Lucia Mannetti

Sapienza University of Rome | la sapienza · Department of Developmental and Social Psychology

The present study examines the relationships between problematic Internet use (GPIU) and two regulatory modes (RMs) namely Locomotion and Assessment. Through an online survey conducted on two hundred and forty six participants we found that Locomotion and Assessment regulatory orientations have opposite effects on the likelihood of developing GPIU,...

Self-face representation is fundamentally important for self-identity and self-consciousness. Given its role in preserving identity over time, self-face processing is considered as a robust and stable process. Yet, recent studies indicate that simple psychophysics manipulations may change how we process our own face. Specifically, experiencing tact...

Little is known about epistemic motivations affecting political ideology when people make environmental decisions. In two studies, we examined the key role that political ideology played in the relationship between need for cognitive closure (NCC) and self- reported eco-friendly behavior. Study 1: Two hundred and seventy-nine participants completed...

Two studies were conducted to examine whether the intention to adopt positive and avoid unhealthy behaviours is affected by primed regulatory modes (RMs) namely assessment and locomotion and bychronic self-control. In the first study, participants in the assessment condition showed higher intentions to adopt nutritionally healthy behaviours, but lo...

Two studies were conducted to examine whether the intention to adopt positive and avoid unhealthy behaviours is affected by primed regulatory modes (RMs) namely assessment and locomotion and by chronic self-control. In the first study, participants in the assessment condition showed higher intentions to adopt nutritionally healthy behaviours, but l...

Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) has recently been linked to different personality characteristics and self- orientations. Through a survey comprising 469 respondents, who ranged from 13 to 42 years old, we examine how different regulatory mode orientations (namely assessment and locomotion) relate to the Internet Addiction Test (IAT). Specificall...

In recent years mindfulness has been considered as a potential source of pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Present research is aimed at consolidating and expanding previous knowledge by proposing that mindfulness is related to both pro-environmental behavior and belief in global climate change through social dominance orientation. A first s...

Abstract The objective of this research is to highlight potential gender differences in relation to the use of traditional and digital media, with a specific focus on the motivations behind the use of Social Networks (SN), in particular Facebook (FB). We administered an online survey to a sample of 189 students aimed at monitoring a) time and frequ...

Abstract Many recent studies show that election outcomes correlate with judgments based on the first impression of a candidate’s face. In our study, we showed the faces of 32 pairs of politicians from small and medium cities to 70 students, and we asked them to make judgments about competence and trustworthiness based on the candidates’ faces. As a...

Recent research has indicated that judgments of competence based on very short exposure to political candidates’ faces reliably predict electoral success. An unexplored question is whether presenting written information of the kind to which voters are typically exposed during an election alongside candidates’ faces affects competence judgments. We...

The Need for Cognitive Closure (NCC, Kruglanski & Webster, 1996) is a motivational force describing a general tendency to form clear judgments and to reach firm decisions. Since individuals high in NCC have an intolerance of uncertainty and ambiguity, as well as a preference for predictability, we hypothesized that they would show more risk aversio...

In three studies, we examined how dispositional need for cognitive closure (NCC) moderates the impact of various types of uncertainty salience (personal and supraliminal in studies 1 and 2; economic and subliminal in Study 3) on implicit attitudes (studies 1 and 3) and explicit discriminatory intentions (Study 2) towards outgroup members. Across al...

The aim of this study was to assess the extent to which Need for Cognitive Closure (NCC), an individual-level epistemic motivation, can explain inter-individual variability in the cognitive effort invested on a perceptual decision making task (the random motion task). High levels of NCC are manifested in a preference for clarity, order and structur...

Ecosystems are under pressure due to global climate change. Empirical evidence showing how people can reduce their ecological footprint is needed. It has been shown that a consequence of the perception of climate change is an increase in ecologically responsible behavior, but little is known about the antecedents of this relationship. In two field...

Under what conditions do citizens of nations and states comply with governmental requests to participate in public policymaking? Drawing on the dual pathway model of collective action (Stürmer & Simon, 2004) but with a focus on compliance with the status quo, rather than participation in collective protest, two studies examined citizens’ motivation...

Objectives. The present study aimed at testing whether costs, trustworthiness of government, and expected voice could predict citizens' willingness to get involved in participatory governance processes. Participants and setting. Research participants were one-hundred and ninety-two volunteer students of Sapienza University of Rome, 66% female. Hypo...

