The Cross-Spillover Effects of Online Prosocial Behavior on Subjective Well-Being: Daily Diary Evidence from Chinese Adolescents

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of online prosocial behavior on the subjective well-being of adolescents and its spillover and crossover effects. By convenience sampling, this paper adopted a diary survey method to collect the daily online prosocial behavior and subjective well-being data of 120 first-grade junior high school students and their parents for 5 consecutive days during their winter vacation in China. The online prosocial behaviors of adolescents during the day can significantly positively predict their subjective well-being during the day and at night, which indicates that adolescents’ subjective well-being has a spillover effect from online to offline. In addition, online prosocial behavior and the subjective well-being of adolescents in the daytime are significantly positively correlated with their parents’ subjective well-being at night, indicating that there is a crossover effect between online prosocial behavior and the subjective well-being of adolescents in the daytime and their parents’ subjective well-being at night. It is important to create a good online environment for adolescents and promote the benign spillover and crossover effect of online prosocial behavior on subjective well-being.