Cicero Roberto Pereira

University of Lisbon | UL · Institute of Social Sciences

The longstanding social disadvantages experienced by individuals with disabilities have garnered considerable attention from the scientific community and social movements worldwide. The political mobilization in defense of the rights of this minority group underscores the importance of understanding societal attitudes towards their inclusion. Our r...

The present study aimed to observe violent video games’ impacts on aggressive intentions and prosocialness, mediated by attitudes towards guns. We collected data from 324 young adults from Brazil (mean age: 22.02, SD = 4.41, 51.5% women). In a Strctural Equation Model, violence depicted in participants’ favorite games had direct effects on higher a...

The perception of the credibility of a victim of sexual violence, i.e. the perception of the victim as unreliable, can put them in extremely embarrassing situations and revictimize them, affecting their mental health. Some factors related to the perception of lack of trust in victims are mentioned in the literature. However, there are few studies t...

Muitas pessoas envolvidas em relações amorosas costumam não perceber comportamentos violentos como problemáticos, sugerindo que bater, abusar verbalmente ou mesmo outras manifestações de violência (e.g., violência sexual, psicológica, simbólica, entre outras) é normal ou até mesmo aceitável (Smith; Winokur e Palenski, 2005). Nos relacionamentos...

Individuals tend to evaluate deviant ingroup more negatively than outgroup members , as predicted by the black sheep effect. We analyzed this phenomenon in four studies based on the reaction of gay men towards a deviant (vs. normative) ingroup (vs. outgroup) member. In a qualitative study (Study 1; N = 49), gay men participants indicated the normat...

This article analyses, from a statistical point of view, the titles of the articles published in Análise Social (from 1963 to 2022), by comparing the words used over these six decades. Starting from the premise that a certain choice of words reflect a diverse set of “textual worlds”, which are organised according to different motivations and intere...

Time is fundamental to organizing all aspects of human life. When invested in relationships, it has a psychological meaning as it indicates how much individuals value others and their interest in maintaining social relationships. Previous research has identified an intergroup time bias (ITB) in racialized social relations, defined as a discriminato...

A confiança institucional é um pilar fundamental para a legitimidade e estabilidade de um regime democrático. No entanto, é importante monitorar as variações dessa confiança, especialmente em momentos de conjunturas políticas críticas, que podem gerar consequências significativas. A compreensão desse fenômeno é essencial para o desenvolvimento de e...

Relationally enriched jobs can foster psychological states, which, with respect to the beneficiaries of one’s work, drive one’s motivation. These states can be measured with the psychological effects of relational job characteristics scale, an instrument for which the validity is, at present, only supported by preliminary evidence. Accordingly, the...

A teacher’s relationship with students can be a source of more than stress. The attributes of relational jobs either promote positive (e.g., work engagement) or inhibit negative (e.g., exhaustion) psychological states that constitute potential predictors of teachers’ general well-being (e.g., health perception). The present study tests hypotheses r...

Resumo Este estudo teve o objetivo de adaptar o Conflict Resolution Styles Inventory (CRSI) para o contexto brasileiro e investigar se este apresenta evidências de adequabilidade psicométrica. No Estudo 1 foi desenvolvida a versão brasileira e, posteriormente, foram analisadas evidências de validade de conteúdo por meio da análise de juízes (N = 4...

The Sexual Double Standard is a complex multi-layered construct that functions as an organizing principle of heterosexual behavior. It is a dynamic, ubiquitous, two-dimensional sexual gendered norm, the quantitative exploration of which requires up-to-date assessment tools to better capture both personal endorsement and social recognition of the SD...

Sexual prejudice against bisexuals is widespread in society. However, little research has been done on this phenomenon because it is difficult to measure. The aim of the current study was to validate a short version of the Biphobia Scale for the Brazilian context (EPSB-br). In the first study, the EPSB-br showed unifactorial structure and convergen...

Survivors of breast cancer are an important target for health promotion interventions, and physical activity (PA) is recommended with benefits being well established. More and more behavior theory guided interventions are planned and tailored to the individuals, targeting specifics needs and personal characteristics. We aimed to test the effectiven...

This study investigates the system justifying role through belief in a just world (BJW), testing whether institutional trust is related to this belief and whether this relationship depends on specific socioeconomic and political factors. A research with 381 university students, aged 18 to 64 years (M = 22.4, SD = 6.25), explored their BJW and their...

Resumo Este estudo investiga o papel justificador do sistema através da crença no mundo justo (CMJ), testando se a confiança institucional está relacionada com essa crença e se esta relação depende de fatores socioeconômicos e políticos específicos. Uma pesquisa com 381 universitários, com idades de 18 a 64 anos (M = 22,4, DP = 6,25), explorou seus...

