A longitudinal investigation of the relation between parenting and youth's prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers

There is little research on how parenting is related to youth's prosocial behavior toward outgroup members. We examined how parental warmth and gender socialization predict youth's altruistic and public prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers. A total of 358 youth (M_age = 13.00, SD_age = 1.13) and their parents participated in the study over 2 years in the United States. Longitudinal path analyses showed that parental warmth was positively related to residualized changes in altruistic prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers, and there were significant interaction effects of parental warmth and gender socialization practices in predicting youth's public prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers 1 year later. Specifically, when parental gender socialization practices were low, parental warmth was particularly important for prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers; when parental warmth was high, parental gender socialization practices were particularly relevant for prosocial behavior toward other-gender peers. Parental gender socialization attitudes had opposite effects for residualized changes in both altruistic and public prosocial behavior by youth gender.