Emilio Paolo Visintin- PhD
- Professor (Associate) at University of Ferrara
Emilio Paolo Visintin
- PhD
- Professor (Associate) at University of Ferrara
About
71
Publications
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1,309
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Introduction
Current institution
Additional affiliations
December 2018 - present
April 2013 - November 2018
October 2011 - February 2012
Education
January 2010 - March 2013
Publications
Publications (71)
It has been suggested previously that rising economic inequality would push parents to become overly involved in their children’s academic lives. In the present investigation we examined whether parents’ perceptions of economic inequality, in terms of perceived income inequality and perceived job insecurity, is predictive of their school involvemen...
The growing environmental crisis requires innovative educational strategies to promote pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. In this context, ecomedia literacy, which combines ecological education and media to enhance pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, stimulate sustainable actions, and foster critical thinking, represents a promising...
The escalation of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict has forced many Ukrainian people to leave their country seeking safety and support. To date, more than 6 million of refugees have crossed the borders into neighbouring countries. Nearly all European countries were involved in refugee‐hosting, including Italy. In a cross‐sectional study with Italian r...
Considering the evolving and unpredictable job market, adaptability is an important skill for young adults. Such adaptability implies that schools need to teach key social competences, like communication, collaboration, or problem-solving. In this area, a gender gap has consistently been found, showing that boys display social competences less than...
Theory and research suggest that threats aroused by a given crisis lead to conspiracy beliefs. Although crises involve
the arise of multiple threats (e.g., economic, safety, etc.) diversely affecting various needs and outcomes (i.e.,
cognition, emotion and behavior), no research has yet focused on specific relations that different threats may have...
To reduce prejudice and to promote intergroup harmony and equality, the imagined intergroup contact technique, based on the mental simulation of an encounter with an outgroup member, has been proposed. Though a substantial body of research has provided support for the efficacy of imagined intergroup contact in prejudice reduction, an alternative st...
First published as a special issue of the Policy and Politics journal, this book situates reforms known as 'nudges' or 'behavioural interventions' which have emerged in public policy and administration within a broader tradition of methodological individualism.
Traditional cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs effectively improve physical performance and outcomes after myocardial infarction (MI). However, older patients are less likely to participate in such programs. The aim of this qualitative analysis was to investigate experiences and perceptions of cardiac outpatients enrolled in an innovative and exe...
There is evidence that parental psychological disorders in stressful situations increase the risk of disturbance in child development. This has been investigated in disasters but not in pandemics, which are sensibly different from other types of traumatic events. We investigated the relationship between mothers’ anxiety and their children’s (self-r...
There is a growing awareness that spending time in nature is associated with improvement of well-being; nevertheless, the prescription of forest bathing is still limited. The aim of this systematic review was to explore the physiological and psychological benefits of different forest therapies on healthy and pathological elderly populations (>60 ye...
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the vulnerability of older people to COVID-19 has been stressed in political discourse and the mass media, with the call to protect older adults. Therefore, policies aimed at reducing the spread of coronavirus, such as the COVID-19 vaccination passport policy, might be perceived as policies aimed at pre...
Although we are witnessing a new phase in the management of COVID‐19, understanding what predicts adherence to preventive behaviors still remains crucial. In this study we focus on interpersonal relationships by specifically investigating whether engagement in preventive behaviors when in the presence of others may be a function of the type of rela...
Errors are an integral part of the learning process and an opportunity to increase skills and knowledge, but they are often discouraged, sanctioned and derided in the classroom. This study tests whether students' perceptions of being part of an error-friendly classroom context (i.e., a positive classroom error climate) is positively related to stud...
Errors are an integral part of the learning process and an opportunity to increase skills and knowledge, but they are often discouraged, sanctioned and derided in the classroom. This study tests whether students' perceptions of being part of an error-friendly classroom context (i.e., a positive classroom error climate) is positively related to stud...
This preregistered research analyzed survey data from ethnic and religious advantaged groups in 12 countries (N = 2,304) to examine the interplay between two determinants of support for social change toward intergroup equality. Drawing on the needs-based model and the common-ingroup identity model, we hypothesized that the experience of accepting i...
