban counterparts. Although previous research has demonstrated that relative deprivation is a risk factor for prosocial tendencies, this association has not yet been examined in the population of migrant children in China. Further, few studies have revealed the mediating and moderating mechanisms between relative deprivation and prosocial tendencies. Therefore, this study constructed an integrated model examining the possible mediating role of perceived social support and moderating role of in-group identity on the association between relative deprivation and prosocial tendencies. A large sample of 1,630 Chinese rural-to-urban migrant children (845 girls; Mage = 12.30, SD = 1.74) completed a battery of self-report questionnaires regarding relative deprivation, prosocial tendencies, perceived social support, in-group identity, and demographic variables. The results indicated that relative deprivation was negatively correlated with migrant children's prosocial tendencies and this connection was partially mediated by perceived social support. Moderated mediation analysis further indicated that in-group identity moderated the effect of perceived social support on prosocial tendencies, with a high level of in-group identity strengthening the positive association between perceived social support and prosocial tendencies. Parents, educators, and other members of society concerned about migrant children's psychosocial adaptation should provide adequate social support resources and help them foster positive in-group identity to migrant populations to mitigate the adverse effects of relative deprivation and promote their prosocial tendencies.

Highlights

With the accelerated development of the urbanization process in China, rural-to-urban migration has gradually become one of the most salient contextual factors shaping Chinese family life in the twenty-first century (Wang and Mesman, 2015)
The results showed that perceived social support acted as a mediator, and in-group identity acted as a moderator on the relationship between relative deprivation and prosocial tendencies
We constructed an integrated model to fill in the gaps by testing the mediating role of perceived social support and moderating role of in-group identity on the association between relative deprivation and prosocial tendencies in Chinese migrant children

Summary

Introduction

With the accelerated development of the urbanization process in China, rural-to-urban migration has gradually become one of the most salient contextual factors shaping Chinese family life in the twenty-first century (Wang and Mesman, 2015). Research shows that the preservation of the current hukou (required governmental registration of all individuals and families living in a particular area in China) system might extend unfair treatment to ruralto-urban migrants and be little the migrants as a disadvantaged social group (Kuang and Liu, 2012). Rural-to-urban migrants usually work on so-called “3D jobs” (dangerous, dirty, and demeaning; Kuang and Liu, 2012). Due to this, they often face substantial economic pressures (Hernandez et al, 2007). Social distance between the two groups has gradually increased (Kuang and Liu, 2012)

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