Ferdinando Fornara

• PhD
• University of Cagliari

The construct of place attachment is crucial in the relationship between people and their satisfaction with their work environment, but there are still few studies on it. This study aims to verify through a longitudinal design with a sample of healthcare workers in an Italian hospital (N = 110 at Time 2) whether secure workplace attachment is a pre...

Urban regeneration (UR) is a multidimensional approach aimed at improving urban environments through sustainable and inclusive practices. This study examined the social impacts of a self-build architectural intervention conducted within a university campus in Cagliari, Italy. As part of broader UR strategies, the intervention introduced temporary p...

This research aims to verify the effect of outdoor green teaching experiences on school affective qualities, perceived restorativeness, school climate, and global well-being in a sample of school teachers. A comparison was conducted between teachers who work mainly indoors and those who frequently run school activities outdoors in green spaces. A s...

For a long time, care environments have been characterized as "inhuman," with their place meaning linked to illness and suffering. This study aims to analyze the shift in the meaning of the hospital space, investigating the impact of a permanent art gallery in a hospital's Gynecology Department on employees' well-being. Employing a quasi-experiment...

Background: Children's independent mobility (CIM), i.e., the autonomous travel and outdoor play without adult supervision, is crucial for child development. The literature on CIM has focused more on its predictors than its outcomes, and few existing reviews have primarily explored its contribution to children's physical well-being. The aim of this...

Sustainability research has emerged as an interdisciplinary area of knowledge about how to achieve sustainable development, while political actions toward the goal are still in their infancy. A sustainable world is mirrored by a healthy environment in which humans can live without jeopardizing the survival of future generations. The main aim of thi...

To make the transition towards renewable and sustainable energy possible, there is a need to make new relevant technologies, including biofuels more acceptable and accepted. To promote biofuels acceptance and thus adoption means to improve both their perceived technological features and the surrounding context supporting their adoption, as well as...

The promotion of sustainable transport is one of the topics of the UN Sustainable Development Goals Agenda 2030 and is considered pivotal for the reduction of urban pollution, particularly related to private car use. In this regard, socio-psychological dimensions that have been shown to play a role in transport choices include attitudes, social nor...

Seminal work on laypeople’s perspectives on societal development is the foundation of our renovated interest in good development and its relationship with well-being. The present study aims to analyze the relationship between individual basic psychological needs satisfaction, people’s visions of good societal development in the framework of the Sus...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of home confinement/social isolation (i.e., lockdown), imposed to reduce large-scale spread of a disease in the population, on the mental health of individuals. Through an online survey during the lockdown (DL) related to COVID-19 (1085 respondents, 627 females, agerange: 18-82) (Italy, 23...

The 2019 outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) had a devastating impact on millions of people worldwide. Following the constantly changing course of the pandemic, the Italian government massively restricted public and private life to prevent the further spread of the virus. Unfortunately, lockdown policies negatively impacted many pe...

Emerging new purchasing behaviors have been reflected in the sales trends of dairy products, mainly in cow milk consumption. This study aimed to investigate the preferences of milk purchasers toward different product attributes, by considering both individuals’ socio-demographic characteristics (SD) and milk purchasing habits (PH) as independent va...

Plant-based beverages (PBBs) represent a growing global alternative to cow's milk. However, their development is strongly influenced by consumers' expectations of new foods introduced into the diet: environmental sustainability, balanced nutritional content, health aspects, and organoleptic properties. This study analyzes consumers' preferences and...

The “user-centered” design perspective (Gifford, 2002) suggests that healthcare places should improve their environmental quality in order to both meet the users’ needs and become “more humane” care environments, facilitating a higher level of patients’ satisfaction, wellbeing, and quality of life. The hospice is a specific category of healthcare,...

Though place attachment has been widely studied for a variety of settings, little attention has been devoted to place attachment in the workplace, particularly in healthcare environments. The objective of this research is to test the relationship between Secure workplace attachment and work engagement through the mediating effect of the work enviro...

To date, despite the great debate regarding the best seating arrangement for learning in classrooms, no empirical studies have examined the direct effects of different seating arrangements on children’s cognitive processes. This is particularly important nowadays that the COVID-19 measures include maintaining distance in the classroom. Aim of this...

Due to the environmental and health impact of the private transport sector, social scientists have largely focused on psychosocial and contextual factors associated with people's choice over transport means. This study aims to contribute to this line of research by applying a user-centered approach, with the objective of taking into account the spe...

