Ties in a bit with what scaredy was saying — that we need to discuss things with one another and get to know each other on a more personal level in order to gain a better understanding and empathize more with others.
Do rich people simply not care about others? Do people from a higher SES simply not care about others who have less power and wealth? How does empathy play a role in our understanding and opinions of one another? Do we use our biases justify our behavior…and the (negative) outcomes for others?
Personally, I think a lack of empathy has a lot to do with the problems in our society. IMHO, electronics, especially for kids, are making the problems even worse.
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“Social distance makes it all the easier to focus on small differences between groups and to put a negative spin on the ways of others and a positive spin on our own.
Freud called this “the narcissism of minor differences,” a theme repeated by Vamik D. Volkan, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, who was born in Cyprus to Turkish parents. Dr. Volkan remembers hearing as a small boy awful things about the hated Greek Cypriots — who, he points out, actually share many similarities with Turkish Cypriots. Yet for decades their modest-size island has been politically divided, which exacerbates the problem by letting prejudicial myths flourish.
In contrast, extensive interpersonal contact counteracts biases by letting people from hostile groups get to know one another as individuals and even friends. Thomas F. Pettigrew, a research professor of social psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, analyzed more than 500 studies on intergroup contact. Mr. Pettigrew, who was born in Virginia in 1931 and lived there until going to Harvard for graduate school, told me in an e-mail that it was the “the rampant racism in the Virginia of my childhood” that led him to study prejudice.”
