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Guatemalan Adolescents’ Reports of Helping in Urban and Rural Mayan Communities

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Altruism in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Part of the book series: International and Cultural Psychology ((ICUP))

Abstract

Adolescence may be a critical period for the development of altruism. Guatemalan adolescents (seventy-three 11- to 16-year-olds from urban and rural Mayan communities) participated in a project in which they described their lives through photographs and short descriptions of the photographs’ significance. Their written descriptions were coded for the mention of helping others, both family members and persons outside the family, and other indicators. Contrary to expectations, urban adolescents and boys mentioned helping others more often than did rural adolescents and girls. Rural adolescents took more photographs of children and used the word “we” more than did urban adolescents. The findings may indicate that adolescents in rural Mayan communities participate in productive family activities, not to “help others,” but as part of the expectations for their daily lives. The results reiterate the need for considering the social context of the lives of adolescents in understanding their views of altruism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    1 Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is a statistical technique for determining whether the mean differences between groups are likely to have occurred by chance. A p value of < .05 is usually the criterion for significance and indicates that the probability is less than one in 20 that the difference occurred by chance. η2 (eta-squared) is the effect size, the proportion of the total variance accounted for by the evaluated effect.

  2. 2.

    2 Clifford Geertz (1973) in The Interpretation of Cultures used the term “thick description” to mean a detailed contextualized account that allows the ethnographer to understand the meaning of behavior.

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Acknowledgments

 The author would like to thank Samantha Wilson, Natalie Humphrey, Sandy Smith, and Christine Rufener for sorting and coding photographs and entering data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Saint Louis University and Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, 221 North Grand Blvd, St. Louis, MO, 63103, USA

    Judith L. Gibbons

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  1. Judith L. Gibbons
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Correspondence to Judith L. Gibbons .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. California Institute of Integral Studies, SETI Institute, Center for SETI Research, Mountain View, 94043, California, USA

    Douglas A. Vakoch

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Gibbons, J.L. (2013). Guatemalan Adolescents’ Reports of Helping in Urban and Rural Mayan Communities. In: Vakoch, D. (eds) Altruism in Cross-Cultural Perspective. International and Cultural Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6952-0_4

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