The study tests two competing theoretical perspectives on the relationship between personal values and global life satisfaction, and the mediation of life domain satisfaction, contributing with novel empirical data across three countries and continents: United States ( N = 497), North America; Mozambique ( N = 544), Africa; and Portugal ( N = 541),...

Vaccines are essential for the eradication of diseases. Yet for many reasons, individuals do not embrace them completely. In the COVID-19 pandemic and with the possibility of the Brazilian population’s immunization against the disease, both political and health-related dimensions might have had a role in individual COVID-19 vaccination acceptance....

Dating applications are used as a means to facilitate interaction between people who want to meet and establish romantic and sexual encounters. In this study, we aim to develop and validate a new scale to measure attitudes towards Tinder (EAFT). For this, two studies were carried out. In Study 1 (N= 260), we verified the factor structure of the sca...

Objective: Empirical research to differentiate casual sex scripts is still limited. We aimed to ascertain the sexual scripts for three main types of casual sexual relationships: hookup, friends with benefits and one-night stands. Methods: Through a mixed-method approach, we performed a study consisting in two sequential tasks to (1) complete three...

Objectives: Drawing on theories of distributive justice and intergroup discrimination, we examined how much distributive justice criterion and racial group membership contribute to bias in healthcare allocation decisions, by testing a theoretical model that specifies perceived stereotypicality and individual responsibility as a serial mediation pr...

Background Benefits have been established for regular physical activity (PA) and exercise after breast cancer, but a decline of PA has also been a reported result of breast cancer diagnosis and treatments. The Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) model has been shown to predict various health behaviors, but few studies have tested it at the intrap...

Popular sayings express some cultural truth and indicate how individuals are integrated with their social environment. We have proposed that some popular sayings express belief in a just world (BJW) and so they can be a good measure of this belief. We conducted five studies in which we developed a new scale based on the idea that endorsing such pop...

The COVID -19 pandemic dramatically affected people’s lives. In this study, we explored the role of social and personal factors underlying individuals’ adaptive responses during the critical onset period of the outbreak. In particular, we tested two models on the mediating role of health-protective behaviors in the relationship between social suppo...

The objective of the present research is to develop and validate the COVID-19 Anxiety Scale (CAS). We conducted three studies to gather evidence regarding content and construct validity, as well to evaluate the reliability of the measure. Study 1 is subdivided into two studies. In Study 1a, we analyze the content validity of the new measure through...

Psychological impacts of Vitiligo have been demonstrated, and associations of the skin disease with anxiety and depression disorders have already been shown. However, it is still unclear the role of individuals' personality factors, such as neuroticism, stress, and rumination, as well as sociodemographic characteristics of people with Vitiligo in s...

The development of measures that assess individual differences in the Belief in a Just World plays an important role in advancing research in this area. The intent of this article was to validate a new version of the Belief in a Just World Scale based on Popular Sayings (BJWPS), proposing that this measure may be an alternative to the original scal...

Self-esteem is a crucial human nature feature for understanding the social dimensions of individuals’ self-concept. One of its characteristics is peoples’ malleability to adapt to social contexts, that is, the state self-esteem (SSE). Individuals express SES in three different factors: performance; social success; and physical appearance. Along wit...

Sexual violence is ubiquitous in the history of human relationships, with the victim being perceived as responsible for their own misfortune. This phenomenon is labelled secondary victimization and is manifested in blaming, minimizing the suffering, and avoiding the victim. This article presents evidence of the validity of a scale that measures ind...

The present study aimed to investigate discrimination against transsexuals. A experimental study was carried out that consisted in the presentation of a fictitious news about photos of a person that were leaked according to the victim’s gender assigned at birth (male vs. female), their sexual orientation and gender identity (heterosexual vs. homose...

Os benefícios da atividade física (AF) regular após cancro da mama estão demonstrados, mas identifica-se uma redução na AF após diagnóstico e tratamentos. Propomos identificar os constructos psicológicos que facilitam a mudança comportamental das sobreviventes de cancro da mama para um estilo de vida mais ativo, usando o modelo Health Action Proces...

System justification theory contends that people are motivated to consider the social arrangements as just, legitimate and necessary. The adequate assessment of individual differences regarding this motivation is a critical issue in this field, especially in a cultural context of profound social inequalities like Brazil. We addressed this issue by...

Casual sexual relationships (CSRs) are frequent relationship experiences in young adulthood that provide opportunities for many to explore sexual relationships and to construct their sexual identity. Empirical research on casual sex is still lacking outside North-American countries, despite evidence pointing to the need to contextualize sexual inte...

