Dynamic Associations between Prosocial Behavior and Academic Performance: The Moderating Role of Gender

• In Event: Correlates of empathy and prosocial behavior

Abstract

Prosocial behavior, defined as entailing voluntary actions that benefit others, is a crucial resource in children’s positive development (Eisenberg et al., 2010). Besides the strong advocacy for promoting prosocial behavior and its benefits for school-aged children, academic performance is still the focus for students themselves, parents, and school stakeholders (McClelland et al., 2011). Studies have shown that prosocial behavior mitigates academic risk in early childhood (Armstrong‐Carter et al., 2021). These two constructs can be bi-directionally associated with each other. However, our review of empirical research identified no studies that tested such a bi-directional mechanism focusing on academically at-risk children. Among academically at-risk children at school entry (e.g., scoring below average on standardized testing in kindergarten) there remains a need to further examine potential buttering factors which can promote academic performance.
Further, many studies testing for bi-directional associations are based on the traditional cross-lagged panel models (CLPM; Rogosa, 1980). Although this approach has been widely applied, it has been criticized recently for producing biased results (Berry et al., 2017) since it fails to disaggregate the between (e.g., compared to children with low prosocial behavior, whether children with high prosocial behavior also had better academic performance) and within-person associations (e.g., whether a child displaying more frequent prosocial behavior than usual has a subsequent increase in his/her academic performance). An alternative model termed the Random-Intercept Cross-lagged Panel Model (see Figure 1; RI-CLPM; Hamaker et al., 2015) addresses CLPM’s limitations so that between and within-person dynamics between prosocial behavior and academic performance can be separated. Moreover, it remains unclear whether boys and girls differ in prosocial tendencies and academic performance (Xiao et al., 2019). Thus, we have two goals of the current study (a) to test how prosocial behavior and academic performance unfold over time at both between and within-person levels; and (b) whether gender-specific dynamic patterns exist for academically at-risk children.
Using a four-wave longitudinal design, analyses were conducted on a sample of 784 children (52.6% male; 34.1% White, 23.2% African American, 37.4% Latino or Hispanic; 6-9 years old). Prosocial behavior was measured with parent and teacher-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 2001). Both reading and math achievement were measured using the WJ-III Broad W score (Woodcock et al., 2001). Results indicate that (a) the RI-CPLM fit the data well for both parents and teacher-reported data (Table 1a); (b) the prosocial behavior and academic performance were positively associated with each other only at the between-person level and no evidence for the within-person associations (Table 1b); (c) boys and girls were not significantly different from each other in terms of the associations between prosocial behavior and academic achievement. Our results showed that children who are prosocial tend to be more academically competitive, however, we did not find support to claim that high prosocial behavior promotes academic performance and vice versa. In addition to gender, future research can further explore potential factors that influence the dynamic association between these two constructs among academically at-risk children.

Authors

• Qinxin Shi, University of Utah
  Presenting Author

• Idean Ettekal, Texas A&M University - College Station

• Minoo Mohammadi, Texas A&M University - College Station