Prosocial Foundations of Children's Academic Achievement

TLDR

The study proposes mediating mechanisms through which early prosocial behavior may influence academic achievement and other socially desirable outcomes. Researchers followed children longitudinally, measuring early prosocial behaviors (cooperation, helping, sharing, consoling) and aggression (verbal/physical) as predictors of academic achievement and peer relations five years later. Early prosocial behavior strongly predicted later academic achievement and social preferences, accounting for 35 % and 37 % of variance respectively, while aggression had no significant effect and early academic achievement did not predict later achievement after controlling for prosocialness.

Abstract

The present longitudinal research demonstrates robust contributions of early prosocial behavior to children's developmental trajectories in academic and social domains. Both prosocial and aggressive behaviors in early childhood were tested as predictors of academic achievement and peer relations in adolescence 5 years later. Prosocialness included cooperating, helping, sharing, and consoling, and the measure of antisocial aspects included proneness to verbal and physical aggression. Prosocialness had a strong positive impact on later academic achievement and social preferences, but early aggression had no significant effect on either outcome. The conceptual model accounted for 35% of variance in later academic achievement, and 37% of variance in social preferences. Additional analysis revealed that early academic achievement did not contribute to later academic achievement after controlling for effects of early prosocialness. Possible mediating processes by which prosocialness may affect academic achievement and other socially desirable developmental outcomes are proposed.