Conspiring under threats! An investigation of associations between COVID-19 health and economic threats and conspiracy beliefs in Italy and Argentina.

Theory and research suggest that threats aroused by a given crisis lead to conspiracy beliefs. Although crises involve the arise of multiple threats (e.g., economic, safety, etc.) diversely affecting various needs and outcomes (i.e., cognition, emotion and behaviour), no research has yet focused on specific relations that different threats may have with the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs. In this study, we distinguished between health and economic threats aroused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and we tested their associations with conspiracy beliefs. Findings from two correlational studies conducted in Italy and Argentina showed that while COVID-19's economic threat was positively and consistently related to conspiracy beliefs, the relationship between COVID-19's health threat and conspiracy beliefs was negative and significant in the Italian sample and non-significant in the Argentinian sample. Results are discussed within the context of the effects of multiple threats elicited by crises on conspiracy beliefs.

Imagine Being Humble: Integrating Imagined Intergroup Contact and Cultural Humility to Foster Inclusive Intergroup Relations.

To reduce prejudice and to promote intergroup harmony and equality, the imagined intergroup contact technique, based on the mental simulation of an encounter with an outgroup member, has been proposed. Though a substantial body of research has provided support for the efficacy of imagined intergroup contact in prejudice reduction, an alternative strand of research has raised questions about its effectiveness. In this experiment, we combined imagined intergroup contact with cultural humility, that is, an other-oriented, humble approach toward people with different cultural backgrounds, recognizing status and power imbalances and privileges. Specifically, we tested whether instructions aimed at eliciting cultural humility during imagined contact boosted its effectiveness in reducing prejudice and promoting future contact intentions, compared to a standard imagined contact condition and to a control imagination task. Intergroup anxiety was tested as a mediator of the effects of culturally humble imagined contact on reduced prejudice and on future contact intentions. We found that culturally humble imagined contact, compared to the two other conditions, reduced intergroup anxiety and yielded indirect effects on reduced prejudice and increased future contact intentions. The findings will be discussed by focusing on the integration of cultural humility in prejudice reduction techniques based on intergroup contact.

Experience and Perceptions among Older Outpatients after Myocardial Infarction following an Exercise Intervention: A Qualitative Analysis from the PIpELINe Trial.

Traditional cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs effectively improve physical performance and outcomes after myocardial infarction (MI). However, older patients are less likely to participate in such programs. The aim of this qualitative analysis was to investigate experiences and perceptions of cardiac outpatients enrolled in an innovative and exercise-based CR program and to identify possible barriers to improving adherence and quality of life. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on a sample of 31 patients (84% male; age 76 ± 6 years) from the Physical Activity Intervention in Elderly after Myocardial Infarction (PIpELINe) trial, after about six months of the event. Three main themes were identified: Personal feelings after the event; lifestyle change and perception of barriers; and relationships with familiars. Participants perceived sensations of fear at the time of their diagnosis and showed awareness of the importance of following specific health suggestions. They reported a significative change in previous habits and highlighted the need for periodic controls. Few of them felt insecure in carrying out daily activities or practicing exercise and reported an unnecessary protection from the family members. These findings will provide valuable insights for the development of a more feasible patient-centered CR model of intervention.

Support for Social Change Among Members of Advantaged Groups: The Role of a Dual Identity Representation and Accepting Intergroup Contact.

This preregistered research analyzed survey data from ethnic and religious advantaged groups in 12 countries (N = 2,304) to examine the interplay between two determinants of support for social change toward intergroup equality. Drawing on the needs-based model and the common-ingroup identity model, we hypothesized that the experience of accepting intergroup contact and the endorsement of a dual identity representation of intergroup relations would be associated with greater support for equality. Furthermore, integrating the logic of both models, we tested the novel hypothesis that the positive effect of accepting contact on support for equality would be stronger under a high (vs. low) dual identity representation. While the predicted main effects received empirical support, we found no evidence for the expected interaction. These findings suggest that interventions to foster support for social change among advantaged group members can promote accepting contact and a dual identity representation independently of each other.

