Resumen de Assessment of prosocial--altruistic behavior of members and non-members of the scout movement

Rosario Ruiz Olivares, María José Pino Osuna, Javier Herruzo Cabrera

• The aim of this study is to evaluate the differences in prosocial altruistic behavior between children and young students who belong to the scout movement and those who do not belong to this or any other similar movement. The prosocial altruistic behavior has been assessed with questionnaires for the school: self-evaluation, teacher, classmate, and parents.

  By means of a prospective design of case--control, every scout has been compared with another non-scout matched in variables like age; number of siblings; whether he/she is the oldest, the youngest, etc.; sex; the order between the siblings; if the mother works inside or outside the home; and if he/she lives with his/her two parents. The results show that significant differences exist between one group and another in the questionnaires of selfevaluation, for the teacher and for the classmate. It seems that children and young people who are scout members are better assessed than the non-scouts in prosocial altruistic behavior.