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How Empathy Can Save the Economy
One of his colleagues, however, is more enthusiastic about the 'Net. “In my view, the recent Internet explosion is the most powerful means we have to reverse the trend,” says Fabio Sabatini, a research fellow at the University of Siena in Italy. He met his fiancée and made some good friends on Flickr, the photo-sharing Web site.
Certainly for young children, face-to-face interactions are crucial for healthy emotional development. Studies have found that too much screen time can be detrimental to that development.
Far less is known about how, later in life, trust is encoded in the brain and affects social and economic transactions. But the connections yet to be made promise to be fascinating—and if we want to revive the economy, trust—and its roots in empathy—can’t be ignored.
Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, The New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently, of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is senior fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization.
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Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is Senior Fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization.
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Maia Szalavitz writes about the intersection between mind, brain and society for publications like Time online, the New York Times, Elle and MSN Health. She is co-author, most recently of Lost Boy, the first memoir by a young man raised in Mormon fundamentalist polygamy, Brent Jeffs. She is Senior Fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization.
If empathy is going to save our economy, we are doomed.
I don't believe anyone is arguing that empathy is not an important component of the decision making process, regardless of the context. What seems to be implied by the President is that empathy should take precedent over the law. So, in Roe v. Wade the judges empathy for women with unwanted pregnancies caused them to invent the Constitutional right to privacy. Also, it seems to imply, based on his statements about Roberts, justice should somehow favor the "little guy" and act to balance out the inequities that exist in our society.
I wonder how Sonia can take the oath of office? The Supreme Court justices are to make rulings based on the Consitution. The oath reads that the Wealth or poverty or race is not to be taken into consideration in making a decision.
Strange to me liberals torn into Clarence Thomas and were not considered racist. But now we can not question Sonia without being called a racist.
Wow how unbalanced this country is becoming!!!
easyoke, please point to one of the 380 rulings by Judge Sotomayor where she disregarded the constitution.
Just because she, and every other human on earth, has background experiences that color their perceptions does not mean they can't be a Judge, if it did we'd have robot or Vulcan judges
And Clarence Thomas was "torn into" because he was accused of sexual harrassment, not because of the color of his skin or his background. And just an FYI...Pres. Bush, who nominated Thomas, thought he had great empathy, OH MY!
Empathy might destroy the country.
GM and Chrysler were " TOO BIG TO FAIL,"
so we bailed them out,
and they still wound up declaring bankruptcy anyway.
So where did all our EMPATHIC TAXPAYER MONEY go ?
Our " EMPATHIC " tax dollars bailed out some banks,
and coincidentally thereafter some of those same banks
recorded so-called "profits."
Were those numbers actually profits, or donations (from taxpayers)?
How many more people do we have to " EMPATHIZE "
with before the entire economy completely collapses ?
"the level of trust predicts poverty strongly," says Paul Zak, director of the Center for something or other ...
No, Paul, the economy determines the level of trust.
When you live in a nice safe country like Norway, you can afford to trust because you know every one of your countrymen has their health, housing, food & education needs fulfilled.
When you're surrounded by desperately poor Brazilians, who cannot feed their children, you would be right to suppose they might steal something from you.
Oxytocin increases levels of trust because it creates a feeling of comfort & safety. It might, just possibly, be better to work on wealth, stability & social distributions than to spray everyone with fake hormones!
Lol @ this article.
Thank you.
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