I love you too much to keep social distance: Closeness in relationships and (dis)engagement in preventive behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although we are witnessing a new phase in the management of COVID-19, understanding what predicts adherence to preventive behaviors still remains crucial. In this study we focus on interpersonal relationships by specifically investigating whether engagement in preventive behaviors when in the presence of others may be a function of the type of relationship (in terms of closeness) one has with others. Because close others are often perceived similar to the self compared to strangers, we put forward that close relationships may inadvertently decrease COVID-19 risk perceptions which may ultimately decrease compliance with recommended behaviors when in their presence. To test this hypothesis, 747 Italian respondents were invited to answer one out of four versions of a questionnaire differing on the target (i.e., friends vs. parents vs. grandparents vs. strangers), including questions regarding COVID-19 risk perceptions and intentions to engage in preventive behaviors. Mediation analysis showed that close relationships (i.e., with friends, parents, and grandparents) compared to nonclose relationships (i.e., with strangers) predicted lower intentions to engage in preventive behaviors via lower risk perceptions. Altogether, these results shed light on the role played by closeness in indirectly shaping individuals' dis(engagement) in preventive behaviors and contribute to better understand possible unconscious biases which may undermine our safety during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effects of forest walking on physical and mental health in elderly populations: a systematic review.

There is a growing awareness that spending time in nature is associated with improvement of well-being; nevertheless, the prescription of forest bathing is still limited. The aim of this systematic review was to explore the physiological and psychological benefits of different forest therapies on healthy and pathological elderly populations (>60 years) to identify the most-effective type, duration, and frequency of these interventions. A search for literature was carried out in December 2021 using PubMed, EMBASE, ResearchGate, Google Scholar and Web of Science. Grey literature was searched as well. After removal of the duplicates, within the 214 articles identified, ten met the inclusion criteria. The methodological quality of the selected studies was rated. Forest walking, alone and in combination with other activities is the most effective intervention. The selected studies reported a positive impact on physical components, including reduction in blood pressure and heart rate and improvements in cardiopulmonary and neurochemical parameters. Favorable modifications have also been noted in the psychological field, with improvements in depression, stress levels and in quality of life perception. In conclusion, forest walking may play an important role in promoting physical and mental health in healthy and pathological elderly populations. However, the lack of high-quality studies limits the strength of the results, calling for more trials.

Are You Willing to Protect the Health of Older People? Intergenerational Contact and Ageism as Predictors of Attitudes toward the COVID-19 Vaccination Passport.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the vulnerability of older people to COVID-19 has been stressed in political discourse and the mass media, with the call to protect older adults. Therefore, policies aimed at reducing the spread of coronavirus, such as the COVID-19 vaccination passport policy, might be perceived as policies aimed at preserving the health of older people, and negative attitudes toward older people (i.e., ageism) might underlie negative attitudes toward such policies. While intergenerational contact is one of the main antecedents of reduced ageism, the pandemic has forced people to separate, and direct intergenerational contact in particular might have been reduced, possibly being replaced by telephone and virtual contact. In a correlational study (N = 153 Italian university students) we found that quantity and quality of direct intergenerational contact diminished during the pandemic. Virtual intergenerational contact was unexpectedly less frequent than direct contact. Quality of direct contact before the pandemic was associated, over and above the effects of other contact forms under investigation, with reduced ageism, which was in turn associated with negative attitude toward the vaccination passport. Findings will be discussed focusing on the roles of intergenerational contact and ageism for public health.

Need satisfaction in intergroup contact: A multinational study of pathways toward social change.

What role does intergroup contact play in promoting support for social change toward greater social equality? Drawing on the needs-based model of reconciliation, we theorized that when inequality between groups is perceived as illegitimate, disadvantaged group members will experience a need for empowerment and advantaged group members a need for acceptance. When intergroup contact satisfies each group's needs, it should result in more mutual support for social change. Using four sets of survey data collected through the Zurich Intergroup Project in 23 countries, we tested several preregistered predictions, derived from the above reasoning, across a large variety of operationalizations. Two studies of disadvantaged groups (Ns = 689 ethnic minority members in Study 1 and 3,382 sexual/gender minorities in Study 2) support the hypothesis that, after accounting for the effects of intergroup contact and perceived illegitimacy, satisfying the need for empowerment (but not acceptance) during contact is positively related to support for social change. Two studies with advantaged groups (Ns = 2,937 ethnic majority members in Study 3 and 4,203 cis-heterosexual individuals in Study 4) showed that, after accounting for illegitimacy and intergroup contact, satisfying the need for acceptance (but also empowerment) is positively related to support for social change. Overall, findings suggest that intergroup contact is compatible with efforts to promote social change when group-specific needs are met. Thus, to encourage support for social change among both disadvantaged and advantaged group members, it is essential that, besides promoting mutual acceptance, intergroup contact interventions also give voice to and empower members of disadvantaged groups. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Parental Support during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Friend or Foe? A Moderation Analysis of the Association between Maternal Anxiety and Children's Stress in Italian Dyads.

