The effects of adolescent prosocial behavior interventions: a meta-analytic review

Abstract

This meta-analytic review examined the effectiveness of the interventions for promoting adolescents’ prosocial behavior, and aimed to explain variability in the effectiveness. Thirty-three studies that used interventions for prosociality targeting adolescents and compared with a control group or had a pre-post comparison were included in the analyses. Across all the studies, the prosocial behavior interventions for adolescents had a small, beneficial effect on promoting prosocial behavior (g = 0.442; 95% CI [0.240, 0.644]). The results of moderator analyses showed that the interventions designed to increase social competence had a larger effect than those seeking to prevent problem behavior, and that the interventions that used reports by others had a larger effect than those using self-reports. These findings indicated that the prosocial behavior interventions promoted adolescents’ prosocial behavior, but with a small effect, and that the effectiveness varied depending on the objectives of intervention and the measurement types. However, this result seemed to be slightly influenced by publication bias, thus the interpretations of the results should be careful. Directions for future research and implications for educators implementing prosocial behavior interventions during adolescence are discussed.