JOBU'S LOCKER: Is America Getting Meaner? (excerpt from article by By Dr. Dale Archer)

Friday, February 4, 2011

Is America Getting Meaner? (excerpt from article by By Dr. Dale Archer)

Also, we are becoming meaner as a society. A recent study from the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, looked at 72 studies that gauged empathy among 14,000 college students in the past 30 years. They found that empathy (identifying with the feelings, thoughts or pain of another) has DECREASED a staggering 40% in college students since 2000!

Reasons range from the decrease of face to face communication as a side effect of technology to the hangover effect from the boom economy which fed our narcissism to want, what we want, when we want it and screw you if you get in my way. Social networking sites are all about "look at me, me, me."

Reality shows like "Real Housewives" and "Jersey Shore" show backstabbing, rude and crass behavior on a nightly basis as a source of comedy. In sports we have a win at all costs (including cheating with performance enhancing drugs) mentality. Business is about CEO's maximizing their personal wealth at the expense of the rest of us and as for politics "All's Fair" to win an election. Is it any wonder that bullying is so prevalent in our 'only the strong survive' culture?

1 comment:

djFebruary 5, 2011 at 6:44 PM
Josh, the 20 year old in the household, says "No one really cares about this study. Lets talk about something that matters." We LAUGHED - talk about empathy! Ha!
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This Day In History

On July 26, 1984, Ed Gein, a serial killer infamous for skinning human corpses, dies of complications from cancer in a Wisconsin prison at age 77. Gein served as the inspiration for writer Robert Bloch’s character Norman Bates in the 1959 novel Psycho, which in 1960 was turned into a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Edward Theodore Gein was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, on July 27, 1906, to an alcoholic father and domineering mother, who taught her son that women and sex were evil. Gein was raised, along with an older brother, on an isolated farm in Plainfield, Wisconsin. After Gein’s father died in 1940, the future killer’s brother died under mysterious circumstances during a fire in 1944 and his beloved mother passed away from health problems in 1945. Gein remained on the farm by himself. In November 1957, police found the headless, gutted body of a missing store clerk, Bernice Worden, at Gein’s farmhouse. Upon further investigation, authorities discovered a collection of human skulls along with furniture and clothing, including a suit, made from human body parts and skin. Gein told police he had dug up the graves of recently buried women who reminded him of his mother. Investigators found the remains of 10 women in Gein’s home, but he was ultimately linked to just two murders: Bernice Worden and another local woman, Mary Hogan. Gein was declared mentally unfit to stand trial and was sent to a state hospital in Wisconsin. His farm attracted crowds of curiosity seekers before it burned down in 1958, most likely in a blaze set by an arsonist. In 1968, Gein was deemed sane enough to stand trial, but a judge ultimately found him guilty by reason of insanity and he spent the rest of his days in a state facility. In addition to Psycho, films including Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs were said to be loosely based on Gein’s crimes.

Longest Verified Human Lifespan