title: Children's Avoidance of Interrupting Others' Activities in Requesting Help: Cultural Aspects of Considerateness.
abstract: To be able to collaborate skillfully, people need to coordinate well with others, taking into account how their actions fit with those of their partners. This is a key aspect of an approach to learning called Learning by Observing and Pitching In, hypothesized to be common in many Indigenous-heritage communities of the Americas. This chapter considers cultural values that emphasize considerateness and awareness of how one's actions impact others such as the Mexican cultural value of respeto and cultural differences in children's efforts to avoid interrupting others' activity. US Mexican-heritage children showed more evidence of avoiding interrupting the ongoing activity of an adult when they requested help, compared with European American children from families with extensive schooling experience. Most of the Mexican-heritage children's requests for help that gave evidence of avoiding interruption were made nonverbally, which may facilitate unobtrusive requests. There were no significant differences among children from two US Mexican-heritage backgrounds varying in experience with Western schooling and likely experience with Indigenous-American practices, suggesting that the Mexican cultural value of respeto and associated considerateness is widespread even among US Mexican-heritage families with extensive experience with Western schooling and life in the United States.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA. Electronic address: omar.ruvalcaba@csun.edu.
authors.forename: Omar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Ruvalcaba
authors.affiliation: University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rogoff
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department, University of California, Santa Cruz and Marymount California University.
authors.forename: Angélica
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: López
authors.affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles.
authors.forename: Maricela
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Correa-Chávez
authors.affiliation: University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Kris
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Gutiérrez
mesh_terms: D001362:Avoidance Learning; D002648:Child; D002668:Child Rearing; D003142:Communication; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017058:Mexican Americans / Q000523:psychology*; D012929:Psychological Distance; D012941:Social Responsibility; D066107:Social Skills; D012945:Social Values; D012951:Socialization; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology
keywords: Adult–child interaction; Collaboration; Considerateness; Culture; Interruption; LOPI; Nonverbal; Observation; Requests for help; Respeto