“Nomophobia” or the overreliance on mobile phones

There is no doubt that mobile phones have grown far much greater than any other digital devices and served as meaningful tools in people’s everyday life.

Whether you are a grown-up, youngster or adolescent, if you find yourself feeling permanently stressed, anxious and fearful when unable to use your smartphone - when losing or breaking it, even running out of battery or having no network coverage - you may probably suffer from a disorder called “nomophobia”. The term “nomophobia”, a shortened version of “no-mobile phone phobia”, first appeared in a 2008 UK post office study, coined by YouGov, a UK-based research organization, which revealed that 53% of mobile phone users experienced nomophobia. This study was made through a sample survey regrouping over 2,100 people.

An India study conducted to evaluate mobile phone dependence among students of a medical college and associated hospital of central India has also found that the average case of nomophobia was quite common amongst college students: 22% of participants showed signs of severe nomophobia and around 60% who took part in the study had moderate signs. That means, nomophobia has become a ubiquitous phenomenon increasingly influencing current adolescents’ lifestyle. Tantely, a Malagasy young woman who had her phone broken last week and totally acknowledged her addiction to her mobile phone. She says “I felt so nervous and depressed because I could no longer scroll my news feed on social media, which I was accustomed to in my free time and made me so obsessed. I am now compelled to beg for connection to friends whenever I feel the need to fulfill my burning desire to surf the net”.

Tips on how to manage and balance mobile phone addiction
Throughout her 2019 article entitled “Nomophobia: The fear of being without your phone”, published in Psychology Today, psychologist and Professor Elizabeth Hartney shared a few practical tips to handle obsession due to cell phone usage.

Meeting face-to-face and choosing real over virtual experiences
Elizabeth Hartney insists on why we need to balance screen time and in-person time. That means, prioritizing more human contact instead of spending a couple of hours in front of one’s screen texting or making a call with the purpose of trying to get all the news from friends or relatives. “Replace your cell phone with face to face communication” “when with someone else, turn it off or ignore when it rings” Hartney says. Similarly, engaging oneself constantly in real activities that do not involve virtual experiences is always beneficial. There are other best alternatives that are far more interesting than entertaining activities that go all online.

Setting up boundaries and finding a balanced approach
A balanced approach can be reached through establishing rules for device use. This means, when doing certain things that might not necessarily require any use of mobile devices such as during meal time, at bedtime, when hanging out with friends or just spending a quality time with oneself. Likewise, the overuse of cell phone can be controlled through adopting new habits such as avoiding it at certain times of the day and finding other ways to spend time, as psychologist Harney suggests.

There are actually various successful means to free oneself from this phenomenon called “nomophobia”. However, it is always up to us to decide if we want to be a servant or a master of technological devices.
                                                                                                                                        Source: Psychology Today

How a simple gratitude practice can radically change one’s life

How many of us have ever thought of making a brief halt to celebrate life through a simple “thank you “? We are so overwhelmed with everyday routine, worry, stress and frustration that we eventually forget that we still have too much to be thankful for. Yet, overlooking such a detail which is the main basis of gratitude largely explains how much we need to be reminded of the power and the benefits of practicing it.
Over time, the area of gratitude has attracted many researchers and neuroscientists attention leading them to conduct an in-depth enquiry on the subject. One of them is Professor Robert Emmons who is the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude. According to Emmons and McCullough in “Psychology of Gratitude” published in 2003, gratitude can be defined as “an emotion, an attitude, a moral virtue, a habit, a personality trait, or a coping response”. They maintain that a person is likely to feel grateful if they perceive that they have a positive personal outcome that they have either not earned, or are deserving of, as a result of the actions of another person.

