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This study explores the psychological effects of the COVID‐19 emergency on workers employed in the supermarket sector by analysing their levels of burnout and the relationship between the burnout syndrome and employees' workplace experiences. A sample of 422 Italian workers answered a survey addressing the burnout dimensions (i.e., exhaustion, cynicism, and professional inefficacy) along with perceived organizational factors and dehumanizing representations. Results showed that 32% of the respondents had symptoms of severe burnout, and 41% had symptoms of exhaustion and cynicism. More specifically, through cluster analysis, four burnout profiles were identified: “burnout” (high on all three dimensions), “engagement” (low on all three dimensions), “overextended” (high on exhaustion), and “disengaged” (moderate on exhaustion and cynicism). Each cluster showed a different pattern of correlates with the organizational and dehumanizing perceptions. Our findings contribute to the knowledge gaps of burnout and workplace experiences by providing insights into the ongoing health emergency among supermarket clerks. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Through two studies (N = 602) conducted in Italy between February and March 2020, we examined the impact of the COVID‐19 emergency on biologization—a form of dehumanization that involves the perception of others as contagious entities—and outgroup prejudice. Overall, results showed that higher emergency perception was associated with greater biologization toward the groups most affected by the virus, namely the Chinese outgroup and the Italian ingroup. In turn, biologization toward the outgroup increased prejudice against that group. We also found that when the pandemic hit Italy, the greater emergency perception was associated with increased emotional closeness with Chinese people, resulting in reduced biologization and prejudice toward them. However, these results held true only for Italian respondents who reported higher levels of ingroup biologization. Taken together, our findings contribute to the knowledge gaps of biologization and prejudice by also providing relevant insights into the ongoing health emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Applied Social Psychology is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Through three studies ('N' = 306), we analysed the association between physical disgust and implicit biologization – the perception of others as disease organisms. In doing so, we employed an adapted version of the Semantic Misattribution Procedure (SMP). Study 1 found that the higher was the level of physical (vs. moral) disgust that White participants felt towards Black people, the higher was their implicit tendency to biologize this ethnic group. Study 2 and Study 3 experimentally replicated the association between physical disgust and biologization by manipulating physical disgust through vignettes that portrayed a target behaving in a physically (vs. morally vs. non-disgusting) way. Results showed that participants assigned to the physical disgust condition biologized more the target – both implicitly and explicitly – than participants in the moral disgust and non-disgusting condition. Overall, these findings shed light on the biological dehumanization of others and its emotional roots, by thus paving the way for its prevention.

The present study aims at expanding research on dehumanization in the work domain by exploring laypeople's dehumanizing perceptions towards stigmatized workers. Starting from Hughes’ (1951, Social psychology at the crossroads, Harper & Brothers, New York; Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999, Academy of Management Review, 24, 413) concept of ‘dirty work’, the present research aims to demonstrate that the different types of occupational taint elicit distinct dehumanizing images of certain occupational groups. Employing a cluster analysis, the results showed that workers in the physical taint cluster were most strongly associated with biological metaphors, workers in the social taint cluster were perceived as most similar to objects, and workers in the moral taint cluster were perceived as most similar to animals. The theoretical and practical implications are considered.

The present studies aim to expand research on dehumanization in the work domain by exploring the biologization – an unexplored form of dehumanization that involves the perception of others as infected and contagious – of physically tainted workers. By integrating the literature on biologization with that of disgust and physically dirty work, we expected that the biologization of workers would be explained by their dirty work environment and by increased feelings of disgust towards them. In Study 1, we showed that focusing on a dirty work environment (vs. on the person performing the work) increased feelings of disgust towards workers and, in turn, their biologization. Coherently, in Study 2, we found that a physically tainted occupation (vs. baseline condition) increased participants’ feelings of disgust and biological dehumanization towards the worker. In contrast, a non-physically tainted occupation (vs. baseline condition) had no effects on disgust and biologization. The theoretical and practical implications are considered.

The present study aims to investigate the indirect link between sexual objectification and belief in personal free will. We hypothesized that being subjected to objectifying commentary would lead women to self-objectify and, in turn, to perceive themselves as having less personal free will. In this study, 105 women were asked to sign up a website created for this study by providing a personal description and a photo. After signing up, they received feedback from a fictitious male user. Depending on the condition, the comment was neutral (baseline), focused on their description (non-objectifying) or focused on their physical appearance (objectifying). The results showed that participants in the objectifying condition (vs. non-objectifying vs. baseline) self-objectified (i.e., perceived themselves as lacking human mental states and more as an instrument vs. a human) and, in turn, believed that they had less personal free will. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for educators and therapists are discussed.

The present work explores whether self-objectification triggered by doing peculiar work activities would increase people’s conforming behavior. We conducted an experimental study in which participants (N = 140) were asked to perform a high objectifying activity (vs. low objectifying activity vs. baseline condition) simulating a real computer job. Afterwards, their levels of self-objectification and conforming behavior were assessed. Results revealed that participants who performed the high objectifying activity self-objectified (i.e., perceived themselves as lacking human mental states) more than the other conditions and, in turn, conformed more to the judgments of unknown similar others. Crucially, increased self-objectification mediated the effects of the high objectifying activity on enhancing conforming behavior. Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed