A Prosocial Scale for the Preschool Behaviour Questionnaire: Concurrent and Predictive Correlates

Abstract

The Preschool Behaviour Questionnaire has been used widely to assess children's aggressive, anxious, and hyperactive behaviour. Items from the Prosocial Behaviour Questionnaire were added to create a prosocial scale. The resulting questionnaire was administered to teachers of three large samples of kindergarten children and shown to have three stable, orthogonal components disruptive (13 items): anxious (6 items); and prosocial (10 items). Mother and peer assessments of children were used to investigate concurrent and predictive validity. Concurrent data showed that the disruptive component was highly correlated with peer assessments and moderately correlated with mother assessments; the prosocial component was moderately correlated with peer assessments but marginally correlated with mother assessments, whereas the anxious component was marginally correlated with peer assessments and moderately correlated with mother assessments. From a predictive perspective it was shown that highly disruptive boys in kindergarten who were prosocial, were assessed by mothers and teachers at age 9 to be better adjusted than highly disruptive boys in kindergarten who were non-prosocial.

Cognitive skills, noncognitive skills, and school-to-work transitions in rural China

“…The sample used is not representative of general population because it oversamples subjects with behavior problems. Using German adaptations of the Social Behavior Questionnaire (SBQ; Tremblay et al 1987;Tremblay et al, 1992), Lösel and Stemmler (2012) find the correlation between girls' externalizing behavior when they were in elementary school and in secondary school is 0.2 and that between internalizing behavior is 0.32.…”

Development of Parasomnias From Childhood to Early Adolescence

“…The anxiety score derived from these 6 items can vary from 0 to 12. 31 The scale was originally created by Rutter 32 and adapted by Behar and Stringfield, 33 and Tremblay et al 30 It has been shown to correlate with cardiovascular reactivity, 34 and to be quite stable from school entry to early adolescence. 35 …”

Two Sides of the Same Coin? The Relations between Prosocial and Physically Aggressive Behaviors

“…In turn, this increase in feeling sorrow for another, or sympathy, might prevent the individual from engaging in aggressive behaviors (Bandura et al, 2001). Several researchers have furthermore agreed that engaging in prosocial behavior is an important buffer that may protect against the development of aggressive or antisocial behavior in children as they become older (Eron and Huesmann, 1984;Kuczynski and Kochanska, 1995;Haapasalo et al, 2000;Hastings et al, 2000;Tremblay et al, 1992;Vitaro et al, 1990). The present paper will thus examine the possibility that engaging in prosocial behavior has an indirect effect on physical aggression via sympathy.…”