Silvia De Marchi (1929) on numerical estimation: A translation and commentary.

Vittorio Benussi (1878-1927) is known for numerous studies on optical illusions, visual and haptic perception, spatial and time perception. In Padova, he had a brilliant student who carefully worked on the topic of how people estimate numerosity, Silvia De Marchi (1897-1936). Her writings have never been translated into English before. Here we comment on her work and life, characterized also by the challenges faced by women in academia. The studies on perception of numerosity from her thesis were published as an article in 1929. We provide a translation from Italian, a redrawing of its 23 illustrations and of the graphs. It shows an original experimental approach and an anticipation of what later became known as magnitude estimation.

A cyber warfare perspective on risks related to health IoT devices and contact tracing.

The wide use of IT resources to assess and manage the recent COVID-19 pandemic allows to increase the effectiveness of the countermeasures and the pervasiveness of monitoring and prevention. Unfortunately, the literature reports that IoT devices, a widely adopted technology for these applications, are characterized by security vulnerabilities that are difficult to manage at the state level. Comparable problems exist for related technologies that leverage smartphones, such as contact tracing applications, and non-medical health monitoring devices. In analogous situations, these vulnerabilities may be exploited in the cyber domain to overload the crisis management systems with false alarms and to interfere with the interests of target countries, with consequences on their economy and their political equilibria. In this paper we analyze the potential threat to an example subsystem to show how these influences may impact it and evaluate a possible consequence.

Organizational Work-Home Culture and its Relations with the Work-Family Interface and Employees' Subjective Well-being.

The two studies reported in this paper aimed to present and discuss both the validation of the Work-Home Culture (WHC) scale (Dikkers et al., Work & Stress, 21(2), 155-172, 2007) in the Italian context (Study 1), and a relational model that links the WHC to subjective well-being via the mediation of three facets of the work-home interface: work-family conflict, work-family enrichment and work-family balance (Study 2). Heterogeneous samples of workers from different organisations took part in the cross-sectional studies. Substantial support was provided for the robustness of the factorial structure of the 18-item WHC scale with five factors (three support dimensions and two hindrance dimensions). Individuals' perceptions of a supportive WHC that characterises the organisation they work for - particularly with respect to work-family issues and the use of family-friendly benefits - turned out to be positively associated with work-family enrichment and balance. Only organisational time demands, which is a hindrance dimension, was associated with work-family conflict. Moreover, our findings suggest that WHC is significantly associated with subjective well-being and that this association is largely indirect - through the facets of work-family interface - rather than direct. The results of the two studies represent a relevant achievement from the perspective of conducting future research using this measure in different socio-cultural environments and ad hoc interventions in the fields of organisational psychology and occupational health.

Buying Organic Food Products: The Role of Trust in the Theory of Planned Behavior.

When someone decides to buy organic food products trust plays a role. Consumers, in fact, are neither supposed to have the appropriate knowledge to evaluate the characteristics of these products, nor can they control that the food was actually manufactured following the procedures prescribed by organic production. Therefore, trust may contribute to the explanation of both purchasing intention and behavior since it represents a heuristic or shortcut that people adopt in order to reduce the large amount of information that consumers need to take into account. The present research aimed to analyze the role of trust in organic products on buying behavior adopting the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as theoretical framework. A relational model was tested in which this variable was supposed to act as a background factor associated with all the classical constructs foreseen by the theory and the buying behavior. Also, indirect effects of trust on both intention and behavior were assessed. Two studies were conducted targeting the purchase of organic food products in general (Study 1) and of fresh organic fruit and vegetables (Study 2). In both studies, the data collection was organized in two waves, with a time lag of 1 month. At Time 1, the questionnaires included measures of intention, its antecedents and trust, while at Time 2 self-reported buying behavior was collected. Data were supplied by two convenience samples of Italian adults (237 and 227 participants) and analyzed via structural equation modeling. Results turned out to be overlapping in both studies, since trust was positively associated with attitude and subjective norm, and it was indirectly associated with intention and behavior, thanks to the mediation of the TPB constructs. The outcomes highlighted the importance of people's trust in organic products as a meaningful antecedent that boosts the TPB-based psychosocial processes that are supposed to stand behind both purchasing intentions and behaviors.

