scholarly journals Heyes Empathy is not in our genes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
cecilia heyes
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Emotional Contagion ◽  
Psychological Phenomenon ◽  
Matching Mechanism ◽  
Learning Research

In academic and public life empathy is seen as a fundamental force of morality – a psychological phenomenon, rooted in biology, with profound effects in law, policy, and international relations. But the roots of empathy are not as firm as we like to think. The matching mechanism that distinguishes empathy from compassion, envy, schadenfreude, and sadism – that catches the feelings of others – is a product of learning. Research with animals, infants, adults and robots suggests that the mechanism of emotional contagion is constructed in the course of childhood through social interaction. Learned Matching implies that empathy is both agile and fragile. It can be enhanced and redirected by novel experience, and broken by social change.

Prekäre Kopräsenz. Raum, Sozialräume und geteiltes Erleben in Zeiten der Pandemie

2021 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-113
Author(s):  
Thomas Wabel
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Shared Meaning ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Direct Encounter

Abstract The article explores changes in public self-awareness resulting from the reduction of social interaction in physical presence during the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the three dimensions of shared public space, social interaction in direct encounter, and shared meaning, the text argues that dwindling opportunities to experience social cohesion may become paradigmatic for more fundamental deficiencies in societal interaction. Seen in this light, church services in physical presence can help to maintain a sense for public life in physical presence, unmediated by digital tools.

The Archaeology of Vanuatu

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Bedford ◽  
Matthew Spriggs
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Natural Hazards ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Far East ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Initial Settlement ◽  
Colonization Patterns ◽  
Human Colonization ◽  
Resident Populations

The more than 1,000-kilometer stretch of eighty-two inhabited islands comprising the Vanuatu archipelago is centrally situated in the southwest Pacific. These islands were first settled in the late Holocene by Lapita colonists as part of a rapid migratory event that travelled as far east as Tonga. Over three millennia Vanuatu has transformed into an extraordinarily diverse country both linguistically and culturally. The challenge to archaeology is to explain how such diversity has arisen. This chapter addresses a range of themes that are central to the definition and understanding of the timing and nature of initial settlement, levels of interconnectedness, cultural transformation and diversification, human impact on pristine environments, and impacts of natural hazards on resident populations. Vanuatu research contributes to regional debates on human colonization, patterns of social interaction, and the drivers of social change in island contexts.

Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878: Hopes – Vicissitudes – Lessons

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Field Work ◽  
Historical Documents ◽  
Interethnic Relations ◽  
Fiction Writing ◽  
Artistic Creation ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Primary Focus

The authors of the joint monograph "The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878: Hopes – Vicissitudes – Lessons", historians, culturologists and literary scholars, based on historical documents, archival materials, facts of public life and fiction writing, as well as "field work", give an updated vision of the sesquicentennial events, which played a significant role in the transformation of the geopolitical map of Europe and interethnic relations, and whose echoes are still heard today, often re-acquiring the acute relevance. The primary focus is on the Balkan policy of Russia and other major European countries; the Russian-Bulgarian military cooperation; the Russian-Bulgarian social and cultural ties; the refraction of historical realities in artistic creation, journalism and diaries. The book will be of interest to a wide range of researchers, university students and readers interested in the development of international relations, the history and culture of the Balkans, the Russian-Bulgarian dialogue.

The Potential of Gamification for Humanitarian Organizations to Support Integration in Migration Contexts

2022 ◽  
pp. 381-397
Author(s):  
Marvin Jammermann ◽  
Beybin Elvin Tunc
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
Democratic Spaces

The aim of this chapter is to explore the connections between the inherent characteristics of gamification and the current need for sustainable integration activities that are based on meaningful social interactions. By highlighting the potential of gamification for creating democratic spaces of social interaction and engaging diverse actors in joyful encounters, it is possible to underline the notion of social change that gamification can induce. In the area of integration, humanitarian organizations can harness the potential of gamification in their integration activities in order to ensure increased social cohesion. Through a critical analysis of existing gamification and integration approaches, the chapter provides arguments for why gamification is perfectly suited to improve integration processes by highlighting the manifold applications of gamification experience in the humanitarian field.

Pedagogical Agents and the Efficiency of Instructional Conditions in Educational Applications

2012 ◽  
pp. 121-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliseo Reategui ◽  
Leila Maria Araújo dos Santos ◽  
Liane Tarouco
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Relative Efficiency ◽  
Educational Software ◽  
Pedagogical Agents ◽  
Learning Material ◽  
Conversational Agent ◽  
Individualized Learning ◽  
Learning Research ◽  
Educational Applications

This chapter discusses how the use of pedagogical agents in educational applications may influence the relative efficiency of instructional conditions, a concept proposed by Paas & Merriënboer (1993), which combines the measures of mental effort and task performance to determine, for example, how efficient certain settings are regarding their potential to promote learning. The authors describe an experiment carried out with 179 students who were enrolled in a distance learning course about educational software. The results of the study demonstrated that the conversational agent contributed to the improvement of the efficiency of instructional conditions. Such results make a relevant contribution to interactive learning research as they demonstrate that the use of pedagogical agents may improve the efficiency of learning material. Furthermore, by simulating social interaction, these agents may expand the boundaries of educational applications, which have been often designed mainly for individualized learning.

A New Brezhnev Doctrine: The Restructuring of International Relations

1978 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 366-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Judson Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Soviet System ◽  
The World ◽  
Rational Acceptance ◽  
Political Structures

Contemporary Soviet doctrine on international relations emphasizes changes in the relationships of both domestic and world political structures; all the processes of restructuring are said to be “organically” interconnected. An extensive reconceptualization of domestic processes of social change has provided ideological legitimation for elites in the highly bureaucratized Soviet system. Meanwhile, according to Soviet spokesmen, the world correlation of forces has shifted decisively in favor of the U.S.S.R. Because of this change in the world balance, the Soviets claim the power to set the rules in international relations. The new Brezhnev Doctrine projects the U.S.S.R. as the center of the world, largely determining the direction and pace of political change. The Soviet leaders view detente in terms of rational acceptance by the “imperialist camp” of unavoidable processes of restructuring favorable to the “socialist camp.”

Dissent and Consent under State Socialism

1972 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-44
Author(s):  
David Lane
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Diachronic Development ◽  
State Socialist

Professor Bauman's article is certainly a welcome contribution to the analysis of state socialist societies. He succeeds in breaking away from the myopic Kremlinological study of individuals and he also conducts his argument on a comparative sociological plane transcending the Sovietologist's ideographic viewpoint. However, he may be criticised at many points: it is very doubtful whether the state under capitalism is as ‘autonomous’ an institution as Bauman suggests; distinctions should be made between the socialist states of Eastern Europe, for what may be true of Poland and Rumania may not be true of the Soviet Union; international relations, particularly those between the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe and between East and West, have important effects on the political culture and significantly restrict the possibilities for social change; the diachronic development of the societies under consideration needs to be given more prominence, for what may have been the case in Soviet Russia in 1920 or in Poland in 1948 may not be so for either society in 1971. Here, I shall have to leave on one side such general criticisms to concentrate on a number of specific points in Bauman's argument relating to stratification in Eastern Europe which seem to me to be debatable.

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