title: Prosociality: the contribution of traits, values, and self-efficacy beliefs.
abstract: The present study examined how agreeableness, self-transcendence values, and empathic self-efficacy beliefs predict individuals' tendencies to engage in prosocial behavior (i.e., prosociality) across time. Participants were 340 young adults, 190 women and 150 men, age approximately 21 years at Time 1 and 25 years at Time 2. Measures of agreeableness, self-transcendence, empathic self-efficacy beliefs, and prosociality were collected at 2 time points. The findings corroborated the posited paths of relations, with agreeableness directly predicting self-transcendence and indirectly predicting empathic self-efficacy beliefs and prosociality. Self-transcendence mediated the relation between agreeableness and empathic self-efficacy beliefs. Empathic self-efficacy beliefs mediated the relation of agreeableness and self-transcendence to prosociality. Finally, earlier prosociality predicted agreeableness and empathic self-efficacy beliefs assessed at Time 2. The posited conceptual model accounted for a significant portion of variance in prosociality and provides guidance to interventions aimed at promoting prosociality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, Rome 00185, Italy. gianvittorio.caprara@uniroma1.it
authors.forename: Gian Vittorio
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Caprara
authors.forename: Guido
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Alessandri
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Eisenberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult