About this session

Saturday, 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Culture and ethnicity in prosocial development: New insights from Latinx, Mayan, and Mexican-heritage families

This symposium provides empirical and theoretical insights into Latinx, Mayan, and Mexican-heritage children, youth, and families. We examine how these groups treat community-mindedness and prosocial behavior as central socialization and developmental goals. Paper 1 compares Mexican-heritage and European-heritage mothers of 2- to 3-year-olds and shows that Mexican-heritage mothers expect and encourage children’s participation in household work more so than do European-Heritage mothers. Paper 2 establishes that there is a prevailing Latinx prosocial cultural value, termed simpatía (i.e., an emphasis on gregarious, warm interactions), and demonstrates that Latinx caregivers’ likelihood to show this value predicts the prosocial behavior of their 4- to to-7-year-old Latinx children. Paper 3 shows that 7- to 11-year-old Mayan children in Yucatan Mexico are aware that they should show prosocial behavior to their families, otherwise there may be negative consequences that can affect them, as well as their family and the broader community. Paper 4 demonstrates that by late adolescence, prosocial behavior in Latinx youth is linked to their ethnic identity as Latinx. The four papers are integrated in showing that Latinx culture promotes prosocial behavior both within the family and community—from early socialization to late adolescence, both in the US Latinx context and in Indigenous contexts in the Global South. The presenters argue that there are considerable (but not well-known) strengths in the socialization practices of Latinx families, and that increased attention to this population can both promote equity and inclusion and also yield new insights regarding socialization, prosociality, and theories of culture.

Paper #1
Title	Encouraging Toddlers’ Community-Minded Helpfulness in Mexican-heritage Families
Presenting author	Dr. Andrew D. Coppens, Ph.D., University of New Hampshire, United States

Paper #2
Title	Understanding Latinx children’s prosociality: Transmission of cultural values from caregivers to young children
Presenting author	Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, Ph.D., University of Washington, United States

Paper #3
Title	What happens if they don’t help? Yucatec Maya children’s prosocial development
Presenting author	Dr. Lucia Alcalá, Ph.D., California State University, Fullerton, United States

Paper #4
Title	Relations of culture- and care-related social cognitive/emotive mechanisms to U.S. Latine youth prosocial behaviors
Presenting author	Lina Brodsky, University of California, Irvine, United States

View all paper details

Session chair
Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, Ph.D., University of Washington, United States

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