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Pivetti et al. (2021a; 2021b) examined links between COVID-related conspiracy beliefs and acceptance of vaccinations in Italy and Finland in 2020. They found that moral purity negatively predicted confidence in science, whereas political orientation predicted COVID-related conspiracy beliefs. Confidence in science, general conspiracy beliefs, and COVID-related conspiracy beliefs were found to negatively predict support for governmental restrictions and attitudes towards vaccines, and positively predict perceptions of informational contamination. Finally, attitudes towards vaccines in general strongly predicted attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccine. The current research seeks to replicate these findings conceptually on a predominately Muslim sample (N = 570, M age = 26.69, 69.8% females) in Turkey in 2021, when the COVID vaccines were widely available. Measures of religiosity and left, center, and right political orientations were added to the original instrument. Hypothesized serial mediational models were tested using structural equation modelling. Results revealed that left and center political orientations positively predicted COVID-related conspiracy beliefs and confidence in science. Religiosity was negatively related to confidence in science. Confidence in science and COVID-related conspiracy beliefs predicted general attitudes toward vaccines. Conspiracy beliefs predicted COVID-related conspiracy beliefs, which in turn negatively predicted support for government restrictions and positively predicted distrust in mainstream media. Attitudes towards vaccines were strongly and positively related to attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines. [This paper was added to the Special Issue on “Conspiracy Theories about Infectious Diseases” in a post-hoc manner. Online publishing allows the addition of new papers to a published special issue, thereby permitting a special issue to grow.]

This experimental study examines attitudes toward stepmothers in the Italian context and predicts that negative attitudes towards heterosexual and lesbian stepmothers – compared to heterosexual biological mothers – would be higher at higher levels of gender role stereotypes. One hundred and eighty-nine Italian participants completed an online questionnaire in which they read one of three vignettes regarding a mother – (1) heterosexual biological mother; (2) heterosexual stepmother; (3) lesbian stepmother – and her child who was misbehaving. Then, participants responded to measures that assess their gender role beliefs and their beliefs concerning the mother and the child described in the vignette. Results of moderation analyses indicated that the lesbian and heterosexual stepmothers were perceived as being less competent parents, with fewer positive traits and more responsible for the child’s misbehaviour as compared to the heterosexual biological mother among participants with medium and high levels of gender role stereotypes.

Objective: The study aims to provide a preliminary examination of the psychometric properties of the Italian version of Multidimensional Measure of Emotional Abuse (MMEA) and aims to investigate consequences of emotional abuse for the relationship, help-seeking and disclosure behaviors, among a sample of lesbian women. Methods and participants: One hundred and sixty-five lesbian volunteers filled in a self-report questionnaire including a measure of emotional abuse (MMEA) investigating the consequences of the abuse for the relationship and their disclosure and help-seeking behaviors. Results: Structural equation modeling (SEM) confirmed the four-factor structure of the MMEA among the sample, and indicated MMEA as a valid tool to measure the phenomenon among Italian lesbian women. As for the consequences of the emotional abuse, most of the participants continued their relationship after the abuse and chose not to talk about the episodes to anyone. When opening up about the abuse, participants mainly reported it to close friends and psychologists and/or psychotherapists. These results have important clinical and policy implications as they provide some indications to be taken into account by mental health professionals and policymakers working with abused lesbian clients.

Sacred values are moral foundations that may make public and political debates among groups hard to resolve. A taboo trade-off framework offers the opportunity of measuring the inviolability and the "sacralization" of moral foundations. In this study, moral foundations in a taboo trade-off framework were assessed in a convenience sample of Italians (N = 224) using a new measure to assess sacred values, the Omission as a Compromise on Moral Foundations scale (OC-MF). The OC-MF measures the willingness of individuals to omit moral foundations in exchange for money. It was predicted that Italian center and left-wing participants would be less willing to compromise individualizing moral foundations as opposed to binding ones, and that center and right-wing participants would be less willing to compromise on binding moral foundations than left-wing participants. Confirmatory Factor Analyses demonstrated the two-factor structure of the OC-MF: individualizing and binding. As predicted, Repeated Measures Anova showed that political orientation was related with differential adoptions of moral foundations as sacred values, with center and left-wing participants refusing to compromise more on individualizing than on binding moral foundations. Moreover, left-wing participants were more willing to compromise on binding moral foundations than center and right-wing participants. The OC-MF shows the hypothesized differences between Italian political groups and offers a new understanding of moral reasoning. These findings provide opportunities for improving ideological debates concerning sacred values.

