Examining a new prosocial risk‐taking scale in a longitudinal sample of ethnically diverse adolescents

Abstract

Introduction This longitudinal study designed and tested the validity of a new measure of prosocial risk taking — risks that individuals take in order to help others. Methods The sample was racially and ethnically diverse adolescents in the rural Southeastern United States (N = 867; Mage = 12.82 years, 10–14 years at Wave 1; 50% Girls, 33% White non‐Latinx, 27% Latinx, 20% Black, 20% Mixed/Other race/ethnicity). Adolescents completed self‐report measures of the new prosocial risk‐taking scale at baseline and one‐ and two‐year follow‐ups. Results Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated excellent model fit with a 6‐item single factor score. Further, the scale demonstrated good test‐retest reliability at one and two‐year follow ups. The scale also demonstrated convergent validity, such that prosocial risk taking was positively correlated with prosocial tendencies, empathy, and sensation seeking, and negatively correlated with negative risk‐taking behavior and risk tolerance. Finally, we found significant differences by race/ethnicity (but not by gender) in prosocial risk taking, which were not attributable to measurement invariance, and should be interpreted in the context of ongoing societal inequalities between youth. Conclusions The new Prosocial Risk‐Taking Scale yielded reliable scores in our sample. It may be used in future research to investigate individual differences in adolescents' prosocial risk taking, developmental change in prosocial risk taking, and the significance of prosocial risk taking for adolescents' emotional and social adaptation.

Adolescents Are More Likely to Help Others on Days They Take Risks and Crave Social Connections

“…We also did not measure prosocial risk‐taking (such as speaking up to defend a friend), or the motivations behind the risk‐taking behaviors we did measure (such as stealing in order to help a friend). Daily diary items for these prosocial risk‐taking behaviors and others (Armstrong‐Carter, Do, Guassi Moreira, Prinstein, & Telzer, 2021; Do et al., 2017) may shed further light on the daily connection between risk‐taking and prosocial behavior during adolescence.…”

Are you more risk-seeking when helping others? Effects of situational urgency and peer presence on prosocial risky behavior

“…Moreover, adolescents show incredible kindness by helping and comforting their peers, family, and strangers in distress (Andrew, 2018). Some recent studies have reported that adolescents demonstrate a remarkable capacity to help others -prosocial risk-taking, and they may do so even when it involves personal risk to their benefits, such as financial, health, academic, or social reputational loss (Do et al, 2017;Blankenstein et al, 2020;Armstrong-Carter et al, 2021). Various studies support the hypothesis that prosocial behavior is linked to an increase in social risk tolerance during adolescence.…”

“…Various studies support the hypothesis that prosocial behavior is linked to an increase in social risk tolerance during adolescence. For example, Armstrong-Carter et al (2021) found that older adolescents demonstrated increased levels of prosocial tendencies during the years when they were more tolerant of social risk. Furthermore, increased risk levels of both personal cost (Experiment 1) and the failure to help others (Experiment 2) weaken altruistic risk-seeking tendencies.…”

“…Future studies should focus on the gain-loss matrices between the self and others in risky helping dilemmas involving multiple risk levels of personal cost. Second, while it was beyond the scope of our study to examine individual differences, i.e., sensation-seeking, social value orientation, or empathy, in the trade-off and integration between risk and prosocial preferences, future studies should explore this possibility because PRB is thought to be related to individuals' sensation-seeking and empathy abilities (Blankenstein et al, 2020;Armstrong-Carter et al, 2021;McGowan et al, 2022). Third, G* Power 3.1 software does not calculate the minimum number of subjects needed to generate interactions between variables within groups, except for the betweengroup effects and interactions that are the focus of this study.…”

Prosocial risk taking and interpersonal regret in children: An individual differences study

“…Armstrong‐Carter et al. recently developed a prosocial risk taking scale, though it is intended for use with adolescents (Armstrong‐Carter et al., 2021). Wood et al.…”