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lived experience; social representations; new normality; Covid-19; quali-quantitative methods Several icons express the experiences of daily life at the time of Covid-19. Among them, "astronauts in their own home” recalls a twirl of bodies in a vacuum bubble. Aware of the structuring power of everyday life, we analysed how people were living the experience of lockdown at home and if and how a social representation of a new normality would emerge. We carried out two studies in the Italian context. In the first, 223 participants narrated their lived experience in the first phases of lockdown. By means of textual analysis (Reinert’s method), the corpus returned four lexical worlds focusing on emotions produced by the suspension, need of a new awareness, effort to readjust to the situation, and the organizing power of routines. A thorough reading focused on women’s narratives enhanced the structuring power of everyday life, both at a personal and at a societal level, including new collective rituals and appointments. The second study enrolled 214 participants and explored the advanced phase of the lockdown. Participants answered a free association task to the stimulus-word new normality. The resulting corpus, analysed via correspondence analysis, gave rise to five dimensions pertaining various aspects such as constraints, opportunities, challenges, again both at an individual and at a societal level. In conclusion, underlining the reverberations on the psychosocial plane of the suspension of everyday life and their relation with emotional, cognitive, relational and societal assets, our contributions highlight the relationships between lived experience and social representations.

The term Therapeutic Residential Care (TRC) (Whittaker, del Valle, & Holmes, 2014) involves the planful use of a purposefully constructed, multi-dimensional living environment designed to enhance or provide treatment, education, socialization, support, and protection to children and youth with identified mental health or behavioral needs. The paper illustrates, through the example of its application in a mother-child unit, a multi-component working method developed to support the therapeutic function of residential care. The method proposes a planning and evaluation tool whose systematic use promotes a group mentalization process aimed at building a shared knowledge by the staff on each guest user, reducing the fragmentation of points of view and individual representations.

Si tratta della traduzione in italiano dell'articolo "Therapeutic residential care for children and youth: A consensus statement of the international work group on therapeutic residential care" originariamente pubblicato in inglese nella rivista Residential Treatment for Children & Youth

In many developed countries around the world residential care interventions for children and adolescents have come under increasing scrutiny. Against this background an international summit was organised in England (spring 2016) with experts from 13 countries to reflect on therapeutic residential care (TRC). The following working definition of TRC was leading: "Therapeutic residential care involves the planful use of a purposefully constructed, multi-dimensional living environment designed to enhance or provide treatment, education, socialization, support, and protection to children and youth with identified mental health or behavioural needs in partnership with their families and in collaboration with a full spectrum of community based formal and informal helping resources". The meeting was characterised by exchange of information and evidence, and by preparing an international research agenda. In addition, the outlines of a consensus statement on TRC were discussed. This statement, originally published in English and now reproduced in a Dutch translation, comprises inter alia five basic principles of care that according to the Work Group on Therapeutic Residential Care should be guiding for residential youth care provided at any time.

Al pari di qualsiasi intervento in ambito sociale e clinico, anche quello basato sulla residenzialità dei minori si trova oggi di fronte alla necessità di individuare forme di valutazione sempre più condivise e capaci di rispondere ad esigenze sia esterne di riconoscibilità sociale, trasparenza e visibilità, sia interne di verifica della validità del proprio lavoro (Barbanotti et al, 1999; Regalia e Bruno, 2000; Tosco, 1999; Whittaker, 1994; Courtney, 2000). Nel presente lavoro vengono discussi alcuni dei risultati emersi da un lungo percorso di ricerca il cui scopo è stato quello di mettere a punto un “modello ecologico” di valutazione fondato in modo specifico sui contributi della Psicopatologia evolutiva (Rutter e Sroufe, 2000; Sameroff, 2000) e sulla teoria ecologica di Bronfenbrenner (1979) che consente di delineare criteri di valutazione in grado di descrivere il funzionamento delle comunità e di verificarne l’effettiva capacità di esercitare una funzione riparatoria e protettiva nei confronti dello sviluppo dei bambini e degli adolescenti ad essa affidati. In particolare ci si focalizzerà su alcuni dati inerenti il sistema di relazioni che lega gli operatori di comunità agli altri attori sociali coinvolti negli interventi (minori, famiglie di origine, servizi sociali) Bibliografia Barbanotti, G., Fiore A., Morroni M., Vigliani C., Vanni E. (1999) (a cura di), Strumenti per la qualità, Edizioni CNCM. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979), The Ecology of Human Development. Experiments by Nature and Design. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Trad it. Ecologia dello sviluppo umano. Bologna: il Mulino; (1986), Courtney, M.E. (2000), Research needed to improve the prospects for children in out-of-home placement. Children and Youth Services Review, 22(9/10):743-761. Regalia, C., Bruno, A. (2000) (a cura di), Valutazione e qualità nei servizi. Milano: Unicopli. Rutter, M., Sroufe, A. (2000), Developmental psychopathology: concepts and challenges. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 265–296. Sameroff, A.J. (2000) Developmental systems and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 12 (2000), 297–312 Tosco, L. (1999), Comunità a denominazione di origine controllata. Animazione sociale, 12, 71-85. Whittaker, J.K., Pfeiffer, S.I. (1994), Research priorities for residential group child care. Child Welfare. Vol.73, n. 5; p.583

