Prosociality in College Students: The Role of Temperament -Character Dimensions and Perceived Social Support

Prosociality has been linked with a variety of positive psychosocial indices. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of temperament and character dimensions and perceived social support in the prosociality of college students.

The present research was a descriptive correlational study. The statistical population of the study consisted of all students of Payame Noor University of Rasht city in the academic year of 2019-2020. 220 students were selected by using a random sampling method. Data were analyzed by correlation coefficient and regression analysis. The participants completed the items of Prosocial Personality Scale (Penner, 2002), Temperament and Character Inventory (Adan, Serra-Grabulosa, Caci, &  Natale, 2009) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet & Farley, 1988).

Results showed that prosociality has a significant positive correlation with reward dependence, self-directiveness, co-operativeness, self-transcendence and perceived social support and it has a significant negative correlation with harm avoidance and novelty seeking (p<0.01).  Also, stepwise regression analysis showed that co-operativeness 0.33, perceived social support 0.11 and self-directiveness 0.02 significantly predict variance of prosociality in college students (p<0.01).

Considering the role of temperament and character dimensions and perceived social support on Prosociality in College Students, the results of this study have important implications for these individuals.