Background: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) have been associated with a greater risk of later criminal offending. However, existing research in this area has been primarily conducted in Western developed countries and cross-cultural studies are rare. Objectives: This study examined the relationship between ACEs and criminal behaviors in young...

Prejudice against people with Vitiligo is pervasive across societies. However, little attention has been given to measuring individual differences on the way that it is expressed. To overcome this gap, we developed and validated the Scale of Prejudice towards People with Vitiligo (SPV) throughout six online studies. Studies 1a and 1b (N = 136) addr...

The objective of this article is to analyse the effect of entrepreneurial competence and planning guidance on the relations between university students’ entrepreneurial attitude and entrepreneurial intention. In this correlational study, the empirical model was tested through Structural Equation Modeling on a sample of 2,771 university students via...

The application of the principles of justice is restricted in romantic relationships, contributing to the acceptance of violence against women. The objective was to analyze whether the perception of university students about the scope of justice will be the element that justifies the acceptance of violence against women. 305 university students par...

A confiança nas instituições, sobretudo instituições políticas, tem sido compreendida como um elemento fundamental para a legitimação e estabilidade de um regime democrático. Isto porque quando as instituições passam a ser ineficientes ou indiferentes diante de corrupção, resultados negativos na economia ou desrespeito aos direitos, podem gerar sus...

Recent studies point to an increase in psychological distress among graduate students. The aim of this study was to analyze the effects of mindfulness practices on emotion regulation, on the perception of stress, and on the psychological well-being of graduate students. Forty-five (45) graduate students participated in the study, divided into an in...

Support for Gay Conversion Therapy may be motivated by homophobic prejudice driven by conservative groups. We propose that Support for Gay Conversion Therapy (SGCT) is motivated by conservatism and that this relationship is mediated by prejudice against gay individuals. We tested these hypotheses in three studies. In Study 1 (N = 249), we found tha...

In many countries, the incidence, prevalence, and mortality rates of the covid-19 virus have disproportionately affected non-white people, but there is a lack of published data explaining this phenomenon. Are admissions to intensive care units proportional among white and black people? Are physicians more likely to, unknowingly, pay more attention...

RESUMO Este artigo analisa o papel do preconceito e de fatores identitários na oposição à contratação de médicos estrangeiros. Utilizou-se o Programa Mais Médicos (PMM) como cenário para testar a hipótese de que a oposição à contratação de médicos estrangeiros varia consoante a nacionalidade do médico e é motivada pelo preconceito e necessidade de...

There is evidence that democracies are under threat around the world while the quest for strong leaders is increasing. Although the causes of these developments are complex and multifaceted, here we focus on one factor: the extent to which citizens express materialist and post-materialist concerns. We explore whether objective higher levels of demo...

Casual sexual relationships (CSR) are increasingly common but limited empirical research has addressed their terminology and distinctive characteristics. This study sought to identify the most clear-cut terms and to consider how culture-sensitive characteristics distinguish casual sexual relationships among Portuguese emerging adults (N = 262, 18-2...

This paper aims to examine the role of Belief in a Just World (BJW; Lerner, 1980) in the legitimation of economic inequality. Using data from 27 European countries (N=47,086), we conducted multilevel analyses and found that BJW positively predicted the legitimation of economic inequality, measured by three indicators: the perceived fairness of the...

Positive distinctiveness threat is central for understanding ingroup bias, but its role in gender differences in the expression of sexual prejudice is not yet satisfactorily elucidated. We analyzed this issue by proposing that sexual prejudice is a defensive reaction to ensure intergroup distinctiveness, so that heterosexual men are more prejudiced...

The national inferiority complex was described in 1958 by the Brazilian journalist Nelson Rodrigues as “how Brazilians voluntarily place themselves in a position of inferiority in comparison to the rest of the world.” In three experimental studies, we tested the hypothesis of a “national inferiority effect” on the behavior of Brazilian participants...

Situations of public calamity, such as that caused by COVID-19 pandemic, strongly impact mental health, especially among people who feel most anxious about the imminence of death, as highlighted by the Terror Management Theory. In this research, we investigated how and under which conditions concerns about death itself and anxiety are related to ps...

Racist attitudes and behaviors have been strongly resisting the anti-racism norm. Theorizing and research on intergroup relations have shown this occurs because people use justifications to mitigate their behavior's discriminatory nature. In this respect, the literature has not yet clarified whether the simple act of justifying the racist behavior...

In this study we investigated the relationship between the anti-prejudice norm and the expression of attitudes towards minority groups. Participated 100 people who evaluated a list with 16 target groups of prejudice, answering two questions: indicate the groups that feel less prejudice; and which ones do you prefer. The results showed that there ar...

Immigrants and refugees are today represented as a threat by a significant number of Europeans and constitute a topic that divides Governments and is at the centre of the agenda of new European extreme right-wing. This chapter presents a new approach and innovative hypotheses about the factors underlying the representation of immigrants and refugee...