Come per altri interventi sociali e terapeutici, anche nell’ambito delle comunità residenziali per minori è da tempo avvertita la necessità di individuare forme di valutazione sempre più condivise e capaci di rispondere ad esigenze sia esterne di riconoscibilità sociale, trasparenza e visibilità, sia interne di verifica della validità del proprio lavoro. Approntare metodi che consentano di individuare e analizzare i processi di cambiamento e che mettano in luce le diverse concezioni che tuttora caratterizzano gli interventi residenziali sui minori costituisce una sfida per la valutazione. Il presente articolo riassume il percorso di indagine realizzato allo scopo di individuare criteri di valutazione della qualità applicabili alle comunità residenziali per minori e illustra le scelte teoriche e di metodo che hanno caratterizzato tale ricerca.

This chapter describes the transition from an institution-based to a community-based approach to child welfare in Italy. Like many countries, Italy has seen a significant decline in residential placements from the early 1960s to the present. The legal and administrative developments that stimulated this shift are explored, as are some of the consequences, such as a far greater range of agencies involved, requiring strong interprofessional work. National guidelines for residential care are seen as a positive step, but implementation has been slow. Additional needs are for clearer definitions of the varieties of residential care offered and more research focused on needs and outcomes. The chapter concludes with the matrix used throughout the book, which provides information about the current policy context, key trends and initiatives, characteristics of children and youth served, preparation of residential care personnel, promising programmatic innovations, and present strengths and challenges.

Background and objectives The treatment of chronic illnesses requires health care professionals (HCPs) to master several nontechnical skills to meet patient care needs. This article aims to describe the rationale and the inductive process through which a self-assessment tool for the nontechnical skills of hemophilia teams was conceived, developed, and tested. Methods Starting from an explorative analysis of hemophilia HCP work experiences, the process followed 3 phases: an in-depth analysis of hemophilia HCP skills; the questionnaire development; and a pilot study. Results Using the voice of HCPs as a starting point, the tool proved to be able to identify precise cross-professional and intercultural challenges as well as related required and/or acquired skills in the hemophilia field. Conclusion The proposed tool may contribute to providing HCPs with strategic knowledge to successfully perform everyday practices, to improve the effectiveness of hemophilia teams and the care model adopted by their centers, and to implement intercultural research in this field. It may be used to propose ad hoc training courses targeted by challenge, in order to fill the major gaps reported by the teams, or targeted by medical specialty or country (and therefore health care system) specificity.

Some conceptual and methodological issues in the evaluation of residential care for children and adolescents are discussed comparing different ways of understanding an ecological approach to outcome evaluation. An original Ecological Model for the Evaluation of Residential Care representing an example of a theory-driven approach based on developmental psychopathology and Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory is illustrated. This model provides a framework for analyzing and explaining the relationships between the intervention ecosystem and children's outcomes.

