Relationship between Prejudice, Social Media Addiction, Empathy and Trust

The study examined the relationship between prejudice, social media addiction, empathy and trust among teenage boys and girls. The study also investigated if there were any differences in prejudice, social media addiction, empathy and trust between teenage boys and girls.  The sample consisted of 200 students out of which 100 were male students and 100 were female students.  The data was collected through online forms as well as physical copies of the questionnaires distributed in schools.  The students were administered Social Dominance Orientation Scale by Pratto et al (1994), Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale by Andreassen (2012), Toronto Empathy Questionnaire by Spreng et al (2009) and General Trust Scale by Yamagishi, T. & Yamagishi, M. (1994). Pearson correlation coefficient was used to investigate the relationships between prejudice and social media addiction, prejudice and empathy, prejudice and trust, social media addiction and trust, social media addiction and empathy and empathy and trust.  Independent samples t-test was used to examine the gender differences in prejudice, social media addiction, empathy and trust.  The analysis revealed that there were significant gender differences in prejudice and empathy among teenage boys and girls, with boys having higher prejudice and girls having higher empathy. There were no significant gender differences in social media addiction and trust among teenage boys and girls. There was a significant negative correlation between prejudice and empathy in teenagers, both boys and girls. There were no significant relationships between prejudice and social media addiction, prejudice and trust, social media addiction and trust, social media addiction and empathy and empathy and trust among teenagers, both boys and girls.