Prosocial behavior and school engagement during adolescence: The mediating role of self-regulation

Abstract

During adolescence, prosocial behavior is indicative of social well-being, cognitive self-regulation skills are increasingly effective, and school engagement concerningly declines. The current study investigated whether adolescents' cognitive self-regulation mediates the association between prosocial behavior toward peers and behavioral and emotional school engagement. Participants included 500 U.S. adolescents surveyed over four years (51.6% girls; 67.13% European American; T1 Mage = 12.34 years, T2 Mage = 14.29 years, T3 Mage = 16.30 years). Path analyses revealed adolescents' self-reported prosocial behavior at Time 1 positively predicted Time 2 cognitive self-regulation, and cognitive self-regulation positively predicted Time 3 behavioral and emotional school engagement. Significant indirect effects via cognitive self-regulation were found for the association between Time 1 prosocial behavior and Time 3 emotional school engagement among boys. Findings lend support to the notion that adolescents' self-regulation is an important intermediary between prosocial behavior and school engagement, at least for boys. Implications for future research and for adolescent-focused interventions are discussed.