Can empathy lead to emotional exhaustion in teachers? The mediating role of emotional labor

Objectives: The present study was designed to examine the links between empathy, emotional labor (both surface and deep acting), and emotional exhaustion as well as determine if emotional labor mediates the relationship between empathy and emotional exhaustion in teachers. It was assumed that emotional labor can take two opposite directions (positive mood induction and negative mood induction). Thus, the additional aim of the study was to analyze the mediating role of mood regulation strategies in the relationship between empathy and emotional exhaustion. Materials and Methods: A sample of 168 teachers from Łódź and its surroundings completed a set of questionnaires: Emotional Labor Scale; Mood Regulation Scales, Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Empathic Sensitivity Scale. Results: The results provided mixed support for the hypotheses indicating that both types of emotional labor, negative mood induction and emotional exhaustion were positively intercorrelated. Moreover, deep acting was a significant mediator in the relationship between empathy and emotional exhaustion. The analyzed link was also mediated by negative mood induction, whereas positive mood induction did not emerge as a significant mediator. Conclusions: The study provided insight into the role of empathy and emotional labor in the development of teacher burnout. It also confirmed that deep acting and negative mood induction mediate the relationship between empathy and emotional exhaustion in teachers

What is an "ethnic group" in ordinary people’s eyes? Different ways of understanding it among American, British, Mexican, and Polish respondents

Although the term “ethnic group” (EG) is often used in social studies, its definition differs among researchers. Moreover, little is known about ordinary people’s subjective understanding of this term, even though it is often used in social discourse. We examined this issue in a cross-sectional study of 273 American, British, Mexican, and Polish students using an open-ended questions approach. Results revealed cultural differences in patterns of “ethnic group” definitions across the four countries. U.S. respondents predominantly connected EG to “race”; British participants frequently related it to “race,” but more often to “common culture” and “customs/traditions.” Both latter categories were overwhelmingly dominant in Mexico and Poland. However, “nation,” “shared history,” “religion,” “language,” and “territory” were also very popular as EG understandings in Poland. Although most participants used the newer definition of EG (referring to all groups in a society, including minority and majority groups), a few in each country used the term only to refer to minorities and people different from themselves (an older, “minus one” definition). Unexpected definitions of EG also appeared (e.g., people having similar hobbies, having similar work goals, or living in the same city). The results also indicate that for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Mexico, “ethnic group” was more a subgroup within a nation, whereas in Poland, they represented the same level of categorization. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed

Reasoning on Relations, Modalities, and Sets

This survey discusses the interplay among unquantified re- lational logics, propositional modal logics, and set theories. To set up a common ground, cross-translation methods among languages commonly used to work with relations, modalities, and sets, are revisited. This pa- per also reports on many experiments aimed at providing automated support for reasoning based on the calculus of dyadic relations

Identifying the drivers of changes in the relative abundances of species in agroecosystems

Increasing species diversity often promotes ecosystem functions in grasslands, but sward diversity may be reduced over time through competitive interactions among species. We investigated the development of species’ relative abundances in intensively managed agricultural grassland mixtures over three years to identify the drivers of diversity change. A continental-scale field experiment was conducted at 31 sites using 11 different four-species mixtures each sown at two seed abundances. The four species consisted of two grasses and two legumes, of which one was fast establishing and the other temporally persistent. We modelled the dynamics of the four-species mixtures over the three-year period. The relative abundances shifted substantially over time; in particular, the relative abundance of legumes declined over time but stayed above 15% in year three at many sites. We found that species’ dynamics were primarily driven by differences in the relative growth rates of competing species and secondarily by density dependence and climate. Alongside this, positive diversity effects in yield were found in all years at many sites