Parenting and prosocial behaviors in Nicaraguan adolescents: The roles of prosocial moral reasoning and familism

Abstract

Despite the surge of interest in understanding the socializing role of parents on youth prosocial behaviors, studies on the socialization of prosocial behaviors in Latinx adolescents residing in their native countries are lacking. This study examined the relations among supportive and strict parenting, prosocial moral reasoning, familism values, and six types of prosocial behaviors in parents and youth residing in Nicaragua. Participants were 265 secondary school students ( Mage = 14.85 years, SD = 1.33; 62% female) from San Marcos, Nicaragua. We found partial support for the hypothesized effects. Specifically, strict parenting was positively linked to approval-oriented moral reasoning, which in turn, was positively linked to public prosocial behavior and negatively linked to altruistic prosocial behavior. Higher strict parenting was directly linked to higher emotional prosocial behavior. Moreover, supportive parenting was positively linked to adolescents’ familism values and dire and public prosocial behaviors, and it was negatively related to approval-oriented moral reasoning. Additionally, familism value was positively linked to compliant and emotional prosocial behaviors and negatively linked to altruistic prosocial behavior. These findings were robust across adolescents’ gender. Overall, these findings have implications for traditional and culture-specific models of prosocial behaviors and extend our understanding of the roles of parenting, sociocognitive and value traits, and adolescents’ prosocial behaviors to Latinx parents and youth residing in their native country.