A total of 1,000 questionnaires were collected from a middle school in Shangrao City, Jiangxi Province, and 938 valid questionnaires were obtained, with an effective rate of 93.8%. Among them, 483 were male and 455 were female; 419 had rural household registration and 519 had urban household registration; the average age was 16.28 ± 0.86 years old; 311 were in Grade 10, 318 in Grade 11, and 309 in Grade 12.

2.2.1. Parental Behavioral Control Subscale

The Parental Behavioral Control Subscale from the Chinese version of the Parental Control Scale compiled by Wang et al. [19] was used, which was self-reported by students and includes 16 items covering two dimensions: active inquiry and restrictive discipline. A 5-point Likert scale was adopted, ranging from 1 (completely inconsistent) to 5 (completely consistent). Higher scores indicate a higher degree of parental behavioral control. In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of this scale was 0.88.

2.2.2. Psychological Resilience Scale

The Psychological Resilience Scale compiled by Hu and Gan [20] was used, which includes 27 items. A 5-point Likert scale was adopted, ranging from 1 (completely inconsistent) to 5 (completely consistent). After reverse scoring some items, the sum of the scores of all items was taken as the total score of psychological resilience. Higher scores indicate better psychological resilience. In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of this scale was 0.81.

2.2.3. Dispositional Gratitude Scale

The Dispositional Gratitude Scale compiled by He et al. [30] was used, which includes 23 items. A 5-point Likert scale was adopted, ranging from 1 (completely inconsistent) to 5 (completely consistent). After reverse scoring some items, the sum of the scores of all items was taken as the total score of dispositional gratitude. Higher scores indicate a higher degree of dispositional gratitude. In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of this scale was 0.91.

2.2.4. Prosocial Behavior Scale

The Prosocial Behavior Scale compiled by Kou’s research team[46] was used, which includes 15 items. A 7-point Likert scale was adopted, ranging from 1 (very inconsistent) to 7 (very consistent). The sum of the scores of all items was taken as the total score of prosocial behavior. Higher scores indicate a higher degree of prosocial behavior. In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of this scale was 0.89.

SPSS 26.0 was used for common method bias test, descriptive statistics, and correlation analysis, and PROCESS 3.0 was used for mediation effect test.

This study collected data through self-reported scales, which may have the problem of common method bias [47]. Therefore, methods such as positive and reverse scoring and emphasizing confidentiality were adopted during the survey to control for it. Harman’s single-factor test was used, and the results showed that there were 15 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, and the first factor explained 20.53% of the total variance, which was less than the standard of 40%, indicating that there was no obvious common method bias in this study.

Correlation analysis was conducted on parental behavioral control, psychological resilience, gratitude, prosocial behavior, and some demographic variables, and the specific results are shown in Table 1. The results showed that there were significant correlations between parental behavioral control, psychological resilience, gratitude, and prosocial behavior.

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients of variables.

Note: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001, the same below.

Model 6 of the SPSS plug-in PROCESS was used to test whether the chain mediating effect of psychological resilience and gratitude was significant. Gender and grade were used as control variables, and Bootstrap repeated sampling 5,000 times was used to test the mediation effect. The results of path coefficients are shown in Figure 1. Except that the direct effect of parental behavioral control on prosocial behavior was not significant (p > 0.05), all other paths reached a significant level (p < 0.01). The results of mediation effect analysis are shown in Table 2. Parental behavioral control had a significant positive predictive effect on high school students’ prosocial behavior (effect value = 0.23, p < 0.001); when considering psychological resilience and gratitude, the direct effect of parental behavioral control on high school students’ prosocial behavior was still significant (effect value = 0.10, p < 0.01). In addition, parental behavioral control can also have an indirect impact on prosocial behavior through two indirect paths: Path 1: Parental behavioral control → Psychological resilience → Prosocial behavior (effect value = 0.03, 13.04%); Path 2: Parental behavioral control → Psychological resilience → Gratitude → Prosocial behavior (effect value = 0.07, 30.44%).

Figure 1. The impact of parental behavioral control on prosocial behavior: the chain mediating role of psychological resilience and gratitude.

Table 2. Results of the chain mediation effect test of parental behavioral control predicting prosocial behavior.

The research results found that parental behavioral control significantly and positively predicted high school students’ prosocial behavior, verifying Hypothesis 1. This is consistent with previous research results. In the process of parents actively communicating with their children about their daily whereabouts and friendship status, children can not only obtain more guidance on behavioral norms and social development but also more clearly perceive their parents’ active care, thereby strengthening the emotional bond between parents and children, and ultimately promoting the improvement of their social adaptability and the development of prosocial behavior [48][49]. In addition, self-determination theory holds that the full satisfaction of an individual’s basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness is the core prerequisite for obtaining intrinsic pleasure and satisfaction from activities themselves, and the satisfaction of these three basic psychological needs will significantly promote the expression of an individual’s prosocial behavior. Specifically, parents’ behavioral control delineates clear behavioral boundaries for their children. Within the framework of rules, children can obtain space for independent decision-making and action, thus satisfying their need for autonomy; when children act in accordance with the rules guided by their parents and achieve positive results, they can often receive affirmation and recognition from their parents, thereby strengthening their need for competence; in the process of the above positive interactions, the trust and understanding between parents and children are continuously deepened, a high-quality parent-child relationship is constructed, and the children’s need for relatedness is also satisfied. Parental behavioral control enables these three needs to be well met, so children are more likely to exhibit prosocial behaviors.