Predicting fruit consumption: A multi-group application of the Theory of Planned Behavior.

The main aim of the study was to test a two-wave longitudinal prediction model for the consumption of at least three portions of fruit per day, that was grounded on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991), extended with measures of past behavior and self-identity as a healthy eater. Self-identity is defined as a salient part of the self-concept specifically relates to a desirable behavior, such as, in this case, healthy eating. A second aim of the study was to test the invariance of the proposed model in two samples of Italian university students (n = 208) and no-student adults (n = 321). At time 1 the questionnaire was made up of measures of TPB constructs, with the addition of past consumption and self-identity as a healthy eater. Both the affective and evaluative components of attitude were assessed. At time 2, only the target behavior was surveyed. After checking both adequacy of the measurement model and reliability estimates, data were analyzed via structural equation modelling that returned good fit indices. Results showed that intention was positively associated with subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, self-identity and past behavior. Altogether, they explained 78% of the intention variance in the student group, and 81% in the adult group. After controlling for intention, past behavior - but not self-identity - was significantly related to the self-reported behavior, and the model explained 69% and 62% of behavior variance, respectively. Multi-sample analysis supported model invariance across the two groups. Results and their possible applications are presented and discussed.

CIO inventory: A new tool for measuring personality traits common to psychopathy and narcissism and their interaction with gender.

A lack of empathy, interpersonal dominance, aggression and the exploitation of others are the key features of both narcissism and psychopathic disorders. With the aim to better capture the shared facets of these traits, this study developed a new tool named the Capability to Influence Others (CIO) Inventory, which is based on the pleasantness evaluation of ten items-verbs presented in the infinitive form. The inventory, characterized by very quick submission, was administered to 67 males and 100 females and was correlated with the concurrent Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP). An exploratory factor analysis supported the presence of only one factor in both the male and female groups. Internal consistency of the CIO was very good for both men (Cronbach's alpha = 0.85; 95% CIs: 0.80-0.90) and women (Cronbach's alpha = 0.83; 95% CIs: 0.77-0.87). Further statistics showed a high correlation between the CIO and the LSRP-F1 (primary psychopathy) in both genders (r > 0.47). Clear gender differences were found in the correlation between the CIO and the NPI: the correlation was high (r = 0.58) in males and absent in females. The CIO may represent a quick and low demanding tool for a preliminary screening of individuals with high psychopathic/narcissistic traits from community samples, forensic institutions, high schools and company personnel.

Empirical Scenarios of Fake Data Analysis: The Sample Generation by Replacement (SGR) Approach.

Many self-report measures of attitudes, beliefs, personality, and pathology include items whose responses can be easily manipulated or distorted, as an example in order to give a positive impression to others, to obtain financial compensation, to avoid being charged with a crime, to get a job, or else. This fact confronts both researchers and practitioners with the crucial problem of biases yielded by the usage of standard statistical models. The current paper presents three empirical applications to the issue of faking of a recent probabilistic perturbation procedure called Sample Generation by Replacement (SGR; Lombardi and Pastore, 2012). With the intent to study the behavior of some statistics under fake perturbation and data reconstruction processes, ad-hoc faking scenarios were implemented and tested. Overall, results proved that SGR could be successfully applied both in the case of research designs traditionally proposed in order to deal with faking (e.g., use of fake-detecting scales, experimentally induced faking, or contrasting applicants vs. incumbents), and in the case of ecological research settings, where no information as regards faking could be collected by the researcher or the practitioner. Implications and limitations are presented and discussed.

Job insecurity, subjective well-being and the moderating role of locomotion.

OBJECTIVES: This paper addresses the moderating role of locomotion - a functional and fundamental dimension of self-regulation - in the relationship between job insecurity and subjective well-being. METHODS: A group of 205 adult Italian workers took part in the research by filling out an anonymous questionnaire that included measures of job insecurity, locomotion, satisfaction with life, positive and negative affect. RESULTS: Results showed that job insecurity was positively related to negative affect and negatively related to life satisfaction and positive affect. CONCLUSIONS: Locomotion was positively related to life satisfaction and positive affect and acted as a moderator only in the case of the link between job insecurity and negative affect. This means that when perceived insecurity is high, negative affect is lower for respondents scoring high versus low on locomotion. Results and suggestions for future studies are presented and discussed.

