- Questionnaires were administered in 50 minute sessions during the school day 
- They took place in the first term of the school year 

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

This study analyzed the impact of both maternal and paternal warmth and control and peer relationships on prosocial behavior and aggression through SEM analysis 

Parent and peer relation to prosocial behavior and aggression study

Malonda, E., Llorca, A., Mesurado, B., Samper, P., & Mestre, M. V. (2019). Parents or peers? Predictors of prosocial behavior and aggression: a longitudinal study. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 2379.

- Prosocial behavior and aggression are linked in that people who engage in less prosocial behavior are also very aggressive. 
- Prosocial behavior-”voluntary behavior aimed at benefiting others. Such behavior includes sharing, caring, and helping”
- Prosocial behavior helps to facilitate positive relationships amongst people, “promote[s] popularity among peers and help[s] people to trust their own skills and positive emotions”
- Human aggression-”any behavior that is directed toward another individual that is carried out with the immediate intent to cause harm. In addition, the perpetrator must believe that the behavior will harm the target, and that the target is motivated to avoid the behavior”
- Aggressive behavior severely harms social relationships
- Prosocial behavior is seen as a protective factor in developing aggressive tendencies 
- Parenting styles-”the emotional atmospheres shaped by parental attitudes during the process of children socialization”-it includes warmth and control 
Psychosocial adjustment is greater in families that communicate clearly and have rules 
- "Parental warmth can be defined as the presence of positive affect, responsiveness, support and good communication in parent-child relationships, and encouragement of autonomy of the children based on discipline
- Two different kinds of control-behavioral and psychological 
- Authoritarian parenting style is associated with aggression 
- This study analyzes mother and father’s parenting styles (warmth and control) on attachment on prosocial behavior and aggression in adolescence 
- Two models-one that analyzes the mother’s parenting style and one that analyzes the father’s parenting style 
- Expect that parental warmth would be positively associated with peer attachment and parental control would be negatively associated with it 
- Expect that peer attachment and parental warmth would both be positively correlated with prosocial behavior and negatively associated with aggression 
- Expect that strict control would be negatively associated with aggression 


Parent and peer relation to prosocial behavior and aggression study introduction

- 192 boys and 225 girls participated 
- Spanish speaking adolescents in a three wave longitudinal study in Valencia, Spain
- Wave 1-participants were either in the third or fourth year of compulsory secondary school 
- 11 schools participated in the study-including semi-private and public schools 
- The study monitored the participants for 3 years 
- Most participants came from 2-parent households with married parents (83.7% married;13.2% divorced)
- Most mothers had a secondary school diploma or equivalent (42.2%) and 41% of fathers had a high school diploma or equivalent 


Parent and peer relation to prosocial behavior and aggression study participants

Parent and peer relation to prosocial behavior and aggression study procedure

- Child’s Report of Parental Behavior Inventory-assess the child’s perception of discipline at home 
- Specifically focused on support and communication & strict control 
- Support and communication-”based on feelings of emotional support from the father and mother, the sending of messages of affect and support, encouragement of autonomy based on discipline, and good communication between parents and children”
- Strict control-relationships based on strict control, irritability, and negative evaluation and rejection of the child”
- Peer Attachment from the inventory of parent and peer attachment (translated from English to Spanish)-used the attachment to peers measure but not parents 
- Prosocial behavior Scale-evaluates helping behaviors by giving helping behavior examples and  they have to say how often they do these behaviors 
- Physical and Verbal Aggression Scale-assess behavior that might be harmful verbally or physically and respondents respond with the frequency of the behavior 

Parent and peer relation to prosocial behavior and aggression study measures

- Aggression decreased significantly between waves 1 and 2 and between waves 1 and 3
- Prosocial behavior did not change across the waves 
- “Girls reported higher scores than boys in mother warmth, father warmth, peer attachment and prosocial behavior but lower scores in the father’s strict control and aggression”
- Mother and father warmth in addition to peer attachment were positively correlated with prosocial behavior and negatively correlated with aggression 
- Mother and father strict control were positively correlated with aggression 


Parent and peer relation to prosocial behavior and aggression study preliminary analyses and descriptive statistics

- Model 1-relationship between the mother’s parenting style (including strict control and warmth) and prosocial behavior/aggression and between peer attachment and prosocial behavior/aggression
- Model 2 did the same thing but with the father 

Parent and peer relation to prosocial behavior and aggression study structural equations model

- Warmth from the mother is associated with greater peer attachment and strict control from the father is not associated with promoting peer attachment (which confirms previous literature on the subject)
- Having 1+ friends (in wave 1) related to prosocial behavior 1 year later (in wave 2)  which was correlated with prosocial behavior in wave 3 (in wave 3)
- Participants who perceived more support from their parents had more prosocial behavior 1 year later 
- “Surprisingly, there was a positive relation between father strict control and prosocial behavior” -this result is confusing because father strict control leads to an increase in prosocial behavior and aggression 
-Parent support is a more consistent predictor of prosocial behavior 
- Parental control led to more aggressive behavior (but it didn’t necessarily hold for later aggression tested in later waves)
- The mother’s warmth had an immediate effect with the father’s warmth only had an effect later on 
- Prosocial behavior stayed consistent in the study-social processes might have been reinforcing later prosocial behavior 
- Aggression decreased as they tested each wave 
- Girls exhibited more prosocial behavior while boys exhibited more aggressive behavior (should be taken with a grain of salt because it was self-reported)
- Peer attachment was significantly correlated with prosocial behavior at all 3 waves (perhaps because having friendships teaches children to understand others’ motivations and how they might be different from their own)
- Boys perceived greater control from their mothers and girls perceived greater control from their fathers-”thus, adolescents perceived that their relationships with their mothers were similar to their relationships with their fathers”
- This study shows the importance of parenting style (not just peer attachment) for prosocial behavior development
- Parents are still very important in their children’s lives-interventions targeted at aggression “should be designed considering the importance of stimulating and strengthening prosocial behavior, peer attachment and a family environment of affect, support and communication”
- Interventions for reducing aggression should also focus on improving the social environment and relationship with peers which ultimately might lead to increased prosocial behavior 


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