Examining the factor structure and etiology of prosociality

Prosociality is one construct included in the developmental propensity model proposed by Lahey and Waldman (2003, 2005) to explain the development of conduct problems in childhood and adolescence. Findings from previous literature on 2 facets of prosociality, dispositional sympathy and respect for rules, suggest that both may have genetic and nonshared environmental influences, but only the latter may have shared environmental influence. The goal of the current article was to explore the structure of the prosociality disposition from a measurement perspective as well as to examine the etiology of this construct. The sample consisted of 686 twin pairs ages 7 to 13. Parents rated their children's prosociality using the Child and Adolescent Dispositions Scale. The factor structure of the prosociality scale was examined using confirmatory factor analysis to compare a 1-factor model with a 2-factor model. Twin analyses were used to examine the proportion of variance associated with genetic and environmental effects on the latent factor(s) from the best fitting model. Results of the current study suggest that prosociality is a disposition that can be conceptualized as 2 related factors rather than a unitary dimension. These 2 factors map onto the subscales of the prosociality dimension (dispositional sympathy and respect for rules). Both factors had significant genetic and nonshared environmental influences, but only respect for rules had significant shared environmental influences. Examining the dispositional sympathy and respect for rules facets of prosociality separately allowed for the discovery that shared environmental factors may have more impact on respect for rules than sympathy.