A longitudinal study of multidimensional prosocial behavior during adolescence

Prosocial behaviors, which are defined as behaviors intended to benefit others, are important building blocks for developing and maintaining positive relationships (Carlo & Padilla-Walker, 2020). Adolescence, the period between ages 10 to 24 years (Sawyer et al., 2018), is characterized by age-related changes in prosocial behavior, with most studies reporting a general increase in prosocial behaviors across adolescence (e.g., Crone et al., 2022; Do et al., 2017). However, the exact developmental patterns of prosocial behavior are still debated. The large heterogeneity across developmental studies, mainly depending on specific design parameters used, can be interpreted as evidence that prosocial behavior should be regarded as a multidimensional construct (Carlo & Padilla-Walker, 2020). According to this hypothesis, prosocial behavior comprises many behaviors, from sharing and helping to cooperating, and depends on several contextual characteristics (e.g., who the recipient is and whether the situation is dire; Carlo & Padilla-Walker, 2020). To date, little is known about the variability in development of distinct types of prosocial behavior across adolescence. Therefore, the first aim of our longitudinal study is to examine the developmental trajectories and interdependence of multiple types of prosocial behaviors within individuals.
The second aim of this study is to examine the commonality of prosociality and risk-taking. Although adolescence is known as a period during which prosocial behavior changes, this period in life is also marked by increased risk-taking (Steinberg, 2008). Recent work on ‘prosocial risk takers’ argues that these two types of behaviors do not develop in isolation: adolescents may take risks to benefit others (Do et al., 2017). Indeed, previous studies found adolescents’ prosocial actions toward friends and peers to be correlated with rebelliousness (e.g., substance use), with this combined profile being predicted by reward drive as one underlying factor (Blankenstein et al., 2020). However, it remains unknown how adolescent development of risk-taking, specifically rebelliousness, is associated with the development of different types of prosocial behavior. The second aim of the study will therefore be to examine how the development of multidimensional prosocial behavior relates to the development of risk-taking behavior during adolescence, as well as the development of the combined profile of prosocial risk-takers.
Finally, an important question concerns whether chronological age perse is the only developmental factor driving the change in prosociality. Pubertal development may also contribute to the development of both prosocial and prosocial risk-taking behavior, which may provide additional information about developmental trajectories during adolescence. The onset of puberty, which marks the start of adolescence, is characterized by rapid changes in hormone levels and physical appearance (Blakemore et al., 2010). Previous studies demonstrated that changes in sex steroid hormones, particularly testosterone and estradiol, are associated with increased risk-taking, suggesting that sex hormones accelerate the maturational process of risk-taking during adolescence (Peper et al., 2013, 2018; Peper & Dahl, 2013). It has been suggested that this effect mainly works through the contribution of hormones on changes in sensation seeking and reward sensitivity. Hormone levels may similarly affect prosocial behavior. While one study using a prosocial decision-making task showed that high testosterone was linked with greater prosocial conformity during adolescence (Duell et al., 2021), the link between hormones and prosocial behavior has not yet been investigated in a longitudinal study. As our third study aim, we will therefore examine the role of puberty on the development of prosocial behavior and its association with risk-taking behavior.

Taken together, the aim of our longitudinal study is to examine the developmental trajectories of four types of prosocial behaviors during adolescence and how these trajectories are associated with the development of risk-taking behavior. Given the multidimensionality of prosocial behavior, three self-report measures and one experimental task will be used with varying types and recipients of prosocial behavior. While self-report measures are often used to assess individual’s general tendencies to show certain types of behaviors, experimental tasks are suitable to systematically disentangle actual behaviors. Motivated by prior research, a variety of measures of prosocial behaviors will therefore be used. In the current study, the experimental task is the Charity Dictator Game to examine giving behavior to charities (Eckel & Grossman, 1996; Engel, 2011; Kahneman et al., 1986), as more distant but societal trustworthy partners with whom young individuals do not have a direct relationship. The self-report measures include the Opportunities for Prosocial Actions scale (OPA; Blankenstein et al., 2020; te Brinke et al., 2023; van de Groep et al., 2020) to test for altruism, emotional support, helping, and giving/sharing to friends and peers, the Prosocial Tendencies Measure Revised (PTM-R; Carlo et al., 2003) to test for several tendencies to behave prosocially in different situations (i.e., public, anonymous, dire, emotional, compliant, and altruistic), and the Social Value Orientation Slider (SVO; Murphy et al., 2011) as measure of the intrinsic preference for the distribution of resources. The Adolescent Risk-Taking Questionnaire (ART; Gullone et al., 2000) will be used to measure rebelliousness.
We will first describe the developmental trajectories of these four types of prosocial behavior over time within individuals (i.e., CDG, PTM-R, OPA, and SVO). Our second step is to describe how the developmental trajectories of prosocial behaviors are associated with the development of risk-taking during adolescence. Our final step is to examine how puberty contributes to the developmental trajectories of adolescent’s prosocial and risk-taking behavior. To best capture multiple aspects of pubertal development (Shirtcliff et al., 2009), both hormonal (i.e., testosterone and estradiol) and physical measures (i.e., pubertal development based on secondary sexual characteristics) will be used.