Despite the effectiveness of intergroup contact in reducing prejudice, opportunities for contact are not always associated with positive mutual intergroup perceptions. This might be due, at least partly, to negative contact, i.e., intergroup encounters perceived as unpleasant, and to individual characteristics which might shape reactions to opportu...
By relying on literature on counter-stereotypes and media contact, we investigated whether media exposure is associated with counter-stereotypical gender perceptions. Focusing on the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, we recruited samples ( N = 2,228) from eight competing countries (China, France, Germany, Italy, Scotland, Spain, England, US) across thre...
We conducted a vicarious contact intervention with the aim of promoting bystanders' intentions to react to stigma-based bullying among schoolchildren. Participants were Italian primary schoolchildren (N = 117 first to third graders); the out-group was represented by foreign children. Vicarious contact was operationalized with story reading, creatin...
In this theory-driven experimental field intervention, we used vicarious intergroup contact, a popular prejudice-reduction strategy, to fight stigma-based bullying. We focused on the role of peer norms, manipulated by asking participants to work individually or collectively in reinforcing activities following vicarious contact (operationalized as s...
With the rise of prejudice and discrimination against ethnic and immigrant minorities, strategies to reduce prejudice and discrimination, and to counteract the impact of intolerant, anti-egalitarian ideologies, are needed. Here we focused on cultural humility, i.e., the ability to have a humble and other-oriented approach to others’ cultural backgr...
Contemporary political philosophers debate the degree to which multiculturalism, with its emphasis on collective justice principles, is compatible with Western liberal societies’ core ideologies based on individual justice principles. Taking on a social psychological perspective, the present study offers a cross-national, multilevel examination of...
There is growing evidence in the literature of positive relationships between socio-emotional competencies and school performance. Several hypotheses have been used to explain how these variables may be related to school performance. In this paper, we explored the role of various school adjustment variables in the relationship between interpersonal...
What role does intergroup contact play in promoting support for social change toward greater social equality? Drawing on the needs-based model of reconciliation, we theorized that when inequality between groups is perceived as illegitimate, disadvantaged group members will experience a need for empowerment and advantaged group members a need for ac...
Drawing on studies showing that arguments about the nature of intergroup prejudice allow members of privileged groups to ‘perform’ a positive social identity, the present study explores how arguments about the nature of prejudice are produced by targets of prejudice in order to consolidate or challenge their own social identity. We conducted interv...
To reduce and slow the spread of the coronavirus during the pandemic, people throughout countries are asked to adopt a series of prevention behaviours such as keeping physical distance and using protective devices (containment behaviours). Vulnerability of older people during the pandemic has been stressed by mass‐media and in political communicati...
This study combines the Behavioural Public Policies (BPP) and the Street-Level Bureaucrats (SLB) approaches; the main innovation is to focus on the potential effects of nudges on SLBs’ behaviour rather than on citizens’ behaviour, as previously done in most studies applying BPP. We conducted a field experiment to assess whether a system 2, thought-...
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Guided by the early findings of social scientists, practitioners have long advocated for greater contact between groups to reduce prejudice and increase social cohesion. Recent work, however, suggests that intergroup contact can undermine support for social change towards greater equality, especially among disadvantaged group members. Using a large...
What role does intergroup contact play in promoting support for social change toward greater equality? Drawing on the needs-based model of reconciliation, we theorized that when inequality between groups is perceived as illegitimate, disadvantaged groups members will experience a need for empowerment and advantaged groups members a need for accepta...
What role does intergroup contact play in promoting support for social change toward greater equality? Drawing on the needs-based model of reconciliation, we theorized that when inequality between groups is perceived as illegitimate, disadvantaged groups members will experience a need for empowerment and advantaged groups members a need for accepta...
A growing body of research has shown that imagined intergroup contact can improve outgroup attitudes. The aim of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of a multifaceted form of imagined contact in counteracting bullying in school children, and additionally to test the underlying processes of this effect. Two hundred and fifteen Italian...
