Development of a measure of adolescents’ online prosocial behavior

ABSTRACT

Research on adolescents’ media use has focused predominantly on its negative aspects (risks) and far less on its positive side (opportunities). This is reflected in the lack of validated instruments to assess adolescents’ online prosocial behavior. To address this issue, we developed the Online Prosocial Behavior Scale (OPBS) to assess adolescents’ involvement in online prosocial behavior. Two subscales (performing and receiving online prosocial behavior) were constructed and their factor structure was evaluated and confirmed through parallel analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis. The OPBS-subscales displayed good reliability and correlated positively with offline prosocial behavior and use of digital media, supporting the scale’s construct validity. Unexpectedly, the subscales also correlated positively with online antisocial behavior, which may be understood within the framework of the online disinhibition theory. The scale can be a useful tool for researchers and practitioners who need a global instrument to assess adolescents’ online prosocial behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Prosocial behavior
• prosocialness
• antisocial behavior
• adolescents
• online behavior
• scale development
• scale validation
• measurement instrument

Notes

1. Because CFA is based on a restrictive measurement model which specifies a simple structure, allowing no cross-loadings and no within scale correlated residuals (Asparouhov, Muthén, & Muthen, 2009), subtle nuances in the data (such as variations in correlations between scale items) are not taken into account, which might explain why the fit of the model is not better.