Benefits of being grateful
According to experts, showing gratitude has a multitude of positive effects on one’s health, self-care, happiness, and fulfillment. Amy Morin, a psychologist and the author of “13 things mentally strong People don’t do” provided in her article - entitled “seven scientifically proven benefits of gratitude” on Psychology Today - various and significant research findings on the field. Here are these 7 proven benefits:

• Gratitude strengthens relationships. A simple act of thanking or any kind of good deed expressed toward others might be an excellent way of maintaining a stronger and healthier relationship.
• Gratitude promotes physical health. She argues that grateful individuals are more likely to take care of their health by practicing sports more often.
• Gratitude enhances psychological health. It decreases harmful emotions and It help people cope with stress
• Gratitude benefits empathy and lower aggression. Grateful people are likely to be more pro-socially oriented and usually avoid quarrel
• Gratitude allows people to sleep tight and longer
• Gratitude increases self-esteem. It is said that grateful people are able to show a real appreciation towards others’ successes that enable them to gain more confidence and performance.
• Gratitude boosts mental strength by helping overcome mental disorder like depression and trauma and build resilience

Here are a few tips on cultivating gratitude
It is notable that gratitude is any act of thankfulness and appreciation in response to all the gifts life has granted to each of us. In this regard, practicing gratitude essentially requires a minimum of effort from us so that we can get some of its benefits. A few easy approaches such as maintaining a gratitude journal, writing personal thank you notes, and spending a few minutes each day to acknowledge all that we have or just expressing gratitude to others can be of paramount importance as far as developing an attitude of gratitude is concerned.

Sources: Psychology Today/ Psychology of Gratitude (Robert Emmons & McCullough)

Edited by Volahanta RAHARIMANANA

The rise of homeschooling

With the widespread school approach getting increasingly trendy – homeschooling – many parents stop sending their children to a traditional school, which is the compulsory education set up by Government. Parents actually have different reasons for choosing this option. In any case, the dissatisfaction of the conventional school system might be the common reason why parents homeschool their kids.

A brief story of Homeschooling
Homeschooling is first of all another approach to educating children without being in the classroom. Education is home-based, mostly led by parents, tutors, or even online teachers. In fact, the concept of homeschooling rose in the 1970s when some popular authors and researchers started writing about educational reform and suggested home education as an alternative educational option. One of them is John Holt, who devoted his life to homeschooling movement. In his popular book entitled “Teach your own ”he evokes a certain sense of “Humanity” through homeschooling. Here is an extract of what he wrote in his book: “(…) I have used the words “homeschooling” to describe the process by which children grow and learn in the world without going, or going very much, to schools, because those words are familiar and quickly understood. But in one very important sense they are misleading. What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children’s growth into the world is not that it is a better school than the schools but that it isn’t a school at all (…) It is a natural, organic, central fundamental human institution, one might easily and rightly say the foundation of all other institutions”.

The legality of homeschooling
As a result of homeschooling movement, several countries across the continents started shifting from traditional education to parent-led home-based education. Correspondingly, it has been legalized. In USA, for instance, there are about 2.5 million children being homeschooled and it is legal in all 50 states each under different regulation laws. According to the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), there were 2.5 million homeschool students from kindergarten to 12th grade in the United States, which represent 3 to 4 percent of school-age children. In fact, 2.5 million estimated in spring 2019 – with the percentage of the homeschool population which is continually raising(at an estimated 2% to 8% per annum over the past few years).

Source: National Home Education Research Institute

How is misogyny different from sexism?

The term “misogyny” first appeared in the 17th century in response to a derogatory remark made towards women. English misogynist named Joseph Swetnamwrote a booklet intended to arraign women so as to raise hatred of other men towards them. Not surprisingly, it gained in popularity among men, leading women to question themselves on their places in the society.

With patriarchal social structures that were so long set up, granting more prerogatives to men, women feel both unimportant and despised. In the article of Nina Renata Aron about misogyny published in “The New York Times”, she argues that society was organized in a misogynistic way and pursues that people within it, particularly male individuals, might not realize they are women-haters. Throughout her article she mentioned an activist writer named Andrea Dworkin famous for standing up for women and writing books about feminism and misogyny. In one of her book entitled “Woman Hating” –that prompted to a real controversy – she gives further details on the notion of misogyny and evidences that the aspects of society have led to gender bias against women. “As women we live in the midst of a society that regards us as contemptible. We are despised . . . we are the victims of continuous, malevolent and sanctioned violence against us,” says Dworkin, reported by Renata.