This study focuses on caregivers who work in residential facilities (RFs) for the elderly, and specifically on their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in relation to their interaction respectively with the overall context (workplace attachment dimension), the spatial-physical environment (perceived environmental comfort), and the social e...

Prolonged periods of restrictions on people's freedom of movement during the first massive wave of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that most people engaged in all their daily activities at home. This suggested the need for the spatial features of the home and its occupants' perception of them to be investigated in terms of people's wellbeing. The prese...

One way to persuade people to change their travel behaviours is to execute strategies based on the provision of persuasive normative messages. Several studies have reported that providing information on social norms can lead people to perform different pro-environmental actions, such as energy and water conservation. However, in the transportation...

This contribution focuses on attitudes towards a theme that is not yet present in literature psychological environmental, namely the microplastics present within some cosmetic products and for body care, about their impact on the environment and consumer health. The Nanoplastics and Microplastics (NMPs) are tiny plastic particles of varying shapes...

The role played by place attachment in the prediction of positive or negative outcomes for people wellbeing has been analyzed in various environments, nevertheless the work environment is still understudied. The aim of this research was to test the relationship between the three workplace attachment styles (i.e., secure, avoidant, and preoccupied)...

Well-functioning communities provide a range of material and psychological resources that enhance well-being. The degree to which individuals see themselves as part of the local social group, or local social identity, i.e., the social identification with the community of the place where people are living, may play an important role in enhancing hap...

Interpersonal space (IPS) is the area surrounding our own bodies in which we interact comfortably with other individuals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping larger IPS than usual, along with wearing a face mask, is one of the most effective measures to slow down the COVID-19 outbreak. Here, we explore the contribution of actual and perceived ris...

The dramatic increase of meat production in the last decades has proven to be one of the most impacting causes of negative environmental outcomes (e.g., increase of greenhouse emissions, pollution of land and water, and biodiversity loss). In two studies, we aimed to verify the role of key socio-psychological dimensions on meat intake. Study 1 (N =...

Keeping a large interpersonal space (IPS) is one of the most important measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic. The IPS is automatically modulated according to primary affiliation and defence needs aimed at protecting our physical and psychological well-being. Through a multicentric online survey (1293 respondents) in six Italian regions during t...

To date, despite the great debate regarding the best seating arrangement for learning in classrooms, no empirical studies have examined the direct effects of different seating arrangements on children’s cognitive processes. This is particularly important nowadays that the COVID-19 measures include maintaining distance in the classroom. Aim of this...

Given the food challenges that society is facing, we draw upon recent developments in the study of how food reputation affects food preferences and food choices, providing here a starting standard point for measuring every aspect of food reputation in different cultural contexts across the world. Specifically, while previous attempts focused either...

This systematic review focused on the effect of the educational environment design on students’ and teachers’ performance, satisfaction, and wellbeing. Starting from a bulk of 1307 articles, a set of N = 68 empirical papers was selected and organized on the basis of four different content clusters, i.e., architectural building design and aesthetic...

Using the “user-centered” design perspective and the construct of design “humanization” as theoretical underpinnings, this field study verified the role of “objective” design quality of residential facilities for the elderly in the prediction of “subjective” users’ psychological responses. A sample of over-65-year-old adults (N = 114) was recruited...

The progressive development of mass communication has allowed the understanding and management of the persuasion process in a more systematic way. However, nowadays, persuasive campaigns still hardly result in behavior changes, particularly around concerns of the promotion of more sustainable lifestyles. Thus, it appears essential to investigate wh...

The present paper investigates the role of urban stress, local identity and sustainable worldviews in the prediction of a set of urban pro-environmental behaviors: recycling, domestic water saving, non-littering, sustainable transport, support for environmental associations, and willingness to pay for green energy. Using self-report measures, a cor...

This study intended to test whether attachment to one’s own residential place at neighborhood level could represent a coping response for the elderly (consistently with the “docility hypothesis;” Lawton, 1982), when dealing with the demands of unfamiliar environments, in order to balance their reduction of spatial abilities. Specifically, a sequent...

Environmental activism, defined as a range of difficult pro-environmental behaviors, is analyzed within the conceptual framework of Significance Quest Theory (SQT). In Study 1, 40 interviews were carried out on two groups of people in the European Union: Committed Actors for Nature (CANs, n = 25) versus Committed Actors for Society (CASs, n = 15)....

Persuasive communication campaigns are often used to promote proenvironmental actions, even though their effectiveness has been mixed. Previous research has tested cognitive-based models in explaining proenvironmental choice, but few studies have examined the potential impact of emotional dimensions. This experimental study tests the persuasive eff...

