Relationships between adolescent prosocial problem-solving strategies, prosocial behaviour, and social acceptance

This study examined the relationship between adolescents' prosocial problem-solving strategies and prosocial behaviour, and their associations with social acceptance among their peers. Age- and gender-related variance was also examined. The subjects were 777 14-year-old adolescents (381 girls and 396 boys) and 877 17-year-olds (464 girls and 413 boys). Prosocial problem-solving strategies were measured by means of a self-rating questionnaire, while prosocial behaviour and social acceptance were evaluated in terms of the dimensions of social popularity and rejection as well as the classification of adolescents into popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, and average status groups, on the basis of peer nominations. The results showed that prosocial problem-solving strategies and prosocial behaviour were only minimally related, but both predicted social acceptance among peers, The rejected adolescents had low levels and the controversial adolescents high levels of both prosocial strategies and behaviour, while the popular and neglected adolescents did not differ from the average ones in terms of strategies, but they did in their behaviour. The popular adolescents had a high level, and the neglected adolescents a low level of prosocial behaviour. As a dimension, social popularity correlated positively and rejection negatively with prosocial behaviour but not with strategies. Analysis of gender and age differences revealed that the girls and the 14-year-olds achieved higher scores on both prosocial strategies and behaviour than the boys or the 17-year-olds. The results extend our knowledge of adolescent social functioning.