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 = 19.13 years old, SD = 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.