Previous research on the interpersonal effects of emotions in negotiation suggested that bargainers obtain higher outcomes expressing anger, when it is not directed against the counterpart as a person and it is perceived as appropriate. Instead, other studies indicated that successful negotiators express positive emotions. To reconcile this inconsistency, we propose that the direction of the effects of emotions depends on their perceived target, that is, whether the negotiators’ emotions are directed toward their opponent’s proposals or toward their own ‘exit (...) option’. An ultimatum game scenario experiment showed that negotiators who express positive emotion rather than negative, in addition to benefits in terms of relationship fortification, received better offers when participants perceived the negotiators’ emotions directed toward their own ‘exit option’. These findings indicate that positive emotions may signal the availability of better ‘exit option’, suggesting that happiness expressions can be strategically used to maximize both material and relational outcomes. (shrink)

The European market has faced a series of recurrent food scares, e.g. mad cow disease, chicken flu, dioxin poisoning in chickens, salmons and recently also in pigs (Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera , 07/12/2008). These food scares have had, in the short term, major socio-economic consequences, eroding consumer confidence and decreasing the willingness to buy potentially risky food products. The research reported in this paper considered the role of commitment to a food product in the context of food scares, and (...) in particular the effect of commitment on the purchasing intentions of consumers, on their attitude towards the product, and on their trust in the food supply chain. After the initial commitment had been obtained, a threat scenario evoking a risk associated with a specific food was presented, and a wider, related request was then made. Finally, a questionnaire tested the effects of commitment on the participants’ attitude towards the product. The results showed that previous commitment can increase consumers’ behavioural intention to purchase and their attitude towards the food product, even in the presence of a potential hazard. (shrink)

Una raccolta di riflessioni originali sul rapporto tra la scienza e la nostra società, a partire dal pensiero del grande fisico e intellettuale Carlo Bernardini.

The central focus of this research is the fast and crucial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its exceptionally serious consequences in terms of healthcare, state intervention and impositions, radical changes in people’s life, on a crucial psychological, relational, and political construct: trust. In this survey, addressed to 4260 Italian citizens, we tried to analyze and measure such impact, focusing on various aspects of trust. This attention to multiple dimensions of trust constitutes the key conceptual advantage of this research, since (...) trust is a complex and layered construct, with its own internal dynamics. In particular, the analysis focuses on how citizens attribute trust to Public Authorities, in relation to the management of the health crisis: with regard to the measures and guidelines adopted, the purposes pursued, the motivations that determine them, their capacity for involvement and their effectiveness for the containment of the virus itself. A pandemic creates a bilateral need for trust, both in Public Authorities (they have to rely on citizens’ compliance, and must try to promote and maintain their trust in order to be effective), and in citizens, since they need to feel that somebody can do something, can (has the power) to protect them, to act at the needed collective level. We are interested to explore how this need for trust affects the attributional process, regarding both attitudes and the corresponding decisions and actions. The most striking result of this survey is the very high level of institutional trust expressed by respondents: 75% of them trust Italian public authorities to be able to deal with the COVID-19 emergency. This is in sharp contrast with the relatively low levels of institutional trust characteristic of Italy, both historically and in recent surveys. Moreover, the survey allowed to discriminate several potential predictors for trust, thus emphasizing factors that, during this crisis, are exhibiting an anomalous impact on trust. (shrink)

Cet article est la seconde partie d'un travail de théologie fondamentale où l'A. cherche à préciser les rapports qui doivent unir philosophie et théologie afin d'éviter toute instrumentalisation ou toute négligence de l'une face à l'autre discipline. Ici, l'A. présente les exemples de Heidegger et de Rahner pour illustrer un modèle historique de solution à ce problème. Il s'agit d'assumer le principe de révélation comme point de départ obligé pour un rapport correct entre foi et raison. De la révélation découlent (...) trois éléments caractérisitiques qui qualifient le savoir théologique : la révélation comme fondement de la pensée théologique, la nouveauté radicale de l'acte révélateur, l'historicité de Jésus de Nazareth. (shrink)

