The role of parental rejection and poverty in the development of prosocial behavior among left-behind adolescents in rural China

Abstract

Studies have shown left-behind adolescents in rural China having less prosocial behavior than their non-left-behind peers. Although parenting styles have a role to play in the development of prosocial behavior, more studies are warranted to understand the underlying mechanisms and the conditions that could increase (or buffer) the positive (negative) association between parenting style and prosocial behavior. Based on the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Theory and other theoretical models, the present study proposed and tested a moderated mediation model to examine the mediating role of moral identity in the relationship between parental rejection and prosocial behavior as well as the moderating effects of subjective poverty on the relationship between parental rejection and prosocial behavior as well as between moral identity and prosocial behavior. A total of 714 rural left-behind adolescents in China answered a questionnaire comprising Prosocial Tendencies Measure (PTM), Short-form Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran (s-EMBU, a measurement of parental rejection), Moral Self-identity Scale (MSS) and Subjective Poverty in their classrooms. Results showed that paternal rejection, but not maternal rejection, had an indirect negative relationship with prosocial behavior via moral identity. Moreover, subjective poverty moderated the direct relationship between paternal rejection and prosocial behavior as well as the relationship between moral identity and prosocial behavior, though the moderated mediation model was not supported. Specifically, the negative relationship between paternal rejection and prosocial behavior was strengthened when subjective poverty was low. Meanwhile, the positive relationship between moral identity and prosocial behavior was reinforced among adolescents with higher subjective poverty. The findings not only reveal the underlying mechanism of the relationship between parental rejection and prosocial behavior among rural left-behind adolescents but also highlight the necessity of incorporating the effect of subjective poverty.