The Intervening Roles of Shame and Guilt in Relations between Parenting and Prosocial Behavior in College Students

Abstract

Despite the importance of understanding the relations between parenting and youth’s prosocial behavior, there is surprisingly little research focused on the relations among parenting practices, shame, guilt, and prosocial behaviors. The present study was designed to examine the intervening roles of shame and guilt in relations between parental support and psychological control and public and altruistic prosocial behaviors in college students. The participants were 304 (62.5% female, 76.3% European American, M_age= 18.71, SD = 0.92) college students. We found partial support for our hypotheses. Specifically, we found that parental psychological control was positively linked to shame which, in turn, was positively linked to public prosocial behaviors. In contrast, parental support was positively linked to guilt which, in turn, was positively linked to altruistic prosocial behaviors and negatively linked to public prosocial behaviors. Further, psychological control was directly and positively linked to public prosocial behaviors and negatively linked to altruistic prosocial behaviors. Parental support was directly and positively linked to public prosocial behaviors. Discussion will focus on the implications of the findings for theories of moral socialization and prosocial development.

Keywords:

• Parenting
• guilt
• shame
• prosocial behavior
• moral development

Declaration of interest statement

There is no conflict of interest.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Data availability statement

The data and materials used in the research are not publicly available but are available upon reasonable request. For information, please contact Dr. Zehra Gülseven at [email protected].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Zehra Gülseven

Zehra Gülseven is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on positive social development during childhood and adolescence. She is particularly interested in parental, socioemotive, and sociocognitive correlates of prosocial and moral development in culturally diverse children and adolescents. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Sahitya Maiya

Sahitya Maiya is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Utah State University. Her research interests focus on the parenting and cultural correlates of prosocial behaviors in youth and young adults from diverse cultural groups. She also examines the protective role played by prosocial behaviors against problem behaviors in the context of stress. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Gustavo Carlo

Gustavo Carlo is a Professor at the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests are in the roles of culture-related mechanisms, personality, and parenting on prosocial and moral development. Much of his work is on children and adolescents of distinct ethnic and racial heritage in the U.S. and around the world. He can be contacted at [email protected].