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How have people’s fundamental social motives changed during the COVID-19 pandemic? Across 32 countries (N=9353) before the pandemic a) people prioritized family (romantic relationship maintenance, kin care) over mating motives (mate-seeking, breakup concern), and b) subjective well-being was positively associated with family motives but negatively associated with mating motives (Ko et al., 2020). The pandemic caused drastic social changes for many, including separation from friends and coworkers, and enforced close contact with family. Did those changes affect the priority of family-related motives and their relationship with well-being? Across 28 countries (N=6532) during the pandemic, people’s disease avoidance motivation increased, but a) the prioritization of family over mating motives remained unchanged, and b) well-being remained positively associated with family motives and negatively associated with mating motives. Given that humans historically relied on family bonds during social upheavals, it may be unsurprising that powerful family-related motivations persist even during this unique disruption

Although parents may represent influential sources of children’s gender stereotypes, to date no study has directly investigated the relations between parents’ and children’s gender stereotypes regarding academic abilities. Aiming at filling this gap, in the present study parents’ and their young children’s gender stereotypes about math and language were assessed using both explicit and implicit measures for each member of the family. Sixty-eight Italian 6-year-olds, their mothers, and their fathers (a) performed an Implicit Association Test designed to assess implicit gender stereotypes about math and language, and (b) completed a measure of the relevant explicit stereotypes. Fathers’, but not mothers’, implicit stereotypes predicted children’s implicit and explicit stereotypes. Conversely, no predictive role emerged for parents’ explicit gender stereotypes about math and language. Results are discussed also in relation to the role of fathers as targets of interventions to prevent academic gender stereotypes within the family.

Implicit measures have become very popular in virtually all areas of basic and applied psychology. However, there are empirical and theoretical arguments that might raise doubts about their usefulness in research on political attitudes. Based on a review of relevant evidence, we argue that implicit measures can be useful to identify sources of political preferences in domains where self-presentation may bias self-reports (e.g., influence of racial attitudes on voting decisions). In addition, implicit measures of regular political attitudes can contribute to the prediction of future political decisions by virtue of their capability to predict biases in the processing of decision-relevant information (e.g., prediction of voting behavior of undecided voters). These conclusions are supported by research showing that implicit measures predict real-world political behavior over and above explicit measures. The reviewed findings suggest that implicit measures may serve as a useful supplement to improve the prediction of election outcomes. Open questions and potential directions for future research are discussed.

Abbiamo monitorato l’efficacia di un prodotto di informazione destinato ad un pubblico di bambini. È stata condotta una ricerca nell’ambito della quale sono state rilevate e messe a confronto le reazioni di bambini appartenenti a due diversi gruppi d’età (6-7 e 9-10 anni) esposti o a notizie provenienti da un telegiornale confezionato per una fruizione di tipo generalista o a notizie contenute in un telegiornale destinato ad un pubblico di bambini. Ci si attendeva che se le caratteristiche di un prodotto di informazione destinato a bambini erano tali da renderlo particolarmente adatto a questo specifico pubblico, allora il materiale così costruito avrebbe dovuto essere più facilmente e produttivamente elaborato, rispetto ad analogo materiale pensato per la fruizione da parte del pubblico di adulti. I dati testimoniano l’efficacia del prodotto di informazione destinato ad un pubblico di bambini.

Secondo studi recenti, i programmi televisivi basati su rappresentazioni oggettivanti delle donne possono veicolare un contesto normativo che induce alla molestia sessuale. La presente ricerca ha indagato se l’accessibilità delle norme della mascolinità che giustificano la molestia e la tendenza alla molestia possono essere favorite anche da altre rappresentazioni televisive delle donne. Partecipanti maschi (N = 88) sono stati esposti ad uno di tre video, veicolanti un’immagine delle donne (i) oggettivata, (ii) coerente con lo stereotipo di genere, oppure (iii) controstereotipica. Dai risultati è emerso che i partecipanti esposti al video oggettivante hanno manifestato maggiore tendenza alla molestia ed espresso maggiore adesione alle norme della mascolinità relative al sesso non-relazionale rispetto ai partecipanti delle altre due condizioni sperimentali. A sua volta, l’adesione alle norme relative al sesso non-relazionale media la relazione tra condizione sperimentale e tendenza alla molestia.