Introduction: Haemophilia continues to hold the image of a male disease, yet Bleeding Disorders affect women on multiple levels, as carers, genetic-carriers, and patients. In Italy there are no specific patient groups to address women’s issues and perspectives of the disease. There is a great need for qualitative research on the key issues, and potential resources, for women with Bleeding Disorders. Methods: A review of international patient groups that address women and Bleeding Disorders was conducted. This established the key themes for these groups, primarily in Canada and the USA. Based on this framework a 20 question semi-structured interview was developed that addressed general experience and reproductive issues. Up to now 22 women were asked in person to participate in the project and received letter explaining the research aims in detail. These women were interviewed over a 5 month period: 12 were healthy genetic carriers and parents of Bleeding Disorder patients; 2 were a symptomatic carriers of Haemophilia (1 severe); 2 had deficit of factor XI; 5 had Von Willebrand disease (1 plus mild Factor XI deficiency); and 1 had Glazmann disease. The interviews lasted around 75 min. The results of the interviews were then analysed in correspondence with issue presented by the Anglophone patient groups. Results: The majority of the key issues raised by the Anglophone patient groups were also present in the Italian interview subjects. The patient group indicated that there is still a several year lag between first symptoms and diagnosis, directly related to a continued belief in the general medical population that Bleeding Disorders are male diseases. Other areas that need to be addressed further are: awareness of “normal” menstruation; genetic transmission; reproductive resources and non-specialist care. All participants indicated the fundamental role of the specialized Bleeding Disorder centre in their overall physical and emotional well-being. Discussion/Conclusion: The specific areas of care that need to be further addressed for Italian women Bleeding Disorder patients correspond for the most part with their Anglophone counter-parts, with special nuances regarding reproductive issues. Yet these have few Italian language resources and therefore are greatly reliant on specialized centres for information. Multi-language informational resources for women are needed.

Building upon the theory of social representations and the concept of social object of representation, and employing the narrative approach, in this paper we examine the specificity of haemophilia as a social object of representation and the social representations of the carriers regarding this bleeding disorder. As haemophilia is rare, inherited chronic illness, we were interested to explore the process of construction and re-construction of social representation, taking into consideration the impact of three major elements – shared knowledge (common or scientific), everyday visibility and lived experience. According to our results, the narrations about haemophilia are structured around four dimensions (cognitive, affective, behavioural and relational), pointing to the different processes by which social representation is established. Two objects of representation (affective cognitive vs affective non-cognitive), as well two categories of discourses (families with history vs families without history of haemophilia) with reference to the process of construction and re-construction of representation will be analysed in this paper.

In questo capitolo verrà presentato il percorso di ricerca avviato nel 2004 da una collaborazione fra l’Associazione provinciale dei pazienti emofilici, il Centro Emofilia dell’ospedale S. Orsola-Malpighi di Bologna e il Dipartimento di Psicologia di Bologna, per comprendere meglio la situazione e le difficoltà vissute dai bambini emofilici e dalle loro famiglie. Rispetto alla letteratura scientifica disponibile sull’emofilia, l’approccio di ricerca che abbiamo inteso seguire si è allontanato da un trend di studi prevalentemente quantitativo, descrittivo e correlazionale (negli studi più recenti centrato principalmente sul tema della qualità della vita), preferendo invece portare avanti una più approfondita analisi dei meccanismi e dei processi che portano il paziente, insieme alla sua famiglia, a favorire alcune modalità di adattamento ritenute più efficaci e positive rispetto ad altre. Il percorso di ricerca è partito da un’iniziale indagine esplorativa volta a comprendere meglio l’esperienza delle famiglie di fronte alla diagnosi, all’accudimento e all’educazione di un figlio affetto da emofilia. I risultati di questo lavoro hanno messo in luce alcuni temi chiave, fra cui quello della “normalità”, declinato a volte in forma di negazione della malattia, a volte come ricerca di una nuova “vita normale”. La sistematicità con cui si presentava questo tema nel corso delle interviste ci ha indotto a proseguire le ricerche mettendo al centro del nostro interesse proprio quel processo di normalizzazione che, a partire dal momento della diagnosi, coinvolge tutta la famiglia in un insieme di evoluzioni cognitive, affettive e comportamentali volte a ridefinire la nuova condizione e ad attribuirle nuovi significati per comprenderla e accettarla (Deatrick, Knafl & Murphy-Moore, 1999). È infatti la riuscita di tale processo che consente alla famiglia la creazione di routine familiari sostenibili e capaci di integrare la malattia e le cure nella vita di tutti i giorni, ritrovando così la continuità temporale e la stabilità interrotte dalla scoperta della malattia. Il processo di normalizzazione è stato indagato nei diversi momenti della storia familiare e individuale, mettendolo anche in relazione ai regimi terapeutici adottati. Il presente capitolo parte dai primi dati raccolti con lo scopo di descrivere che cos’è l’emofilia per questi genitori, successivamente prosegue spiegando gli sviluppi che ha avuto il percorso di ricerca-intervento e si sofferma infine su un’analisi più approfondita di come il processo di normalizzazione venga influenzato dalla scelta di differenti regimi terapeutici.