There is evidence that parental psychological disorders in stressful situations increase the risk of disturbance in child development. This has been investigated in disasters but not in pandemics, which are sensibly different from other types of traumatic events. We investigated the relationship between mothers' anxiety and their children's (self-reported) stress and the boundary conditions of this association during the first full COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, mothers might have increased their protective attitudes to secure and support their children; we tested whether the relationship between mothers' anxiety and children's stress was weaker (buffer effect) or stronger (over-protection effect) when perceived parental support was high. We measured mothers' anxiety, children's perceived parental support, and children's stress in a sample of 414 8- to 11-year-old primary school children (229 females, Mage = 9.44) and 395 mothers (Mage = 42.84). Results supported the over-protection scenario and provided the first evidence for the "helicopter-parent effect" during the COVID-19 pandemic: mothers' anxiety was positively associated with children's stress only when perceived support was high. Our finding highlights the importance of educating parents (for example, via emotional training) to prevent the worst consequences of adverse events in children and promote their mental health.

Socio-Emotional Competencies and School Performance in Adolescence: What Role for School Adjustment?

There is growing evidence in the literature of positive relationships between socio-emotional competencies and school performance. Several hypotheses have been used to explain how these variables may be related to school performance. In this paper, we explored the role of various school adjustment variables in the relationship between interpersonal socio-emotional competencies and school grades, using a weighted network approach. This network approach allowed us to analyze the structure of interrelations between each variable, pointing to both central and mediatory school and socio-emotional variables within the network. Self-reported data from around 3,400 French vocational high school students were examined. This data included a set of interpersonal socio-emotional competencies (cognitive and affective empathy, socio-emotional behaviors and collective orientation), school adjustment measures (adaptation to the institution, school anxiety, self-regulation at school, and self-perceived competence at school) as well as grades in mathematics and French language. The results showed that self-regulation at school weighted the most strongly on the whole network, and was the most important mediatory pathway. More specifically, self-regulation mediated the relationships between interpersonal socio-emotional competencies and school grades.

Contact with older people, ageism, and containment behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To reduce and slow the spread of the coronavirus during the pandemic, people throughout countries are asked to adopt a series of prevention behaviours such as keeping physical distance and using protective devices (containment behaviours). Vulnerability of older people during the pandemic has been stressed by mass-media and in political communication, calling for protection of this sector of the population. Based on intergroup contact theory and on the stereotype content model, I conducted a correlational study during the coronavirus lockdown in Italy, analysing contact with older people before the pandemic, ageism, and containment behaviours. Quality of contact with older people, favourable attitudes toward older people, and benevolent ageism were found to be positively associated with containment behaviours. Findings suggest that positive intergenerational relations are likely beneficial for public health.

Author Correction: A large-scale test of the link between intergroup contact and support for social change.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

A large-scale test of the link between intergroup contact and support for social change.

Guided by the early findings of social scientists, practitioners have long advocated for greater contact between groups to reduce prejudice and increase social cohesion. Recent work, however, suggests that intergroup contact can undermine support for social change towards greater equality, especially among disadvantaged group members. Using a large and heterogeneous dataset (12,997 individuals from 69 countries), we demonstrate that intergroup contact and support for social change towards greater equality are positively associated among members of advantaged groups (ethnic majorities and cis-heterosexuals) but negatively associated among disadvantaged groups (ethnic minorities and sexual and gender minorities). Specification-curve analysis revealed important variation in the size-and at times, direction-of correlations, depending on how contact and support for social change were measured. This allowed us to identify one type of support for change-willingness to work in solidarity- that is positively associated with intergroup contact among both advantaged and disadvantaged group members.

National Identification Counteracts the Sedative Effect of Positive Intergroup Contact on Ethnic Activism.

Positive intergroup contact with socially and economically advantaged national majorities has been shown to reduce ethnic identification among minorities, thereby undermining ethnic minority activism. This finding implies that ethnic identity is the relevant social identity driving ethnic minorities' struggle for equality. We argue that the study of the "sedating" effect of positive intergroup contact for minorities should be more nuanced. The existence of multiple and sometimes interplaying social identities can foster a reinterpretation of the meaning of "ethnic" activism. This study therefore examines how the interplay of ethnic and national identities shapes the sedating effect of contact on minority activism. We expect national identification to buffer the sedated activism resulting from reduced ethnic identification. That is, the mediation from intergroup contact to reduced ethnic activism through weakened ethnic identification is expected to be moderated by national identification. With survey data from Bulgaria, we investigated support for ethnic activism among Bulgarian Roma (N = 320) as a function of their contact with the national majority as well as their degree of ethnic and national identification. The predicted moderated mediation was revealed: a negative indirect relationship between contact and activism through decreased ethnic identification occurred among Roma with low national identification, whereas no sedating effect occurred among Roma identifying strongly as members of the Bulgarian nation. We discuss the meaning of national identification for the Roma minority, who experience harsh discrimination in countries where they have been historically settled, as well as convergence of these findings with work on dual identification. We highlight the role of interacting social identities in mobilizing resources for activism and the importance of adopting a critical view on ethnic discourse when studying activism in both traditional and immigrant minorities.

The dynamics of interminority extended contact: The role of affective and cognitive mediators.

OBJECTIVE: Research on intergroup contact and prejudice reduction has dedicated little attention to relations between minority groups. We examined whether interminority extended contact, that is, the knowledge that a member of the minority ingroup has a friend from the minority outgroup, is associated with positive outgroup attitudes. Affective (outgroup empathy and outgroup trust) and cognitive (ingroup norm) mediators were considered. METHOD: Two correlational studies were conducted. Study 1 (N = 640, 50% female, mean age = 44 years) was conducted in Bulgaria among the Bulgarian Turkish and Roma ethnic minorities, while Study 2 (N = 458, 67% female, mean age = 44 years) was conducted in Finland among Estonian and Russian immigrants. RESULTS: Path analyses showed that, over and above the effects of direct contact between the minority groups, interminority extended contact was associated with positive outgroup attitudes in both intergroup settings. These effects occurred through empathy (Study 1), trust, and ingroup norms (Study 2). CONCLUSION: The 2 studies highlight interminority extended contact as a means to promote harmonious interminority relationships and suggest the implementation of interventions based on extended contact to reduce interminority prejudice and to foster solidarity among minorities. (PsycINFO Database Record

'And the best essay is ': Extended contact and cross-group friendships at school.

We conducted one experimental intervention based on extended contact principles aimed at fostering the formation of cross-group friendships within educational settings. Italian school children took part in a school competition for the best essay on personal experiences of cross-group friendships with immigrants, to be written in small groups. This manipulation was intended to favour the exchange of personal positive cross-group experiences, thus capitalizing on the benefits of extended contact. In the control condition, participants wrote an essay on friendship, without reference to cross-group relations. Results revealed that children who took part in the intervention reported a higher number of outgroup friends 3 months later. This indirect effect was sequentially mediated by pro-contact ingroup and outgroup norms and by outgroup contact behavioural intentions. This study provides experimental evidence that interventions based on extended contact can foster cross-group friendship formation. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Evaluating the effects of a message on attitude and intention to eat raw meat: Salmonellosis prevention.

Salmonellosis is one of the most common foodborne human diseases. The risk of infection can be reduced by communication campaigns. The aim of this study was to demonstrate the efficacy of a food safety message that underlines that eating well-cooked meat is an effective strategy for preventing salmonellosis. The target audience was young adults (university students). They were presented with one of two messages, a prevention message or a control message. The prevention message proved to be very effective. First, it changed the attitude toward raw or rare meat, which after having read the prevention message was evaluated less positively and more negatively. Second, intentions to eat raw or rare meat were weaker in those who read the prevention message compared with those who read the control message. Third, after the message, participants in the experimental condition, but not in the control condition, associated the self-image more with well-done meat than with raw or rare meat.