Reputation is a socially mediated form of knowledge. In social psychology it has been studied with reference to different social actors (individuals, brands, cities, etc). However, the social-psychological conceptualization of city reputation lacks a consensual definition. This research aims to operationally define city reputation, via the construc...

This chapter reviews psychological theories and research on urban environmental quality, through the analysis of people‐environment transactions in residential environments. It discusses negative influences of environmental stressors on urban residents' health and well‐being along with theoretical explanations of these influences, and positive infl...

This study investigated whether European, Mediterranean and natural landscapes might trigger identification responses among residents of Mediterranean Europe. The participants (N = 546) were students from three Italian and three Spanish regions who rated their level of place identification by looking at eight pictures of prototypical landscapes, ea...

Environmental strategies of affect regulation refer to the use of natural and urban socio-physical settings in the service of regulation. We investigated the perceived use and efficacy of environmental strategies for regulation of general affect and sadness, considering them in relation to other affect regulation strategies and to subjective well-b...

Biodiversity loss is a widely debated world problem, with huge economic, social, and environmentally negative consequences. Despite the relevance of this issue, the psychological determinants of committed action towards nature and biodiversity have rarely been investigated. This study aims at identifying a comprehensive social-psychological profile...

Résumé Cet article a deux objectifs : vérifier la structure factorielle et la fiabilité des indicateurs de qualité environnementale résidentielle perçue (PREQIs, Bonaiuto et al., 2003) dans le contexte français et tester un modèle à trois niveaux, dans lequel (a) des PREQIs plus spécifiques expliquent le premier niveau, (b) des PREQIs plus globaux...

The purpose of this study was to analyse the effects of residential facilities’ design features on older adults’ psychosocial responses. Participants (N = 192) were over 65-year-old residents who were randomly exposed to different experimental scenarios concerning a hypothetical residential facility for older adults, using a 3 × 2 between-subjects...

Reputation is a social-psychological variable influencing behavioural choices in general. Drawing from current literature on persons and organizations, the concept of reputation is applied to food conceived as a social agent: Food reputation pertains to all the beliefs about a food object, its antecedents (i.e., its production effects) and its cons...

This chapter demonstrates an approach to the agent-based modelling of norm transmission using decision trees learned from questionnaire data. We explore the implications of adding norm dynamics implied in static questionnaire data and the influence social network topology has on the outcome. We find that parameters determining network topology infl...

The quality of the urban environment, and of the residential environment in particular, is one of the main components of people's overall quality of life. Global satisfaction with people's own residential environment has both affective and cognitive components. On the one hand, people experience feelings with respect to their own houses/neighborhoo...

This study presents a tool – the Landscape Identity Implicit Association Test (LI-IAT) – devoted to measure the implicit identification with European and Mediterranean landscapes. To this aim, a series of prototypical landscapes was selected as stimulus, following an accurate multi-step procedure. Participants (N = 174), recruited in two Italian ci...

This chapter focuses on the role of the spatial-physical dimensions of the residential environment in influencing the psychological wellbeing and the overall quality of life of the elderly population. In recent years, the progressive and rapid aging of the world population (particularly in the Western countries) makes crucial the identification of...

The concept of ‘‘restorative environments’’ (Kaplan & Talbot, 1983) underlines the recovering power of places: to allow people to distract, to relax, to free their minds, and to distance themselves from ordinary aspects of life and work. The physical environment, as a job resource, provides psychological benefits in terms of attention restoration,...

This paper adds to the relatively few European studies on the pedestrian friendliness of urban areas, and on transport walking. Using the Human Environment Interaction (HEI) model (Küller, 1991), the study explores the associations between perceived neighbourhood spatialphysical and social environment qualities and walking to neighbourhood destinat...

This research concerns the impact of cognitive (i.e., framing issues) and psychosocial (i.e., environmental attitudes and place identity) dimensions on people’s Willingness To Pay (WTP) for preservation and improvement of a ‘local’ environmental public good, i.e., local beaches. After a pilot study, a field experiment (N = 102) was carried out in o...

The study tested a model on the intention to use renewable energy sources at the household level. The model focuses on the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory and includes different kinds of social influence (normative and informational) and attitude towards the target behaviour.Participants (N = 432) were homeowners who filled in a self-report question...

