Relations among parenting practices, parental expectations, and prosocial behaviors in Argentinian adolescents

MARÍA CRISTINA RICHAUD; BELÉN MESURADO

Austin, Texas

Congreso; 15th SRA Biennial Meeting; 2014

Society for Research on Adolescence

Scholars have begun to focus on specific parenting practices (e.g., use of social rewards, material rewards, moral conversations, experiential learning) that promote prosocial behaviors (Carlo, 2006). Additionally, it is unknown how these practices relate to specific types of prosocial behavior (e.g., helping anonymously, in public, needs-based helping). Previous research also suggests that parental expectation may impact prosocial behaviors (Wyatt, & Carlo, 2002). However, tests of these proposed models are limited primarily to European American samples and little is known regarding the generalizability of these models to adolescents from Latin American societies. Based primarily on theory, it was hypothesized that parenting practices and parental expectation would be positively related to helping anonymously and needs-based helping but negatively related to helping in public. Participants were 350 young adolescents (M age = 13 years, SD = 1. 41; 40,3% girls and 59,7% boys) from public schools in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Students completed the Parental Practices Measure (Carlo et al., 2007) subscales (social rewards, material rewards, moral conversations, and experiential learning); the Adolescents' Expected Parental Reactions (Wyatt, & Carlo, 2002), which assesses expected parental reaction to prosocial behaviors and antisocial behaviors and the Argentinean adaptation of Prosocial Tendencies Measure (Carlo et al., 2003; Richaud, Mesurado, & Kohan Cortada, 2012), which measures public, responsive, anonymous, and altruistic prosocial behaviors. Correlations and hierarchical regressions were used to examine (1) relationships between Parental Practices, Adolescents' Expected Parental Reactions, and adolescent?s prosocial behavior, (2) the amount of unique prediction from Parental Practices, and Adolescents' Expected Parental Reactions to children?s prosocial and antisocial behavior. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed for each of the four criterion variables (public, responsive, anonymous, and altruistic prosocial behaviors), to test the unique contribution of mother practices to adolescents? prosocial behavior, while controlling for father practices, the unique contribution of mother and father practices, while controlling for Adolescents' Expected Parental Reactions, and the unique contribution of Adolescents' Expected Parental Reactions. The first block in the equation included mother practices dimensions (social rewards, material rewards, moral conversations, and experiential learning); the second block included father practices dimensions (social rewards, material rewards, moral conversations, and experiential learning), whereas the third block included Adolescents' Expected Parental Reactions to children?s prosocial and antisocial behavior. Tests of multicollinearity were satisfactory with all variance inflation factors less than 2.00 and tolerance of variables all near 1.00. The global prediction for all types of prosocial behavior were significant [altruism F(12, 339) = 15.53; p = .000; public F(12, 339) = 12.86; p = .000; responsive F(12, 339) = 12.10; p = .000 and anonymous F(12, 339) = 9.32; p = .000 ] The overall model explained 35 % of the variance in adolescent?s altruism, 31% in adolescent?s public; 30% in adolescent?s responsive and 25% in adolescent?s anonymous prosocial behaviors. The results of this study suggest that different kinds of parental variables, as parental practices and parental expectations, are related in different ways to prosocial behavior motivations in early adolescence.