Art preferences are affected by a number of subjective factors. This paper reports two studies which investigated whether need for closure shapes implicit art preferences. It was predicted that higher need for closure would negatively affect implicit preferences for abstract art. In study one, 60 participants were tested for dispositional need for...

The present study provides a neurobiological framework to the theory of epistemic motivation that has been extensively studied for the last three decades in the domain of social cognition. Epistemic motivations affect the way people generate and validate hypotheses, and ultimately form and modify knowledge. Strong dispositional measures such as nee...

This research investigates how the impact of persuasive messages in the political domain can be improved when fit is created by subliminally priming recipients' regulatory focus (either promotion or prevention) and by linguistic framing of the message (either strategic approach framing or strategic avoidance framing). Results of two studies show th...

According to regulatory fit theory (Higgins, 2000, 2005), people experience regulatory fit when the manner in which they pursue a goal sustains (vs. disrupts) their regulatory orientation, and this fit strengthens their engagement in what they are doing. We tested whether the relative effectiveness of comparative and noncomparative ads varied as a...

Two studies were conducted to examine the impact of two basic self-regulatory orientations—locomotion and assessment (Higgins, Kruglanski, & Pierro, 2003)—on materialistic values. We hypothesized that, because assessment is associated with great concern over self-evaluation—particularly as it applies to social comparison and extrinsic motivation—it...

The current research examined whether nations differ in their attitudes toward action and inaction. It was anticipated that members of dialectical East Asian societies would show a positive association in their attitudes toward action/inaction. However, members of non-dialectical European-American societies were expected to show a negative associat...

Actions require two essential functions: assessment and locomotion. Assessment determines one’s goals and selects the means. Locomotion translates these into concrete behavior. In past work, assessment and locomotion have been portrayed as co‐ordinated and interdependent, or associated with different action phases. In contrast, we review recent the...

In three field studies, we found that leaders high in both locomotion and assessment tendencies (Studies 1 and 2: evaluated by subordinates; Study 3: evaluated by leaders themselves) elicited higher levels of performance from their subordinates (Studies 1 and 3: as assessed by the subordinates themselves; Study 2: as assessed by their supervisors)...

This study tested the possibility that the strength of locomotion regulatory orientation moderates the full path from attitudes to intentions and from intentions to actual maintenance of physical exercise over a 6-month period. Results show that chronic locomotion concerns moderate the full attitude–intention–behavior relation: The more that indivi...

A three‐phase longitudinal study (spread over a month's time) was carried out to investigate attitude's persistence and linkage to behavior as it may be affected by the processing of information about the communication source. The following three independent variables were manipulated: (i) contents of the source of information (implying the communi...

In this study we first examine how host nationals (i.e., Italians) categorize immigrants; second, we look into the roles played by estimation of size and composition of immigrant population, perceived threat, prejudice, and need for cognitive closure in that process. In the first part of the study, participants responded to questionnaires measuring...

Two studies, conducted in Northern Ireland (N = 266) and Croatia (N = 261), examined the role of constructive adolescents-parents conflict management style (CAPCMS) in predicting inter-group reconciliation attitudes. We hypothesized that CAPCMS would be a unique and positive predictor of reconciliation attitudes over and above other common predicto...

A three-phase longitudinal study (spread over a month's time) was carried out to investigate attitude's persistence and linkage to behavior as it may be affected by the processing of information about the communication source. The following three independent variables were manipulated: (i) contents of the source of information (implying the communi...

A force-field theory of motivated cognition is presented and applied to a broad variety of phenomena in social judgment and self-regulation. Purposeful cognitive activity is assumed to be propelled by a driving force and opposed by a restraining force. Potential driving force represents the maximal amount of energy an individual is prepared to inve...

Little attention has been devoted to group members' reactions to people who defect from their group. This article reports three studies based on the assumption that evaluations of defectors vary inversely with the threat they pose to other members' sense of shared reality. Results indicated, as predicted, that (1) defectors who joined a similar gro...

Negotiators are often advised to seek win-win agreements by focusing on interests (primary features) rather than issues (secondary features), but whether such advice is valid remains to be seen. Consistent with construal level theory (Y. Trope & N. Liberman, 2003), Experiments 1 and 2 show that negotiators focus on secondary features (issues) more...