The ontologization process involves the use of social representation relating to the human–animal binary to classify ingroup and outgroup members. To date, no study has investigated the multidimensional nature (i.e. human, animal and automata) of the ontologizing process via structural equation modelling (SEM). Four hundred and twenty-one Italian participants were asked to attribute 24 positive/negative, human/animal/automata associates to each of three target groups: typical Roma/Chinese/Italian. Results showed that the proposed six-factor model (i.e. positive/negative, human/animal/automata essence) was statistically robust for each of the three groups. The Roma group was animalized by attributing more animal negative associates than any other target group, whereas the Chinese group was mainly given a robot positive essence.

Understanding what students mean by lecturer competence can be crucial in order to recognise indicators with which to assess these competences, improve the quality of university teaching and support lecturers in undertaking their role appropriately. This qualitative pilot study aimed to explore the meaning of competence in a convenience sample of Italian undergraduate psychology students (N = 122). We collected free-associations about what “lecturer competence” actually means for the students. The data corpus underwent a lexical Correspondence Analysis (CA) using the ASPAR procedure of SPAD-T. Two factors were extracted: “socio-emotional dimension” and “task specialist.” Students associated the competent lecturer with those who was involved with the achievement of the task goals, on the one hand or those who was engaged in the group’s maintenance, on the other. Furthermore, Cluster Analysis identified four clusters: (1) the captivating lecturer; (2) the lecturer oriented to both task and socio-emotional aspects; (3) the rigorous lecturer; and (4) the benevolent lecturer. The preliminary results of this pilot study showed an articulated and multi-dimensional representation of the meanings of lecturer competence from the students’ point of view and lay the foundations for a broader quantitative study on the conceptions concerning lecturer competence.

Concerns over the number of children living in poverty arise from our knowledge of the problems children face due to poverty. Many researchers have pointed out the psycho-social outcomes of growing up poor, including antisocial behavior. Literature concerning the development of crime has documented a wide range of factors that may intervene between exposure to disadvantage and the development of delinquency, and that could mediate the linkages between poverty and crime. The relationship between childhood economic disadvantage and antisocial behavior represents a relevant issue for child welfare policies and practices as well as for criminological theory. The aim of this paper is to offer a contribution to the theoretical understanding of the issue by way of an overview of the classical theoretical models concerning the various pathways and processes that may lead young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds to be at a higher risk of delinquency. It presents the findings on the factors influencing resilience or susceptibility to adverse ecological conditions, with particular reference with the mediating role of family functioning and child-rearing, neighborhood poverty and timing of poverty. Theory implications and the relevance of these findings for policy and practice are discussed.

The exploration of acceptance of robotics by teachers, educators, psychologists and psychotherapists appears vital for the effective implementation of Educational Robotics (ER). This exploratory study evaluated acceptance of ER by Italian teachers, educators, psychologists and psychotherapists (N = 88). This research used a cross-sectional exploratory approach with a self-administered survey based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The results indicated that the professionals’ intention to use robotics in their profession was negatively related to anxiety evoked by robotics, but positively related to the following aspects: 1) positive attitudes about the use of robotics, 2) perceptions that there are factors in the environment that facilitate using robotics, 3) perceptions of ability of robots to be adaptive, 4) perceptions of robotics as enjoyable, 5) perceptions that robotics will improve the user’s workplace performance, 6) positive perceptions of what other people think about robotics, 7) perceptions that robotics performs with integrity. Teachers, educators, psychologists and psychotherapists declared themselves to be quite favorable towards the use of robotics in their profession. These results showed that ER may be more integrated in educational contexts and for therapeutic and rehabilitation purposes.