Women continue to wrestle with sexism and misogyny at many levels that range from sports, politics and even reality TV.Sexism and misogyny are not the same, the term misogyny originated from the Ancient Greek word “misogunia” which etymologically means hatred towards women. In fact, the roots of misogyny have been tracked down to ancient Greek mythology. It is a common knowledge that misogyny is any hatred of, aversion to or prejudice against women, that might manifested in multiple forms such as violence against women, sexual harassment and rape, male privilege, patriarchy, ostracism, etc. Yet, philosophy professor and author Kate Mane maintains that misogyny is not about male hostility or hatred towards women; instead it’s about controlling and punishing women who challenge male dominance. She pursues that misogyny rewards women who reinforce the status quo and punishes those who don’t. In the same way, she is convinced that there are huge differences between sexism and misogyny. In the other hand, sexism can be defined as actions and behaviors against people–especially against women and girls– based uniquely upon their gender. That means any gender-based prejudice or discrimination. Sexism and misogyny might be perceived as being different but actually as going hand-in-hand. It is said that sexism is the ideology that encourages patriarchal social systems, whereas misogyny is the law enforcement of this patriarchal norms.

Sources: Article by Nina Renata Aron, published on The New York Times(March 2019) / VOX

Supporting lemurs’ conservation in Madagascar via ecotourism

Thanks to its extraordinary wealth in biodiversity, Madagascar has arguably become one of the islands’ most special places.
This 4th largest island in the world encompasses high levels of endemism as far as fauna and flora are concerned. In fact, around 75% of the island’s species are found nowhere else on the planet, giving Madagascar the privilege to be classified as among the world’s most biologically diverse countries. Nevertheless,the exceptional island’s wildlife is seemingly threatened and is increasingly vanishing. Lemurs actually one of the highly endangered species.Habitat depletion and disappearance due to human actions such as deforestation and slash-and-burn culture is the main threat to these primates.

Measures that can be taken to reduce wildlife threats particularly lemur species
Advancing ecotourism is the best solution toward lemurs’ conservation and other endemic species as well. According to the Lemur Conservation Network, many conservationists agree that ecotourism is the number one thing that can ensure the survival of lemurs in Madagascar. The local Malagasy people need to see that lemurs are more valuable alive than dead. Tourists will come to see lemurs in the wild. This also means local communities play a key role in preserving the last remaining lemur species and their habitat.Furthermore, the protection of lemurs benefits also the Malagasy people. Tourists coming toMadagascar to see lemurs will help the locals to increase income and boost the local economy. That is why lemur-loaded parks are also requisite for conserving these endemic species. One of them is “Lemurs’ Park”, a botanical reserve located 22 km from the downtown area, on the NR1 towards Imerintsiatosika and Arivonimamo. The park abounds in various species of lemur in total freedom that includes Hapalemurgriseusgriseus, Varecia variegate variegate,Eulemurfulvusfulvus, Ring-tailed lemur or maki, Eulemurmongoz, Cockroach sifaka , and crowned sifaka.

Apart from the Lemurs’ Park, there are other National Parks that are inhabited by numerous endangered Lemurs such as Ranomafana National Park where the Milne-Edwards’ “sifaka”, golden and greater bamboo lemurs and black-and-white ruffed lemurs can be found; Isalo National Park with its red-fronted lemur; Andasibe-Mantadia National Park where the largest living lemur, indri, is spotted; Andringitra National Park along with its famous ring-tailed lemurs; Tsingy de Bemaraha where the ghostly Decken’s sifaka can be observed; Kirindy Forest that is inhabited by the fork-crowned lemurs, the verreaux’s sifaka, and the red-fronted lemurs.
There are over 100 species of lemurs living in Madagascar and nowhere else.Aspart of our wealth and heritage, thus, raising our compatriots’ awareness on the importance of protecting and conserving these species is a must.