Paying taxes can be considered a contribution to the welfare of a society. But even though tax payments are redistributed to citizens in the form of public goods and services, taxpayers often do not perceive many benefits from paying taxes. Information campaigns about the use of taxes for financing public goods and services could increase taxpayers...

The present studies aimed to extend Regulatory Fit Theory in the domain of persuasive communication by (a) using printed advertisement images without any verbal claim, instead of purely or mostly verbal messages; (b) selecting the images to fit the distinct orientations of regulatory mode rather than regulatory focus; and (c) priming regulatory mod...

The present study examined the influence of two regulatory mode concerns—a locomotion concern with movement from state to state and an assessment concern with making comparisons—on choices between immediate and delayed (from 2 to 6 weeks) money rewards. Regulatory mode orientation was induced by means of a priming procedure. We predicted that the c...

In this research, we varied the composition of 4-member groups. One third of the groups consisted exclusively of "locomotors," individuals predominantly oriented toward action. Another third of the groups consisted exclusively of "assessors," individuals predominantly oriented toward evaluation. The final third of the groups consisted of a mix of l...

Information campaigns to increase tax compliance could be framed in different ways. They can either highlight the potential gains when tax compliance is high, or the potential losses when compliance is low. According to regulatory focus theory, such framing should be most effective when it is congruent with the promotion or prevention focus of its...

The present studies examined the influence of two regulatory mode concerns—a locomotion concern with movement from state to state and an assessment concern with making comparisons [see Higgins, E. T., Kruglanski, A. W., & Pierro, A. (2003). Regulatory mode: Locomotion and assessment as distinct orientations. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experi...

This chapter reviews research concerning several continuous parameters whose combinations determine the judgmental impact of the information given. The present framework offers an integration of prior judgmental models in various domains by conceptually distinguishing between qualitatively distinct contents of information and the quantitative dimen...

Research on persuasion has shown that inferences based on heuristic or peripheral cues can bias the subsequent processing of persuasive messages. Two studies (total N = 296) examined the additional possibilities that a message argument can serve as a biassing factor and cue-related information can serve as the target of processing bias. It was demo...

Recently there has been a growing attention to the emotion of regret and the cognitive process of counterfactual thinking in economic decisions [e.g. Inman, J. J. & Zeelenberg, M. (2002). Regret in repeat purchase versus switching decisions: The attenuating role of decision justifiability. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(1), 116–128; Tsiros, M. &...

This study describes a unimodel of persuasion offered as an alternative to the dual-process models (the elaboration likelihood model and the heuristic-systematic model) in which the term persuasion has been understood over the past two decades. The unimodel asserts that information previously referred to as (peripheral or heuristic) cues and that r...

This article discusses four core themes distilled from contributions to this discussion of human judgment models. These are (a) the appropriate abstractness level at which judgmental processes are represented, (b) the appropriate substance of the representation, (c) the appropriate assessment of such a representation, and (d) ways of modeling the h...

This article presents conceptual arguments and empirical evidence consistent with a unified conception of human judgment. It identifies several continuous parameters which intersections at specific values determine the judgmental impact of the information given. The unimodel serves as an overarching framework subsuming a plethora of theoretical not...

The study examines the relationship between immigrants’ adaptation, acculturation strategies and self-monitoring. One-hundred-and-sixty-two Polish immigrants (mean age=31.3 years, SD=7.28) living in Rome participated in the study. The majority of the participants (66.0%) were females. A Questionnaire containing scales for assessing Sociocultural ad...

Theory and research are presented relating the need for cognitive closure to major facets of group behavior. It is suggested that a high need for closure, whether it is based on members' disposition or the situation, contributes to the emergence of a behavioral syndrome describable as group-centrism--a pattern that includes pressures to opinion uni...

This chapter features the concept of ascribed epistemic authority offered as a unique perspective on source effects in social judgment. It assumes that both the self and external sources may be assigned different degrees of epistemic authority in different domains and that this determines the ways in which individuals process information, make deci...

The present paper explores the notion that an important difference between prior operational definitions of “cue” or “heuristic” information versus “message argument” information has to do with differential processing difficulty, and relative ordinal position of these two information types. In previous work, “cue/heuristic” information typically di...

