Personality and family contexts as predictors of prosocial and antisocial predispositions among adolescents

The purpose of this paper is to analyse personality and family variables related to adolescent aggressiveness and prosocial behaviour; emphasis has been placed on emotional processes linked to a lack of control or emotional regulation and child-rearing styles perceived by adolescents in their parents. An empirical analysis was carries out including 1.285 randomly selected adolescents (aged 13 to 18, 698 males and 597 females). Discriminating analyses were conducted. Results showed that emotional processes reach higher correlation with aggressive behaviour, emotional instability and proneness to anger being the main predicting factors of aggressiveness, while empathy appears like the main predictor of prosocial behaviour. The parents' child-rearing styles have a secondary position in drawing the differential profile between high and low prosocial proneness, behind personal variables and are moved by emotional processes in prediction of aggressive behaviour.