The developmental cascades of prosocial behavior tendency, internalizing and externalizing problems for early adolescence in China: A within-person analysis

Abstract

Understanding the developmental cascades of prosocial behavior, internalizing and externalizing problems is of great value in promoting adolescent mental health. The 3-year longitudinal data of 894 junior school students were analyzed at the within-person level, and compared with the traditional cross-lagged panel model. The results showed that: (1) at the within-person level, prosocial behavior tendency had moderate or weak co-variation with internalizing and externalizing problems, and T1 prosocial behavior tendency negatively predicted T2 internalizing problems, T2 prosocial behavior tendency negatively predicted T3 externalizing prob-lems, which has a weak effect. (2) for girls, T2 internalizing problems positively predicted T3 externalizing problems, while for boys, internalizing problems and externalizing problems did not predict each other; (3) four factors of prosocial behavior tendency (public, compliant, emotional and altruistic) negatively predicted internalizing problems in T2, which have a weak effect. (4) the results obtained by within-person analysis are different from those by traditional cross-lagged analysis, and different models have different results. Conclusion: the development of prosocial behavior tendency in early adolescence reduces internalizing and externalizing problems, which has gender difference. The analysis at the within-person level has great value in the research of adolescent psycho-pathology development.