An Exploratory Study of Altruism in Greek Children: Relations with Empathy, Resilience and Classroom Climate

Sophie Leontopoulou

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DOI: 10.4236/psych.2010.15047                

Abstract

The aims of this exploratory study were two-fold: a. to identify any relations between children’s altruism and a set of demographic and other personal and social characteristics of Greek children, such as empathy, resilience and classroom climate; and b. to examine the psychometric properties of a newly-developed measure of altruistic behaviour in children, namely the Altruistic Behaviour Questionnaire (ABQ). 232 male and female students of the 5th and 6th class of Primary School in Northern Greece participated in this study. The ABQ was found to have adequate internal consistency and concurrent and construct validity. Using a hierarchical regression analysis, altruism in children was found to be reliably predicted by participants’ gender and academic performance, by empathy and also by resilience; nevertheless, the more socially determined variable of classroom climate only marginally predicted altruism. The importance of including training in the development and manifestation of altruism in emotional education programmes and resilience interventions at school is highlighted.

Keywords

Altruism, Empathy, Resilience, Classroom Climate, Children, Gender Differences

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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