How Classroom Climate Is Associated With Prosocial Behavior in College Students: A Multilevel Moderated Mediation Model of Feedback Expectation and Self-Monitoring

Prosocial behavior, such as helping, sharing, and cooperating, is essential for young adults’ social and emotional development. While prior research emphasizes individual traits, less is known about how classroom-level contexts interact with personality to shape prosocial tendencies in college settings. This study examined whether a supportive classroom climate is associated with higher prosocial behavior among college students, with prosocial feedback expectations as a mediator and self-monitoring as a moderator. Participants were 888 undergraduates (mean age = 21.3) nested in 36 classrooms across seven Chinese universities. A multilevel moderated mediation model was tested using hierarchical linear modeling, controlling for demographic variables. Results showed that a supportive classroom climate was positively associated with prosocial behavior. This direct association was stronger among students high in self-monitoring. In addition, prosocial feedback expectations mediated the climate–behavior link, and this indirect effect was moderated by self-monitoring: it was stronger for low self-monitors, who were more reliant on expected positive feedback to guide their behavior. These findings suggest that both classroom environments and personality traits shape prosocial development. Interventions in higher education may be more effective if they simultaneously foster positive social climates and consider individual differences in students’ responsiveness to social cues.