Cultural developmental and relational theories suggest that multiple social agents influence young adults’ prosocial behavior (i.e., actions intended to benefit others; e.g., helping or comforting others in need). Despite these theoretical foundations, research that examines cultural and multiple relational correlates of prosocial behaviors in U.S. Latino/Latina college students is scarce. Moreover, young adults are socialized to express prosocial behaviors to recipients that have distinct interpersonal relationships. The present study investigated the relations between mothers’, fathers’, and siblings’ support and U.S. Latino/Latina young adults’ prosocial behaviors toward different recipients (family, friends, and strangers) and considered the mediating roles of family respect values, perspective taking, and empathic concern. The sample was 253 U.S. Latino/Latina college students (58.2% female; M age = 21.07, SD =1.98) with at least one sibling. Structural equation modeling showed evidence for cultural values and moral traits as intervening mechanisms in the relations between family support and prosocial behaviors. All forms of family support predicted family respect values, which were associated with prosocial behaviors toward family and friends more so than toward strangers. Family respect values also predicted perspective taking and empathic concern and there was evidence for the mediating role of empathic concern in the relations between perspective taking and prosocial behaviors (across recipient). The current study demonstrates the interplay of multiple family socialization agents in predicting U.S. Latino/Latina college students’ prosocial behaviors toward different recipients, which has implications for theories of prosocial development.
BatsonC. D. (1998). Altruism and prosocial behavior. In GilbertD.FiskeS.LindzeyG. (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 282–316). McGraw-Hill.
2.
BronfenbrennerU. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives on human development. Sage.
3.
CabreraN. J.BeeghlyM.EisenbergN. (2012). Positive development of minority children: Introduction to the special issue. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 207–209.
4.
CabreraN. J.BradleyR. H. (2012). Latino fathers and their children. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 232–238.
5.
Calderón-TenaC. O.KnightG. P.CarloG. (2011). The socialization of prosocial behavioral tendencies among Mexican American adolescents: The role of familism values. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 17, 98–106.
6.
CarloG.WhiteR. M. B.StreitC.KnightG. P.ZeidersK. H. (2018). Longitudinal relations among parenting styles, prosocial behaviors, and academic outcomes in U.S. Mexican adolescents. Child Development, 89, 577–592.
7.
CarloG. (2014). The development and correlates of prosocial moral behaviors. In KillenM.SmetanaJ. G. (Eds.), Handbook of moral development (2nd ed., pp. 208–234). Psychology Press.
8.
CarloG.de GuzmanM. R. T. (2009). Theories and research on prosocial competencies among US Latinos/as. In VillaruelF.CarloG.AzmitiaM.GrauJ.CabreraN.ChahinJ. (Eds.), Handbook of U.S. Latino psychology (pp. 191–211). Sage.
9.
CarloG.HausmannA.ChristiansenS.RandallB. A. (2003). Sociocognitive and behavioral correlates of a measure of prosocial tendencies for adolescents. The Journal of Early Adolescence, 23, 107–134.
10.
CarloG.KnightG. P.BasilioC. D.DavisA. N. (2014). Predicting prosocial tendencies among Mexican American youth: The intersection of cultural values, social cognitions, and social emotions. In Padilla-WalkerL.CarloG. (Eds.), Prosocial development: A multidimensional approach (pp. 242–257). Oxford University Press.
11.
CarloG.KnightG. P.McGinleyM.HayesR. (2011a). The roles of parental inductions, moral emotions, and moral cognitions in prosocial tendencies among Mexican American and European American early adolescents. Journal of Early Adolescence, 31, 757–781.
12.
CarloG.McGinleyM.HayesR.MartinezM. M. (2011b). Empathy as a mediator of the relations between parent and peer attachment and prosocial and physically aggressive behaviors in Mexican American college students. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 29, 337–357.
13.
CarloG.MestreM. V.SamperP.TurA.ArmentaB. E. (2010). The longitudinal relations among dimensions of parenting styles, sympathy, prosocial moral reasoning, and prosocial behaviors. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 35, 116–124.
14.
CarloG.RandallB. A. (2002). The development of a measure of prosocial behaviors for late adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 31, 31–44.
