The varying roles of parents and the cognitive–emotional variables regarding the different types of adolescent prosocial behavior

Abstract

This article studies the relationship between parental variables (authoritative parental style, maternal and paternal challenges), empathy, and prosocial flow with different types of prosocial behaviors (prosocial behaviors toward different targets and different motivations of prosocial behavior). The sample included 539 students of both sexes (42.5% males; M age ¼ 19.13 years old, SD ¼ 1.92). The hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that prosocial behaviors toward family, followed by toward friends, are motivated to a much greater extent by the parental variable than by empathy and prosocial flow. Conversely, when the prediction of prosocial behavior toward strangers was analyzed, the variables that had greater weight were prosocial flow and empathy. In relation to prosocial tendencies, the results showed that parental variables, empathy, and prosocial flow explained a similar percentage of variables in the different types of public, responsive, altruist, and anonymous prosocial tendencies.

Validation of the Spanish version of the Prosocial Behavior toward Different Targets Scale

“…Specifically, the results indicated that the perspective taking and empathic concerns, cognitive and emotional components of empathy, are related to prosocial behavior toward three different targets: strangers, family and friends. These results are consistent with several previous studies indicating that both aspects of empathy are closely related to the emergence of prosocial behavior (Mesurado, Richaud, Rodriguez, 2018).…”

“…For example, prosocial behavior toward family and toward friends is motivated more by the parental variable than by empathy and positive mental state, while prosocial behavior toward strangers is more motivated by positive mental state and empathy than by the parental variable. Moreover, the same study showed that these three variables (positive mental state, empathy and parental variables), empathy, and prosocial flow explained similar percentages of variance in the different types of the Prosocial Tendency Measure (altruistic, anonymous, responsive, and public) (for more details, see Mesurado, Richaud & Rodriguez, 2018).…”

“…Moreover, the Prosocial Tendency Measure was translated into Spanish and validated by Richaud, Mesurado, and Kohan Cortada (2012). The validation results suggested the presence of four different prosocial helping tendencies: public (extrinsic motivation from a search for social approval), anonymous (tendency to benefit another person without this person knowing it), responsive (external motivation from other requirements) and altruistic (intrinsically motivated to help others) (Mesurado, Richaud, & Rodriguez, 2018).…”

“…Some authors differentiate two components of empathy: the affective component, which is considered the observer's visceral response to the affective state of another individual (also known as sympathy), and the cognitive component, in which the observer takes the perspective of the other person and attributes a mental state to him/her (Baron-Cohen & Wheelwright, 2004;Davis, 1980). Several authors have found a relationship between both components of empathy and prosocial behaviors (Eisenberg, Zhou, & Koller, 2001;Lockwood et al, 2014;Mesurado et al, 2018), although others authors have argued that prosocial behaviors are more closely related to the affective component than to the cognitive component (Nichols, 2001).…”

“…Several studies have shown that prosocial behavior varies depending on who is in need (Mesurado, Richaud, & Rodriguez, 2018, Padilla-Walker, & Christensen, 2011, Padilla-Walker, Carlo, & Memmott-Elison, 2018. Therefore, it is important to have validated and reliable scales to measure prosocial behavior toward different targets to better understand how effective they are.…”