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Equine-facilitated interventions have shown promise for facilitating emotional and behavioural changes in diverse groups. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of an equine workshop for vulnerable Guatemalan youth using a mixed-method approach. The 37 participants (Mage = 18.22, SD = 2.25, 14 girls) came from difficult circumstances including poverty and other risks. Using a wait-list control group design with random assignment, the effects of a 2-day equine-based workshop were evaluated. Participants completed quantitative measures of leadership, emotion regulation, aggression, and interpersonal response to threat. Mentors completed reports of aggression and prosocial behaviour. Self-reported leadership increased significantly in the group receiving the intervention; mentor reports of aggression revealed significant decreases. Focus groups with participants and family members reported multiple benefits, including improved emotion regulation. Equine-based interventions may provide at-risk Guatemalan youth with tools of leadership, reduced violence and aggression, and better emotion regulation.

Although the ubiquity of gratitude and envy would suggest they are important in the daily lives of adolescents, those social emotions have been relatively unexplored by psychologists. Interviews of 25 adolescents (ages 14 through 16) from the Midwestern US provided narrative accounts that revealed the contexts, antecedents, consequences and meanings of gratitude and envy in their daily lives. Transcripts were coded using an established procedure in the literature, and we present the findings at the thematic level. Adolescent gratitude was characterised by feeling cared for and special, while envy was driven by the desire for material possessions. Both emotions may reflect cultural individualism and contribute to social and identity development; for those adolescents gratitude provides recognition and validation of one’s personhood, and envy creates negative social comparisons that can either diminish self-worth or provide the impetus for improvement.

Cultural and economic contexts shape adolescents’ socio-emotional development. We conducted an explanatory sequential mixed-methods study of adolescents’ empathy, a component of social development, in two schools in Guatemala, a country marked by collectivism and economic disparity. Participants (N = 119, ages 12–18, 64 girls) who attended either a school serving low-resource students or one serving affluent students completed the adapted Basic Empathy Scale and reported household amenities. Adolescents from the low-resource school reported more affective and cognitive empathy; household amenities mediated the relation between school and affective empathy. Thematic analysis of daily hassles and sources of gratitude revealed that interpersonal relationships were paramount for students from both schools. Students from the affluent school disdained hypocrisy, sought time alone, and resisted parents’ control. Students from the low-resource school perceived a shared fate and sought attention and respect. The empathy of adolescents living in poverty may be harnessed to promote their empowerment.