The aim of this study was to examine host group members ‘towards immigrants’ acculturation strategy preferences and the relationship between these attitudes and the level of prejudice towards immigrants. A questionnaire containing different prejudice scales was administered to 160 Italian participants living in Rome. In addition respondents were pr...

An experiment was conducted to investigate whether the need for cognitive closure affects the degree of creativity in small groups. Participants in groups of four performed a task in which they had to create advertising slogans for a given product. Some of the groups were composed of individuals with high dispositional need for closure, whereas oth...

Three experiments investigated the consequences of the epistemic motivation toward closure on the emergence of creative interactions in small groups. In the first study, need for closure was manipulated via time pressure. Results showed that in groups under high need for closure (i.e. under time pressure) the percentage of creative acts during grou...

Motivations to recycle have been extensively studied adopting an attitude approach and, in particular, the theory of planned behaviour frame (TPB Ajzen, 1998, 1991). However, several authors have provided evidence suggesting that self-identity dimensions can be a useful addition to the TPB within the domain of repeated behaviours such as recycling....

Three studies found support for the notion that immigrants' acculturation to the host culture is interactively determined by their need for cognitive closure (A. W. Kruglanski & D. M. Webster, 1996) and the reference group they forge on their arrival. If such reference group is fashioned by close social relations with coethnics, the higher the immi...

Need for Cognitive Closure, a construct derived from the theoretical framework of Lay Epistemology (Kruglanski, 1980; De Grada & Mannetti, 1992), is ipothesized to positively relate to individual’s reactions to violations of everyday norms. Two hundred and four undergraduates of different majors at University of Naples, participated on voluntary ba...

This research addressed the reduced impact of cues under high processing motivation of persuasion experiments. The results of 3 studies suggested that such reduced impact is due to a relevance override whereby any more subjectively relevant information swamps the effects of any less subjectively relevant information, given the recipient's sufficien...

Two experiments investigated the tendency of groups with members under high (vs. low) need for cognitive closure to develop an autocratic leadership structure in which some members dominate the discussion, constitute the "hubs" of communication, and influence the group more than other members. The first experiment found that high (vs. low) need for...

We outline a uniform model of human judgement wherein individuals combine situational information with relevant background knowledge to form conclusions. Several judgemental parameters are identified whose specific intersections determine whether given situational information would affect judgements. Abstraction of features from surface manifestati...

To compare the predictive power of an expanded model of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) with that of the original TPB, two studies were conducted in which, in addition to the classical variables of the TPB model (such as attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control), variables concerning self-identity were also taken into acco...

Four studies explored the relation between members' need for cognitive closure and their feelings toward groups. It was found that high (vs. low) need for closure individuals liked in-groups and out-groups more as function of the degree to which their membership was perceived as homogeneous (Studies 1-4), provided it was also self-similar (Studies...

Four studies explored the relation between members' need for cognitive closure and their feelings toward groups. It was found that high (vs. low) need for closure individuals liked in-groups and out-groups more as function of the degree to which their membership was perceived as homogeneous (Studies 1-4), provided it was also self-similar (Studies...

The authors elaborate the complications and the opportunities inherent in the statistical analysis of small-group data. They begin by discussing nonindependence of group members' scores and then consider standard methods for the analysis of small-group data and determine that these methods do not take into account this nonindependence. A new method...

Within mainstream social psychology, consumer behavior has been explained mainly in terms of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). Recently, some authors suggested that self-identity dimensions can explain different types of intentions. To compare the predictive power of a tentative new model of self-expressive consumer behavior with that of the TP...

The authors elaborate the complications and the opportunities inherent in the statistical analysis of small-group data. They begin by discussing nonindependence of group members’ scores and then consider standard methods for the analysis of small-group data and determine that these methods do not take into account this nonindependence. A new method...

This study was designed to compare the factor structure of Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) as it emerges from three European samples (Croatia, Italy and The Netherlands) to the structure emerging from a USA sample, and to test the invariance of the structure of the scale both across three European contexts and across European and US samples. This com...

Keywords: Building on Gray's constructs (e.g., 1982, 1990), Carver and White (1994) developed measurement scales for the Behavioral Activation System (BAS) and the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS). Carver and White's scales focus primarily on the affective self-regulatory functions of the BIS and BAS constructs. In this study 426 participants fi...