La consapevolezza dello stereotipo che vuole i maschi più capaci delle femmine in matematica è documentata in letteratura solo a partire dagli 8-9 anni di età. Tuttavia, gli effetti di tale stereotipo sono osservabili sin dall’inizio della scuola primaria: indipendentemente dalla consapevolezza dello stereotipo stesso, a 6 anni le bambine si giudicano meno abili in matematica rispetto ai maschi e ottengono prestazioni peggiori in compiti di carattere logico-matematico quando viene resa saliente la loro identità di genere. Per risolvere questo apparente paradosso, nel presente studio (N = 162) si è testata l’ipotesi che già al momento dell’ingresso nella scuola primaria i bambini possiedono associazioni automatiche coerenti con lo stereotipo di genere sulla matematica, anche in assenza di consapevolezza dello stereotipo stesso a livello esplicito. I risultati ottenuti dimostrano che a 6 anni di età i bambini non manifestano ancora consapevolezza dello stereotipo, mentre associazioni automatiche in linea con lo stereotipo (misurate attraverso un Child-IAT) sono presenti nelle bambine ma non nei bambini. Tali risultati suggeriscono che gli stereotipi di genere sulle materie scolastiche possano essere acquisiti attraverso processi cognitivi automatici, ben prima che si manifestino a livello esplicito e consapevole.

Nel capitolo viene discussa l'utilità di adottare misure implicite per la previsione dei comportamenti di voto, soprattutto nel caso di elettori indecisi che a distanza di qualche settimana dal voto non abbiamo ancora maturato delle consapevoli preferenze per alcuno dei candidati. Vengono inoltre presentati dati di ricerca a supporto della bontà predittiva di tali strumenti.

H ow does psychology vary across human societies? The fundamental social motives framework adopts an evolutionary approach to capture the broad range of human social goals within a taxonomy of ancestrally recurring threats and opportunities. These motives—self-protection, disease avoidance, affiliation, status, mate acquisition, mate retention, and kin care—are high in fitness relevance and everyday salience, yet understudied cross-culturally. Here, we gathered data on these motives in 42 countries (N = 15,915) in two cross-sectional waves, including 19 countries (N = 10,907) for which data were gathered in both waves. Wave 1 was collected from mid-2016 through late 2019 (32 countries, N = 8,998; 3,302 male, 5,585 female; Mage = 24.43, SD = 7.91). Wave 2 was collected from April through November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic (29 countries, N = 6,917; 2,249 male, 4,218 female; Mage = 28.59, SD = 11.31). These data can be used to assess differences and similarities in people’s fundamental social motives both across and within cultures, at different time points, and in relation to other commonly studied cultural indicators and outcomes.

Starting from the basic claim of the Gawronski and Bodenhausen’s APE model, the aim of this essay was the detection of the role of implicit and explicit attitudes in decision making. The implicit and explicit attitudes of a group of participants about the enlargement of a USA military base in Vicenza were detected at Time 1 and one week later (time 2) using the ST-IAT, in the case of the implicit attitudes, and the answers to a survey, in the case of explicit attitudes. An intention of voting in favour of or against the enlargement was also registered (at Time 1 and Time 2). The data showed that when an attitude involves a choice, all of the components (implicit attitudes, explicit attitudes and behavioural intention) have to move in the same direction. We found that the explicit component of the attitude controls the judgment preservation and/or the judgment change in the case of a defined attitude about a specific object. This explicit component is also able to affect the implicit component of the attitude. Moreover, in the case of a not yet defined attitude, the implicit component of the attitude drives the judgement construction at the explicit level. Instead, the implicit attitudes, but not the explicit attitudes, measured at the Time 1 anticipated the subsequent choices of people who initially defined themselves as uncertain In other words, only the ST-IAT index at Time 1 predicted the change in the survey responses and the participants’ ST-IAT performances at Time 2.

