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Prosocial Parenting Measure (PPM)

Measure Description

Based on theory and research that suggests that parents engage in strategies designed to foster prosocial and moral behaviors in their children, this self-report, paper-and-pencil measure is designed to assess different practices.

The measure originated from focus groups conducted with English-speaking and Spanish-speaking U.S. Latino/a parents and White, European American parents. The measure was originally developed to use with high school aged adolescents but has been used with middle and junior high school students as well as college aged students. Based on analyse with additional samples (samples from Argentina and Spain) and using more sophisticated analytic techniques (CFAs), the PPM is now only 23 items.

The five subscales of the measure are SR=Social Rewards; MR=Material Rewards; DISC=Discursive Communication; EXP=Experiential Learning; CONV=Moral Conversations. Scoring of the PPM is relatively straightforward. You can sum and average the items for each subscale to obtain six scores.

Based on additional analyses of the face validity of the items, we also created a subscale that assesses practices used to foster prosocial behaviors towards family members and in the home context (Calderon-Tena et al., 2010). Analyses of the psychometric properties of the measure are promising but much more validation work is needed. Therefore, reports of the results of your research using this scale would be much appreciated.


Languages the PPM is Available In

English, Spanish


Sample Items

Coming soon!

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