Examining resilience, courage, self-compassion and prosocial behavior tendencies in adolescents with low socio-economic status

In this research, the direct and indirect relationships among resilience, its individual level protective factors (i.e., courage, and self-compassion), and its positive outcomes (i.e., prosocial behavior tendencies) were examined in a low socio-economic adolescent sample. Adolescents with low socioeconomic level who are attending in 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades at the state Anatolian high schools in Sincan and Mamak districts of Ankara comprised the sample of this research. In this research, "cluster sampling" method was used. Within the scope of this research, 1030 high school students of whom 607 were women, 370 were men, and 53 did not want to indicate their gender participated to the study. A demographic information form, Child and Youth Resilience Scale, Adlerian Courage Scale-Adolescent Form, Self-Compassion Scale-Short Form and Prosocial Behavior Tendencies Scale-Adolescent Form were utilized as data collection tools. A path analysis, a type of structural equation modeling, was used to reveal the direct and indirect relationships by testing the hypothesized model. The results yielded that courage and self-compassion were significant predictors of resilience. In addition, it was found that courage was directly and largely associated with self-compassion. Besides, it was found that self-compassion was directly and largely associated with resilience. In this model, it was hypothesized that self-compassion was positively related with prosocial behavior intentions. Quite interestingly, self-compassion was found to be negatively related with all subscales of prosocial behavior tendencies. Nevertheless, resilience was identified positively and directly linked with all subscales of prosocial behavior tendencies. Moreover, it was found that courage was indirectly associated with all subscales of prosocial behavior tendencies via both self-compassion and resilience. The results of the study were discussed within the context of research in light of the positive psychology approach, and some recommendations and implications were considered for further research and practice.