Parenting interactions and prosocial behavior in young children

The socialization of prosocial behavior in young children is an important component of the development of social competence and the potential reduction of future aggressive behavior. Prosocial behavior such as helping, sharing, and comforting typically begins to emerge in the early preschool years, and there is substantial research concerning the methods through which parents encourage prosocial behavior. This project endeavored to clarify the effects of specific aspects of parental behavior---nurturance, positive discipline, negative discipline, and reinforcement---on child prosocial behavior (CPB). Based on the results of an earlier pilot study, it was hypothesized that parental reinforcement would be the strongest predictor of CPB, and that parental nurturance would be the weakest predictor. It was also hypothesized that CPB would be positively correlated with the positive parenting constructs, and inversely correlated with negative discipline. Seventy-six parent-child dyads participated in a 10-minute play session designed to elicit sharing and helping. Parents then completed questionnaires assessing discipline, nurturance, and CPB (Parenting Practices Questionnaire, Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation Scale) while the children participated in a generalization task designed to elicit a prosocial response to the experimenter's need for help. Observers blind to the hypotheses coded the videotaped parent-child interactions. The frequency of individual codes was summed into four parent constructs (nurturance, positive discipline, negative discipline, and reinforcement) and one child construct (CPB). Data were analyzed through correlations and hierarchical regressions. Results revealed that CPB was positively correlated with nurturance, reinforcement, and positive discipline, and inversely correlated with negative discipline. In the regressions, the strongest predictors of CPB were negative discipline and nurturance (inverse relationships), although the predictive ability of reinforcement was also significant. Positive discipline was not a significant predictor. Although some children did behave prosocially in the generalization task, this form of CPB was not significantly related to the parenting variables or to the other measurements of CPB. These results support other research in this area in showing that positive parenting is associated with CPB, and also raise questions regarding the socialization of requested versus spontaneous prosocial acts. The implication of these results for research and clinical applications is discussed.