To foresee the potential acceptance, rejection and adaptation of robots in societies, it is necessary to overcome deterministic and linear assumptions and explore the plurality of meanings that shape our relationships with these emerging technologies. With this goal in mind, this study investigates the social representation of robots and its interconnection with attitudes and images, in a convenience sample of young adults in Italy (N = 422). Participants were asked to complete a self-report questionnaire consisting of a free-association task to the word stimulus “robot”, the Robot Attitude Scale, the acceptance of robots in different domains of life and a measure of mind perceptions of robots. The social representation of robots was articulated around three key semantic dimensions opposing: (1) ‘distant/detached’ vs ‘close/integrated’ views; (2) ‘ideal’ vs ‘material’ aspects; (3) assimilation with ‘ICTs’ vs with electric and mechanic ‘devices.’ These three dichotomies defined different positions connected with general attitudes, domain-specific evaluations of robots, and their level of perceived proximity with human beings. In particular, the view of robots as more concrete and integrated objects was related to positive attitudes and acceptance across all considered domains (i.e. Dull/Dirty, Education/Care and Health/Emergency dimensions). In contrast, more distant views were related to negative attitudes. Our study provides insights into how diverse positions could favour or hinder the introduction of robots in different spheres of everyday life.

Trust is a fundamental element of educational success. However, compared to what we know about teachers&rsquo, perceptions of trust, relatively less is known about students&rsquo, perceptions of trust. This paper describes two experimental investigations that tested the effects of authority competence and benevolence on students&rsquo, perceptions of trust and their engagement. The investigations also explored whether university identification moderated the influence of authority competence and benevolence on assessments of authority trustworthiness and university engagement. As part of an online experiment administered in the Fall 2010 and the Spring 2011 academic terms, Italian (n = 211, Study 1) and U.S. (n = 226, Study 2) undergraduates were primed to identity or not identify with their university before they read one of four scenarios describing a professor&rsquo, s behavior (i.e., competent and benevolent, competent but uncaring, incompetent but benevolent, incompetent and uncaring). Results showed that students from both Italy and the United States viewed a competent and caring professor as most trustworthy and an incompetent and uncaring professor as least trustworthy. Furthermore, in both countries, students trusted an incompetent and caring professor more compared to a competent and uncaring professor. University identification did not influence trustworthiness.

National and European policies aim to facilitate the integration of Roma people into mainstream society. Yet, Europe’s largest ethnic group continues to be severely discriminated. Although prejudice has been identified to be at the core of this failure, social psychological research on anti-Gypsyism remains scarce. We conducted a study in six countries using student and community samples ( N = 2,089; Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Norway, Italy, Spain) to understand how anti-Gypsyism among majority-group members predicts unfavorable acculturation preferences toward Roma people. Openly negative stereotypes predicted acculturation preferences strongly across the countries. However, stereotypes about the Roma receiving undeserved benefits were also relevant to some degree in East-Central Europe, implying that intergroup relations are framed there as realistic conflict. Stereotypes about traditional Roma culture did not play a central role in acculturation preferences. Our findings highlighted that anti-Gypsyism may be an impediment to integration efforts, and efforts should be context-specific rather than pan-national.

OBJECTIVES: This study examines perceived and anticipated stigma towards infected people, threat and impact appraisals of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as distressing personal experiences related to the virus in order to determine the extent to which they directly and indirectly predict hedonic and eudaimonic well-being. Investigated experiences included exposure to COVID-19-related news, having being in close proximity to people with a COVID-19 diagnosis or with COVID-19-like symptoms, having being sick or having suffered COVID-19-like symptoms, having tested negative for COVID-19. METHODS: Adults from northern Italy (n = 326; M age = 29.86) provided cross-sectional data through an online survey during the nationwide lockdown period. Structural equation modelling analyses were conducted. RESULTS: Perceived and anticipated stigma, exposure to COVID-19 news, perceived threat and impact on material resources access were negatively and indirectly related to both hedonic and eudaimonic well-being via perceived COVID-19 psychological impact which served as a mediator. Perceived stigma was also directly and negatively related to hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, whereas having tested negative for COVID diagnosis was positively and directly associated with eudaimonic well-being. CONCLUSIONS: COVID-19-related stigma and appraisals can impair positive feelings about life as well as the pursuit of self-realization and the search for meaning in life. The findings highlight the importance of developing psychological preventive and rehabilitative interventions to help people cope with these risk factors.