Research on intimate partner violence (IPV) has recognized psychological abuse as a precursor of physical and sexual violence in intimate relationships. However, risk factors in predicting women’s psychological abuse victimization in such a context are still unclear. The goal of the present work was to investigate the role of ambivalent sexism on psychological IPV victimization, by taking into account in the same study the effect of three additional social-psychological factors: women’s (i) attitudes supportive of IPV, (ii) endorsement of legitimating myths of IPV, and (iii) acceptance of psychological aggression in intimate relationships. A total of 408 Italian young women (Mage = 23.87; SD = 2.39) involved in non-marital heterosexual romantic relationships completed measures aimed at assessing (i) hostile and benevolent sexism, (ii) attitudes supportive of IPV, (iii) legitimating myths of IPV, (iv) prevalence of psychological abuse experienced within the last 12 months, and performed a task developed ad hoc to measure, and (v) acceptance of psychological aggression in intimate relationships. Results showed that the effect of ambivalent sexism on participants’ prevalence of psychological abuse was mediated by the endorsement of attitudes supportive of IPV and legitimating myths of IPV, as well as by acceptance of psychological aggression. Findings are discussed based on literature about ambivalent sexism, and attitudes and beliefs about IPV.

Media that sexually objectify women by portraying them in ways that emphasize physical beauty and sexual readiness as well as reduce them to decorative and sexual objects have been traditionally identified by scholars as a powerful cultural risk factor encouraging sexual harassment and sexual violence. In the present article we review the existing empirical evidence linking sexually objectifying media and sexual harassment of women to the overarching and integrative Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework. This framework offers a coherent scheme for explaining the effects of sexually objectifying media on three target groups directly involved in sexual harassment—perpetrators, victims, and bystanders—and it postulates three cognitive and emotional mechanisms through which sexually objectifying media lead to sexual harassment: dehumanization, disruption of emphatic resonance, and a shift in gender norms. The evidence reviewed on the basis of the Media-Induced Sexual Harassment framework shows that sexually objectifying media converge in normalizing harassing behaviors and can be a causal risk factor for increasing engagement in sexual harassment, heightening victims’ acceptance of sexual harassment and discouraging bystander intervention. We discuss implications of these arguments for effectively preventing negative effects of exposure to sexually objectifying media and for education programs aimed at critical media-consumption.

Presence of gay men in mainstream media may have a positive impact on viewers’ attitude change. However, gay male characters are often stereotypically portrayed as feminine, and no research has yet explored audiences’ reactions to counter-stereotypical gay characters. Heterosexual Italian men ( N = 158) were exposed to a clip portraying (i) a stereotypical feminine gay male character, (ii) a counter-stereotypical masculine gay male character, or (iii) a nature documentary. Compared to the other conditions, exposure to the counter-stereotypical gay character increased discrimination toward gay men, in the form of anti-gay jokes, the higher the level of participants’ prejudice against gay men. Results further demonstrated that this effect was explained by reduced perceived stereotypicality of the character. Findings are in line with the social identity theory prediction that when gay men (outgroup) are perceived as too similar, and potentially threaten the group identity, heterosexual men would attempt to restore ingroup distinctiveness.

The paper is concerned with the IBVP of the Navier–Stokes equations. The goal is the construction of a weak solution enjoying some new properties. Of course, we look for properties that are global in time. The results hold assuming an initial data v0 ∈ J2(Ω).

A common assumption about implicit measures is that they reflect early experiences, whereas explicit measures are assumed to reflect recent experiences. This assumption subsumes two distinct hypotheses: (a) Implicit measures are more resistant to situationally induced changes than explicit measures; (b) individual differences on implicit measures are more stable over time than individual differences on explicit measures. Although the first hypothesis has been the subject of numerous studies, the second hypothesis has received relatively little attention. The current research addressed the second hypothesis in two longitudinal studies that compared the temporal stability of individual differences on implicit and explicit measures in three content domains (self-concept, racial attitudes, political attitudes). In both studies, implicit measures showed significantly lower stability over time (weighted average r = .54) than conceptually corresponding explicit measures (weighted average r = .75), despite comparable estimates of internal consistency. Implications for theories of implicit social cognition and interpretations of implicit and explicit measures are discussed.