Sources:Lemur Conservation Network/ Lemurs’ Park Madagascar

Are there effective prevention methods for young people to fight against HIV?

Due to the prevalence of the Coronavirus pandemic, HIV/ AIDS, once seen as one of the world’s most serious public health challenges now seems to be put into the deep freeze. However, it remains the second leading cause of death worldwide, especially among youth.

Vulnerability rate is much higher in young people than in adults. Young people are actually at a greater risk of catching and transmitting HIV. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), currently, over 30 percent of all new HIV infections globally are estimated to occur among youth aged 15 to 25. Moreover, children infected at birth grow into adolescents who have to deal with their HIV positive status. Overall, WHO counts approximately 5 million youth living with HIV. In Africa, according to 2017 data provided by UNAIDS, there were 4,500 new HIV infections everyday among adults aged 15 years and older, and 37 percent among young people (15-24), of which 22 percent are among young women, and 15 percent among young men. Similarly, in the US, in 2018, the number of new HIV diagnoses was highest among people aged 25 to 34 as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of the 37,968 new HIV diagnoses, 69 percent were among gay and bisexual men, 24 percent were among heterosexual, and 7 percent were among people who inject drugs.

Several factors increasing the risk of getting HIV infection actually set barriers to HIV prevention among young people. Before tackling the prevention efforts and programs for young people, factors increasing the virus and prevention challenges are firstly needed to be grasped and approached. It is important to note that HIV can be transmitted through what is called “vertical transmission” or transmission from mother-to-child. In fact, around 70 percent of adolescents diagnosed with HIV would have acquired it through vertical transmission. In some cases, vulnerability to HIV can also occur during the transition from childhood to adulthood, when adolescents start to explore new things, such as peer relationships, gender norms, sexuality and so on. That is why understanding AIDS-related prevention challenges is the starting point to any effective HIV prevention efforts so as to decrease HIV infection rate among adolescents and young people. Some of the challenges vary from low HIV and sexual health knowledge to lack of access to HIV services. In other terms, young people do not get enough and adequate sex education and that has not changed but even declined over time. WHO stated that young people’s risk of becoming newly infected with HIV is closely correlated with age of sexual debut. Obviously, the first approach to HIV response and key to its prevention would be consisting in granting young people a more comprehensive sexual education and engaging various stakeholders such as parents, health care givers, community leaders,…in the response, as well as schools and other youth-oriented services or institutions such as associations and clubs. The lack of access to HIV services is also a real challenge for preventing AIDS among young people. Due to perceived stigma and misperceptions about HIV, young people might be probably reluctant to come forward to HIV testing, treatment and counseling which, undoubtedly, will increase the risk of spreading the virus. However, resorting to HIV testing and counseling is a successful way to decrease HIV rate, as it has been proven during HIV prevention in Eastern and Southern Africa by reaching out to young people through mobile and community testing initiatives.

As we celebrate AIDS day every 1st of December, what is highly expected from AIDS-related health care department and organizations is further involvement in worldwide prevention campaign and programs to stop the spread of HIV.

Sources: Word International Organization/ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention DC / Avert.org

Sahaza Marline on Madagascar’s performance at the First Global Challenge: “I am extremely proud that our efforts paid off and have been duly acknowledged”

October 31, 2020: Madagascar national robotics team was ranked 5th out of 175 participants worldwide during the closing ceremony of the 2020 First Global Challenge (FGC), a quantitative criterion-based ranking. Along with this achievement, the two mentors of the Malagasy team received the award for outstanding mentors as well as the team won the third place in the Sofia Kovalevskaya for International Journey, which is rather qualitative. Sahaza Marline, founder and president of STEM4Good (the association that selected and technically prepared the team), tells us more about this achievement.

AmCham: Who is Sahaza Marline?

Sahaza: I am a web entrepreneur. I have been working in this sector since 2008. Back then I started as a freelancer and in 2012 I launched my web agency. I undertake technology and web-related consultancy missions as well.

AmCham: Could you tell us more about STEM4Good?

