"Hero": a technological application to foster prosocial behaviour in adolescents

BELÉN MESURADO; MARÍA CRISTINA RICHAUD; GABRIELA ROBIOLO; MARÍA JOSÉ DISTEFANO

Minneapolis

Conferencia; 2018 Society for Research on Adolescece Biennial Meeting; 2018

Society for Research on Adolescece

Positive Technology (PT) is the scientific and applied approach that uses technology to improve the quality of our personal experience with the goal of increasing wellness and generating strengths and resilience in individuals, organizations and society? (Botella et al., 2012, p. 1). Based on PT?s approach, we developed in 2016 a prototype of the ?Hero Programme? as a system designed to foster prosocial behaviour (virtues and actions to benefit others) in adolescents (12-15 years old) in a controlled way. Hero consists in several strategies structured in five modules, promoting empathy, gratitude, forgiveness, satisfaction, and general prosocial behaviour. The first module (?Empathy Island?) explains the importance of empathy for the life and society, and promotes emotional recognition. The second one (?Gratitude Island?) is aimed at developing different psychological strengths through the remembrance of gratitude in personal life events. The third (?Forgiveness Island?) is aimed at training various psychological techniques to promote forgiveness. The fourth (?Satisfaction Island?) is aimed at promoting positive emotions, such as relaxation and joy, through emotional induction procedures. The last one (?Prosocial Behaviour Island?) is aimed at sensitising about the economic, educational, and other social needs that exist in Latin American countries, and at encouraging adolescent involvement in social change. The objective of this study is to analyse the efficacy of ?Hero? in promoting prosocial behaviour in adolescents from Argentina. Participants were 90 secondary students (50% females; of 13 to 17 years of age; M age = 15.74, SD =1.06) in the experimental group and 100 secondary students (50% females; of 13 to 17 years of age; M age =15, SD 1.34) in the control group. Adolescents? prosocial behavior toward different targets (Padilla-Walker & Christensen, 2011) were used to measure the prosocial behavior toward friend, family and stranger. Mean scores on each measure included in the pre-test and post-test self-report questionnaire are included in Table 1. As expected, students of experimental group showed significant improvements in prosocial behavior toward stranger. Contrary to expectations, students demonstrated no change in prosocial behavior toward friend an family (see Figure 1 and 2).