Parental behavioral control can indirectly affect prosocial behavior through the mediating role of psychological resilience, which is consistent with Hypothesis 2. Parental behavioral control is not the suppression and confinement of individual autonomy, but by building a stable and predictable growth environment for adolescents, guiding them to gradually master key adaptive skills such as emotion regulation and problem-solving in daily interpersonal interactions and life practices, thereby promoting the systematic improvement of individuals’ psychological resilience levels. When individuals have a high level of psychological resilience, they are more likely to respond actively with a positive and resilient attitude when coping with the responsibility and empathy requirements in various interpersonal scenarios; when others are in trouble and in urgent need of support and assistance, they will not avoid interpersonal interactions due to potential pressure, and can also more flexibly coordinate the relationship between their own needs and the needs of others, ultimately transforming their internal adaptive traits into specific prosocial behavior performances. This mechanism is also consistent with the dynamic model of psychological resilience. The family is a crucial external protective resource for adolescents’ growth. Through continuous positive attention to meet their children’s multi-dimensional development needs, parents can effectively help them form good psychological qualities and cultivate a high level of psychological resilience [50], thereby enabling adolescents to reserve sufficient psychological resources to provide timely and effective help and support to others [51].

The research results found that gratitude is not a mediator in the impact of parental behavioral control on prosocial behavior, which is inconsistent with Hypothesis 3. According to the “environment-cognition-behavior” interaction model, the effect of parental behavioral control, as an external environmental variable, on adolescents’ behavior essentially depends on adolescents’ cognitive evaluation and subjective interpretation of this parenting behavior. In the Chinese cultural context, although adolescents tend to interpret their parents’ behavioral control as a concrete expression of care and emotion [52], they are also very likely to attribute such behaviors to the parenting responsibilities that parents should fulfill, rather than additional efforts that need to be actively repaid. In addition, the multi-dimensional structure theory of gratitude also points out that the formation and development of gratitude are the result of the joint action of multiple factors, and its occurrence mechanism includes multiple links such as “emotional perception-intention attribution-value recognition”. However, parental behavioral control can only provide children with a stable growth environment and guidance on behavioral norms, and a single dimension of behavioral constraint is difficult to cover the complete psychological process required for the generation of gratitude. Therefore, parental behavioral control is difficult to effectively stimulate adolescents’ gratitude experience, so gratitude is not a mediator in the impact of parental behavioral control on prosocial behavior.

The research results found that parental behavioral control can affect high school students’ prosocial behavior through the chain mediating role of psychological resilience and gratitude, verifying Hypothesis 4. According to ecosystem theory, the family microsystem is the core field for adolescents’ physical and mental development. Parental behavioral control is not a purely restrictive force, but creates a safe and orderly growth environment for high school students by formulating clear behavioral norms and providing stable emotional support [17]. This control model that combines support and guidance can not only reduce the environmental uncertainty in adolescents’ growth process but also enable them to have the internal confidence to actively explore and respond positively when encountering setbacks such as academic pressure and interpersonal conflicts, thereby laying a key external foundation for the cultivation of positive psychological qualities such as psychological resilience. Relevant studies have also shown that individuals with higher psychological resilience have a relatively lower probability of experiencing psychological problems [38][39] and a more acute ability to perceive positive and kind cues in the environment [51], thus being more likely to trigger gratitude emotions. In addition, gratitude has significant moral attributes, and the motivation-stimulating and behavior-strengthening functions of morality can effectively drive and consolidate an individual’s prosocial tendencies [53]. Therefore, parental behavioral control can affect high school students’ prosocial behavior through the chain mediating role of psychological resilience and gratitude.

This study reveals the mediating mechanism of psychological resilience and gratitude between parental behavioral control and high school students’ prosocial behavior, providing a theoretical basis for clarifying the impact of family education on adolescents’ prosocial development and practical guidance for the cultivation of high school students’ prosocial behavior. However, this study still has certain limitations: First, the study collected data through self-report methods, which are susceptible to subjective cognitive biases. In the future, multi-source data such as parents’ and teachers’ evaluations can be included to improve the objectivity of the results; second, this study adopted a cross-sectional design, which is difficult to clarify the causal relationship between variables. In the future, longitudinal tracking or intervention experiments can be used to further verify the causal relationship between variables; finally, this study focused on testing the mediating mechanism and did not examine the role of moderating factors. In the future, variables such as emotion regulation strategies can be introduced to deepen the understanding of the impact mechanism of prosocial behavior.

To promote the healthy development of high school students’ prosocial behavior, it is necessary to rely on the joint efforts of families, schools, and society, focus on the positive guiding role of parental behavioral control, and activate the mediating effect of psychological resilience and gratitude. At the family level, parents should optimize their behavioral control strategies, abandon authoritarian control, adopt democratic and rational parenting styles, regulate their children’s behavior on the basis of respecting their independent wishes, pay attention to cultivating their children’s psychological resilience, guide them to learn to adjust in setbacks, and arouse their gratitude awareness to others and society through daily gratitude education. At the school level, psychological resilience training courses and gratitude-themed activities can be offered to systematically improve the psychological resilience level and gratitude tendency of children; at the same time, a home-school communication platform can be built to guide parents to implement behavioral control scientifically and form a joint force of home-school co-education. At the social level, the social support system should be improved, and practical scenarios for prosocial behavior should be created through community public welfare activities, peer mutual assistance groups, etc., to help them transform their internal psychological qualities into external prosocial behaviors. Only through multi-party coordination and precise policies can we effectively promote the development of prosocial behavior and help adolescents grow up healthily.