At the time of the research, there were daily reports in the media regarding terrorist acts. What is it that indeed characterizes an act as being a terrorist one? From a psychosocial perspective, an ambiguous notion of terrorism may legitimate the ingroup/outgroup differentiation that affects intergroup relations. The aim of this research is to understand what people refer to when they talk about terrorism and to study the influence of different variables on the interpretation of some actions such as war or terrorism acts. Results on a sample of 251 University students confirm that the basic criterion for the evaluation of the actions is founded upon the distinction between military or civilian targets (i.e. target effect). However, some subjects use also a criterion based on the aggressor’s ethnic-cultural identity (i.e. actor effect).

Building upon the theory of social representations (Moscovici, 1961/2008) and employing the dialogical approach (Marková, 2003) and the concept of social object of representation (Wolter, 2009), in this paper we examine the specificity of haemophilia as a social object of representation and the social representations of the carers regarding this bleeding disorder4. The data were collected from 30 semi-standardized interviews with carers from seven countries (Italy, UK, USA, Algeria, Brazil, France and Germany)5. Interviews were treated as social life stories and the thematic narrative perspective (cf Laszlo, 1997; Murray, 1997, 2002; Riessman, 2008) was applied in the analysis of the data6.

L’articolo illustra alcuni risultati di una ricerca condotta su operatori di 80 comunità residenziali per minori e di 45 servizi invianti e finalizzata alla definizione, nell’ottica del modello ecologico dello sviluppo umano, di criteri di valutazione degli interventi residenziali. Al pari di qualsiasi servizio alla persona, il tema dell’integrazione professionale e istituzionale è cruciale per l’operatività delle comunità residenziali per minori. Nel modello ecologico dello sviluppo umano questo livello viene definito come esosistema. I risultati presentati riguardano le relazioni fra i servizi coinvolti negli interventi; essi evidenziano l’interdipendenza che si realizza fra diversi livelli dell’ambiente ecologico e mostrano come l’articolazione fra i livelli abbia ricadute sugli esiti dell’intervento.

Il capitolo affronta il tema della dipendenza da sostanze psicoattive in adolescenza secondo l'ottica della psicologia sociale.

Il contributo documenta un’esperienza di sostegno psicologico rivolta a famiglie con bambini affetti da malattia emorragica congenita (di cui la più diffusa è l’emofilia). Precedenti ricerche hanno evidenziato che la diagnosi di emofilia comporta per i genitori difficoltà psicologiche nella elaborazione della nuova situazione e problemi organizzativi relativi alla gestione quotidiana delle cure. Con il contributo dell’Associazione Emofilici di Bologna, sono stati realizzati incontri di gruppo finalizzati a far incontrare persone che stavano attraversando le stesse difficoltà, facendole riflettere e discutere sui bisogni che coinvolgono i bambini e le loro famiglie. Tale intervento ha permesso sia il confronto e la riflessione dei partecipanti, sia di verificare, attraverso un software di analisi dei testi, le tematiche emerse negli incontri di gruppo, ampliando le conoscenze sui processi psicosociali che coinvolgono le famiglie stesse. Il presente contributo descrive le scelte metodologiche compiute nella gestione dell’intervento e i risultati di ricerca prodotti.

In Italy, the evaluation of residential care is particularly important in view of: (1) the process of deinstitutionalization; (2) the power of the public authorities to devolve the running of services, including residential communities, to private partners. The literature has stressed the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in the design and implementation of evaluative research. This article summarizes a research plan for the evaluation of child and adolescent residential communities based on the theoretical framework of developmental psychopathology and Bronfenbrenner's ecological model of human development. A study is presented on the perception that adolescents in care have of the community's relational climate-analyzed by way of everyday routines and communications with adults-and of the effects of the intervention. The results corroborate the hypothesis that the relational climate in a community is a good predictor of the efficacy of residential care.

