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The present paper builds on previous research exploring the relationship between the need for cognitive closure (NCC) and employees' compliance with harsh social power to propose a moderating role of perceived tightness within a work unit in organizational settings. Specifically, the study aimed to test the cross-level interaction between NCC and the perceived work unit tightness in fostering employee compliance with harsh power. Using a convenience sampling method, we enrolled 290 employees from pre-existing work units in Italian organizations in a cross-sectional study. We obtained employee scores on the NCC scale, willingness to comply with harsh social power tactics, and ratings of their perceived work unit tightness. Multilevel modeling was applied to test cross-level interaction. The model revealed a positive effect of NCC on the willingness to comply with harsh social power tactics when employees perceived their unit culture as tight. This study advances previous research by showing the role of tight culture in shaping the relationship between NCC and power compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examined the relationship between job demands, dualistic passion, proneness to work motivational imbalance, and work-life conflict in a sample of Italian employees (N = 525) enrolled in a cross-sectional study. Specifically, we hypothesized and found that the positive association between job demands and work-life conflict was significantly mediated by the proneness to work motivational imbalance. However, the relation between job demands and proneness to imbalance was moderated by passion for work. Specifically, the relationship between job demands and proneness to work motivational imbalance was stronger in employees with high (vs. low) obsessive passion; the same relationship did not occur in employees with high harmonious passion, suggesting that harmonious passion might be a protective personal resource against job demands. These findings could shed light on practical lines of intervention aimed at counteracting the negative effects of job demands such as motivational imbalance and work-life conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interweaving social dominance, person-environment fit, and self-determination theories, the present study sought to understand whether the attrition between students' levels of social dominance orientation and the hierarchy-attenuating function of the social work faculty in which they study may influence students' academic motivational pathways. A total of 221 undergraduate social work students participated in the study and completed a self-report questionnaire. Participants' social dominance orientation, person-environment misfit, and academic intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were measured. Results indicated that students' social dominance orientation was associated with an external rather than an internal regulation of their academic motivation, mediated by their perceived person-environment misfit. For those students who personally support group-based inequalities, exposure to hierarchy-attenuating contexts would lead to regulating their academic behavior toward the pursuit of extrinsic (vs. intrinsic) goals, that is, studying to gain financial benefits and social prestige, in accordance with the pursuit of their beliefs of social dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigated the relation between the need for cognitive closure, social dominance orientation, and attitudes toward women as managers within a sample of Italian workers (N = 391) enrolled in a cross-sectional study. More specifically, we hypothesized and found that the association between need for cognitive closure and prejudice toward women managers was mediated by social dominance orientation. Notably, these results remained significant even after controlling for participants' gender, education, age, and political orientation. Further, results from a moderation analysis revealed that the relationship between social dominance orientation and negative attitudes toward woman leaders was moderated by the need for cognitive closure. That is, the relationship between social dominance orientation and prejudice towards women managers was stronger for participants higher in need for cognitive closure—compared to those who were low. These results could shed light on new routes in practical intervention aimed at solving prejudice towards women in leadership roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This cross-sectional study examined the intergroup contact hypothesis in the workplace by enrolling 150 Italian employees. Within the framework of social dominance theory, the purpose of this study was to test the assumption that individuals with higher levels of social dominance orientation are more likely to exhibit prejudice against women in managerial positions and benefit more from intergroup contact with a female supervisor. In particular, we found that individuals with higher levels of social dominance orientation exhibited more negative attitudes towards women in manager positions, but this effect only appeared when their superiors were women, as opposed to men. In addition, participants with higher social dominance orientation experienced more positive outcomes from intergroup contact, resulting in less negative attitudes toward women managers, than those with lower social dominance orientation. Overall, these findings yield insights into how intergroup contact affects individuals with prejudice tendencies, indicating that