How do Values Promote Adolescents’ Prosocial Behaviour? A Multi-Informant Study with Adolescents and their Parents

This study focuses on the complex relationship between basic human values and prosocial behaviour during adolescence. Prosociality, which includes actions such as sharing with, comforting, and helping others, is at the core of solidarity and collaboration among people throughout the course of life. Personal values are significant predictors of these actions, with self-transcendence values often revealing the strongest positive correlation with prosocial behaviour. Notwithstanding the primary importance of the family in shaping children’s prosocial development, little is known about the role of socialization values (i.e., the values parents would like their children to endorse) and the interplay between parents’ and adolescents’ personal values in fostering prosocial behaviour. Drawing on Schwartz’s theory of basic human values and adopting a multi-informant approach, this study aims to analyze how the “family value context” can contribute to promoting adolescents’ prosocial actions, as reported by adolescents and parents. As is known, this context is characterized by mutual influences among its members, and discrepancies and similarities in perceptions could help in better understanding prosocial socialization within the family. The sample is composed of 418 Italian families and, for each of them, both parents and one adolescent child (60.5% girls; Mage=15.22, SD=1.23) participated in the study. They separately completed a self-report questionnaire, including the Portrait Values Questionnaire and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. The data analysis is still in progress, and the forthcoming results will also be discussed in relation to their potential implications for parental socialization efforts and practices.