15.
CoxM. J.PaleyB. (1997). Families as systems. Annual Review of Psychology, 48, 243–267.
16.
DavisA. N.CarloG.KnightG. P. (2015). Perceived maternal parenting styles, cultural values, and prosocial tendencies among Mexican American young adult. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 176, 235–252.
17.
DavisA. N.CarloG.SchwartzS. J.UngerJ. B.ZamboangaB. L.Lorenzo-BlancoE.CanoM. A.Baezconde-GarbanatiL.OshriA.StreitC.MartinezM. M.Piña-WatsonB.LizziK.SotoD. (2016). The longitudinal associations between discrimination, depressive symptoms, and prosocial behaviors in US Latino/a recent immigrant adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45, 457–470.
18.
DavisM.H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25, 70–87.
19.
EaglyA. H. (2009). The his and hers of prosocial behavior: An examination of the social psychology of gender. American Psychologist, 64, 644–658.
20.
EberlyM. B.MontemayorR. (1998). Doing good deeds: An examination of adolescent prosocial behavior in the context of parent-adolescent relationships. Journal of Adolescent Research, 13, 403–432.
21.
EisenbergN. (1986). Altruistic emotion, cognition, and behavior. Lawrence Erlbaum.
22.
EisenbergN.FabesR. A.SpinradT. L. (2006). Prosocial development. In DamonW.Lerner (Series Ed.)R. M.EisenbergN. (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Social, emotional, and personality development (Vol. 3, pp. 646–718). Wiley.
23.
EisenbergN.SpinradT. L. (2014). Multidimensionality of prosocial behavior: Rethinking the conceptualization and development of prosocial behavior. In Padilla-WalkerL. M.CarloG. (Eds.), Prosocial behavior: A multidimensional approach (pp. 17–39). Oxford University Press.
24.
EntwisleD. R.AstoneN. M. (1994). Some practical guidelines for measuring youth’s race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Child Development, 65, 1521–1540.
25.
FuligniA. J.PedersenS. (2002). Family obligation and the transition to young adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 38, 856–868.
26.
FuligniA. J.TsengV.LamM. (1999). Attitudes toward family obligations among American adolescents with Asian, Latin American, and European backgrounds. Child Development, 70, 1030–1044.
27.
FurmanW.BuhrmesterD. (1985). Children’s perceptions of the personal relationship in their social networks. Developmental Psychology, 21, 1016–1024.
28.
GrusecJ. E.GoodnowJ. J. (1994). Impact of parental discipline methods on the child’s internalization of values: A reconceptualization of current points of view. Developmental Psychology, 30, 4–19.
29.
HardwayC.FuligniA. J. (2006). Dimensions of family connectedness among adolescents with Mexican, Chinese, and European backgrounds. Developmental Psychology, 42, 1246–1258.
30.
HarknessS.SuperC. M. (2006). Themes and variations: Parental ethnotheories in Western cultures. In RubinK.ChungO. B. (Eds.), Parental beliefs, parenting, and child development in cross-cultural perspective (pp. 61–79). Psychology Press.
31.
HarperJ. M.Padilla-WalkerL. M.JensenA. C. (2014). Do siblings matter independent of both parents and friends? Sympathy as a mediator between sibling relationship quality and adolescent outcomes. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 26, 101–114.
32.
HastingsP. D.UtendaleW.SullivanC. (2007). The socialization of prosocial development. In GrusecJ. E.HastingsP. D. (Eds.), Handbook of socialization (pp. 638–664). Guildford Press.
33.
HoffmanM. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge University Press.
34.
HuL. T.BentlerP. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 6, 1–55.
35.
KiangL.FuligniA. J. (2009). Ethnic identity and family processes among adolescents from Latin American, Asian, and European backgrounds. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 38, 228.
36.
KillorenS. E.AlfaroE. C.LindellA. K.StreitC. (2014). Mexican American college students’ communication with their siblings. Family Relations, 63, 513–525.
37.
KnightG. P.CarloG. (2012). Prosocial development among Mexican American young adult. Child Development Perspectives, 6, 258–263.
38.
KnightG. P.CarloG.BasilioC. D.JacobsonR. P. (2014). Familism values, perspective taking, and prosocial moral reasoning: Predicting prosocial tendencies among Mexican American adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 25, 717–727.
39.
KnightG. P.CarloG.MahrerN. E.DavisA. N. (2016). The socialization of culturally related values and prosocial tendencies among Mexican American adolescents. Child Development, 87, 1758–1771.
40.
KnightG. P.GonzalesN. A.SaenzD. S.BondsD. D.GermanM.DeardorffJ.RoosaM. W.UpdegraffK. A. (2010). The Mexican American cultural values scales for adolescents and adults. Journal of Early Adolescence, 30, 444–481.
41.
LarsonR. W.RichardsM. H.MonetaG.HolmbeckG.DuckettE. (1996). Changes in adolescents’ daily interactions with their families from ages 10 to 18: Disengagement and transformation. Developmental Psychology, 32, 744–754.
42.
MacKinnonD. P.LockwoodC. M.HoffmanJ. M.WestS. G.SheetsV. (2002). A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. Psychological Methods, 7, 83–104.
43.
McGinleyM.CarloG.CrockettL. J.RaffaelliM.Torres StoneR. A.IturbideM. I. (2010). Stressed and helping: The relations among acculturative stress, gender, and prosocial tendencies in Mexican Americans. The Journal of Social Psychology, 150, 34–56.
44.
MuthénL. K.MuthénB. O. (2010). 1998–2010 Mplus user’s guide. Author.
45.
Padilla-WalkerL. M. (2014). Parental socialization of prosocial behavior: A multidimensional approach. In Padilla-WalkerL. M.CarloG. (Eds.), Prosocial behavior: A multidimensional approach (pp. 131–155). Oxford University Press.
46.
Padilla-WalkerL. M.CarloG. (2014). The study of prosocial behavior: Past, present, and future. In Padilla-WalkerL. M.CarloG. (Eds.), Prosocial development: A multidimensional approach (pp. 3–16). Oxford.
47.
Padilla-WalkerL. M.CarloG.NielsonM. G. (2015). Does helping keep teens protected? Longitudinal bidirectional relations between prosocial behavior and problem behavior. Child Development, 86, 1759–1772.
48.
Padilla-WalkerL. M.ChristensenK. J. (2011). Empathy and self-regulation as mediators between parenting and adolescents’ prosocial behavior toward strangers, friends, and family. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 21, 545–551.
49.
ParkeR.BurielR. (2006). Socialization in the family: Ethnic and ecological perspectives. Handbook of child psychology: Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., Vol. 3, pp. 429–504). John Wiley & Sons Inc.
50.
RaffaelliM.OntaiL. L. (2004). Gender socialization in Latino/a families: Results from two retrospective studies. Sex Roles, 50, 287–299.
51.
SchwartzS. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In ZannaM. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 1–65). Academic.
52.
SobelM. E. (1982). Asymptotic confidence intervals for indirect effects in structural equation models. Sociological methodology, 13, 290–312.
53.
StreitC.CarloG.KillorenS. E.AlfaroE. C. (2018). Family members’ relationship qualities and prosocial behaviors in U.S. Mexican young adults: The roles of familism and ethnic identity resolution. Journal of Family Issues, 39, 1056–1084.
54.
TabachnickB. G.FidellL. S. (2013). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Pearson.
55.
TelzerE. H.GonzalesN.FuligniA. J. (2014). Family obligation values and family assistance behaviors: Protective and risk factors for Mexican–American adolescents’ substance use. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43, 270–283.
56.
TriandisH. C (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Westview Press.
57.
UpdegraffK. A.McHaleS. M.WhitemanS. D.ThayerS. M.DelgadoM. Y. (2005). Adolescent sibling relationships in Mexican American families: Exploring the role of familism. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 512–522.
58.
WhitingB.EdwardsC. P. (1988a). A cross-cultural analysis of sex differences in the behavior of children aged 3 through 11. In HandelG. (Ed.), Childhood socialization (pp. 281–297). Aldine de Gruyter.
59.
WhitingB.EdwardsC. P. (1988b). Children of different worlds: The formation of social behavior. Harvard University Press.