Sahaza: Well, as founders, we launched STEM4Good association in 2018 after being involved in the sector within Habaka NGO. Our first move was teaching “coding” or computer programming to 7-17 year-old children. At that time, we tried to follow the international trend of teaching coding to children at their very early age. Beyond just using new technologies, children should know how to invent them. From 2014 to 2017, 2,500 children have been initiated to coding through our own efforts, without external funding. We launched the “coder bus” concept which helped the teaching of coding expand from 2016 to 2017. Finally our initiative started to become more popular in Madagascar, and even abroad. That is how the FGC got in touch with us as we share the same vision. They proposed that Madagascar builds a team to compete in the FGC robotics competitions for 15 to 18 year-old teens. We barely mastered robotics at that time but we grabbed the opportunity. In 2017, the Malagasy team flew to Washington DC for their first-ever participation to international competition, the first edition of FGC. The competition evolves in different countries every year and there are fourteen topics discussed. A specialized academy in the US looks for the most important scientific challenges for the future and they choose one theme each year. The competition will last for 14 years, and we are now in its fourth year.

AmCham: Can you briefly summarize Madagascar’s first years at FGC?

Sahaza: To give you a clearer idea, this is how FGC works. The competition looks like the Olympic Games, with different prizes and categories. The standard form of FGC is the robot competition. To make it simple, each team invents one robot, following the given theme. The robot follows a specific route and accumulates either qualitative or quantitative points. In the qualitative criteria, the jury assesses, among others, the quality of the work done, the way of sharing knowledge, the way the team overcomes challenges, and the team’s communication skills. That is how we claimed the 2017 bronze medal in Washington DC. The following edition in Mexico City in 2018, we were ranked at the 124th spot and at the 137th in 2019 in Dubai. Due to travel bans and restrictions, the competition was held online and 25 challenges – qualitative, quantitative, and others – have been created. In the second month of the challenge, the Malagasy team managed to stay in the top 10, got propelled to the top 5 spot, and stayed there out of 175 participants.

AmCham: How was your feeling when the Madagascar team ranked among the top 5 of the 2020FGC?

Sahaza: I am extremely proud that our efforts paid off and have been duly acknowledged. Indeed, every year, Madagascar always stands out from other countries. We do have outstanding talents and merits. This time we received more appreciation than when we won the bronze medal in Washington back in 2017. We owe our success to the team’s self-confidence.

AmCham: How did the Madagascar team manage to win the outstanding mentor award?

Sahaza: The participants wanted to express their recognition for the mentors and sent a letter to the FGC organization committee. In my opinion, our mentors won the award as they are much younger than their peers from other teams. Most of them are teachers and that makes it easier for them to communicate and share experiences more efficiently with teens.

AmCham: Due to the pandemic, FGC was held fully online. How did you organize yourself as most of the teens were in different regions of Madagascar?

Sahaza: The gathering of the team members was quite a challenge as they are not all Antananarivo residents. For the whole first month, they never had the chance to meet in-person. We provided them connection and they proceed to each one of the challenges through video calls. In the last month of the competition, the Ministry of Communication and Culture intervened and provided lodging and other materials. It was really helpful.

AmCham: Does the involvement of the Ministry of Communication and Culture mean that the government will make the field of robotics a priority?

Sahaza: We view the Ministry of Communication and Culture’s intervention as a “manna” from heaven. We accepted to overcome all the challenges because we thought that participating in international competitions are less difficult than participating in national competitions. All the organization process is carried out abroad. STEM4Good association is just called to show competence and performance. The team members themselves participate in fundraisings. We will continue to proceed that way in the coming years. Our request is further government’s intervention in the lives of our teens. Their lives have drastically changed as they met new people and acquired knowledge and skills from their international experience. We would like the government to support us in setting up a positive development laboratory, so that these young people can pursue their passion in robotics.

AmCham: What is still to be improved if our team aspires to win the competition?

