Pinto at Loob: Kapitbahay Concepts in Exclusive and Non-Exclusive Residential Communities Deirdre Remida Gaetos Conde University of the Philippines Using a grounded theory approach, this qualitative study analyzed the concept of the kapitbahay of residents in one non-exclusive and two exclusive communities through looking at the social interactions and the sense of community of the residents. Five focus group discussions were conducted with two generations of residents in the communities of interest. FGD data revealed that for all the communities, the kapitbahay is recognized as a person living in the same community who they know at least by name, face, or house. The differences in the kapitbahay concept among the communities can be accounted for by a model revealing four concepts of the kapitbahay: Bukas Pinto-Bukas Loob, Bukas Pinto-Sara Loob, Sara Pinto-Sara Loob, and Sara Pinto- Bukas Loob. The pinto describes the social interaction exhibited by the residents and the loob is the representation of the residents’ sense of community. The study shows t hat physical distance is not the only determinant of who is a kapitbahay; how they interact with the other residents and how they generalize their relationships to the entire community construct this concept. Keywords: Neighboring, sense of community, social interaction Social interaction is a meaningful and highly-valued focus of study in the process of identifying concepts in Filipino psychology (Enriquez, 1994). Filipinos invest importance in their interpersonal relationships and this is why most research on the Filipinos are in the context of the kapwa. Based on the social relationships enumerated by Gurnee and Baker (1938), aside from the interactions at the familial and occupational level – which are studied extensively in their respective fields in psychology – relationships at the neighborhood level are also worth looking into when studying the social networks of Filipinos because neighborhoods or residential communities are one of the most readily available social support for an individual due to the spatial proximity despite the medial social distance found in Gurnee and Baker’s study (1938) . The spatial location of the neighborhood social network makes it unique to fulfill functions that other networks would find difficult (Unger and Wandersman, 1985) because the residential community provides a more delineated space that encourages multiple interactions between the residents and a solid representation of the existence of a network (Sundblad and Sapp, 2011). The neighbor, or the kapitbahay, is simply defined in the notable review of Unger and Wandersman (1985) as “the people who live next door, the people who live on the block”. In Western literature, neighbors are commonly defined by proximity primarily before describing the roles they play for an individual such as being “a buffer from the feelings of isolation often associated with today’s cities” (Unger and Wandersman, 1985). Given that the core concept that explains Filipino interpersonal behavior, kapwa, differs in meaning with its English translation