The availability of vaccines does not mean that people will be willing to get vaccinated. For example, different conspiracy beliefs on the adverse effects of vaccines may lead people to avoid collective health measures. This paper explores the role played by antecedents of COVID-related conspiracy beliefs, such as the role of political ideology and the endorsement of moral purity values, and the consequences of COVID-related conspiracy beliefs in terms of the acceptance of a COVID vaccine (when available) via structural equation modelling (SEM). A sample of 590 Italian participants filled in a questionnaire implemented using the Qualtrics.com platform, during the first Italian lockdown in April–May 2020. Results showed that endorsing purity values predicted stronger negative attitude towards COVID-vaccines. Moreover, conspiracy beliefs negatively predicted general attitudes toward vaccines. Faith in science negatively predicted general and COVID-related conspiracy beliefs, with those believing more in science also less endorsing general and COVID-related conspiracy beliefs. The attitudes towards the vaccines mediated the relationship between COVID-related conspiracy beliefs and attitudes towards COVID vaccine.

During the coronavirus pandemic, this study aimed to investigate the impact of conspiracy beliefs on Finnish attitudes toward vaccinations in general and COVID-19 vaccinations in particular. This study was a conceptual replication in Finland of a study by Pivetti et al. (2021) . Some 529 Finnish participants responded to a self-report questionnaire during the partial lockdown in Finland in spring 2020. The hypothesized relationships between variables of interest were integrated in a serial multiple mediation model via structural equation modelling. Results showed that endorsing general conspiracy beliefs directly predicted (1) general attitudes toward vaccines and (2) COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs, and indirectly predicted (3) attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines via the serial mediation of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and general attitudes toward vaccines. As for the antecedents of beliefs in conspiracy theories, political orientation and moral purity predicted beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Trust in science was inversely related to general conspiracy beliefs. As for the consequences of conspiracy beliefs, COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs directly predicted support for governmental restrictions (negatively) and the perception of informational contamination (positively).

The left-cradling bias is the tendency to cradle an infant on the left side, regardless of the individuals’ handedness, culture or ethnicity. Many studies revealed associations between socio-emotional variables and the left-side bias, suggesting that this asymmetry might be considered as a proxy of the emotional attunement between the cradling and the cradled individuals. In this study we examined whether adult females with high levels of prejudice toward a specific ethnic group would show reduced left-cradling preferences when required to cradle an infant-like doll with ethnical features of the prejudiced group. We manipulated the ethnicity of the cradled individual by asking 336 Caucasian women to cradle a White or a Black doll and then assessed their prejudice levels toward African individuals. Significant correlations were shown only in the Black doll group indicating that the more the prejudice toward Africans, the more the cradling-side preferences shifted toward the right. Furthermore, participants exhibiting low levels—but not those exhibiting high levels—of ethnic prejudice showed a significant left-cradling bias. These findings show that ethnic prejudice toward the specific ethnic group of the cradled individual can interfere with the left preference in the cradling woman. The present study corroborates our suggestion that the left-cradling bias might be considered as a natural index of a positive socio-communicative relationship between the cradling and cradled individuals. On the contrary, the right-cradling bias might be considered as a cue of the presence of affective dysfunctions in the relationship.

