Individual Difference Factors and Social Behavior

Many factors have been found to independently lead to more prosocial behavior, such as sleep quality, self-control, and mindfulness (Osgood & Muraven, 2015; Simon et al., 2022; Verhaeghen & Aikman, 2020). Additionally, increased mindfulness is associated with increased sleep quality and self-control (Friese et al., 2012; Teoh & Wong, 2023). However, the literature examining all of these variables together is limited. Thus, this study examined how mindfulness, sleep quality, and self-control work together to predict prosocial behavior, along with other well-established predictors of prosocial behavior: mood and personality (Kayser et al. 2010; Kline et al., 2019). Consistent with previous research, we hypothesized that mindfulness, sleep quality, positive mood, and self-control would all, independently, positively predict prosocial behavior. We further hypothesized that mindfulness would mediate the effect of mood, sleep quality, and self-control on prosocial behavior. Participants (n = 66) were undergraduate students at the University of North Georgia, recruited through SONA. Participants completed a Qualtrics survey of self-report measures of self-control, sleep quality, prosocial behavior, mindfulness, mood, and personality. In partial support of our hypotheses, a mediation analysis found that the influence of positive mood on helping behavior was mediated by mindfulness, suggesting that positive mood increases helping behavior by increasing mindfulness (p = .04, 95% CI = 0.006, .244). Our results highlight the importance of mindfulness. More research is needed to determine whether interventions aimed at mindfulness would increase the pro-social behavior of helping.