The appeal of the devil's eye: social evaluation affects social attention.

Humans typically exhibit a tendency to follow the gaze of conspecifics, a social attention behaviour known as gaze cueing. Here, we addressed whether episodically learned social knowledge about the behaviours performed by the individual bearing the gaze can influence this phenomenon. In a learning phase, different faces were systematically associated with either positive or negative behaviours. The same faces were then used as stimuli in a gaze-cueing task. The results showed that faces associated with antisocial norm-violating behaviours triggered stronger gaze-cueing effects as compared to faces associated with sociable behaviours. Importantly, this was especially evident for participants who perceived the presented norm-violating behaviours as far more negative as compared to positive behaviours. These findings suggest that reflexive attentional responses can be affected by our appraisal of the valence of the behaviours of individuals around us.

Nurse moral disengagement.

BACKGROUND: Ethics is a founding component of the nursing profession; however, nurses sometimes find it difficult to constantly adhere to the required ethical standards. There is limited knowledge about the factors that cause a committed nurse to violate standards; moral disengagement, originally developed by Bandura, is an essential variable to consider. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: This study aimed at developing and validating a nursing moral disengagement scale and investigated how moral disengagement is associated with counterproductive and citizenship behaviour at work. RESEARCH DESIGN: The research comprised a qualitative study and a quantitative study, combining a cross-validation approach and a structural equation model. PARTICIPANTS AND RESEARCH CONTEXT: A total of 60 Italian nurses (63% female) involved in clinical work and enrolled as students in a postgraduate master's programme took part in the qualitative study. In 2012, the researchers recruited 434 nurses (76% female) from different Italian hospitals using a convenience sampling method to take part in the quantitative study. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS: All the organisations involved and the university gave ethical approval; all respondents participated on a voluntary basis and did not receive any form of compensation. FINDINGS: The nursing moral disengagement scale comprised a total of 22 items. Results attested the mono-dimensionality of the scale and its good psychometric properties. In addition, results highlighted a significant association between moral disengagement and both counterproductive and citizenship behaviours. DISCUSSION: Results showed that nurses sometimes resort to moral disengagement in their daily practice, bypassing moral and ethical codes that would normally prevent them from enacting behaviours that violate their norms and protocols. CONCLUSION: The nursing moral disengagement scale can complement personnel monitoring and assessment procedures already in place and provide additional information to nursing management for designing interventions aimed at increasing compliance with ethical codes by improving the quality of the nurses' work environment.

Antecedents of hospital nurses' intention to leave the organization: A cross sectional survey.

BACKGROUND: Leadership and perceived organizational support inspire trust in the leader and in the organization. Consequently, these aspects may contribute to a reduction in job burnout among nurses and, in the end, of the intention on their part to leave the hospital. It is crucial to develop models in order to simultaneously test the correlations between these relevant psychosocial variables, so that complexity of the nursing work environment may be better understood. OBJECTIVES: We expected to give support to and to further corroborate results in the literature linking perceived leadership style ­ and particularly servant leadership ­ perceived organizational support, trust in the leader and in the organization, job burnout among nurses and their subsequent intention to leave the hospital. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Two Italian large size public hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: Two samples including both graduates and non-graduates members of the nursing staff. Overall mean age was equal to 42.06 years while the general mean for tenure was 12.99 years. Data were collected in 2012. METHODS: A regression model with latent variables was tested via structural equation modeling using LISREL. The multi-sample procedure was also applied in order to test invariance of results between the two samples. RESULTS: Servant leadership was positively associated with trust in the leader and perceived organizational support was positively associated with trust in the organization. Trust in the leader and trust in the organization displayed a negative correlation with the emotional exhaustion and cynicism factors of job burnout, and a positive correlation with the professional efficacy factor. Furthermore, trust scores mediated the effects of servant leadership and perceived organizational support on job burnout factors. The cynicism factor was negatively associated with intention to leave the organization and it also mediated the effects of both trust in the leader and servant leadership on intention to leave. On the other hand, trust in the organization turned out to be directly and negatively related to intention to leave. CONCLUSIONS: Servant leadership and perceived organizational support showed their relevance in the nursing setting. The role of trust in the leader, trust in the organization and job burnout factors as mediating variables received support. Interestingly enough, the higher the cynicism score the higher the intention to leave the hospital. The results achieved may have practical implications not only for recruitment and training of nurse managers but also for hospital management.

