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Environmental issues are at the center of the political and cultural debate, representing one of the greatest challenges of our century. Sustainability and pro-environmental conducts are recognized as increasingly urgent to address the decay of ecosystems. To support the acquisition of attitudes that give greater consideration to environmental issues, experiencing a sense of connection with nature has been acknowledged in psychology as a particularly relevant individual component. Among the most commonly used scales in Anglo-Saxon context to analyses this feeling is the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) assessing the emotional and experiential bond between humans and nature. To examine the reliability and validity of this scale in the Italian context, a study including 271 Italian adults (44,3% female; 55% males; Mean age = 34.70; SD = 13.584; age-range = 18-65 years) was conducted to establish evidence supporting the internal consistency of the CNS, as well as its ability to measure convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis showed that CNS in Italian has a single-factor structure as reported in the original version by Mayer and Frantz. Furthermore, as expected, positive correlations were observed between the CNS and pro-environmental attitudes and negative correlations with civic moral disengagement. Finally, as assumed, the CNS positively correlated with mental well-being. A broad vision of this study concerns the idea that individuals who have a stronger connection with nature are likely to exhibit reduced tendencies to cause harm to it.

Robot sociali: perché è importante studiarli in ottica evolutiva?

Un giorno in ufficio: due robot umanoidi come aiuto in segreteria

According to the Theory of Natural Pedagogy, object-directed emotion may provide different information depending on the context: in a communicative context, the information conveys culturally shared knowledge regarding the emotional valence of an object and is generalizable to other individuals, whereas, in a non-communicative context, information is interpreted as a subjective disposition of the person expressing the emotion, i.e., personal preference. We hypothesized that this genericity bias, already present in infants, may be a feature of human communication and, thus, present at all ages. We further questioned the effects of robotic ostensive cues. To explore these possibilities, we presented object-directed emotions in communicative and non-communicative contexts under two conditions: adult participants (N = 193) were split into those who underwent the human-demonstrator condition and those who underwent the robot-demonstrator condition, i.e., a human actor or a robot displayed object-directed emotions, respectively. Questionnaires further assessed the participants' attachment style and mentalization ability. The results showed that (1) Natural Pedagogy Theory applies to humans across the lifespan; (2) Shared knowledge depends on the contexts (communicative vs. non-communicative) and who is sharing the information (human or robot); and (3) robotic ostensive cues trigger participants' attention, conversely, in their absence, participants do not turn the robot into a communicative partner by not assigning it a communicative intention due to a difficulty in reading the robot's mind. Taken together, our findings indicate that robotic ostensive cues may ease the human-robot interaction (HRI), which is also biased by the human attachment style. The study has been preregistered in Open Science Framework, OSF on September 9, 2021 (Registration DOI ).

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Several studies have shown that infants anticipate human goal-directed actions, but not robot's ones. However, the studies focusing on the robot goal-directed actions have mainly analyzed the effect of mechanical arms on infant's attention. To date, the prediction of goal-directed actions in infants has not yet been studied when the agent is a humanoid robot. Given this lack of evidence in infancy research, the present study aims at analyzing infants' action anticipation of both a human's and a humanoid robot's goal-directed action. Data were acquired on thirty 17-month-old infants, watching four video clips, where either a human or a humanoid robot performed a goal-directed action, i.e. reaching a target. Infants looking behavior was measured through the eye-tracking technique. The results showed that infants anticipated the goal-directed action of both the human and the robot and there were no differences in the anticipatory gaze behavior between the two agents. Furthermore, the findings indicated different attentional patterns for the human and the robot, showing a greater attention paid to the robot's face than the human's face. Overall, the results suggest that 17-month-old infants may infer also humanoid robot' underlying action goals.

In the past years, the field of collaborative robots has been developing fast, with applications ranging from health care to search and rescue, construction, entertainment, sports, and many others. However, current social robotics is still far from the general abilities we expect in a robot collaborator. This limitation is more evident when robots are faced with real-life contexts and activities occurring over long periods. In this article, we argue that human-robot collaboration is more than just being able to work side by side on complementary tasks: collaboration is a complex relational process that entails mutual understanding and reciprocal adaptation. Drawing on this assumption, we propose to shift the focus from "human-robot interaction"to "human-robot shared experience."We hold that for enabling the emergence of such shared experiential space between humans and robots, constructs such as coadaptation, intersubjectivity, individual differences, and identity should become the central focus of modeling. Finally, we suggest that this shift in perspective would imply changing current mainstream design approaches, which are mainly focused on functional aspects of the human-robot interaction, to the development of architectural frameworks that integrate the enabling dimensions of social cognition.

