Smartphone and social network addiction in early adolescents: The role of self-regulatory self-efficacy in a pilot school-based intervention

BACKGROUND

Youths' online problematic behaviors, such as smartphone or social network sites (SNS) addiction, gained increasing attention nowadays, due to their impact on concurrent and later adjustment, such as emotional and/or behavioral problems, academic impairments, or relational issues.

AIMS

This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a pilot school-based intervention to contrast online addictive behaviors while fostering adolescents' self-regulative abilities.

MATERIALS & METHODS

The intervention started in January 2022 in an Italian junior high school located in Rome, and consisted of four meetings with students. A total sample of 462 15-year-old adolescents (Mage = 15.2; SD = 0.50; 41% females; Ncontrol = 214; Nintervention = 248) was considered. Within the latent difference score framework, we examined short-term changes from the pre-to-the-postintervention levels of SNS and smartphone addiction, and self-regulatory self-efficacy (SRSE) beliefs as a possible booster of the intervention's effectiveness.

RESULTS

Results showed a significant decrease in both online addictions (SNS and smartphone addiction), controlling for age, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status, because of the short-term efficacy of the project. The buffering effect of SRSE beliefs was further supported.

CONCLUSION

These findings emphasized the usefulness of promoting youths' self-regulative beliefs to contrast problematic tendencies, according to a Positive Youth Development perspective which focused on resources rather than only on the prevention of negative outcomes for youths' adjustment.

Measuring Prosocial Behaviors: Psychometric Properties and Cross-National Validation of the Prosociality Scale in Five Countries

This research investigated the psychometric properties of the Prosociality Scale and its cross-cultural validation and generalizability across five different western and non-western countries (China, Chile, Italy, Spain, and the United States). The scale was designed to measure individual differences in a global tendency to behave in prosocial ways during late adolescence and adulthood. Study 1 was designed to identify the best factorial structure of the Prosociality Scale and Study 2 tested the model's equivalence across five countries (N = 1,630 young adults coming from China, Chile, Italy, Spain and the United States; general M _age = 21.34; SD = 3.34). Findings supported a bifactor model in which prosocial responding was characterized by a general latent factor (i.e., prosociality) and two other specific factors (prosocial actions and prosocial feelings). New evidence of construct validity of the Prosociality Scale was provided.

You May Have My Help but Not Necessarily My Care: The Effect of Social Class and Empathy on Prosociality

Previous research has focused on the relation between social class and prosocial behavior. However, this relation is yet unclear. In this work, we shed light on this issue by considering the effect of the level of empathy and the social class of the recipient of help on two types of prosociality, namely helping and caring. In one experimental study, we found that for high-class participants, empathy had a positive effect on helping, regardless of the recipient’s social class. However, empathy had no effect for low-class participants. When it comes to caring, empathy had a positive effect for both high and low-class participants, but only when the recipient of help belonged to the same social class. This highlights that empathy by itself is not sufficient to promote cooperative relations and that the social class of the recipient of help should be taken into account to shed light on this issue.

Longitudinal Relations among Maternal Self-Efficacy, Maternal Warmth, and Early Adolescents' Prosocial Behavior

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.

The Interplay of Adolescents' Aggression and Victimization with Friendship and Antipathy Networks within an Educational Prosocial Intervention

How the interplay between peer relationships and behaviors unfolds and how this differs between classrooms is an understudied topic. This study examined whether adolescents befriend or dislike peers whom they consider as aggressor or victim and whether these results differ in classrooms that received an intervention to promote prosocial behavior compared to classrooms without the intervention. The sample was composed of 659 seventh graders (Mage = 12.32; 48% girls) from nine intervention and seven control classrooms in eight schools in Santiago, Chile. It was hypothesized that adolescents in intervention classrooms would be less befriended and more disliked by classmates who considered them as aggressors, and more befriended and less disliked by classmates who considered them as victims, compared to control classrooms. Longitudinal multiplex social network analyses (RSiena) indicate that antipathies toward peers considered as aggressive and victimized were significantly lower in intervention classrooms than in control classrooms, but no significant differences were found for friendships. These findings suggest that the impact of an educational intervention may go beyond changing individual behavior and extend to the way peer relations develop in classrooms.

Adolescents' Prosocial Behavior Predicts Good Grades Beyond Intelligence and Personality Traits

OBJECTIVE

Researchers have demonstrated the prediction of academic functioning by children's prosocial behavior (PB). The goal of our study was to examine the contribution of adolescents' PB for middle and senior high school grades after controlling for stability of achievement and for intelligence, Big Five traits, and sociodemographic variables (i.e., sex and socioeconomic status).

METHOD

Study 1 examined on 165 adolescents (48.5% boys) the prediction by peer-reported PB in 7th grade of academic achievement at the end of junior high school, after controlling for the above variables. Study 2 examined the prediction by 927 (52% girls) 8th graders' PB of academic achievement 5 years later, at the end of senior high school, taking into account the stability of grades, personality traits, and socio-structural variables.