contact with the targeted group (i.e., women in managerial positions) is negatively associated with negative attitudes towards the group, even when the prejudice is driven by social dominance orientation. These results could shed light on new routes to design practical intervention aimed at solving prejudice towards women in leadership roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the role of individuals' preference for unequal intergroup relations in exacerbating a process of differential attrition from organizations that value intergroup equality (i.e., hierarchy-attenuating contexts). We proposed that people functioning within a well-recognized hierarchy-attenuating context (i.e., students of social work) who were higher on social dominance orientation (SDO) would be more likely to leave their institution through two pathways; first, people higher on SDO would have fewer moral concerns of social fairness and human harm-avoidance (i.e., individualizing); in turn, a lack of individualizing morality would stimulate a perceived person-environment misfit, ultimately increasing their intention to leave. We conducted a single cross-sectional design study involving a convenience sample of 245 undergraduate social work students. Overall, the results of the serial mediation model suggest that people higher on SDO intend to leave their organization that supports inclusive equality via reduced individualizing morality and high perceived P-E misfit. These findings contribute to understanding the role of socio-political orientations and moral beliefs in hindering proper adaptation to contexts that value egalitarian social norms, with relevant implications for individuals and groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study is aimed at testing if blatant support for group‐based hierarchies (i.e., social dominance orientation‐dominance [SDO‐D]) was related to the level of future perceived person−environment (P−E) misfit when people meet an environment characterized by a culture that strongly supports antidominant values (i.e., hierarchy‐attenuating organization). A total of 106 students of a social work faculty—a typical hierarchy‐attenuating context—voluntarily participated and filled an anonymous questionnaire on two‐time occasions in which we measured their SDO‐D and their perceived P−E misfit. Although the SDO‐D and P−E misfit levels were, on average, relatively low, a cross‐lagged panel analysis revealed that SDO‐D was positively associated with future levels of P−E misfit measured 6 months later, while no evidence of association was found for the opposite. The present study contributes to broadening the interweaving of social dominance theory and the P−E fit. It reveals that the more people support social hierarchies, the more they will experience a greater P−E misfit in a hierarchy‐attenuating context. The misfit feeling appears to develop over time; it grows based on people's awareness of the hierarchy‐attenuating functioning of the organization and is boosted by their SDO‐D levels. The results also underline that the perceived P−E misfit does not influence future SDO‐D levels, supporting the notion that SDO‐D is a rather stable individual difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three surveys of adults in five nations, we investigated how shared beliefs about the political system motivate individuals' political engagement. Specifically, we tested whether individuals' beliefs that the political context is fair, noncorrupt, and their belief that they could influence politics motivates political engagement to a higher extent for higher‐ compared to lower‐status group members. In a novel use of social dominance theory, we theoretically conceived of these political beliefs as legitimizing ideologies, so that we predicted that people with higher social dominance orientation endorse these beliefs, which in turn enhance the motivation to engage in politics to support current social hierarchical systems. Moreover, we expected that these relationships would be stronger for higher‐ compared to lower‐status groups. These hypotheses were tested considering different levels of group status: wealth status within a country (Study 1), political‐regional differences within a country (Study 2), and international status (i.e., between countries; Study 3), and they were largely supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals who have a strong locomotion orientation tend to be future-oriented and motivated to move from the present state toward a future state, making swift and steady progress toward their goals. The current study has assessed the conceptual possibility that such motivation leads locomotors to experience greater hopeful thinking, an active cognitive process that consists in planning the future and implementing these plans. The results of Study 1 lend preliminary support to this possibility. The practical implication was linked to the importance of hope in the subjective well-being experienced in everyday life. For this reason, Study 2 tested a model in which hopeful thinking mediated the subjective well-being experienced by locomotors. The results supported the hypothesis: locomotion orientation was associated with enhanced hope capabilities that, in turn, were associated with higher subjective well-being, with significant positive implications for individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research aimed at expanding Pierro, Kruglanski, and Raven's work examining the interweaving between the need for closure (NFC; the desire to form quick and unambiguous knowledge) and the Interpersonal Power