The investigation of emerging adults' expectations of development of the next generation of robots is a fundamental challenge to narrow the gap between expectations and real technological advances, which can potentially impact the effectiveness of future interactions between humans and robots. Furthermore, the literature highlights the important role played by negative attitudes toward robots in setting people's expectations. To better explore these expectations, we administered the Scale for Robotic Needs and performed a latent profile analysis to describe different expectation profiles about the development of future robots. The profiles identified through this methodology can be placed along a continuum of robots' humanization: from a group that desires mainly the technical features to a group that imagines a humanized robot in the future. Finally, the analysis of emerging adults' knowledge about robots and their negative attitudes toward robots allowed us to understand how these affect their expectations.

Environmental issues currently represent one of the most significant social and scientific challenges. With the exacerbation of the climate crisis, researchers are reconsidering the human-nature connection to gain a better understanding of this relationship and explore solutions to environmental issues. To address these challenges, the One Health approach, through its holistic view, proposes a dynamic model of health and well-being that promotes the integration of human, animal and environmental health. In recent years, this approach has also gained relevance in psychology as it is becoming increasingly urgent to identify strategies and promote behaviour that can protect the natural environment. The present theoretical reflection aims to investigate the psychological mechanisms and processes that support the emergence of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviour. These are the result of a process involving not only the rational side (e.g. beliefs and values), but also the emotional and empathic side towards nature. Several psychological dimensions implicated in the adoption of pro-environmental behaviour have been identified, including empathy, gratitude towards nature and personality traits. Finally, training and educational programmes based on nudging principles that encourage individuals to reflect on their decisions towards the natural environment and the adoption of pro-environmental behaviour and attitudes were considered.

This study focuses on evaluations of women in leadership positions by men and women in whom the gender hierarchy is threatened, with a specific focus on Queen Bee behavior. Because Queen Bees legitimize and maintain the gender hierarchy, we expect men to prefer Queen Bees when the gender hierarchy is threatened. On the other hand, Queen Bees distance themselves from other women, which leads to our expectation that women will evaluate a feminist and neutral woman more positively than a Queen Bee in the same circumstances. We tested these hypotheses by having participants read an article about the women's quota, which serves as a threat to the gender hierarchy. Next, participants were asked to rate profiles of female leaders, where the candidates consisted of a Queen Bee, feminist, and neutral woman. As expected, men rated a Queen Bee higher in terms of leadership positions. However, men didn't seem to like the Queen Bee more than the feminist and neutral woman. Contrary to expectations, women did not necessarily rate the Queen Bee more negatively than the other women, but mainly preferred the feminist for leadership positions. As expected, women seemed to like the Queen Bee less than the other women. From these results, it can be concluded that Queen Bee behavior is beneficial for women when they have to be chosen for a leadership position by a man, but not by a woman or in terms of likability on a personal level.

The human physical resemblance of humanoid social robots (HRSs) has proven to be particularly effective in interactions with humans in different contexts. In particular, two main factors affect the quality of human-robot interaction, the physical appearance and the behaviors performed by the robot. In this study, we examined the psychological effect of two HRSs, NAO and Pepper. Although some studies have shown that these two robots are very similar in terms of the human likeness, other evidence has shown some differences in their design affecting different psychological elements of the human partner. The present study aims to analyze the variability of the attributions of mental states (AMS), expectations of robotic development and negative attitudes as a function of the physical appearance of two HRSs after observing a real interaction with a human (an experimenter). For this purpose, two groups of young adults were recruited, one for the NAO (N = 100, M = 20.22) and the other for the Pepper (N = 74, M = 21.76). The results showed that both the observation of interaction and the type of robot affect the AMS, with a greater AMS to Pepper robot compared to NAO. People's expectations, instead, are influenced by the interaction and are independent of the type of robot. Finally, negative attitudes are independent of both the interaction and the type of robot. The study showed that also subtle differences in the physical appearance of HSRs have significant effects on how humans perceived robots.