RESULTS

Overall, hierarchical regression analysis indicated in both studies PB and Openness significantly predicted better grades in the short term and over time despite the high stability of grades across 5 years. Extraversion negatively predicted academic achievement across 1 year in junior high school.

CONCLUSION

Findings supported the view of PB as a strength and a key resource for adolescents' academic attainment.

Civic engagement and giving behaviors: The role of empathy and beliefs about poverty

The current study explores different routes to civic involvement by identifying how a context-specific dimension of empathy and beliefs of autonomy and dependency might jointly predict different types of giving behaviors (i.e., monetary donations), which in turn should predict civic engagement. The sample consisted of 1,294 participants (656 females) between the ages of 18 to 64 (M(age) = 38.44, SD = 14.71), randomly selected from seven different cities in Chile. Even after controlling for gender, age, and the socioeconomic status of participants, results mainly support the role of giving behaviors as drivers of actual engagement in civic life. Monetary donations, in turn, are predicted by higher levels of empathy toward poverty and autonomy-oriented beliefs. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of agentic perspectives on civic participation.

Positive parenting and children's prosocial behavior in eight countries

BACKGROUND

Research supports the beneficial role of prosocial behaviors on children's adjustment and successful youth development. Empirical studies point to reciprocal relations between negative parenting and children's maladjustment, but reciprocal relations between positive parenting and children's prosocial behavior are understudied. In this study reciprocal relations between two different dimensions of positive parenting (quality of the mother-child relationship and the use of balanced positive discipline) and children's prosocial behavior were examined in Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States.

METHODS

Mother-child dyads (N = 1105) provided data over 2 years in two waves (Mage of child in wave 1 = 9.31 years, SD = 0.73; 50% female).

RESULTS

A model of reciprocal relations between parenting dimensions, but not among parenting and children's prosocial behavior, emerged. In particular, children with higher levels of prosocial behavior at age 9 elicited higher levels of mother-child relationship quality in the following year.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings yielded similar relations across countries, evidencing that being prosocial in late childhood contributes to some degree to the enhancement of a nurturing and involved mother-child relationship in countries that vary widely on sociodemographic profiles and psychological characteristics. Policy and intervention implications of this study are discussed.

The Relation of Pro-Sociality to Self-Esteem: The Mediational Role of Quality of Friendships

The present longitudinal study examined the role of quality of friendship in mediating the relation of pro-sociality to self-esteem over time. Participants were 424 Italian young adults (56% females) assessed at two waves (M(age) = 21.1 at Time 1; M(age) = 25 at Time 2). An autoregressive cross-lagged panel model was used to test the mediational model. Self- and friend-report measures of pro-sociality, quality of friendship, and self-esteem were included in the analyses. Results were in line with the hypothesized paths, with quality of friendship mediating the relation of pro-sociality to later self-esteem above and beyond its high stability. Self-esteem, in turn, predicted pro-sociality 4 years later. Overall, the present findings support the potential benefits of behaving pro-socially for an actor in terms of increased perceived self-worth and also expand previous work by outlining the specific mediational role of the quality of friendships. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Prosociality During the Transition From Late Adolescence to Young Adulthood

The present prospective study examined the prediction of prosociality from effortful control and ego-resiliency from late adolescence to emerging adulthood. Participants were 476 young adults (239 males and 237 females) with a mean age of 16 years ( SD = .81) at T1, 18 years ( SD = .83) at T2, 20 years ( SD = .79) at T3, 22 years ( SD = .81) at T4, and 26 years ( SD = .81) at T5. Controlling for the stability of the examined variables and the effect of potential confounding variables (i.e., sex, socioeconomic status [SES], and age), results supported a model in which a temperamental dimension, effortful control, positively predicted a specific behavioral tendency (i.e., prosociality) indirectly through mediation by a personality factor (i.e., ego-resiliency). Practical implications of the results are discussed in terms of the importance of early prevention efforts designed to enhance the capacity to cope effectively with emotional reactions and difficult situations.

Positive effects of promoting prosocial behavior in early adolescence

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a pilot school-based intervention called CEPIDEA, designed to promote prosocial behavior in early adolescence. The study took place in a middle school located in a small city near Rome. The intervention group included 151 students (52.3% males; Mage = 12.4), and the control group 173 students (50.3% females; Mage = 13.0). Both groups were assessed at three time points, each 6 months apart. A Latent Growth Curve analysis revealed that the intervention group, compared to the control group, showed an increase of helping behavior along with a decrease of physical and verbal aggression across time. Current results also showed that the increase of helping behavior mediated the decline of verbal aggression in adolescents who had attended the intervention. Participants of CEPIDEA also attained higher grades than the control group at the end of middle school. Overall, findings suggest that promoting prosocial behavior may serve to counteract aggressive conduct and enhance academic achievement during adolescence.