Group status influences individuals' identity. Low-status group members identify with their in-group more strongly than high-status group members. However, previous research has mostly analyzed explicit identification with a single in-group. We examined effects of both double group membership, namely gender and sexual orientation, which are two intersecting categories defining high/low-status groups, and contextual identity prime on both implicit self-categorization and explicit identification. Heterosexual and homosexual men and women (N = 296) completed measures of implicit self-categorization and explicit identification with gender and sexual orientation after being primed with gender or sexual orientation. Implicit self-categorization was stronger for low-status than high-status groups: implicit gender self-categorization was higher for women than men, and implicit sexual orientation self-categorization was stronger for homosexual than heterosexual participants. Lesbian participants showed the strongest implicit sexual orientation self-categorization compared to the other three groups. Moreover, homosexual men and women and heterosexual women showed stronger implicit self-categorization with their low- than high-status membership. By contrast, heterosexual men showed equally strong implicit self-categorization with gender and sexual orientation. No differences on explicit identification emerged. Hypotheses on contextual identity primes were only partially confirmed. Findings are discussed in relation to literature about sexual orientation self-categorization and gender stigma. info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

Across two studies, we investigated the hypothesis that exposure to objectifying television in which women are shown as sexual objects increases the likelihood of harassing conduct. In both studies ( Ns = 141; 120), male participants were exposed to one of the three TV clips in which women were portrayed (a) as sexual objects (objectifying TV), (b) in professional roles, or (c) excluded (a nature documentary). Study 1 showed that men exposed to objectifying TV reported greater proclivity to engage in sexual coercion and manifested more gender-harassing behavior than participants in the other conditions. Study 2 further demonstrated that exposure to objectifying TV increased participants’ conformity to masculine gender role norms, which, in turn, mediated the relation between experimental condition and gender harassment. Together, the two studies suggest that media content plays a central role in activating harassment-related social norms, which in turn encourage or inhibit harassing conduct.

This study investigated for the first time the relations between parents' math–gender stereotypes, parents' evaluations of children's math ability, children's math ability self-perception, and children's appraisal of parents' evaluations, addressing 253 Italian children as young as 6 years of age, their mothers, fathers, and teachers. Novel results revealed the specific role of mothers' math–gender stereotypes in relation to daughters, but not sons: Mothers' math–gender stereotypes predicted girls' math self-perception which, in turn, predicted girls' appraisal of both mothers' and fathers' evaluations of their ability. Importantly, children's appraisal of parents' evaluations was related more strongly with their own self-perception of ability than to parents' actual evaluations, thus supporting the projected appraisal versus the reflected appraisal model of the development of self-perception.

People often show a preference for information that confirms their attitudes and beliefs, and this tendency is reduced for opinions that are not held with conviction. The present study shows that both decided and undecided individuals show a tendency to selectively expose themselves to confirmatory information, albeit with different antecedents and consequences. Whereas selective exposure in decided participants was predicted by conscious beliefs and not by automatic associations, selective exposure in undecided participants was predicted by automatic associations and not by conscious beliefs. Moreover, selective exposure led undecided participants to adopt conscious beliefs that were in line with their preexisting automatic associations. Conversely, for decided participants, selective exposure shifted automatic associations in a direction that was in line with their preexisting conscious beliefs. Implications for decision making and mutual influences of automatic associations and conscious beliefs in attitude change are discussed.