This paper aims to provide a critical review of the studies dealing with Educational Robotics for children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. We aimed to investigate whether in the literature there is a sound evidence that activities with robots improve the abilities and performances of children with special needs. This paper explores the methodological aspects as well as the outcomes of the selected studies to provide a clear picture of the state-of-the-art on this topic. After a systematic search in the online database via keyword searches, 15 scientific papers were included in this review. We applied strict selection criteria limiting our review only to papers reporting educational robotics activities with children (from 3 up to 19 years old) with a diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders, in which the children had the opportunity to somehow program the behaviours of real robots. The majority of experiences showed improvements in the participants' performance or abilities, their engagement and involvement, communication/interaction with peers, during robotics sessions. Some studies reported mixed results, calling for the need to carefully design the objective and the related activities of each experience., Psychology; Education; Educational robotics; Special needs children; Neurodevelopmental disorders; Outcome evaluation

Trustworthiness includes at least two dimensions: one dimension captures the authority&rsquo, s benevolence, the other captures authority&rsquo, s competence. This qualitative study explores the representation of the two dimensions of authority trustworthiness: competence and benevolence. We collected free-associations about what lecturers&rsquo, competence and benevolence actually mean for Italian psychology students (n = 125). The data corpus was content-analyzed. Text units were categorized according to meaning using both a bottom-up strategy, with some categories stemming from the data (inductive reasoning), and a top-down strategy, with some categories following from the analysis of the relevant literature (deductive reasoning). Qualitative content analysis showed that these two dimensions overlapped. Students listed theoretically-defined competence characteristics as indications of both benevolence and competence. The same applied to benevolence. Overall, associations were grouped into two main dimensions: (1) the &ldquo, can-do&rdquo, dimension, describing a lecturer&rsquo, s competence and social skill, (2) the &ldquo, will-do&rdquo, s good intentions, integrity, and personal motivation. In conclusion, the two conceptually distinct dimensions of trust are indistinguishable in the students&rsquo, words. These preliminary results are in line with scholars debating the multifactorial or mono-factorial nature of trust.

Background: The socio-psychological ontologization approach focuses on the attribution of a different “ontology” to outgroup members, that is the attribution of animal (or natural) attributes to the outgroup, and human (or cultural) attributes to the ingroups. Objectives: This study aims to enrich the ontologization approach in two ways: (1) A theoretical development of the ontologization approach is proposed, by including the attribution of the essence of automata to outgroup members; (2) whether the ontologization process is also verified for the Romanian and Chinese group is investigated, whereas the ontologization process has traditionally focused on the Roma minority. Methods: This study explores the ontologization process of an ingroup member, a Roma, Romanian and Chinese immigrant target via the attribution of a set of six randomly ordered animal, human and robot associates to one of the four targets (N = 269). We tested the idea that devaluation of Chinese immigrants relies on a mechanistic form of ontologization, instead of an animalistic one, such as the case for the Roma and Romanian groups. Results: The study confirms the animalization of Roma and Romanian targets in Italy. Both groups were ontologized by attributing animal-like associates to them and denying human-like associates. The Chinese target was ontologized based on a mechanistic approach as it was attributed a more automata-like dimension than an animal or human dimension. Conclusion: The pattern of the results regarding the association between the Roma and Romanian outgroup and animal-status may have negative consequences for intergroup relations in terms of reduced prosocial and increased antisocial behaviours.

Background:This study investigates the role of political orientation and religiosity in Italy for moral foundations endorsement, in light of Haidt and Graham’sMoral Foundations Theory. This theory hypothesizes that moral systems are based on five dimensions (i.e.,Harm/care, Fairness/reciprocity, Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity) that, in turn, can be grouped into two broader dimensions (BindingandIndividualizing).Objective:We aim to explore and extend the moral foundation assumptions to the Italian context predicting greater endorsement of binding values among Italian Right-wingers as compared with Left-wingers. Given that the relations between politics and Catholic Church have always been intertwined in modern Italy, we also extend this line of inquiry by examining the role of religiosity.Method:Two hundred and forty-eight Italian participants filled out a self-report measure including theMoral Foundations Questionnaires.Results: Individuals attach considerable relevance to individualizing moral foundations rather than to binding moral foundations; conservatives and regular religious attenders attach more relevance to binding moral foundations as compared with individuals with a Left-wing political orientation and less religious people.Conclusions:Our results show that the Italians’ political orientation emerges as a significant element in the differential adoption of moral foundations. Furthermore, considering the historical and fundamental role of the Catholic religion in the Italian society and political life, our results confirm that binding values are particularly valued in groups such as practicing Catholic, where institutions, families, and authorities are valued.

