Cross-Cultural Evidence of Multidimensional Prosocial Behaviors

This chapter first summarizes the accumulation of psychometric evidence which supports the multidimensionality of the Prosocial Tendencies Measure (PTM), followed by a review of corroborating evidence reported with participants belonging to other ethnic or non-English speaking cultural groups. The chapter also reports new findings validating use of the PTM for comparable samples of European American (M age = 16.70 years, 69% girls) and Argentinean (M age = 16.32, 46% girls) adolescents. A series of Confirmatory Factor Analyses found support for the six-dimensional factor structure of the PTM for both groups of adolescents when compared with more parsimonious factor solutions. The six types of prosocial behaviors were related to additional constructs in culturally relevant ways. Although a plethora of evidence supporting the factor structure, validity, and reliability of the PTM exists, additional studies are needed to fully support the cross-cultural use of this measure.