L'articolo presenta in sintesi i tre ambiti di ricerca e intervento che le autrici hanno sviluppato nel corso degli ulrimi anni in riferimento ai servizi di accoglienza residenziale per minori fuori famiglia. I temi sono: 1. Identificazione dei criteri per la valutazione delle comunità residenziali per minori 2. Sinergia delle partnership negli interventi di welfare rivolti ai minori 3. Deistituzionalizzazione dei minori in Albania e valutazione dei cambiamenti evolutivi

A partire dalla teoria dell'identità sociale e combinando l'uso di metodi quali- e quantitativi, il saggio propone il percorso di ricerca compiuto dagli autori al fine di: 1) indagare le rappresentazioni di guerra e terrorismo; 2) verificare l'influenza di variabili sociopolitiche e legate all'identità del'attore nell'interpretare una serie di atti violenti come azioni di guerra o terroristiche; 2) documentare il consenso verso interventi umanitari o militari nei confronti di Paesi in situazioni di emergenza connesse alla presenza di gruppi terroristici.

La costruzione dell'immagine del "nemico" dopo l'11 settembre si organizza attorno alla rappresentazione del terrorismo. La ricerca documenta la stereotipia su particolari identità etniche culturali: il "palestinese" sembra essere diventato il tipico terrorista. La stessa azione bellica è più o meno teroristica in funzione dell'identità dell'attore.

Questo contributo affronta la complessità dei sistemi di relazione implicati negli interventi di comunità partendo dalle considerazioni che riguardano le continuità e le discontinuità tra le funzioni genitoriali, reali e simboliche, svolte da questi contesti quotidiani deputati provvisoriamente ad occuparsi delle vite di minori segnate dal disturbo/patologia/disagio/violenza familiare, e le famiglie nelle loro molteplici declinazioni e complessità (Fruggeri 2005; Bastianoni, Taurino 2005). Nello specifico l’intervento è focalizzato sui risultati di una ricerca nazionale, da noi condotta in questi anni sotto la direzione della prof.ssa Francesca Emiliani dell’Università di Bologna, che ci consentono di presentare, discutere e analizzare un modello di valutazione degli interventi di comunità messo a punto adottando una prospettiva teorico/culturale di matrice contestualista (Palareti 2003; Palareti, Berti, Bastianoni in stampa).

Just like any other intervention in a social and clinical setting, even those based on the out-of-home placement of children need to individuate increasingly shared instruments of assessment, able to meet both the external demands of social recognition, transparency and visibility, both the internal need of an evaluation of the efficacy of the work itself (Barbanotti et al., 1999; Regalia and Bruno, 2000; Tosco, 1999; Vecchiato, Maluccio e Canali, 2002). This work presents the principal elements of an extensive research aimed to point out the assessment criteria capable of: 1) describing the functioning of the residential communities for children; 2) checking their effective capacity to play a reparatory and protective role for their development. The theoretical framework of our ‘ecological approach’ for assessment is the Developmental Psychopathology (Rolf et al., 1990; Cicchetti and Cohen, 1995; Rutter and Sroufe, 2000, Emiliani and Bastianoni, 1993) and the ecological theory of Bronfenbrenner (1979). Method The principal results obtained by two research projects shall be presented: 1) Research into the communities with reference to their context of intervention. In this phase a formulated ad hoc questionnaire was distributed among social workers and professionals who are working in 80 residential structures and in 45 Social Services, for a total of 570 participants belonging to eight different Italian Regions. The research topics refers to what has been defined as a “meso-system” (the work carried out by the community in relation to contexts concerning children), the “eso-system” (the system of relationships between institutions that decide and plan the out-of-home placement) and the “macro-system” (the socio-cultural context in which the intervention is carried out). 2) Research into the “micro-system” community in terms of daily organization of activities, relational internal climate and processes of change activated in children. Even in this case the questionnaire was formulated ad hoc and distributed to 132 participants (residential staff and adolescents) in 19 communities. Results For each of the four levels taken into consideration (micro, meso, eso and macro-system) it was possible to define criteria of quality. The results indicate that the quality of a community is related to the capacity of its operators to understand and operate co-ordinately in all the four environmental systems. In particular, the reflexive and auto-reflexive capacity that the social workers have in relation to each of the four levels is a favourable prognostic element of the quality of the interventions. Conclusions The ecological model proposed offers a chance to assess the multidimensional quality where such a multidimensionality does not simply assume a descriptive function of different structural and procedural aspects of the service (unlike what happens in the authorisation, credit and certification systems), but points towards the interdependence of the systems (according to the Lewinian notion of interdependency) in the search for relationships between the parts. Secondly, the methodology has permitted to explore the points of view of the different subjects involved at different levels in the model: children, front-line workers, social workers.