From the societal approach of the Theory of Social Representations, this study aimed to investigate the social representations of coronavirus/COVID-19 among the Italian population. By means of an online questionnaire, 599 individuals participated in the research, with a mean age of 38.09 years (SD = 14.44), 62.1% being women. The instrument was composed of sociodemographic questions, free association technique for the inductive term “coronavirus/COVID-19” and scales on conspiracy beliefs, vaccine hesitancy, and psychological dimension. The results allowed us to identify four social representations: “Citizens driven by Social Representations anchored to factual Covid-19 pandemic data,” with lower vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy beliefs, and greater faith in science; “Citizens with low confidence in anti-pandemic preventive measures by government,” with lower agreement with restriction measures; “Emotional people,” with higher agreement with restriction measures and expression of psychological distress; and “Minority group of Citizens driven by denial of Covid-19,” with higher vaccine hesitancy and conspiracy beliefs. We discuss the different social representations identified from the psychological and psychosocial anchoring processes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research reveals that robotics can be a valuable tool for school students with special needs (SNs). However, to our knowledge, empirical studies on teachers&rsquo, attitudes towards educational robotics for SNs students have been very limited and, in general, do not account for the great variability in the existent difficulties of school-aged children. Our aim is to fill this research gap. This post-test empirical study assessed Italian pre-service and in-service learning support teachers&rsquo, attitudes towards the application of Educational Robotics&mdash, ER with their students with SNs at the end of a 12-h training course. The results generally showed that most teachers perceived ER as a powerful tool for children with numerous SNs, particularly for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder&mdash, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder&mdash, ASD, and Dyspraxia. Looking at the differences depending on the school level, kindergarten teachers perceived that ER is mostly helpful for ASD, ADHD, Down Syndrome&mdash, DS as well as with psychological or emotional distress or the needs of foreign students. For primary school teachers, ER was mostly helpful with ADHD, Dyspraxia and ASD. For both junior secondary school teachers and high school teachers, ER was mostly helpful with ASD, Dyspraxia, and ADHD.

Hostility toward same-sex parenting is widespread. Literature supports one persistent argument against same-sex parenting which focusses on the concern for children’s wellbeing, whereas lesbian and gay parents’ ability is sometimes evaluated positively. In particular, the belief that children need both a father and a mother impacts the evaluation that same-sex parents are unfit to raise well-adjusted children. The present research aimed to investigate linking mechanisms and conditional processes underlying the evaluation of same-sex parents’ ability. Cisgender heterosexual Italian participants (N = 320) read one of four vignettes describing a family situation–two types of same-sex (step)parents (i.e., lesbian and gay (step)parents) vs. two types of different-sex (step)parents (i.e., heterosexual (step)parents)–in which a child misbehaved in the context of a mild family disagreement. After reading the vignette, the participants rated parenting ability and to what extent the child’s misbehavior was attributable to the parenting relationship. Moderated-mediation analyses indicated that same-sex (step)parents were perceived as being less capable parents compared to different-sex (step)parents by giving them greater responsibility for the child’s misbehavior, among participants with medium and high levels of gender role beliefs. Implications for research on sexual discrimination are discussed.