While previous research has examined social norms and intergroup contact as predictors of prejudice, there is limited research on their interplay in shaping intergroup attitudes. The results of five studies using correlational and experimental methods in different intergroup contexts consistently showed that the influence of intolerant (vs. toleran...
In two studies, we tested whether social dominance orientation (SDO) and intergroup contact interacted in shaping support for multiculturalism. Study 1 was correlational, while in Study 2 we measured SDO and experimentally manipulated intergroup contact (imagined contact paradigm). We found that SDO and intergroup contact interacted on support for...
There is ample evidence of the beneficial effects of intergroup contact in reducing negative attitudes towards immigrants. Although the valuable role of institutional support, one of the initial optimal conditions for contact, has been demonstrated, the impact of actual immigration integration policies, as a manifestation of institutional support,...
We aimed to create an engaging and dynamic intervention for schools that uses videos of direct school peer contact to implement a vicarious contact intervention. Participants were ethnic majority (Italian) and minority (immigrant) high school students (N = 485; age ranging from 14 to 22 years old, Mage = 17.24 years), who were asked to watch and ev...
Intergroup contact (i.e. personal encounters with and presence of immigrants) has frequently been related to improved immigration attitudes among the national majority. The impact of ideological climates, in turn, has received scant attention. Drawing on the notion of deprovincialization, we argue that, in proximal geographical contexts, contact wi...
Most social psychological research on anti-immigration prejudice has examined the point of view of the national ingroup-generally defined as the citizens of the country under consideration-toward immigrant outgroups. Threat perceptions related to immigration as well as national identification have been shown to underlie negative attitudes. Whether...
Recent studies have demonstrated that simply imagining a positive interaction with an outgroup member reduces prejudice, especially if the outgroup member is typical of the whole outgroup. In this research, we tested how a multicultural vs. colorblind mindset might impact the efficacy of imagined contact with a typical or atypical outgroup member....
Positive intergroup contact with socially and economically advantaged national majorities has been shown to reduce ethnic identification among minorities, thereby undermining ethnic minority activism. This finding implies that ethnic identity is the relevant social identity driving ethnic minorities’ struggle for equality. We argue that the study o...
Intergroup contact scholars have recently called for analyzing the effects of negative intergroup contact. In response to this call, we examined the correlates of positive and negative contact with one of the most stigmatized ethnic minorities, that is, Roma. We conducted a study in Bulgaria considering the point of view of the ethnic Bulgarian maj...
Europe as a supranational entity is frequently associated to inclusive and cosmopolitan values, which explains why identification with Europe generally relates to tolerant attitudes toward immigrants. However, because of major immigration movements, Europe has recently gone through demographic and social changes that have challenged its values and...
Two correlational studies investigated the associations between different forms of intergroup contact, on the one hand, and Italians’ prejudice and humanity attributions toward immigrants in Italy, on the other. Study 1 examined the effects of direct contact, extended contact and parasocial contact through mass-media, assessing separately contact t...
Collective action research has demonstrated that group identification plays a central role in mobilising individuals. Identification is particularly crucial for ethnic minorities in national contexts, because the conjunction between their identification to the subordinate (ethnic) and the superordinate (national) groups is frequently debated by the...
This paper examines how temporally differentiated representations of ingroup victimhood and acknowledgment of outgroup suffering relate to present intergroup attitudes. A mixed-methods research was conducted in Bulgaria where both the ethnic majority and the Bulgarian Turkish minority can be viewed as victims and perpetrators in the past. Multigrou...
Research has widely demonstrated that religiosity is related to psychological well-being even in situations of severe illness. To assess religious beliefs, explicit measures have generally been used. In this study, we measured the belief that God is reality as opposed to myth or abstraction by using an implicit technique (the Single Category Implic...
Objective: Research on intergroup contact and prejudice reduction has dedicated little attention to relations between minority groups. We examined whether interminority extended contact, that is, the knowledge that a member of the minority ingroup has a friend from the minority outgroup, is associated with positive outgroup attitudes. Affective (ou...