The factorial structure and invariance of the BIS/BAS scales of Carver and White were assessed across three samples from the USA, UK, and Italy. Previous validation studies of the BIS/BAS scales relied on individual samples drawn from English-speaking populations only and failed to formally assess generalizability. The current study shows that the...

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Two studies investigated need for cognitive closure effects on group interaction. In both, participants in four-person groups role-played the members of a corporate committee dividing a monetary reward among meritorious employees. The entire interaction sequence was videotaped and content-analyzed by independent observers. Study 1 investigated need...

It Nel presente contributo sono state analizzate, in un unico modello di analisi fattoriale confirmatoria di second’ordine, diverse misure di dominanza: autovalutazioni di tratti di personalita, attribuzioni dei componenti del gruppo, indicatori di centralita nel gruppo dei partecipanti rispetto alle condotte comunicative (via Social Network Analys...

S. L. Neuberg, T. N. Judice, and S. G. West (1997) faulted our work with the Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) on grounds that the NFCS lacks discriminant validity relative to S. L. Neuberg's and J. T. Newsom's (1993) Personal Need for Structure (PNS) Scale and is multidimensional, which, so they claim, renders the use of its total score inadmissible....

This study aimed at predicting intentions to avoid casual sex and to use condoms, through self-efficacy, attitudes, optimistic bias in perceived risk, knowledge and past sexual risk behaviour. To this end, a mixed-sex sample of high school and university students between 16 and 25 years completed questionnaires at two points in time. Intentions to...

S. L. Neuberg, T. N. Judice, and S. G. West (1997) faulted our work with the Need for Closure Scale (NFCS) on grounds that the NFCS lacks discriminant validity relative to S. L. Neuberg's and J.T. Newsom's (1993) Personal Need for Structure (PNS) Scale and is multidimensional, which, so they claim, renders the use of its total score inadmissible. B...

The study investigates health care workers’ representations of AIDS and its sufferers as a part of a larger research program aimed at providing a better understanding of the factors that affect health care workers’ helping behaviour. 345 Italian health care workers from public hospitals were requested to write «the first things that came to their m...

A long-awaited and critical review of a key topic, this book shows how different empirical approaches to the study of social representations are viable and can be complementary. Empirical examples of the analysis of particular social representations - from museums to new technology - are included. The ten chapters in the first half of the book pres...

The hypothesis that the degree of contextual dependence of interpersonal verbs (as defined by Semin and Fiedler (1988) in their LCM) significantly affects the strength of causality implicit in such verbs is assessed in an experiment. Results show that both the strength of causal inference induced by the verb and the degree of respondents' confidenc...

Reactions of health care workers to AIDS and its patients were investigated in a survey conducted in state health care institutions in different areas of Italy. Results show that health care workers (differently from the general population) do not see themselves as less vulnerable to AIDS risk than the typical citizen. Furthermore, nurses perceive...

We investigated language used in accounts given by defendants, victims and witnesses in the courtroom. on the basis of recent work on the psychological implications of different categories of interpersonal terms (Semin & Fiedler, 1988; Fiedler & Semin, 1988), it was hypothesised that people would fulfill the specific requirements of courtroom inter...

The aim of the study is to ascertain how a large and complex urban setting like the city of Rome becomes a ‘place’ for its inhabitants, with special reference to the kind of activities performed by the inhabitants within (intra-place analysis) and among (inter-place analysis) the following different ‘sub-places’: the neighbourhood, the city-centre...

Two studies examined the impact of material wealth on perceived identity. 240 undergraduates in the UK and Italy evaluated a description of a target person in terms of 26 adjectives/short statements and answered questions about their belief in the impressionability of themselves and others. For British Ss, symbolic identity was strongly affected by...

PIP: This study uses factor analysis to analyze whether in Italy it is possible to differentiate women at greater risk of unwanted pregnancy from those using effective contraception on the basis of their degree of adherence to traditional definitions of the role of women as centered on motherhood, their degree of aversion to use of highly effective...

Introduzione alla psicologia economica, decisioni e consumi, a cura di Lucia Mannetti. . - Roma. NALUAF000651, Carocci. NAEDAF000700, 2004.