Aim: This study investigates the joint role of volitional predictors of oral hygiene behaviors of flossing and brushing in adults with gingivitis, framed by the Health Action Process Approach model (HAPA). Materials and methods: In a longitudinal online survey, 201 participants aged 18-75, of which 56.7% were women, completed assessments at base...

Objective: The main purpose of this study was to investigate the factor structure of the Beck Depression Inventory – Second Edition (BDI-II) in a sample of adults. Specifically, we evaluated the BDI-II based on confirmatory factor analysis of different measurement models, and compared the optimal factor structure of the BDI-II by gender using measu...

The perception that mental patients represent a threat may support attitudes and behaviours of social exclusion and a contrary position to the precepts of the Psychiatric Reform. In this sense, this article has the objective of elaborating the Scale of Perceived Threat from the Mentally Ill and reporting the preliminary evidences of its factorial v...

Os relacionamentos sexuais casuais (RSC) são cada vez mais comuns, mas pouco se sabe sobre os principais tipos e características desses envolvimentos no nosso país. Este estudo pretendeu contribuir para superar essa lacuna e recorreu a uma metodologia qualitativa para conhecer os RSC em que os adultos emergentes Portugueses se envolvem (N = 177, 18...

La relación entre el prejuicio y la discriminación es un fenómeno complejo porque implica un proceso de legitimación basado en la percepción de amenaza. El pre-sente artículo analiza cómo ocurre este fenómeno contra diferentes grupos de inmigrantes en Brasil. Participaron 386 brasileños con edad media de 26 años (DT = 13). Se ha evaluado el prejuic...

Black and poor people are more frequently convicted of committing crimes. However, the specific role played by skin color and social class in convicting a person has yet to be clarified. This article aims to elucidate this issue by proposing that belonging to a lower social class facilitates the conviction of black targets and that this phenomenon...

Beliefs about the nature of social groups may motivate people to exclude members of minority groups from their conviviality. This process is analyzed in this article by proposing an explanatory model for the social exclusion of people suffering from mental disorders wherein beliefs about the nature of mental disorder, the perception of threat and p...

Although there is a vast bibliography on the negative consequences of unemployment for mental health, there are no studies that analyze the differences between men and women in relation to the consequences that unemployment could have simultaneously on self-esteem and depression. The main objective of this study was to analyze whether, unemployment...

Based on ESS-7 data, this paper focuses on two attitudinal dimensions about public policies related to immigration: how many can come and who can come. In this context, the hypothesis concerning the bi-dimensionality of racism was supported and, as predicted, biological racism is more anti-normative than cultural racism. Both biological and cultura...

Purpose: To understand the relationship between the outcomes of individual learning (IL) of competencies and the outcomes of organizational learning (OL) of competencies, as well as the mediating role of organizational support for transfer (OST) of learning in the conversion of IL into OL. Originality/value: Measurement of OL in relation to IL sin...

The expression of personal belief in a just world (PBJW) has been discussed as a criterion of excellence in social judgments. In four experimental studies we hypothesized and found that targets who express high versus low PBJW are judged as more: 1) deserving of success and 2) suited to socio‐organizational expectations. The four studies show that...

This study aimed to assess the risks and opportunities associated with Facebook usage and to explore the moderating role of psychosocial (mal)adjustment, nationality and age in these relationships. This correlational study involved a sample of 452 Brazilian and 500 Portuguese youths, aged between 14 and 20 years. Results showed that these youths sp...

Using representative probabilistic samples of Portuguese citizens and framed by an intergroup perspective, we carried out two studies aiming to address how national identification and belief in a just world (BJW) jointly predict secondary victimization of an ingroup as a whole (specifically ingroup blame). We conducted Study 1 (N = 779) in 2014, at...

This article analyzes the ego-defensive role played by legitimation, by examining the hypothesis that threat-based justifications attenuate the negative effect on an individual’s self-esteem caused by his or her becoming aware of his or her own discriminatory behavior. Across three studies (including a pilot experiment), participants who were led t...

Objective: Immigrants tend to receive a lower quality of healthcare, which can be a sign of healthcare bias. We examined whether this bias in medical care is associated with a legitimizing process involving two psychosocial factors: threat perception and level of intergroup contact. Method: One hundred eighty six Portuguese health professionals (55...

This study analyzed whether hostility towards foreigners perceived as competitors in the labor market would be related to the perception of threat (symbolic and economic) and negative intergroup emotions. 270 people between 18 and 63 years participated. In Brazil (N = 89), mostly men (59%) and average age 32.5 years; In Portugal (N = 87), mostly me...