Abstract
Positive aspects of adolescent development recently have raised researchers' interests; however, studies examining reciprocal links between prosocial behavior, social preference, and subjective well-being are lacking. The present longitudinal study investigated the bidirectional relations between prosocial behavior, social preference, and subjective well-being within a theoretical framework of the developmental cascade model. A total of 1248 Chinese adolescents (M = 13.44, SD = 0.65; 47.0% girls) were surveyed across three waves with 6-month intervals. The results of analyses utilizing the random-intercept cross-lagged panel model demonstrated that prosocial behavior was positively associated with both social preference and subjective well-being, and social preference was not associated with subjective well-being at the between-person level. At the within-person level, prosocial behavior was positively reciprocally associated with social preference, while no significant relations between prosocial behavior and subjective well-being and between social preference and subjective well-being were found. The findings highlight adolescents' prosocial behavior and social preference could mutually facilitate each other over time, which can be used to guide adolescents' positive development.
Published Version
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