Day-to-day reports in the mass media about the war against terrorism, terrorist acts and preventative war. What is it that indeed characterizes an act as being a terrorist one? As underlined by many authors, there is disagreement on a common definition of terrorism. From a psychosocial perspective, it is important to underline that an ambiguous notion of terrorism may legitimate the ingroup/outgroup differentiation that affects intergroup relations. The aim of this research is to understand what people refer to when they talk about terrorism and to study the influence of different variables on the interpretation of some violent actions such as war or terrorism acts. Our results on a sample of 251 University students confirm that the basic criterion for the evaluation of the actions is founded upon the distinction between military or civilian targets (i.e. target effect). However, some subjects use also a criterion based on the aggressor’s ethnic-cultural identity (i.e. actor effect).

Il contributo sviluppa una riflessione sulle ragioni per cui, trattando di comunità residenziali per minori, il termine “genitorialità simbolica” è fuorviante e foriero di ulteriori ambiguità sul tema della funzione adulta all’interno di questi particolari contesti di accoglienza.

What caracterize an action as terrorism? Results on 325 university students confirm that the basic criterion for the evaluation is the distinction between military or civilian target ("target effect") but also that some subjects use also as criterion the ethnic-cultural identity of the aggressor ("actor effect").

Everyday mass media reports about war against terrorism, terrorist acts and preventive war. By the way, what characterize an action as terrorist? As many authors underlines, there is disagreement on a common definition of terrorism. From a psychosocial perspective, it’s important to underline that an ambiguous notion of terrorism can legitimate the ingroup/outgroup differentiation that affect intergroup relations. The aim of this research is to study the influence of different variables on the interpretation of some violent actions as war or terrorism acts. Results on 325 university students sample confirm that the basic criterion for the evaluation of the actions is founded on the distinction between military or civilian targets (“target” effect). However, some subjects use a criterion based on the ethnic-cultural identity of the aggressor (“actor” effect).

Viene presentata una ricerca che documenta come nella rappresentazione corrente del terrorista emergano processi di stereotipizzazione che vanificano la distinzione razionale tra guerra e terrorismo. L'immagine del terrorismo probabilmente si inserisce nella dinamica di costruzione di un "nemico".

This study looks at the representations of everyday life in young adolescents (14-16 years old) with the aim of highlighting paths of wellbeing or distress. We distributed a battery of questionnaires and a task of free associations to the stimulus «everyday life» to a sample of 558 adolescents who attend schools in Matera (Italy). A cluster analysis carried out on the results of the free associations task identified three groups of subjects: the «Concretes», the «Realists » and the «Pessimists». For each cluster we analysed the family climate (routines, rituals and communication with parents) and the levels of transgression and self-esteem. We confirmed the hypothesis that the three adolescents' representations of everyday life correspond to family climates differently characterised by routines, rituals and communication. The three clusters are also connected with different evaluations of self-esteem.

his paper deals with the everyday life of a sample of adolescents (14-16 years old) living in Emilia-Romagna. Everyday life is a vague and problematic notion little inquired in psychology. This research has been carried out in two phases. The first describes a week of the lives of 93 adolescents using qualitative methods: an adapted version of the Time Sampling Diary (Brandstätter, 1977) and three focus groups with 11 subjects of the same sample. Places, activities, relationships and emotions are described. The second phase, carried out with quantitative methods, analyses the everyday family life of 487 adolescents. Our hypothesis is that "everyday" is a structure of stability (scaffolding) organised by routines, rules and rituals: when this structure supports communication and relations between family members, it functions as protective factor of the self esteem of adolescents. The hypothesis has been confirmed using a LISREL analysis.

Since the attacks on the United States of America on September 11, 2001, a new interest in terrorism has been growing in psychology. Nevertheless, as underlined by many authors, no single agreement exists as to the actual definition of terrorism. In our opinion, from a psychosocial perspective, an ambiguous notion of terrorism may legitimate the ingroup/outgroup differentiation that affects intergroup relations. In this article, three studies were presented with the main aim to understand what people refer to when they talk about terrorism. In particular, the influence of ethnocentrism and importance of media information on the definition of terrorism will be analyzed. The results confirm the influence of both ethnocentrism and media. In that sense, the definition of terrorism may hide an implicit ideology on the notions of war and terrorism that enhances the ingroup/outgroup opposition.