Analysis of the interplay between depression, anxiety, and psychological resources in adolescence using self-report measures.

OBJECTIVE: Following recent literature which stresses the importance of broadening the conceptualization of mental functioning in youth, this paper aims to investigate structural relations between indicators of anxiety, depressive symptoms, and psychological resources in non-referred Italian adolescents, as captured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman 2001 ), the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS; Spence 1998 ) and the Children Depression Inventory (CDI; Kovacs 1992 ). METHODS: A hierarchical model which considers both the interplays and overlaps between these instruments is tested by means of Confirmatory Factor Analysis, in order to explore the possibility to use the three tools within a meaningful screening battery. First, validity and reliability of SDQ, SCAS, and CDI is successfully controlled thanks to three appropriate preliminary studies, an evidence not already acquired in the Italian context for the adolescent population. Then, the focal study devises and tests a model that merges indicators of the SDQ, SCAS, and CDI scales into four correlated factors, that is, Psychological Resources, Externalized behavior problems, Internalized Fear and Internalized Anxious Misery. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, findings corroborate the combined use of SDQ, SCAS, and CDI as a screening battery for the assessment of mental functioning in youth adopting a dimensional rather than a categorical approach.

Structure of the Italian Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC-IT).

Psychometric properties of the Italian Fear Survey Schedule for Children (FSSC-IT) were examined in a large community sample of children aged 6 to 10 years. PCA and CFA yielded and confirmed a six correlated factor model, named FSSC-IT54. Internal consistency estimates of the FSSC-IT54 total score and of most of its factors were acceptable. Analyses of variance were carried out considering gender and age sub-groups and confirmed findings in the extant literature. Convergent validity of the FSSC-IT54 scores was supported by its positive correlations with a measure of childhood anxiety, the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale.

Empowering leadership, perceived organizational support, trust, and job burnout for nurses: a study in an Italian general hospital.

BACKGROUND: A strong nursing leadership that instills trust in the leader and in the organization is an important component for an effective leadership, particularly for health care organizations, because trust defines the heart of health care workplaces by promoting patient safety, excellence in care, recruitment, and retention of the nursing staff. PURPOSE: This study aimed to test the impact of perceived empowerment leadership style expressed by the nurse supervisor, nurses' perceived organizational support, trust in the leader, and trust in the organization on nurses' job burnout. METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A group of 273 nurses from an Italian public general hospital took part in a cross-sectional study on a voluntary basis by filling out an anonymous questionnaire. FINDINGS: Empowering leadership was an important predictor of trust in the leader. Trust in the organization was influenced by perceived organizational support and by the Informing dimension of the empowering leadership style. Trust in the leader and trust in the organization showed a negative impact on job burnout and also mediated the effects of some empowering leadership dimensions and perceived organizational support on job burnout. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The central role of trust in health care organizations was corroborated, as well as the beneficial effects of adopting specific features of empowerment leadership behaviors toward the nursing staff. Empowering leadership could be successfully proposed in training programs directed to nurses' supervisors and health care managers.

Relation of physical activity and self-esteem.

The aim of this study was to examine the relation between self-esteem appraisal and physical activity testing a convenience sample of 211 individuals, ages 19 to 35 years and selected from the general population after a brief structured interview. They were grouped by sport habits into three distinct groups named Athletes, Nonathletes, and Sedentary people, and then were examined for significant differences in self-esteem scores measured via the Heatherton and Polivy State Self-esteem Scale which assesses three correlated factors, respectively, Performance, Social, and Appearance. As hypothesized, self-esteem scores between-groups differences emerged for the Appearance factor only, and the Sedentary group scored comparatively lower than the other two groups.