title: Trajectories of prosocial behavior from adolescence to early adulthood: associations with personality change.
abstract: The goal of this study was to identify heterogenic longitudinal patterns of change in prosocial behavior from adolescence to early adulthood and their association with change in Big Five Factor (BFF) personality traits from adolescence until early adulthood. Participants were 573 Italian adolescents aged approximately 13 at the first assessment and 21 at the last assessment. Using growth mixture modeling, low increasing (LI; 18%), medium quadratic (MQ; 26%), and high quadratic (HQ; 54%) trajectories of prosocial behavior were distinguished. Generally, the LI trajectory group predicted an increase in Conscientiousness over time, whereas the HQ trajectory group predicted greater change in Agreeableness and Openness. In addition, positive changes in Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness between ages 13 and 21 predicted a higher probability of belonging to the HQ prosocial group. Findings support a malleable perspective on personality and identify longterm positive pathways for youths' prosocial development.
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Roma, Italy. Electronic address: paula.luengo@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Bernadette P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Luengo Kanacri
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Concetta
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pastorelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Eisenberg
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zuffianò
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Valeria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Castellani
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Roma, Italy.
authors.forename: Gian Vittorio
authors.initials: GV
authors.lastname: Caprara
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000367:Age Factors; D000533:Altruism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D010553:Personality Development; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescence; Early adulthood; Growth mixture modeling; Prosocial behavior; personality traits