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SYNOPSIS
Objective. This article examined two-wave longitudinal paths among maternal self-efficacy, maternal warmth, and early adolescents’ prosocial behavior. Design. Participants were 194 Italian mother/child dyads from 9–13 years at the first assessment and 12–15 years at the second assessment. Using a two-wave longitudinal design, the present study tested cross-lagged paths among maternal self-efficacy, warmth, and early adolescents’ prosocial behavior controlling for the stability of these variables and their concurrent associations. Results. Maternal warmth mediated the link between maternal self-efficacy and adolescents’ prosocial behavior, and bi-directional effects between maternal self-efficacy and maternal warmth were found. Conclusions. These findings support a parent-driven model in the promotion of prosocial behaviors across early adolescence and a general need to consider simultaneously parental cognitions (maternal self-efficacy) and actions (maternal warmth) in explaining adolescents’ prosocial behaviors. Implications for parenting program interventions are discussed.
Acknowledgments
We thank the families who participated in this research and the many research assistants who helped gather data.
ADDRESSES AND AFFILIATIONS
Bernadette Paula Luengo Kanacri, Avda.Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago, Chile. Email: bluengo@uc.cl. Concetta Pastorelli, Eriona Thartori, Carolina Lunetti, and Laura Di Giunta are at Sapienza Universitá di Roma, Dario Bacchini is at Universitá degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, and Jennifer E. Lansford is at Duke University.
ARTICLE INFORMATION
Conflict of Interest Disclosure
Each author signed a form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. No authors reported any financial or other conflicts of interest in relation to the work described.
Ethical Principles
The authors affirm having followed professional ethical guidelines in preparing this work. These guidelines include obtaining informed consent from human participants, maintaining ethical treatment and respect for the rights of human or animal participants, and ensuring the privacy of participants and their data, such as ensuring that individual participants cannot be identified in reported results or from publicly available original or archival data.
Role of the Funders/Sponsors
None of the funders or sponsors of this research had any role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.