Interaction model. In particular, this study explored the idea that the greater compliance to harsh power tactics of subordinates' employees, that are high on NFC, can increase when their desire to achieve cognitive closure is made more salient by a high (compared to low) level of perceived job demands. A sample of 280 subordinates employees belonging to two different organizational contexts filled in a self‐report questionnaire. Through a moderation and simple slope analyses, we tested and confirmed our hypothesis. When job demands were high, it potentially impaired the subordinates' chance to form a quick knowledge. As a result, high NFC subordinates showed a higher compliance with harsh power tactics. Such tactics, limiting the subordinates' freedom of choice, can be conceived as a means to gain quick knowledge when the organizational context is perceived as particularly demanding. As far as practical implications, these results suggest that for high NFC subordinates the use of more directive and unambiguous guidelines (e.g., harsh power tactics) could minimize the scarcely tolerated cognitive cost associated with high job demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the psychometric proprieties of the Italian version of the Social Dominance Orientation7 (SDO7) Scale, originally developed by Ho et al. (2015). We recruited a convenience sample (N = 497) to answer an online self-report questionnaire, including the SDO7 Scale and other relevant convergent and divergent measures. The confirmatory factor analysis revealed that SDO7 presents a satisfactory fit to the data, both as a two-correlated factor structure and as a one-dimensional measure. The two-correlated factor structure is confirmed as composed by two subdimensions as in the original version: the SDO-Dominance (SDO-D) and the SDO-Anti-Egalitarianism (SDO-E). Since the total SDO7 score measures people's support for asymmetrical group relationships, the SDO-D is concerned with people's support for dominant-submissive forms of intergroup relationships whereas the SDO-E refers to the desire to support intergroup inequalities. The scale and subscales also present satisfactory indexes of reliability as well as convergent and divergent validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the asymmetry hypothesis of social dominance theory (SDT) in a work organization. The asymmetry hypothesis posits that members of subordinate groups who are high in social dominance orientation (SDO; desire for group-based hierarchy) can contribute to maintaining hierarchies by conforming with hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths and tactics used by members of dominant groups. Focusing on subordinates' perspective, we studied their compliance with supervisors' use of harsh power tactics, and whether this increased with subordinates' levels of SDO. At a hierarchy-enhancing for-profit organization, 207 subordinate employees self-reported their compliance with supervisor's use of harsh influence tactics and the perceived use of those tactics by their supervisors. The moderation analysis confirmed that the concurrence between supervisors' use of harsh power tactics, as perceived by subordinates, and subordinates' compliance with harsh tactics was moderated by subordinates' SDO. The higher SDO subordinates perceived a higher supervisor's use of harsh power tactics, the more they were willing to comply with those tactics. As the asymmetry hypothesis implies, this pattern can maintain hierarchies and even contribute to a spiral of inequalities within work environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Social workers' occupational health has become a central theme in the psychosocial literature. This study aimed at exploring how specific job demands and psychological well-being are related to work engagement. A sample of 140 Italian social workers was analyzed in accordance with the job demands–resources model. Participants were asked to complete a written questionnaire containing several measurement scales. Findings Multiple regression analyses showed that social workers' psychological well-being was positively related to work engagement. Moderation analyses also indicated that, when psychological well-being was high (vs. low), job demands were associated to higher levels of work engagement, thus highlighting the buffering role of psychological well-being as a specific personal resource. When job demands were high (vs. low), the psychological well-being appeared to be strongly related to lowest levels of work engagement, showing that high job demands could reduce the fostering role of psychological well-being on social workers' work engagement. Applications While administration of job demands may often be difficult in social work contexts, managers should be encouraged, as part of a systemic approach to training, to promote specific measures for improving social workers' psychological well-being as a personal resource for promoting work engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We studied whether high‐social dominant employees sustain hierarchies in different hierarchy‐enhancing and hierarchy‐attenuating organizations endorsing harsh and soft power tactics. We found that social dominance orientation was positively associated with harsh power tactics, and negatively associated with soft power tactics. Employees higher in social dominance orientation endorsed harsh and opposed to soft power tactics as respectively hierarchy‐enhancing and hierarchy‐attenuating legitimizing myths that promote a dominant‐submissive form of intergroup relationships. We also found