Architectural and environmental psychology literature has shown the importance of urban design in provoking stress feelings or enhancing well-being and quality of life. The aim of this contribution is to show the main results of a set of cross-cultural survey studies concerning the perceived quality of urban features at the neighbourhood level. A q...

Studies conducted in the 1980s (see Canter et al. in Football in its place. An environmental psychology of football grounds. Routledge, London, 1989) highlighted the prominent role of the spatial-physical features of football grounds in influencing users' perception of safety, comfort, and general satisfaction towards the stadium experience. In par...

Place attachment regulates people-environment transactions across various relevant environmental-psychological processes. However, there is no consensus about its role in the relationship between environmental risk perception and coping behaviours. Since place attachment is strongly related to place-specific dimensions of one's own identity and may...

This paper postulates that positive features of the work organizational environment can exert significant positive effects on people’s working organizational life. The focus is on the relationship between the perceived restorative properties of the work environment and some social-psychological dimensions of the organization. A positive relationshi...

This paper concerns people's assessment of their neighborhood of residence in a Chinese urban context. The aim of the study was to verify the factorial structure and the reliability of two instruments originally developed and validated in Italy (the full versions of the Perceived Residential Environment Quality Indicators [PREQIs] and of the Neighb...

The paper briefly present a research line developing a tool to measure Perceived Residential Environmental Quality Indicators (PREQIs), which has been standardized in many different lanaguage and cultural contexts, with reference to the urban environment and particularly with one's own residential neighbourhood. The specific aim in this case is to...

This handbook is the first to comprehensively study the interdependent fields of environmental and conservation psychology. In doing so, it seeks to map the rapidly growing field of conservation psychology and its relationship to environmental psychology. The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology includes basic research on en...

This handbook is the first to comprehensively study the interdependent fields of environmental and conservation psychology. In doing so, it seeks to map the rapidly growing field of conservation psychology and its relationship to environmental psychology. The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology includes basic research on en...

La cornice concettuale di riferimento di questo studio č costituita dal costrutto di "umanizzazione", che si declina tramite l'attenzione, in fase di configurazione e allestimento degli spazi, a specifiche esigenze degli utenti, quali il comfort, il senso di accoglienza, l'orientamento e la privacy, al fine di ridurre lo stato di disagio e promuove...

The study explores the strengths and weaknesses of place identity and related concepts for analyzing certain features of today’s globalized society: changes in transportation routes and mobility patterns, alteration of historic areas in cities, and the transformation of natural and historic landscapes. We present an overview of previous studies in...

The study explores the strengths and weaknesses of place identity and related concepts for analyzing certain features of today's globalized society: changes in transportation routes and mobility patterns, alteration of historic areas in cities, and the transformation of natural and historic landscapes. We present an overview of previous studies in...

The conceptual framework of this study roots on the "humanization" construct, which refers to design care for specific users' needs (such as comfort, welcome, orienteering, and privacy), in order to reduce users' uneasiness and promote their health. The main goals of the study concern the validation of a short version of the scales measuring the Pe...

The aim of the study is to analyze and compare different individual, psycho-social, and psycho-environmental responses of elderly living in different environments. The conceptual frame of reference is the Complementary-Congruence Model of person-environment fit (Carp & Carp, 1984), which focuses on relevant changes in person-environment relationshi...

El propósito de este estudio es analizar y comparar las distintas respuestas individuales, psicosociales y psico- ambientales de personas mayores que residen en diferentes entornos. El marco conceptual de referencia es el Modelo de Complementariedad-Congruencia entre la persona y su entorno (Carp y Carp, 1984), que examina los cambios importantes e...

The aim of this study was to assess whether different kinds of social norms make a distinct contribution and are differently associated to a place-related behaviour, such as household waste recycling. The construct of “local norms” is introduced to identify the normative influence that derives from people sharing the same spatial-physical setting....

Many studies have shown that natural environments are more preferred and have higher restorative power than built environments, but there is a substantial lack of studies examining “attractive” built places to put in comparison with natural ones. Typically, research literature on restorativeness and related issues has included experiments or field...

The present study examined i) what conditions have the strongest positive effects on the attitude to relocate of the elderly and on perceived well-being, and ii) what is the role of place attachment in influencing the decision to change their residential environment. A sample of 192 individuals older than 65 years filled in a questionnaire includin...

This work aims to study the topic of how natural and built urban environments with peculiar properties are perceived by the inhabitants of their city, with reference to the dynamic relationship among physical characteristics of the environment, preference and restorativeness. More specifically, the research goal is to verify which restorative prope...