Civic Competencies During Adolescence: Longitudinal Associations with Sympathy in Childhood

Cohort differences in the development of civic engagement during adolescence

Investigating whether changing societal circumstances have altered the development of civic engagement, this study compared developmental changes from mid- to late adolescence (i.e., age 15-18) across two cohorts of representative Swiss samples (born in1991, N = 1258, M_{age T1}  = 15.30, 54% female, 33% migration background representing diverse ethnicities; born in 2000, N = 930, M_{age T1}  = 15.32, 51% female; 33% migration background). Findings from latent multigroup models revealed similar levels in attitudes about social justice in both cohorts, remaining stable over time. Adolescents reported lower levels of political efficacy and informal helping in the cohort born in 2000. Both aspects slightly increased during adolescence. Informal helping had a steeper increase in the 1991 compared to the 2000 cohort, suggesting developmental differences between cohorts.

Developmental antecedents of young adults' solidarity during the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of sympathy, social trust, and peer exclusion from early to late adolescence

This study explored characteristics of young adults’ solidarity during the Covid‐19 pandemic by identifying three different profiles, characterized by low (23%), average (54%), and high solidarity (23%). Based on longitudinal Swiss panel data (N_T1 = 797, M_{age T1} = 12.15 years, 51% female; 28% migration background representing diverse ethnicities; N_T2 = 707, M_{age T2} = 15.33 years; N_T3 = 596, M_{age T3} = 18.31 years), the study combined person‐ and variable‐centered approaches to examine whether sympathy, social trust, and peer exclusion at earlier phases in development predicted membership in pandemic‐related solidarity profiles (N_T4 = 300, M_{age T4} = 20.33 years). All developmental predictors were significantly associated with the likelihood of expressing solidarity during the pandemic as young adults.