Does positive parenting predict pro-social behavior and friendship quality among adolescents? Emotional intelligence as a mediator

Abstract

Parenting has been reported to exert significant short-term and long-term impact on the offspring’s personality, behavior, and relationships during their lifespan. The present study aimed to assess the impact of positive parenting on the trait emotional intelligence, prosocial behavior (altruism) and friendship quality of adolescents. The sample of present study comprised 350 adolescents (208 boys and 142 girls) aged between 14 and 16 year (M = 15. 46 year, SD = .86) and their parents. The data were collected from two public and two private sector schools of Lahore, Pakistan. Parenting Style Scale (Batool and Mumtaz Pakistan Journal of Psychological Reseaech, 30(2), 225–248, 2015), the Emotional Intelligence Scale for Children and Adolescents (Batool and Hayat Pakistan Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 16(2), 17–26, 2018), the Altruistic Personality Scale (Rushton et al. Personality and Individual Differences, 1, 292–302, 1981), and the Intimate Friendship Scale (Sharabany 1974) were employed. The final model of a mediational path analysis revealed that positive parenting had a statistically significant indirect impact on the prosocial behavior of adolescents via emotional intelligence (R2 = .24). As the friendship quality of adolescents concerns, positive parenting had statistically significant direct and indirect impact (via emotional intelligence and prosocial behavior) on it (R2 = .28). Gender appeared as a significant covariate of both prosocial behavior and friendship quality. Based on the results, we suggest parents to practice positive parenting styles and recommend emotional intelligence training of adolescents to promote prosocial behavior and better relationship with friends.