THE PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT OF COVID-19 AND SOCIAL ISOLATION NORMS ON HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN DELHI NCR, INDIA

Adolescence is identified as a transition phase where individuals undergo dramatic changes in terms of their cognitive growth. During this time, the heightened awareness of personal and sexual identity leads to greater prioritization of social interaction and popularity. Self-esteem and confidence are measured on the basis of ones social value which can have both positive and negative impacts. In this paper, we study how individuals going through this complex phase of psychological development are dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. With schools and other educational institutes remaining shut down and social distancing norms established, they are undergoing a phenomenon that has not been experienced by previous generations. Studies on isolation often show psychological outcomes such as low mood, poor sleep quality, impaired immunity and cognitive decline, among other symptoms. In this regard, this paper aims to identify the effect of COVID-19 on high school students of Delhi NCR in India, determining their psychological state and analyzing its impact on academic and interpersonal goals. There is also an attempt to predict repercussions of the same in the foreseeable future. Results are based on a questionnaire that will be distributed among high school students, and the discussion and analysis will be drawn based on an interpretation of the same.

Taxonomy of Mitigation Devices in English Language

Language mitigation refers to strategies that people adopt to avoid face-threatening situations in conversation and thereby to linguistically repair the damage done to someone’s face by what one says or does. Previously, several studies investigating mitigation have been carried out from different perspectives, depending on the point of view adopted by each scholar. Some studies thus far have linked mitigation with politeness, whereas other studies have dealt with mitigation as an independent subject. Literature on mitigation abounds with reference to politeness strategies, euphemisms, hedges and other devices, yet there sounds to be no clear attempt to establish what substantiates mitigation. On this point, Caffi (2007, p.48) maintains that in politeness research, the notion of mitigation has so far mainly been used with reference to the set of strategies interlocutors employ to attenuate the impact of what Brown and Levinson (1987) call ‘face-threatening acts’ (FTAs). The present study is designed to develop a taxonomy of mitigation types, devices, functions and strategies adopted by English language users as interpersonal goals. It also provides additional evidence with respect to the use of mitigating devices to soften illocutionary force of speech acts which are unwelcome to addresses. As for mitigation devices, there are seven major devices: Indirect Speech Acts, Tag Questions, Parenthetical Verbs, Disclaimers, Impersonal Constructions, Hedges, and Euphemism, though this last type is not referred to as a main type in previous studies. The latter two types (Hedges and Euphemism) are the backbone of mitigation devices as they subsume a variety of forms and functions. Semantic procedures are the most effective ones as they result in less direct or understated meanings.

Do You Feel the Same? The Effect of Outcome Severity on Moral Judgment and Interpersonal Goals of Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders

When two actors have exactly the same mental states but one happens to harm another person (unlucky actor) and the other one does not (lucky actor), the latter elicits milder moral judgment among bystanders. We hypothesized that the social role from which transgressions are perceived would moderate this outcome effect. In three preregistered experiments (N = 950), we randomly assigned participants to imagine and respond to moral scenarios as actor (i.e., perpetrator), victim, or bystander. Results revealed highly similar outcome effects on moral judgment across social roles. However, as predicted, the social role moderated the strength of the outcome effect on interpersonal goals pertaining to agency and communion. Although in agreement about the blameworthiness of lucky and unlucky actors, victims’ agency and communion were more sensitive to the outcome severity than perpetrators’ agency and communion, with bystanders’ outcome sensitivity falling in between. Outcome severity affected agency and communion directly instead of being mediated by moral judgment. We discuss the possibility that outcome severity raises normative expectations regarding interaction in a transgression’s aftermath that are unrelated to moral considerations.