Why are humans selective in their empathy and why do they empathize with some and are indifferent towards others ? Can empathy be generalized to include everyone or is empathy always prone to bias and selectivity ? The presentation examines two theories that explain humans' failure to generalize their empathy. The first theory is based on the writings of Darwin and argues that "Us vs Them" distinctions make our prosocial instincts biased, the second theory is based on the writings of Paul Bloom and argues that empathy is selective and biased and is therefore bound to produce discriminatory behavior. The presentation also discusses the role of misrepresentations in misguiding our empathy.
The goal of the present study was to use machine learning to identify how gender, age, ethnicity, screen time, internalizing problems, self-regulation, and FoMO were related to problematic smartphone use in a sample of Canadian adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were N = 2527 (1269 boys; Mage = 15.17 years, SD = 1.48 years) high school students from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Data on problematic smartphone use, screen time, internalizing problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, and stress), self-regulation, and FoMO were collected via an online questionnaire. Several different machine learning algorithms were used to train the statistical model of predictive variables in predicting problematic smartphone use. The results indicated that Shrinkage algorithms (lasso, ridge, and elastic net regression) performed better than other algorithms. Moreover, FoMO, emotional, and cognitive self-regulation made the largest relative contribution to predicting problematic smartphone use. These findings highlight the importance of FoMO and self-regulation in understanding problematic smartphone use.
Humanity has always been selective in its empathy, social groups and entire populations suffered in the dark as the world stood in indifference. This indifference was often reinforced by (mis)representations: misinformation, false narratives, and distorted generalizations that dehumanized the victims of suffering and represented them as unworthy of empathy. In this paper, we introduce a lesson on the role of misinformation and misrepresentation in dehumanizing social groups and populations. Our lesson is divided to three parts: We start with a discussion of empathy and indifference and how both traits have coexisted throughout human history. We then discuss psychological and philosophical theories that have attempted to explain the causes of and solutions to our empathy deficit and our failure to generalize our empathy. Finally, we discuss how misrepresentations and misinformation have functioned to misguide our empathy and construct social groups as unworthy of empathy and respect.
This literature review explores the integration experiences of francophone newcomer students in anglophone provinces in Canada. It outlines scholarly findings regarding factors that impact the integration of newcomer students into French public-school systems in predominantly English provinces. We identified two themes related to the integration of francophone newcomer students, including (1) school integration experiences, and (2) out-of-school integration experiences. With respect to school integration, three sub-themes were developed: (a) educational and cultural gaps, (b) language diversity, plurilingualism, and identity, and (c) multiple marginalization of newcomers. Some of the factors that were found to affect integration include: differences between pre- and post-immigration educational contexts, English language proficiency, and (mis)recognition of the diversity within the francophone population. Following the review, gaps in the literature are identified, avenues for future research are proposed, and implications for school psychology are discussed.
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