that supervisors higher in social dominance, due to their dominant position, strongly opposed soft power tactics more than subordinates did. Amongst high‐social dominant employees in the hierarchy‐attenuating (vs. hierarchy‐enhancing) organization, we observed the strongest opposition to soft power tactics, which are the tactics most shared in an organization which tends to attenuate hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulatory mode theory (Kruglanski et al., 2000) posits the existence of two independent regulatory mode orientations: locomotion and assessment. Locomotion reflects the tendency to move from one state to another, whereas assessment reflects the tendency to evaluate means and goals in an attempt to choose the best possible option. Past research has sought to identify the relationship between regulatory mode and wellbeing, however it has not been fully disclosed. To our knowledge, the present work is the first attempt to investigate the relationship between locomotion, assessment, and two important organizational outcomes: work stress and turnover intentions. We recruited employees from 24 Italian organizations, and obtained their individual scores on: the Regulatory Mode Scale (Kruglanski et al., 2000); ratings of work stress, and turnover intentions. Two separate moderated multiple regression analyses were run to test the main effects and the interactions of regulatory mode on the two outcome measures. In line with our predictions, the results revealed that assessment was positively associated with both work stress and turnover intentions, while locomotion was negatively associated with those variables. Using a mediated moderation analysis, we also found that the combination of high assessment and low locomotion was the best predictor of turnover intentions and this relationship was mediated by work stress. We discuss implications, limitations and future directions for these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People working in helping professions are particularly exposed to emotional demands at work, as emotional situations are a typical component of helping relationships with service users. The main aim of this study is to test the psychometric properties of the Emotional Job Demands brief scale proposed by Xanthopoulou, Bakker, and Fischbach (2013) in the Italian context. The sample consisted of 302 Italian healthcare professionals. Exploratory, confirmatory, and multigroup factor analyses showed that the scale had a two-correlated factor structure which was invariant across gender, age, and professional seniority. The first factor -- called "emotional charge of job" -- captures the perceived emotional charge of a job and the second factor -- called "dealing with users' complaints" -- captures the emotional demands of dealing with negative relationships with service users. The two factors were correlated with other constructs, as expected. The practical implications, limitations of the study, and possible future research lines are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by the popular Arab protests against oppressive regimes that began in 2010, people around the world protested in sympathy with the Arab peoples. The present research draws on two major theories of intergroup relations to develop an initial integrative model of sympathetic collective action. We incorporate social dominance theory’s (SDT) concept of (rejectionist) legitimizing myths with the solidarity and emotional mediation concept of the social identity model of collective action (SIMCA) to understand motivations for sympathetic collective action among bystanders. Using data from 12 nations (N = 1,480), we tested three models: (a) SIMCA (i.e., solidarity, anger, and efficacy), (b) a social dominance theory model of collective action (i.e., social dominance orientation and ideologies concerning Arab competence), and (c) an integrated model of sympathetic collective action combining both theories. Results find the greatest support for an integrated model of collective action. Discussion focuses on theoretical pluralism and suggestions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research incorporates both intergroup and interpersonal approaches to power to examine influence tactics in organizations. Both approaches suggest that there should be coordination between supervisors and subordinates in the workplace for the smooth functioning of organizations. Study 1 tested how employees' social dominance orientation corresponds to what interpersonal influence tactics employees view as acceptable for supervisors. Study 2 tested how employees' SDO corresponds to interpersonal influence tactics they would use on subordinates. Complementarily, results showed that the higher participants were on SDO, the more they endorsed harsh tactics as legitimate. Implications for integrating power theories are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of this article is to present an intercultural communication study conducted in a municipal service, which focuses on how cultural mediators make sense of their work with migrants, being both representatives of an Italian institution as well as former foreigners/migrants themselves: their shared everyday context, common destiny and their understanding of users' experiences. The study, on the whole, underlines how cultural mediators use personal aspects of their own lives to build a "bridge" between the migrant users and the institutions they represent, thus lessening the gap between migrants' past experience and their present lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]