Bidirectionality in Longitudinal Associations of Adolescents’ Prosocial Behavior, Autonomy Support, and Emotional Support

• In Event: Diverse prosocial behavior and the correlates: Contextualized examinations from childhood to young adulthood

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescents socialize with their family and friends on a daily basis, and therefore, these relationships provide a unique context for the socialization of prosocial behavior. Most importantly, emotional support and autonomy support may facilitate prosocial behavior in close relationships. Reversely, adolescents' prosocial behavior might also facilitate relationship quality. However, these effects have mainly been tested on the between-person level, and not on the within-person level. Moreover, there is limited empirical evidence on the associations between adolescents' prosocial behavior and prosocial behavior and support from close relationships with their fathers, mothers, siblings, and best friends. A transactional perspective requires a bidirectional analysis within dyads, such as dynamic processes between autonomy support, emotional support, and prosocial behavior within dyads. Therefore, it is necessary to separate the between-dyad variance from the within-dyad variance to understand how these constructs are linked to each other. Hypotheses: Within dyads, we expect bidirectional associations between increased adolescents' prosocial behavior and increased prosocial behavior from fathers, mothers, siblings, or best friends, both concurrently and longitudinally across 1-year intervals. Between dyads, adolescents who perceive more (or less) autonomy support, emotional support, and prosocial behavior from fathers, mothers, siblings, and best friends become more (or less) prosocial compared to other adolescents who perceive less (or more) autonomy support, emotional support, and prosocial behavior. Study population: We used 6 waves of questionnaire data from the ongoing longitudinal RADAR-Young study. The study consisted of n= 466 Adolescent-Father dyads, n= 495, Adolescent-Mother dyads, n= 417 Adolescent-Sibling dyads, n= 449 Adolescent-Best friend dyads. Method: We examined the bidirectional relations between adolescents' prosocial behavior (Mage t1=13.03 years) and prosocial behavior, autonomy support, and emotional support from mothers, fathers, siblings, and best friends on the between-person level and the within-person level. All participants reported on their own prosocial behavior. Adolescents reported on perceived autonomy and emotional support from fathers, mothers, siblings, and best friends, for each relationship separately. Results: Preliminary results from Random Intercept Cross Lagged panel model showed on the between-person level that autonomy support and emotional support from their fathers, mothers, siblings, and best friends were positively associated with prosocial behavior. The within time and within-dyads associations showed that adolescents' prosocial behavior is related to perceived autonomy support and perceived emotional support from fathers, mothers, siblings, and best friends. Moreover, the within-person effects showed that prosocial behavior from father, mothers, and siblings was predictive of adolescents' perceived autonomy support across all waves. This study provides important information on the socialization of prosocial behavior in different close relationships.

Authors

• Marije Maria Emma van Meegen, Universiteit Utrecht
  Presenting Author

• Jolien van der Graaff, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gustavo Carlo, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Wim Meeus, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Susan Branje, Utrecht University
  Non-Presenting Author