Self-Monitoring, Peer-bullying and Parenting Style in Prosocial Behaviours of Boarding School Students
Prosocial behaviours can be groomed or inhibited through many direct or indirect attributes. Among teenagers who live in school dormitories, prosocial behaviour tends to decline due to the culture of bullying, which has suffused the Nigerian School System and heightened in boarding school facilities. This study examined the role of bullying, self-monitoring and parenting style on pro-social behaviour among students in a Federal Government College in Nigeria. The study adopted a cross-sectional survey, and sampled 200 participants using a structured questionnaire that measured self-monitoring, parenting style, peer bullying and prosocial behaviour. Findings revealed a significant relationship between prosocial behaviour and mother parenting style. The negative relationship between bullying and prosocial behaviour was, as expected, not surprising. Similar relationships between other independent variables (self-monitoring, and father parenting style) and prosocial behaviour, did not show significant results. The multiple regression results indicate that these independent variables did not predict prosocial behaviour among the study sample. Although past studies have reported levels of correlation between these variables and prosocial behaviour, the overly negative and low beta value of bullying in this study shows that victimized students may be deeply depressed and needed more social support from parents and teachers to strengthen their self-confidence which they seem to bolster through individual self-monitoring. It is recommended that future studies should examine the role of school social support as a way of reducing the impact of bullying on students’ psyche towards the manifestation of new levels of prosocial behaviours.