Evidence has long suggested that ‘hardwiring’ is a poor metaphor for brain development. But the metaphor may be an apt one for the dominant paradigm for researching sex differences, which pushes most neuroscience studies of sex/gender inexorably towards the ‘discovery’ of sex/gender differences, and makes contemporary gender structures appear natural and inevitable. The argument we forward in this paper is twofold. In the first part of the paper, we address the dominant ‘hardwiring’ paradigm of sex/gender research in contemporary neuroscience, which (...) is built on broad consensus that there are important ‘original’ sex differences in brain structure and function, organized by sex-differentiating prenatal hormone exposures. We explain why this consensus is both unscientific and unethical. In the second part of the paper, we sketch an alternative research program focused not on the origins of sex/gender differences but on variability and plasticity of brain/behavior. We argue that interventional experiments based on this approach will address more tractable questions, and lead to much more satisfactory results than the brain organization paradigm can provide. (shrink)

: Hypotheses are the first step in scientific and clinical enquiry. They guide all of the subsequent steps in an investigation, and influence data collection, analysis, and interpretation. But how do we build scientific and clinical hypotheses? In both research and clinical contexts, a professional’s idiosyncratic way of perceiving reality, her prejudices and biases will influence the process of hypothesis formulation. We compare the process of formulating a scientific hypothesis in the field of neuroscience with the process of building a (...) clinical hypothesis in the systemic therapeutic approach. This comparison is intended to highlight the biases that influence researchers and clinicians when formulating hypotheses. Our aim is to raise awareness of the most common biases, and to point out how the tools developed by clinicians could be useful to researchers, and vice versa. Keywords: Hypotheses; Clinical Psychology; Neuroscience; Bias; Interdisciplinary Approach La costruzione di ipotesi nella psicologia clinica e nella neuroscienza: similitudini e differenze Riassunto: Le ipotesi sono il primo passo della ricerca scientifica e clinica. Sono la guida di tutti i passi successivi e influenzano la racconta dei dati, la loro analisi e l’interpretazione. Come si costruiscono le ipotesi scientifiche e quelle cliniche? Sia nell’ambito della ricerca che nei contesti clinici le idiosincrasie con cui un professionista percepisce la realtà, i suoi bias e pregiudizi influenzeranno il processo di formulazione dell’ipotesi. In questa sede intendiamo confrontare il processo di formulazione di un’ipotesi scientifica nel campo della neuroscienza e il processo di costruzione dell’ipotesi clinica nell’approccio della terapia sistemica. Questo confronto vuole mettere in luce i bias che influenzano ricercatori e terapeuti nella formulazione delle ipotesi. Il nostro scopo è mettere in luce gli errori sistematici più comuni, mostrando come gli strumenti sviluppati dai terapeuti possano essere utili per i ricercatori e viceversa. Parole chiave: Ipotesi; Psicologia clinica; Neuroscienza; Bias; Approccio interdisciplinare. (shrink)

Che cos'č un individualismo sociale? Quali i vincoli che lo rendono possibile? Nel rispondere a queste domande, l'autore problematizza la tradizione trascendentale della filosofia occidentale e la teoria sociologica della differenziazione. Usa inoltre come termini opposti cultura e societÀ per giungere infine a definire l'ossimoro «individualismo sociale» come la forma utopico-concreta del socialismo odierno.

An immanent criticism of family criticism. Beyond the concept of authoritarian family, typical of the Frankfurt School particularly in order to grasp the sources of totalitarianism, the article considers that modern family system dedifferentiation is the objective process of its abolition at the present moment. This in two different ways: with the massive return of old family systems as clans and tribes, and through feminist and gay power revendications. The final suggestion is a social individualism in order to support without (...) trauma the current family perishing. (shrink)

- L'impasse della democrazia, in Italia e altrove, si puň descrivere come crisi della rappresentanza e come sua deriva populistica e plebiscitaria. Le undici tesi cercano di mettere a fuoco questa crisi, intendendola come un problema di deformazione cui la democrazia č sottoposta fin dalle sue origini, e opponendo ad essa, con il riferimento a un modello teorico non puramente procedurale, una concezione dinamica che veda la democrazia come base per una cittadinanza e una partecipazione in via di costante ampliamento (...) e articolazione. (shrink)

