Mayank Sharma

While empathy is known to predict Identification with All Humanity, a superordinate social identity linked to reduced prejudice and greater prosociality, the nuances of this relationship in adolescent populations have been rarely explored. Given that adolescence is a critical period of self and identity development through affiliation with different social groups, the investigation of this relationship offers valuable insights for global citizenship education, where empathy training is often central for shaping a global citizen identity. This study examines how equilibrium and disequilibrium in empathic response, comprising other-oriented Empathic Concern (EC) and self-oriented Personal Distress (PD), predict IWAH in a sample of 634 urban Indian adolescents aged 11–16 years (mean (SD) = 13.37 years (1.24); male: female = 53.6%:46.4%). Equilibrium refers to similar levels of EC and PD within the same individual, while disequilibrium refers to differences between them. Using polynomial regression with response surface analysis (PRRSA), the results showed that equilibrium in EC and PD predicted higher levels of trait IWAH, while directional disequilibrium (EC > PD) did not. The study did not observe any age differences. The findings are discussed in relation to adolescent development. In Indian adolescents, an understudied group in empathy and global citizenship research, this study contributes to a broader understanding of the developmental and cultural underpinnings of empathy and global social identification.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a unified framework to address interconnected global issues, emphasizing the need for collective action across all sectors of society to achieve a sustainable future for all. In this paper, we empirically investigate how knowledge (awareness of global issues), cognitive skills (critical inquiry), and socio-emotional skills (cognitive empathy) relate to engagement towards global issues, and whether global citizenship identification mediates these relationships. Mediation analysis of data from 249 participants revealed that both awareness of global issues and cognitive empathy directly predict higher engagement levels. In contrast, no direct effect of critical inquiry was observed. Global citizenship identification significantly mediated the relationships between all three predictors and engagement: accounting for 70.7% of the effect of critical inquiry, 39.9% of the effect of awareness, and 33.6% of the effect of cognitive empathy. Our findings highlight that global citizenship identification plays a crucial role in translating knowledge and skills into active engagement. The results highlight the potential effectiveness of identity-based interventions in fostering more engaged communities and advancing efforts toward achieving the SDGs.

Accumulating evidence of the impact of social and emotional learning (SEL) on student well-being as well as academic performance has led to an increased interest in understanding and measuring SEL in students. However, most existing measures have been developed in English and there is a paucity of culturally relevant measures in other languages. In this study, we present a short, culturally sensitive 8-item scale in Hindi entitled the Social and Emotional Learning and Orientation Scale (SELOS). Factor structure of SELOS was established through exploratory ( N=2844; M_age=14.65 years) and confirmatory factor analysis ( N=1508; M_age=14.50 years) with responses from 4352 Hindi-speaking students in India. The scale demonstrated a two-factor structure, with good reliability, discriminant validity and partial measurement invariance across gender. These results provide encouraging evidence for conducting culturally sensitive studies of SEL in India and in other Hindi-speaking parts of the world.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a digital game-based course to build domain knowledge and social emotional competencies of empathy and compassion in adolescents. Materials and Methods: The study used a digital game Bury me, my Love with an accompanying course which was administered to 201 participants between ages 13–18 across United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India. Standardized self-reports were used to score participants on measures of knowledge and attitudes, empathy, and compassion before and after the intervention. Mixed analyses of variance were conducted with 1 between-subjects factor (gender) and 1 within-subjects factor (time) to determine the impact of the intervention, followed by post hoc t-tests. Results: Increased effects of intervention were obtained for both knowledge and social emotional learning in both UAE and India. Specifically, there was a significant increase in awareness of migration and refugees in both India (P < 0.001) and UAE (P < 0.001). Interesting effects of gender were seen in which females in both countries showed increases in compassion from others (P < 0.05). Conclusion: This study opens a new window in game-based learning. The design of a structured course with learning outcomes that are centered around a digital game establishes its potential to create engaging and accessible solutions to simultaneously build domain knowledge and social-emotional competencies in adolescents.