The role of protective factors and personal variables in predicting prosocial behaviors of adolescents

The purpose of this study is to investigate pro-social behaviors of adolescents at 14-18 years old in terms of protective factors (personal belief system, perceived social controls, pro-social behaviors, models for conventional behaviors and perceived social support) and some personal variables (gender, age, parent education level, income).The research was conducted with 571 high school students attending 9th, 10th and 11th grades. The data for identifying pro-social behaviors was collected through ?Pro-social Tendencies Measure? that was developed by Carlo ve Randall (2002) and adapted to Turkish by Kumru (2004). The data related to protective factors of adolescents was collected via the related subscales of ?Adolescent Health and Development Questionnaire? that was originally developed by Jessor, Turbin ve Costa (2004) and adapted to Turkish by Siyez (2006) and lastly, the data related to the personal information of the participants was gathered by ?Personal Information Form? designed by the researcher. Pearson Correlation Coefficient, multiple linear regression, non-parametric techniques of Mann- Whitney U Test and Kruskall Wallis H Test were used in analyzing the data.According to the results of the research; positive self-perception related to personal belief system, social controls, pro-social behaviors and perceived social support are positively related to pro-social behavior tendencies of adolescents.Results suggested that as the perceived positive self-perception increases in adolescents, public pro-social behaviors also increase, whereas increase in perceived social control caused reduction in public pro-social behaviors. The results indicated that perceived positive self-perception, social control level; convenient behaviors and social support positively predict emotional and dire pro-social behaviors. Results concerning altruistic pro-social behaviors showed that as perceived positive self-perception and convenient social models increase in adolescents, altruistic pro-social behaviors decrease. In findings related to compliant and anonymous pro-social behaviors; it was seen that as perceived positive self-perception, social control and social support increase in adolescent population, compliant pro-social behaviors also increase; and perceived positive self-perception, social control and convenient behaviors positively predict anonymous pro-social behaviors.The results also suggested that public pro-social tendencies are higher at 13-15 age groups than 16-18 age groups, whereas it was found that 16-18 age groups engage in altruistic pro-social tendencies more often than 13-15 age groups.According to the results related to the gender, public pro-social tendencies are found to be higher in boys, whereas altruistic and compliant pro-social tendencies found to be higher in girls. Girls had higher scores than boys in the total scores of pro-social behavior tendencies.The results concerning parent education level indicated that there is only meaningful variation in dire pro-social behaviors of adolescents in terms of father education level; as father education level increases dire pro-social tendencies also increase. The findings related to the family income suggested that adolescents from middle socio-economic status exhibit higher public and altruistic pro-social tendencies than adolescents from other socio-economic groups.Keywords: Adolescence, pro-social behaviors, protective factors, personal belief system, social control, convenient behaviors, convenient social models, social support