Does prosociality in early- to mid-adolescence protect against later development of antisocial behaviours?

Abstract

Connections between prosocial and antisocial behaviours have been recognised; however, little research has studied their developmental links. This is important to illuminate during early adolescence as a sensitive period for social development in which prosocial behaviours could protect against the development of antisocial behaviours. This study investigates the within-person developmental links between prosocial and antisocial behaviours across ages 11, 13, 15, and 17 (N=1526; 51% male) using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models. Results indicated that engaging in prosocial behaviours was not associated with reduced aggressive behaviours but suggested a protective effect of teacher-reported prosociality on bullying perpetration and non-aggressive conduct problems at selected time-points. These findings suggest that encouraging prosocial behaviours in early adolescence may help reduce some antisocial behaviours over early to mid- adolescent development. Improving prosocial behaviour could be explored as a target in intervention approaches such as school-based anti-bullying interventions and developmental prevention programmes for conduct problems.