The Contribution of Agreeableness and Self-efficacy Beliefs to Prosociality

The present study examined how agreeableness and self-efficacy beliefs about responding empathically to others' needs predict individuals' prosociality, across time. participants were 377 adolescents (66% males) aged 16 at Time 1 and 18 at Time 2 who took part at this study. Measures of agreeableness, empathic self-efficacy and prosociality were collected at two time points. The findings corroborated the posited paths of relations to assigning agreeableness a major role in predicting the level of individuals' prosociality. Empathic self-efficacy beliefs partially mediated the relation of agreeableness to prosociality. The posited conceptual model accounted for a significant portion of variance in prosociality and provides guidance with respect to interventions aimed at promoting prosociality Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.