Sahaza: Personally I do not consider getting the first place as the ultimate priority. My first priority is to inspire adolescents to take science subjects seriously, to understand their usefulness in solving current and future problems. Representing a country at a competition other than sport, in which all countries of the world participate and where young people can meet all young people of their age with the same passion is an incredible and life-changing experience.

AmCham: Can you give me some statistics of the number of girls in this field compared to boys?

Sahaza: In CoderDojo, 60% of children are girls. In STEM4Good, boys outnumber girls, but girls are more active – six or seven out of ten. Anyway, gender does not really matter to us because we know that Madagascar lacks responsible scientists, we are not limited by a quota to be respected, everyone is welcome.

AmCham: Are STEM4Good members only eligible to take part in the FGC next year?

Sahaza: Participation is open to everyone and STEM4Good members will teach. However, STEM4Good members can join the team as well if they are targeting higher goals. A point to not is, for FGC, literary students can also be accepted as their competence is needed in the team. However, English language proficiency is required because the whole competition, starting from the registration step, is conducted in English.

AmCham: One last message?

Sahaza: Sometimes robotics may be considered to be science fiction, and people may think what we do is just crazy. I think that we need to make efforts at daring to do unfamiliar or uncommon things, and this could be a driver for the development of our country.

When talking of Black Friday, some people may think of markdown places, long line-ups, shopping addiction. It is commonly known as the holiday shopping season where a massive shopping day following the thanksgiving takes place. Although it will be held on November 27, some stores and retail companies are already planning on how they are going to run their deals since Black Friday has become a long-month sales event.

The origin of the term Black Friday and the story behind it

There are a large number of myths about the root of the name Black Friday. For storekeepers, it is the day when they get in the black and when stores turn a big profit on the year. This story primarily dated back by the late 1980s, when a positive accounting angle, that was shifting the red (loss) from black (profit), was recorded and through which the new version of the term with positive connotations was branded. Nevertheless, it is historically notable that the modern Black Friday had also negative connotations and used to be linked to disaster. According to the language columnist Ben Zimmer, “black Friday is a term that has been in use for quite a long time to refer generally to negative events that happened to fall on a Friday”. He pursues: “the term can be traced to the frustration of factory managers in the 1950s and the frustration of Philadelphia traffic police in the 1960s”.

Black Friday 2020

People from the United States and the United Kingdom, where Black Friday has mostly spread, might be probably puzzled on how the annual sales events, that are just round the corner, are going to work. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Black Friday seems to be filled with uncertainty and might be going to look much more different than the previous Black Fridays. Indeed, in those times of crisis it is not yet safe to shop in overcrowded stores. Furthermore, we are moving toward a new era that turns challenges into great assets and opportunities, giving in increasingly place to technology and innovation. There even is an assumption that Black Friday 2020 would be going all online like the case of Cyber Monday, as some stores have already made a decision to keep their doors closed on Thanksgiving. Despite in-store shopping restrictions, retailers have already searched for new sales and discounts possibilities. Mashable Shopping, on its web site page, has provided latest news and updates of a few stores and companies’ have already planned that Black Friday would go online this year. Among them is Walmart which remains closed on Thanksgiving this year, it had already hosted a Prime Day-esque shopping event called “Big save” on October 11 until October 15. Similarly, Amazon had already launched the Amazon Prime Day on October 13 through October 14 and is ran the Prime Day deals alongside Black Friday deals between October 26 and November 19. Even though deals were held earlier, Amazon announced that the company would honor the main dates of Black Friday on November 27 and cyber Monday on November 30.

Sources: The New York Times/ Business Insider

Thanksgiving – one of the most famous celebrations in America – is a national holiday on the fourth Thursday of November. It is an occasion for family to gather for reunions and festivities in the home around bountiful dinners. This year, Thanksgiving will be observed tomorrow.

