Can empathic concern be generalized from one person to others? Another positive side of the ‘one‐among‐others’ effect

Previous research on the one‐among‐others effect has shown that inducing empathic concern towards a victim presented among other individuals in need enhances: (1) awareness of these others and (2) the willingness to help them individually. In this work, we test that these outcomes are linked by an additional process: the generalization of empathic concern felt for the victim towards the others in need. Study 1 revealed that inducing empathic concern for a victim presented as one‐among‐others led to see the others as separate and different individuals, not as a unitary group. Study 2 showed that the one‐among‐others presentation (vs. only‐one‐victim) increased empathic concern towards those presented along with the main victim. Study 3 showed that the one‐among‐others presentation (vs. a single‐victim or a statistical presentation) increased the empathic concern felt for other individuals in need. Therefore, the one‐among‐others presentation does not weaken empathic concern but, instead, it leads to its generalization from one to others.     

Rigidity,instability and dimensionality

The paper takes a detailed look at a surprising new aspect of the dynamics of rigid bodies. Far from the usual consideration of rigid body theory as a merely technical chapter of classical physics, I demonstrate here that there are solutions to the conservation equations of mechanics that imply the spontaneous, unpredictable splitting of a rigid body in free rotation, something that has direct implications for the problem of causality. The paper also shows that the instability revealed in indeterminist splitting processes does not depend solely on the bodies’ inertial properties but also on the number of dimensions of the physical space they inhabit. The paper concludes with a conjecture on the behavior of rigid bodies in four-dimensional space.     

Purposes of reasoning and (a new vindication of) Moore’s proof of an external world

A common view about Moore’s Proof of an External World is that the argument fails because anyone who had doubts about its conclusion could not use the argument to rationally overcome those doubts. I agree that Moore’s Proof is—in that sense—dialectically ineffective at convincing an opponent or a doubter, but I defend that the argument (even when individuated taking into consideration the purpose of Moore’s arguing and, consequently, the preferred addressee of the Proof) does not fail. The key to my defence is to conceive the Proof as addressed to subjects with a different epistemic condition. To sustain this view I formulate some hypothesis about the common general purpose of arguing and I defend that it can be fulfilled even when the addressee of an argument is not someone who disbelieves or doubts its conclusion.     

Niveles socioeconómicos-culturales y ejecución lingüística

Resumen

En este artículo se realiza una aproximación al estudio y evaluación del lenguaje desde una perspectiva psicosocial. El objetivo prioritario de esta investigación es conocer y exporter la importancia y relevancia que poseen ciertas variables socioeconómicas culturales, tipificadas como indicadores sociales, sobre el rendimiento en lenguaje, evaluado a través del I.T.P.A., de una muestra de escolares del Ciclo Medio de la E.G.B, en Galicia.