亲社会行为，定义为旨在造福他人的行为，是构建和维护积极关系的重要基石（Carlo & Padilla-Walker, 2020）。青春期，介于10至24岁之间的时期（Sawyer et al., 2018），其特征在于与年龄相关的亲社会行为的变化，大多数研究报道青春期亲社会行为的普遍增加（例如，Crone et al., 2022; Do et al., 2017）。然而，亲社会行为的精确发展模式仍存在争议。发展研究中的巨大异质性，主要取决于特定的设计参数，可以解释为亲社会行为应被视为一个多维度结构的证据（Carlo & Padilla-Walker, 2020）。根据这一假设，亲社会行为包括许多行为，从分享和帮助到合作，并依赖于多种情境特征（例如，受益者的身份以及情况是否危急；Carlo & Padilla-Walker, 2020）。迄今为止，关于青春期不同类型亲社会行为发展变异的了解甚少。因此，本纵向研究的首要目标是考察个体内部多种类型亲社会行为的发育轨迹和相互依赖关系。本研究第二项目标是考察亲社会性与冒险行为的共通性。尽管青春期是亲社会行为发生变化的时期，但这一人生阶段也以冒险行为的增加为特征（Steinberg, 2008）。关于“亲社会冒险者”的近期研究认为，这两种类型的行为并非孤立发展：青少年可能冒险以造福他人（Do et al., 2017）。确实，先前的研究发现青少年对朋友和同伴的亲社会行为与叛逆性（例如，物质使用）相关，这一综合特征被预测为奖励驱动的一个潜在因素（Blankenstein et al., 2020）。然而，青少年冒险行为，特别是叛逆性，如何与不同类型的亲社会行为的发展相关联，仍然是个未知数。因此，本研究的第二项目标将是考察多维亲社会行为的发育如何与青春期冒险行为的发育相关联，以及亲社会冒险者的综合特征的发展。最后，一个重要的问题是，是否只有时间年龄本身是推动亲社会性变化的唯一发展因素。青春期发育也可能促进亲社会和亲社会冒险行为的发育，这可能会提供关于青春期发育轨迹的额外信息。青春期开始，标志着青春期的开始，其特征是激素水平和身体外观的快速变化（Blakemore et al., 2010）。先前的研究表明，性类固醇激素的变化，尤其是睾酮和雌二醇，与冒险行为的增加相关，表明性激素加速了青春期冒险行为的成熟过程（Peper et al., 2013, 2018; Peper & Dahl, 2013）。有人提出，这种效应主要通过激素对寻求刺激和奖励敏感性的影响来实现。激素水平可能以类似的方式影响亲社会行为。虽然一项使用亲社会决策任务的研究表明，高睾酮与青春期更大的亲社会一致性相关（Duell et al., 2021），但激素与亲社会行为之间的联系尚未在纵向研究中得到探讨。因此，我们第三项研究目标是考察青春期对亲社会行为及其与冒险行为关联的发育轨迹的作用。总之，本纵向研究的目的是考察青春期四种类型亲社会行为的发育轨迹，以及这些轨迹如何与冒险行为的发育相关联。鉴于亲社会行为的多元性，将使用三种自我报告测量方法和一种实验任务，以不同的亲社会行为类型和受益者进行。虽然自我报告测量通常用于评估个人展示某些类型行为的总体倾向，但实验任务适合系统地解析实际行为。受先前研究启发，将使用各种亲社会行为的测量方法。在当前研究中，实验任务是慈善独裁者游戏，以检验对慈善机构的捐赠行为（Eckel & Grossman, 1996; Engel, 2011; Kahneman et al., 1986），作为与年轻个体没有直接关系的更遥远但社会可信赖的合作伙伴。自我报告测量包括亲社会行为机会量表（OPA；Blankenstein et al., 2020; te Brinke et al., 2023; van de Groep et al., 2020），以测试利他主义、情绪支持、帮助以及对朋友和同伴的给予/分享，亲社会倾向测量修订版（PTM-R；Carlo et al., 2003），以测试在不同情境下（即公共场合、匿名、危急、情绪化、顺从和利他）表现出亲社会行为的多种倾向，以及社会价值取向滑块（SVO；Murphy et al., 2011），作为对资源分配内在偏好的测量。青少年冒险行为问卷（ART；Gullone et al., 2000）将用于测量叛逆性。我们首先将描述这些四种类型亲社会行为随时间在个体内部的发育轨迹（即CDG、PTM-R、OPA和SVO）。我们的第二步是描述亲社会行为的发育轨迹如何与青春期的冒险行为发育相关联。我们的最终步骤是考察青春期如何影响青少年的亲社会和冒险行为的发育轨迹。为了最好地捕捉青春期发育的多个方面（Shirtcliff et al., 2009），将使用激素（即睾酮和雌二醇）和身体测量（即基于第二性征的青春期发育）。