It was hypothesized that, in natural group contexts, low-status in-group membership would be highly accessible, whereas membership to high-status groups would not. Therefore, gender group membership was predicted to be more accessible for women than for men. It was further hypothesized that the high accessibility of gender group membership would lead to stronger self-stereotyping for women than for men. To measure the accessibility of gender group membership, participants performed a Gender Self-Categorization Implicit Association Test (Studies 1 and 2), measuring the strength of automatic associations between the self and the gender in-group. Participants also performed a Self-Stereotyping Implicit Association Test (Study 2), assessing the strength of automatic associations between the self and the stereotypical traits of the in-group. As expected, implicit gender self-categorization and implicit gender self-stereotyping were stronger for women than for men. Importantly, implicit gender self-categorization mediated the relation between gender and self-stereotyping. Therefore, implicit gender self-categorization was the mechanism underlying stronger implicit self-stereotyping by women.

Il presente contributo si propone di analizzare il ruolo che il vissuto psicologico e i fattori di ordine materiale e identitario hanno nell’organizzare gli atteggiamenti e le manifestazioni di discriminazione sociale nei confronti degli immigrati, in funzione dell’orientamento politico delle persone. Allo studio hanno preso parte 487 partecipanti (di cui 139 di centro-destra e 132 di centro-sinistra). Dai risultati è emerso che per i partecipanti di centrodestra il miglior predittore delle manifestazioni di discriminazione è il vissuto psicologico riguardo il problema dell’immigrazione; al contrario, per i partecipanti di centro-sinistra i fattori di ordine materiale e identitario mediano la relazione tra vissuto psicologico e manifestazioni di discriminazione. I risultati hanno inoltre messo in evidenza che i gruppi minoritari dei Marocchini e degli Albanesi (numericamente più presenti in Italia) sono percepiti più negativamente rispetto ai Bengalesi (di arrivo relativamente recente). L’utilizzo congiunto di un questionario e della tecnica dell’IAT ha infine consentito di mettere in luce le relazioni esistenti tra misure dell’atteggiamento a differenti livelli di profondità.

Two studies assessed the predictive validity of implicit political attitudes in relation to voting behavior. In Study 1, we demonstrated the validity of the adopted measure (i.e., the IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) with a sample of voters who clearly sided with one of the opposing parties. In Study 2, implicit political preferences were measured in a sample of undecided voters one month before the election, and actual voting behavior was assessed immediately after the election. Results demonstrated that implicit political attitudes were good predictors of future voting behaviors. These findings support the hypothesis of the presence of embryonic attitudes even in the case of those voters who at the explicit and conscious level deny any preference for one of the two opposing candidates.

Common wisdom holds that choice decisions are based on conscious deliberations of the available information about choice options. On the basis of recent insights about unconscious influences on information processing, we tested whether automatic mental associations of undecided individuals bias future choices in a manner such that these choices reflect the evaluations implied by earlier automatic associations. With the use of a computer-based, speeded categorization task to assess automatic mental associations (i.e., associations that are activated unintentionally, difficult to control, and not necessarily endorsed at a conscious level) and self-report measures to assess consciously endorsed beliefs and choice preferences, automatic associations of undecided participants predicted changes in consciously reported beliefs and future choices over a period of 1 week. Conversely, for decided participants, consciously reported beliefs predicted changes in automatic associations and future choices over the same period. These results indicate that decision-makers sometimes have already made up their mind at an unconscious level, even when they consciously indicate that they are still undecided.

Nel capitolo vengono analizzati i limiti delle procedure tipicamente utilizzate per prevedere gli esiti elettorali (e.g., sondaggi) proponendo metodi aggiuntivi derivati dalle scienze cognitive. In particolare viene discussa l'utilità di uno strumento quale lo IAT (Greenwald et al. 1998) che consente di misurare le rappresentazioni implicite possedute dal votante. In tal modo è possibile accedere in maniera indiretta alle valutazioni che vengono prodotte spontaneamente nei confronti delle varie proposte politiche. Questo strumento risulta particolarmente importante in relazione agli elettori che non hanno ancora sviluppato in maniera consapevole una scelta di voto. Anche nel loro caso i punteggi allo IAT risultano predittori delle scelte di voto che tali rispondenti indecisi effettueranno a distanza dii varie settimane il giorno delle votazioni.