Relations between social self-perceptions, time use, and prosocial or problem behaviors during adolescence

This study investigated the relations between social self-perceptions, time use, and later involvement in prosocial or problem behaviors during early, middle, and later adolescence. The authors used an idiographic approach to identify four different patterns of social self-perceptions (confident, anxious, unconcerned, desperate) and then examined the relations between group membership and time use. As predicted, social self-perceptions were significantly related to the ways in which adolescents spend their time and to later involvement in later prosocial and problem behaviors. Notably, adolescents who were most self-confident about their social skills (Confident group) and those who were most willing to go to great lengths to make and keep friends (Desperate group) spent significantly more time with peers than those in the other two groups. In addition, patterns of social self-perceptions were significantly related to adolescents' own involvement and their perceptions of friends' involvement in prosocial and problem behaviors.