Studying trust in the context of human-robot interaction is of great importance given the increasing relevance and presence of robotic agents in various social settings, from educational to clinical. In the present study, we investigated the acquisition, loss and restoration of trust when preschool and school-age children played with either a human or a humanoid robot in-vivo. The relationship between trust and the representation of the quality of attachment relationships, Theory of Mind, and executive function skills was also investigated. Additionally, to outline children’s beliefs about the mental competencies of the robot, we further evaluated the attribution of mental states to the interactive agent. In general, no substantial differences were found in children’s trust in the play-partner as a function of agency (human or robot). Nevertheless, 3-years-olds showed a trend toward trusting the human more than the robot, as opposed to 7-years-olds, who displayed the reverse pattern. These findings align with results showing that, for children aged 3 and 7 years, the cognitive ability to switch was significantly associated with trust restoration in the human and the robot, respectively. Additionally, supporting previous findings, a dichotomy was found between attribution of mental states to the human and robot and children’s behavior: while attributing significantly lower mental states to the robot than the human, in the trusting game children behaved similarly when they related to the human and the robot. Altogether, the results of this study highlight that comparable psychological mechanisms are at play when children are to establish a novel trustful relationship with a human and robot partner. Furthermore, the findings shed light on the interplay – during development – between children’s quality of attachment relationships and the development of a Theory of Mind, which act differently on trust dynamics as a function of the children’s age as well as the interactiv

La relazione tra esseri umani e robot sta diventando sempre più oggetto di interesse per molti campi di ricerca. Gli studi che indagano le dinamiche alla base dell'interazione uomo-robot hanno, fino ad oggi, analizzato principalmente il comportamento degli adulti quando interagiscono con agenti artificiali. In questo studio, presentiamo i risultati associati all'interazione uomo-robot che coinvolgono bambini di età compresa tra 5 e 6 anni che giocano all'Ultimatum Game (UG) con un altro bambino o con un robot umanoide. La valutazione dell'attribuzione da parte dei bambini di proprietà mentali e fisiche agli agenti interattivi ha mostrato che i bambini hanno riconosciuto il robot come un'entità distinta rispetto all'uomo. Tuttavia, coerentemente con gli studi precedenti sugli adulti, i risultati sull'UG hanno rivelato risposte comportamentali e ragionamenti molto simili quando i bambini giocavano con l'altro bambino e con il robot. Infine, analizzando le giustificazioni dei bambini per il loro comportamento all'UG, abbiamo trovato che i bambini tendevano a considerare "giuste" solo le divisioni che erano esattamente uguali (divisioni 5-5), e a giustificarle sia in termini quantitativi (risultato) che in termini di equità. Questi risultati sono discussi in termini di teoria della mente, così come alla luce delle teorie di sviluppo alla base del comportamento dei bambini all'Ultimatum Game., The relationship between humans and robots is increasingly becoming focus of interest for many fields of research. The studies investigating the dynamics underpinning the human–robot interaction have, up to date, mainly analysed adults’ behaviour when interacting with artificial agents. In this study, we present results associated with the human–robot interaction involving children aged 5 to 6 years playing the Ultimatum Game (UG) with either another child or a humanoid robot. Assessment of children’s attribution of mental and physical properties to the interactive agents showed that children recognized the robot as a distinct entity compared to the human. Nevertheless, consistently with previous studies on adults, the results on the UG revealed very similar behavioural responses and reasoning when the children played with the other child and with the robot. Finally, by analysing children’s justifications for their behaviour at the UG, we found that children tended to consider “fair” only the divisions that were exactly equal (5–5 divisions), and to justify them either in quantitative terms (outcome) or in terms of equity. These results are discussed in terms of theory of mind, as well as in light of developmental theories underpinning children’s behaviour at the Ultimatum Game.

Background: Quality improvement is a recommended strategy to improve implementation levels for evidence-based essential interventions, but experience of and evidence for its effects in low-resource settings are limited. We hypothesised that a systemic and collaborative quality improvement approach covering district, facility and community levels, supported by report cards generated through continuous household and health facility surveys, could improve the implementation levels and have a measurable population-level impact on coverage and quality of essential services. Methods: Collaborative quality improvement teams tested self-identified strategies (change ideas) to support the implementation of essential maternal and newborn interventions recommended by the World Health Organization. In Tanzania and Uganda, we used a plausibility design to compare the changes over time in one intervention district with those in a comparison district in each country. Evaluation included indicators of process, coverage and implementation practice analysed with a difference-of-differences and a time-series approach, using data from independent continuous household and health facility surveys from 2011 to 2014. Primary outcomes for both countries were birth in health facilities, breastfeeding within 1 h after birth, oxytocin administration after birth and knowledge of danger signs for mothers and babies. Interpretation of the results considered contextual factors. Results: The intervention was associated with improvements on one of four primary outcomes. We observed a 26percentage- point increase (95% CI 25-28%) in the proportion of live births where mothers received uterotonics within 1 min after birth in the intervention compared to the comparison district in Tanzania and an 8-percentage-point increase (95% CI 6-9%) in Uganda. The other primary indicators showed no evidence of improvement. In Tanzania, we saw positive changes for two other outcomes reflecting locally identified imp

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