Ergenler ve Beliren Yetişkinlerde Sosyal Değer Yöneliminin Gelişimsel, Sosyal-Bilişsel ve Bağlamsal bir Model Çerçevesinde İncelenmesi

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to assess the factors that play a role in the development of social value orientation (SVO) and to examine the effects of SVO on various types of social behaviors in middle adolescence and emerging adulthood. A basic assumption was that SVO would vary correspondingly with culture, socialization and social-cognitive skills over the life course. Accordingly, the roles of (1) self-construct and SES, (2) intergenerational transmission and parental practices, and (3) self-regulation in SVO were evaluated.

The sample consisted of randomly selected 218 adolescents (ages 14-15; grades 8 and 9) and 219 emerging adults (ages 19-25; undergraduates) and both their parents in a metropolitan area of the Ankara, Turkey (N = 437 triads).

The results on SVO and social behavior revealed that prosocial SVO increased with age. While both adolescents and emerging adults with a prosocial orientation reported engaging in less public and hypercompetitive social behaviors, the increase in altruistic behavior and the decrease in competition for personal development were only associated with prosocial SVO of emerging adults.

The antecedents of SVO results indicated that prosociality was positively correlated with relational-interdependent self-construal and lower perceptions of social status. Moreover, increased perceived parental autonomy support and internal regulation were positively associated with prosocial SVO.

The results of the similarity between parents’ and adolescents/emerging adults’ SVO obtained by using both variable- and couple-centered approaches suggested more similarity between emerging adults and parents than adolescents and parents, and the autonomy support contributed to this similarity. ‘Zeitgeist’ had no significant effect on SVO of youths. However, when parents reported a high autonomy support, young people with high relatedness reported more prosocial preferences. Internal regulation partially mediated the relationship between parental autonomy support and adolescent/emerging adult’s prosocial preferences.

In general, the results provided evidence that SVO had a significant effect on various types of social behavior and that the development of SVO was not independent from the environment, including changes in socio-cultural structure.