This study analyzes the “sick-lit” narrative phenomenon, a story writing genre rooted in self-harm and suicide, which seems to be gaining remarkable popularity amongst adolescents. This success is a symptom of young people’s need to address the issue of death. The qualitative research was composed of two parts: the first explored the ambivalent rep...
Bulgaria is historically a multicultural society, composed of the Bulgarian (ethnic) majority and a number of ethnic minorities among which Bulgarian Turks and Roma are the largest. Both minority communities are stigmatized in contemporary Bulgaria, though to different degrees and for different reasons. Ethnic minorities' rights to preserve their c...
In Italy, volunteering is a social activity whose importance is constantly growing. The research on volunteering in the field of palliative care is showing how this kind of intervention may strongly support families and professional caregivers. However, only a small number of studies has directly analyzed these informal caregivers who dedicate thei...
A growing body of research suggests that positive interethnic experiences enhance academic attitudes among ethnic minority youth. A number of studies also shows that minority youth with an achieved ethnic identity have better academic attitudes and performance. Integrating these literatures, we aim to verify the combined effects of cross-group frie...
Bulgaria is a multicultural nation characterized by the presence of historically settled Roma communities forming one of the country’s largest minorities. As elsewhere in Europe, Roma are the target of prejudice and discrimination. Moreover, Bulgarian Roma are poorly recognized institutionally, not integrated economically nor politically involved....
We conducted one experimental intervention based on extended contact principles aimed at fostering the formation of cross-group friendships within educational settings. Italian school children took part in a school competition for the best essay on personal experiences of cross-group friendships with immigrants, to be written in small groups. This...
In this paper the authors explore the presence of infrahumanization effects when the target is cancer patients. Participants were physicians and nurses working in cancer institutes or oncology departments of hospitals. Participants were asked to judge their own category and that of cancer patients on a set of traits. Uniquely human (e.g., rationali...
Over the past 15 years, outgroup dehumanization has been a topic of great interest in the field of social psychology. Researchers have in particular investigated the different forms of dehumanization and its detrimental consequences; however, little attention has been paid to the problem of how dehumanizing perceptions can be reduced. In this artic...
We evaluated the relationship between workaholism and 2 individual difference variables relevant to an organizational context, namely: proactive personality and locomotion orientation. Specifically, we examined working excessively (WE), working compulsively (WC), and perceived self-efficacy, proactivity, and locomotion in a sample of nurses working...
The present research aims to investigate whether salience of memberships during imagined contact is necessary for producing generalized positive attitudes toward the outgroup and promoting intergroup cooperation. After a warm-up task that involved reciprocal self-disclosure during the imagined interaction with an outgroup member, we manipulated int...
In this paper we tested the predictive power of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), when the target behavior is consuming traditional foods of one’s province (Trentino, Italy). Meat-based products were considered, and students attending senior high schools were surveyed. TPB and TPB + past behavior were tested, using structural equation models. W...
Salmonellosis is one of the most common foodborne human diseases. The risk of infection can be reduced by communication campaigns. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the efficacy of a food safety message that underlines that eating well-cooked meat is an effective strategy for preventing salmonellosis. The target audience was young adults (un...
We examined whether perceptions of status (in)stability moderate the effects of ingroup identification on explicit and implicit intergroup attitudes. We expected that identification with Italians (low-status group) would enhance ingroup bias toward (US) Americans (high-status group) more when status was unstable rather than stable. We also predicte...
Past research, based on explicit measures, has shown that Americans are rated as competent but not warm. In the present study, we assessed the implicit stereotype of Americans along the two dimensions of competence and warmth. Participants (Italian university students) completed a Go/No-go Association Task, in which Americans and Italians were the...
Questions
Questions (2)
Dear all,
I would like to test a multilevel mediation model with a dichotomous mediator and a curvilinear relationship between the predictor and the mediator. The precitor is measured at the between level, while the mediator and the outcome variable are measured at the within level. Does anyone know whether this is doable and have suggestions about how to implement it?
Thank you very much in advance!
Specifically, are there any studies measuring symbolic racism toward a target different from Black Americans?