The waste disposal crisis in Southern Italy has led to a phenomenon dubbed ‘the Land of Fires,’ where illegal waste disposal and toxic fires of waste are currently contaminating the land, the ground and surface water, and the air quality. The general aim of this study was to investigate the psychosocial factors involved in the prediction of municipal solid waste separation, in a convenient sample of the inhabitants of three areas of Southern Italy, that is specifically the Land of Fires territory (Campania region), Abruzzo and Puglia. We put forward a model involving both pro-environmental concerns and cognitive evaluations. A written questionnaire was administered to a sample of 313 inhabitants from the three areas. Structural equation modelling was performed on the data. The findings confirmed the hypothesized relationships between study variables. The results showed that internal attribution and social norms were the strongest predictors of attitude, followed by the level of knowledge. Biospheric and altruistic values weakly predicted attitudes. Attitude strongly predicted the behavioural intention, which in turn predicted pro-environmental behaviour (i.e. recycling). Trust in institutions was unrelated to the recycling attitude. Attitudes partially mediated the relationship between internal attribution and behavioural intention, and between social norms and behavioural intention. Based on those results, some suggestions are put forward to improve recycling behaviour in the relevant territories.

This paper discuss the outcomes of an experimental course we run during the 2016-17 school year in two secondary junior schools. The aim of the experiment was to validate the use of educational robotics as a mindtool, investigating the impact of robotics on problem solving capability. The course lasted about four months and it was evaluated through a self-assessment with pre and post-activity questionnaires. The emerged results encouraged us to reflect about the role of metacognition and the importance to take it into account for the evaluation of problem solving. In the paper, the activity with the students is described and the analysis of the pre and post-activity questionnaires are discussed and conclusions are drawn.

In different contexts and nations, like Brazil and Italy, numerous episodes of the ban and discriminatory practices against members of this gypsy ethnic group have been verified, strengthening the conflict between the Gypsy and the non-Gypsy worlds. Understand the dynamics of such representational field is considered as an important issue to be exploited to promote public policies and intervention programs. It is expected that the results generated will contribute to assist in debunking negative stereotypes widely spread at the hegemonic social thought, core of prejudice and social discrimination against this ethnic group.

This study investigates the content of the system of representations of Roma women as they emerge from a free-association task, collected from a sample of university students in Italy and Brazil. Available data on the situation of Roma women show that they experience greater social exclusion than the Roma men and the women of the majority community, especially in accessing employment, education, health and social services. The sample consists of 643 participants (mean age 22.9), 50.4% of whom are Italians and 74.3% female. Data were collected via a free-association task, the prompt word being “Gypsy woman”. SPAD-T software ran a lexical correspondence analysis, extracting two factors. We defined the first axis: “The mysterious Roma woman vs. The Outcast Roma woman”, and the second axis: “The seer Roma woman vs. Different sides of Roma woman”. Moreover, psychosocial anchoring to the emotional reactions towards Roma people was studied, showing how different groups of individuals, characterized by specific emotional reactions to Roma people, were attuned to certain social representations of the Roma woman. The implications of these results are discussed in terms of the role played by Roma women in traditional Roma and western societies.

Em diferentes contextos e nacionalidades, como Brasil e Itália, inúmeros episódios de banimento e práticas discriminatórias contra integrantes da etnia cigana têm sido verificados, fortalecendo as relações de conflito entre os universos cigano e não cigano. Conhecer a dinâmica constitutiva de tal campo representacional apresenta-se como importante questão a ser explorada para fins de promoção de políticas públicas e programas de intervenção. Espera-se que os resultados gerados possam auxiliar na desmistificação dos estereótipos negativos largamente difundidos no pensamento social hegemônico, núcleo de preconceito e de discriminação social contra essa etnia.

Objective: This study aims to explore the psychosocial factors which influenced the undergoing of prenatal genetic testing (PGT) in a sample of pregnant women. Method: An online questionnaire was emailed to a convenient sample of 105 pregnant women, recruited from among those attending two antenatal education programmes and via snowball sampling. Results: A minority of respondents underwent chorionic villous sampling and amniocentesis (12 and 11, respectively). Advanced maternal age was related to undertaking PGT. The path analysis model (χ2 (16, N= 97) = 19.01, ns; TLI = 0.95; RMSEA= 0.04; WRMR= 0.64) confirmed that three dimensions, namely having a more supporting attitude towards PGT (β = 0.54, p