A brief story of Thanksgiving
Today’s Thanksgiving celebration originated in a thanksgiving day held in December 1621 by the New England settlers - known as the Pilgrims -to give thanks to the Lord for successful harvests and plentiful crops. In 1620, When New England colonists landed in the Plymouth bay, now Massachusetts, they agreed to set up a government and ratified the first important documents in the history of democratic government in America, the Mayflower Compact to make “fair and equal laws” for their new settlement in the world, now called the United State. As it was so,they had to build homes in the wilderness and geared their lives to new circumstances. They learnt how to raise crops, plant their corn, peas, wheat and barley alongside their Indian neighbors. Thanks to the abundance of harvests, the pilgrims decided to have a big party of thanksgiving and proclaimed it a day of thanksgiving that was to be shared by all colonists and the neighboring Native American Indians led by William Bradford, their Governor. It was in 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it a national day to be celebrated on the last Thursday in November. Since then each president has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation.

Did you know the purpose of eating Turkey on thanksgiving?
Eating turkey during Thanksgiving Day has become atradition for American people. Families spend the holiday together and eat typical dishes that include bread stuffing, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and aboveall turkey. This thanksgiving menu today is actually tied to the first thanksgiving of the pilgrims of Plymouth.There were definitely plentiful wild turkeys in the Plymouth area, as noted by William Bradford in his journal. However,the account of the colonist Edward Winslow in his journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth mentioned that turkey has not been included in the first Harvest’s feast of thanksgiving. He just mentioned the Pilgrims gathering “wild fowl” for the meal.The idea of turning turkey intopopular dish to serve on special occasions such as on thanksgiving came in the 19th century, when Bradford’s journals were found and reprinted in 1856 in which He related how colonists had hunted wild turkeys during the autumn of 1621 and since turkey has become a solely American bird and a symbol of the United States’ prowess, of its national mythology shortly after thanksgiving has been solemnly declared as a national American Holiday in 1863. Moreover, unlike chickens and cows those do not serve much utilitarian purpose like producing eggs and milk, turkeys are essentially raised for their meet. As well as they are big enough and prominent to feed all the members of a large family.

Sources: ShareAmerica / Britannica

For centuries, as being shaped by a consumer and self-centered society, we have adopted a certain acute sense of selfishness and competitiveness. It seems that we have partly lost our nature of being kind and empathetic. As it turned out, this feeling and ability to be happy for others and to sympathize with others’ grief has died out.
Nonetheless, like language, empathy has its own words and grammar and can be taught and promoted through experiences and learning, as well as it can be practiced. While some people are naturally viewed as more empathetic than others, there are actually exercises and steps that might probably help anyone develop empathy.

For a more comprehensive view, empathy is defined as the understanding of others’ feeling and being compassionate toward them. According to Sara D. Hodges - Associate Professor of Psychology, and Michael W. Myers, Professor emeritus in the school of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs - there are two types of empathy. In social psychology, empathy can be classified as an emotional or cognitive response. Emotional empathy can be divided into three components. “The first is feeling the same emotion as another person … The second component, personal distress, refers to one’s own feelings of distress in response to perceiving another’s plight … The third emotional component, feeling compassion for another person, is the one most frequently associated with the study of empathy in psychology”, Hodges and Myers explain. The second type of empathy is cognitive empathy, which refers to the “how and why” of one perceives and understands well the emotions of others via the cognitive center. It refers tothe “how and why” others feel that way and how one can be helpful to them. Cognitive empathy, also known as empathic accuracy, involves “having more complete and accurate knowledge about the contents of another person’s mind, including how the person feels”, Hodges and Myers say.

Dona Matthews – a developmental psychologist – explained it separately in her article published on Psychology Today. According to Dona Matthews, there are three kinds of empathy: “cognitive, emotional and compassionate empathy”. Cognitive empathy as she also called perspective-taking when talking about the fact of being able to put oneself into someone else’s place and see their perspective by thought not by feeling. Emotional empathy or emotional contagion, an individual driven by emotional empathy understands other people’s emotions and expresses a strong and deep feeling toward them. Compassionate empathy also called empathic concern occurs when someone feels someone else’s pain and sympathizes along with an additional move towards action to resolve the problem.

Sources: Psychology today/ Encyclopedia of Social Psychology