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Corruption involves greed, money, and risky decision-making. We explore the love of money, pay satisfaction, probability of risk, and dishonesty across cultures. Avaricious monetary aspiration breeds unethicality. Prospect theory frames decisions in the gains-losses domain and high-low probability. Pay dissatisfaction (in the losses domain) incites dishonesty in the name of justice at the individual level. The Corruption Perceptions Index, CPI, signals a high-low probability of getting caught for dishonesty at the country level. We theorize that decision-makers adopt avaricious love-of-money aspiration as a lens and frame dishonesty in the gains-losses domain (pay satisfaction-dissatisfaction, Level 1) and high-low probability (CPI, Level 2) to maximize expected utility and ultimate serenity. We challenge the myth: Pay satisfaction mitigates dishonesty across nations consistently. Based on 6500 managers in 32 countries, our cross-level three-dimensional visualization offers the following discoveries. Under high aspiration conditions, pay dissatisfaction excites the highest- (third-highest) avaricious justice-seeking dishonesty in high (medium) CPI nations, supporting the certainty effect. However, pay satisfaction provokes the second-highest avaricious opportunity-seizing dishonesty in low CPI entities, sustaining the possibility effect-maximizing expected utility. Under low aspiration conditions, high pay satisfaction consistently leads to low dishonesty, demonstrating risk aversion-achieving ultimate serenity. We expand prospect theory from a micro and individual-level theory to a cross-level theory of monetary wisdom across 32 nations. We enhance the S-shaped Curve to three 3-D corruption surfaces across three levels of the global economic pyramid, providing novel insights into behavioral economics, business ethics, the environment, and responsibility. WOS:000951258300001

This paper describes an investigation of student perceptions of the cognitive and affective capabilities of four robots that have a decreasing degree of morphological human likeness. We showed and illustrated the robots (i.e., InMoov, Padbot, Joy Robot and Turtlebot) to 62 students. After showing the students each of these robots, and explaining their main features and capabilities, we administered a fill-in questionnaire to the students. Our main hypothesis was that the perception of a robot’s cognitive and affective capabilities varied in correspondence with their appearance and in particular with their different degree of human likeness. The main results of this study indicate that the scores attributed to the cognitive and emotional capabilities of these robots are not modulated correspondingly to their different morphological similarity to humans. Furthermore, overall, the scores given to all of these robots regarding their ability to explicate mental functions are low, and even lower scores are given to their ability to feel emotions. There is a split between InMoov, the robot which has the highest degree of human likeness, and all of the others. Our results also indicate that: (1) morphological similarity of a robot to humans is not perceived automatically as such by observers, which is not considered a value in itself for the robot; and (2) even at lower levels of robot–human likeness, an uncanny valley effect arises but is quite mitigated by curiosity.

In robotics, a field of research still populated by prototypes, much of the research is made through videos and pictures of robots. We study how the highly human-like robot Sophia is perceived through a YouTube video. Often researchers take for granted in their experiments that people perceive humanoids as such. With this study we wanted to understand to what extent a convenience sample of university students perceive Sophia’s human-likeness; second, we investigated which mental capabilities and emotions they attribute to her; and third, we explored the possible uses of Sophia they imagine. Our findings suggest that the morphological human-likeness of Sophia, through the video, is not salient in the Sophia’s representations of these participants. Only some mental functions are attributed to Sophia and no emotions. Finally, uses of Sophia turned out to be connected to the gender stereotypes that characterize stereotyped women’s professions and occupations but not completely.

With the development of educational robotics, teachers of secondary and high school frequently request clear indications on which type of robot is most effective for strengthening students’ mental schemes on the robot. This paper investigates whether using crafts and recycled materials or structured materials to build robots is more effective in terms of pupils’ cognition in educational robotics. Some scholarship argues that using crafts and recycled materials to build a robot from scratch is more effective than using structured materials. The design of the educational research applied here, and in which we tested this hypothesis, included two different robotics activities, carried out in Italy with two classes of secondary school. In the first, we asked the students to build a robot from scratch using crafts and recycled materials, while in the other we asked the students to build a robot from structured materials. These two activities were preceded and followed by the completion, by students, of the same questionnaire about knowledge of mechanics, manual skills, conceptualization of robots, and beliefs about the robotization of everyday life machines, which were the learning outcomes identified in this study according to the concept of constructive alignment and outcome-based education. Results show that building a robot from scratch increases pupils’ knowledge and manual skills, while building a robot with structured materials increases their awareness of the robotization of machines. Thus, current scholarship’s approach is only partially confirmed. To conclude, although pupils’ appreciation involves equally both these robotics activities, each of these outlines a specific educational outcome.

Given that today 60% of Internet traffic is generated by bots, ‘CAPTCHA’ (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) tests that are supposedly impossible to be done by robots have been introduced. What are the cognitive and emotional effects of these tests on Internet users? Does this request to demonstrate they are not a robot affect users’ identity as human beings? To answer these questions, we selected two groups (117 and 116 respondents, respectively). An online questionnaire that differed only in the task was proposed: we asked the first group to complete some CAPTCHA tests, and the second group to complete some logic tests. In addition to other questions in both versions, we introduced the TLX scale (NASA). Preliminary results show that CAPTCHA execution is associated with feelings of alienation and that the user’s self-perception of humanity is influenced by the execution of the two different types of test.