The under-representation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics is ubiquitous and understanding the roots of this phenomenon is mandatory to guarantee social equality and economic growth. In the present study, we investigated the contribution of non-cognitive factors that usually show higher levels in females, such as math anxiety and neuroticism personality trait, to numeracy competence, a core component in STEM studies. A sample of STEM undergraduate students, balanced for gender and Intelligent Quotient, completed online self-report questionnaires and a (...) numeracy cognitive assessment test. Results show that females scored lower in the numeracy test, and higher in the non-cognitive measures. Moreover, compared to males’, females’ numeracy scores were more strongly influenced by MA and neuroticism. We also tested whether MA association to numeracy is mediated by neuroticism, and whether this mediation is characterized by gender differences. While we failed to detect a significant mediation of neuroticism in the association between MA and numeracy overall, when gender was added as a moderator in this association, neuroticism turned out to be significant for females only. Our findings revealed that non-cognitive factors differently supported numeracy in females and males in STEM programs. (shrink)

Altruism (a costly action that benefits others) and reciprocity (the repayment of acts in kind) differ in that the former expresses preferences about the outcome of a social interaction, whereas the latter requires, in addition, ascribing intentions to others. Interestingly, an individual’s behavior and neurophysiological activity under outcome- versus intention-based interactions has not been compared directly using different endowments in the same subject and during the same session. Here, we used a mixed version of the Dictator and the Investment games, (...) together with electroencephalography, to uncover a subject’s behavior and brain activity when challenged with endowments of different sizes in contexts that call for an altruistic (outcome-based) versus a reciprocal (intention-based) response. We found that subjects displayed positive or negative reciprocity (reciprocal responses greater or smaller than that for altruism, respectively) depending on the amount of trust they received. Furthermore, a subject’s late frontal negativity differed between conditions, predicting responses to trust in intentions-based trials. Finally, brain regions related with mentalizing and cognitive control were the cortical sources of this activity. Thus, our work disentangles the behavioral components present in the repayment of trust, and sheds light on the neural activity underlying the integration of outcomes and perceived intentions in human economic interactions. (shrink)

To adequately model mathematical arguments the analyst must be able to represent the mathematical objects under discussion and the relationships between them, as well as inferences drawn about these objects and relationships as the discourse unfolds. We introduce a framework with these properties, which has been used to analyse mathematical dialogues and expository texts. The framework can recover salient elements of discourse at, and within, the sentence level, as well as the way mathematical content connects to form larger argumentative structures. (...) We show how the framework might be used to support computational reasoning, and argue that it provides a more natural way to examine the process of proving theorems than do Lamport’s structured proofs. (shrink)

Many bacteria respond in a coordinate manner to environmental changes. External stimuli, sensed by receptors, are transduced to regulatory proteins which participate in well defined pathways of gene expression by varying their structure and mode of action. The network of environmental signal transduction is responsible for a fine and continuous communication between the host and the pathogenic bacteria. As a result, the gene expression machinery of the pathogen is modified continuously, in order to establish the optimal conditions for bacterial survival (...) and multiplication. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship between moral stress reactions and resulting coping efforts in severely morally challenging situations. Long-term positive reactions and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) indicators following morally challenging situations are also studied. The sample consisted of cadets and officers (n = 332) from Norway and Sweden. Long-term positive reactions were found to be associated with limited moral stress reactions during the challenging episode and frequent use of acceptance and positive reappraisal coping strategies. Long-term high scores on a PTSD (...) indicator scale covaried with high scores on Openness, a strong moral stress reaction, and frequent use of instrumental coping strategies. The main conclusion is that the immediate moral stress reaction and coping strategies following morally challenging situations appear to be related to both positive long-term reactions and to indicators of PTSD. (shrink)

In his article Grush proposes a potentially useful framework for explaining motor control, imagery, and perception. In our commentary we will address two issues that the model does not seem to deal with appropriately: one concerns motor control, and the other, the visual and motor imagery domains. We will consider these two aspects in turn.