Abstract

COSTA, Débora Lisboa  and  CAVALCANTE, Lília Iêda. Behavior of caretaking among institutionalized children: observations of shelter and school yards. Gerais, Rev. Interinst. Psicol. [online]. 2012, vol.5, n.1, pp. 50-68. ISSN 1983-8220.

The behavior of caretaking includes prosocial actions which are influenced by physical and social factors of the environment. This study aimed at investigating aspects of the environment which contribute to the manifestation of the behavior of caretaking among children, from four to six years of age, in the yard of the school where they study and of the shelter in which they live. Ten sessions were conducted for the observation of the focal subjects with a lenghth of time of fifty minutes in each environment. In all, 43 behavioral events were recorded and organized into the following subcategories: helping, caretaking playing, establishing afection, and entertaining. Unlike most studies, this survey shows that there were no significant differences in the manifestation of the behavior of caretaking associated to physical aspects of the shelter and the school yards. However, it suggested that the influence of personal characteristics of the focal subject is significant, such as the gender of the receiver, the period of permanence, and the ludic activity, corroborating the literature.

Keywords : Behavior of Caretaking; Shelter; School.

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