This paper aimed to investigate three issues. First, the validation of the multi-dimensional Servant Leadership Survey (SLS) within the Italian context. Second, to enhance insight into the degree of servant leadership behaviour displayed by Italian leaders in organizational settings. Third, to support the fact that in Italy, too, servant leadership is positively correlated to leadership integrity, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour while it is negatively correlated to cynicism towards one’s own work. A sample of about 800 adults, males and females, currently employed in profit and non-profit organizations, took part in the study. The factorial structure of SLS found support, and the survey showed satisfactory psychometric properties and reliability. Servant leadership expressed by Italian leaders turned out to be lower than in The Netherlands and in the UK. SLS scores were positively associated with leadership integrity, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour, and negatively associated for cynicism.

The aim of this paper is to investigate if, and how, mobile phone use is associated with space. In particular, we considered three spatial dimensions, such as the size of the place of residence, the macro-region and the country. We drew the data from a telephone survey designed by us and sponsored by Telecom Italia. The survey was administered in 2009 and conducted on representative samples of the populations of five European countries (Italy, France, Spain, UK and Germany) (N = 7255). Several interesting results emerged. One of these is that there seems to be no longer an association between the volume of use of the mobile phone and the urban environment, but only with the sophistication of its use. On the contrary, the fixed telephone is more intensively used by urbanites. The macro-region assumes a new strength regarding the use of the mobile phone: some macro-regions reoriented themselves towards the mobile phone or the landline phone (like the south of Spain), while others are developing both, such a...

The adoption and diffusion of the mobile phone has been exceptionally rapid in mainland China, especially in its capital Beijing and the coastal industrialized towns. With almost half a billion mobile phones, China has rapidly become the biggest market for this technology and one of the world’s leading nations in the production of information and communication technologies. In the last years also the amount of qualitative research devoted to ICTs in China is increased, while that of quantitative studies is still limited. This chapter describes a quantitative research study, specifically focused on the appropriation and domestication of the mobile phone in China. On the basis of questionnaires that were personally administered to a convenience sample of 487 respondents, the design of this research attempts to answer the following research question: How the relational sphere in China is reshaped by the massive use of the mobile phone? And then are there striking differences between the attitudes, behaviours, and practices associated with mobile phone use in China and in the West? This is a very broad research topic, but in this chapter we confine our examination to the social implications of the mobile phone use on some aspects of the relational sphere. A sample of 487 respondents can hardly provide a basis for generalizations about the Chinese population as a whole. However, the results of this study will serve to indicate the most important patterns of mobile phone use, which would be a fruitful subject for future research. Thus, the data presented here will provide direction for further inquiries into various aspects of mobile phone use in China.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the effects of different features of Conservative Ideology, measured via the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Economic Conservatism (EC) scales, on Internal and External casual attributions for poverty and wealth. Participants were a group of 181 university students. Results of multiple regression analyses suggested that EC influenced Internal causal attributions for poverty and wealth positively but influenced the External ones negatively. Of the other measures, only SDO showed a negative effect on External causal attributions. Theoretical and practical implications of results are discussed.

The purpose of the present study was to connect personal values to self-esteem in 14 samples (N = 3612) of pre-professionals, high school students, and adults, from Finland, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, and Estonia. Self-enhancement values (power, achievement) and openness to change values (self-direction, stimulation) were positively, and self-transcendence values (universalism, benevolence) and conservation values (tradition) were negatively related to self-esteem. These direct relations between values and self-esteem were only partly consistent with predictions derived from Maslow's theory of growth and deficiency needs. In samples of pre-professionals, self-esteem was correlated with congruence between personal values and the prevailing values environment. On the group-level, endorsement of achievement and universalism values was more strongly and positively related to self-esteem in samples where these values were considered more important. In contrast, endorsement of self-direction and hedonism values was more strongly and positively related to self-esteem in samples where these values were considered less important. These group-level results are interpreted as suggesting that attainment of culturally significant goals may raise self-esteem, but that high self-esteem may be required for the pursuit of less socially desirable goals. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Social role theory (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman, 2000) predicts that traditional gender ideology is associated with preferences for qualities in a mate that reflect a conventional homemaker-provider division of labor. This study assessed traditional gender ideology using Glick and Fiske’s (1996, 1999) indexes of ambivalent attitudes toward women and men and related these attitudes to the sex-typed mate preferences of men for younger mates with homemaker skills and of women for older mates with breadwinning potential. Results from a nine-nation sample revealed that, to the extent that participants had a traditional gender ideology, they exhibited greater sex-typing of mate preferences. These relations were generally stable across the nine nations.

The study is a contribution to the validation of the Motivation to Lead Scale (MTL), recently proposed by Chan and Drasgow (2001) in order to reveal three types of motivation to be a leader. Participants are 624 university and post-degree specialization students, both male and female, who answered self-report structured questionnaires. The factorial structure of the MTL Scale was investigated through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and via multi-sample procedures. Following the analyses, the original scale was reduced into a 15-item form with satisfactory reliability. Other analyses showed the existence of correlations between the MTL Scale, the Social Desirability Scale and the McClelland Scales. Results indicate that the MTL Scale can be considered a useful research instrument in social, personality and organizational psychology. Correlations with the Social Desirability and McClelland Scales should be taken into consideration in order to improve and apply the MTL Scale.

A 16-nation study involving 8,360 participants revealed that hostile and benevolent attitudes toward men, assessed by the Ambivalence Toward Men Inventory (P. Click & S.T. Fiske, 1999), were (a) reliably measured across cultures, (b) positively correlated (for men and women, within samples and across nations) with each other and with hostile and benevolent sexism toward women (Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, P. Click & S.T. Fiske, 1996), and (c) negatively correlated with gender equality in cross-national comparisons. Stereotype measures indicated that men were viewed as having less positively valenced but more powerful traits than women. The authors argue that hostile as well as benevolent attitudes toward men reflect and support gender inequality by characterizing men as being designed for dominance.