Exploring Factors Influencing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal: A Study in Italy during the Vaccine Rollout.

The availability of an effective vaccine against COVID-19 virus marked a crucial moment in the fight against its pandemic spread. Although distribution of the vaccine began in December 2020, high acceptance rates and repeated administrations are needed to achieve widespread immunization, but hesitation toward the vaccine persists to this day. To identify psychological variables and other factors associated with vaccine hesitancy, we conducted a study from August 2021 to October 2022. An Internet-based survey gathered data from 137 Italian adults, exploring attitudes, sociodemographic characteristics, psychological variables, and immunization behavior. The results analysis showed that gender (69.2% of vaccine-adverse people were males), education (years of education was negatively correlated with vaccine hesitancy), and religion (not declaring oneself religious or atheist was more likely to be associated with hesitancy toward the vaccine) were the variables influencing attitudes toward the vaccine. Other psychological variables differentiated people with opposite attitudes toward the vaccine: high scores on the Conspiracy Mentality Questionnaire (CMQ) and Core Belief Inventory (CBI) were positively correlated with vaccine hesitancy, indicating that individuals with more pronounced core belief violation, due to the pandemic, tend to express higher levels of vaccine hesitancy. Finally, a linear regression analysis confirmed the role of participants' conspiracy mentality as a valid predictor for vaccine hesitancy.

Language and Intelligence: A Relationship Supporting the Embodied Cognition Hypothesis.

Cognitive science has gathered robust evidence supporting the hypothesis that cognitive processes do not occur in an amodal format but take shape through the activation of the sensorimotor systems of the agent body, which works as simulation system upon which concepts, words, and thought are based. However, studies that have investigated the relationship between language and cognitive processes, as both embedded processes, are very rare. In this study, we investigated the hypothesis that intelligence is associated with referential competence, conceived as the ability to find words to refer to our subjective and perceptual experience, and to evoke understanding of this experience in the listener. We administered the WAIS-IV test to 32 nonclinical subjects and collected autobiographical narratives from them through the Relationship Anecdotes Paradigm Interview. The narratives were analyzed linguistically by applying computerized measures of referential competence. Intelligence scores were found to correlate with the use in narratives of words related to somatic and sensory sensations, while they were not associated with other measures of referential competence related to more abstract domains of experience or based on vivid or reflective dimensions of language style. The results support the hypothesis that sensorimotor schemas have an intrinsic role in language and cognition.

Linguistic Markers of the Emotion Elaboration Surrounding the Confinement Period in the Italian Epicenter of COVID-19 Outbreak.

The expressive writing method has rarely been proposed in contexts of large-scale upheavals that affect large populations. In this study this method was applied as an intervention and tool of investigation during the confinement period in the Lombardy region, the Italian Epicenter of COVID-19 outbreak. Sixty-four participants took part in an online expressive writing project, and a total of 167 writings were collected together with some self-report evaluations on emotions and physical sensations. A linguistic analysis through two different sets of computerized linguistic measures was conducted on the collected writings in order to study the linguistic markers of emotion regulation and elaboration. Results indicated that online expressive writing has helped respondents to get more in touch with the intense emotions that were experienced following the upheavals they witnessed. Writing even only once or twice helped, particularly those respondents who had at least one COVID-19 patient among close friends or relatives. Their writings showed an intense emotional involvement together with the ability to reflect and reorganize the personal meaning of the events and emotions experienced. This study shows that expressive writing can be used in the context of a psychological emergency, both as a powerful instrument to investigate and detect the complex psychodynamic processes underpinning the distress, and as a useful intervention to reduce the negative impact of traumatic events.

Psychotherapy trainees' epistemological assumptions influencing research-practice integration.

Over the last few decades a growing number of psychotherapy scholars as well as psychotherapy researchers have joined a paradigm shift, moving from a reductionist to a complexity-oriented epistemology. Many authors recognize that when human subjectivity is the object of intervention and study, it is appropriate to resist simplification and to assume a more complex approach. While this paradigm shift is taking place not only in psychology but also in other disciplines, many psychotherapists still share the assumption that psychotherapy practice and psychotherapy research have opposite values; hence, they are worlds that cannot be reconciled. Considering this as one of the main reasons preventing a useful integration of evidence-based practice and clinical training in psychotherapy, we conducted an online survey of 126 Italian trainees from three differently-oriented psychotherapy institutes (cognitive-behavioral, relational-psychoanalytic and relational-systemic) to explore the epistemology underling the clinical and research practices. After presenting a clinical vignette, we asked questions about diagnostic considerations, case formulations, and treatment plans; we also asked questions about participants' involvement in research projects or in research methodology courses and about willingness to be involved in future research studies in their clinical practice. We found some significant differences among trainees with different orientations, but in general most of the responses reflected a positivistic epistemology underlying both clinical and research activities. These findings suggest that a deeper awareness of one's own epistemological assumptions could help trainees foster a more theory-coherent and research-informed clinical practice.

Violência: uma leitura sistêmica / Violence: a sistemic reading

A presente pesquisa refere-se a fenômenos histórica e espacialmente generalizados, que vêm se tornando cada vez mais foco de interesse a partir de desenvolvimentos importantes no campo da prevenção e proteção, em uma escala global: os fenômenos violentos. As rápidas mudanças sociais e culturais, típicas da era globalizada, nos levou a especular sobre o que categorizamos como violência, e sobre as evoluções históricas e culturais às quais essas dinâmicas se referem. O objetivo principal deste trabalho portanto é a análise e a re-interpretação das valiosas contribuições oferecidas por diversas disciplinas no que diz respeito à conceitualização da violência. Além disso, trazemos o relato de dois casos clínicos, analisados a partir da abordagem sistêmica. Assim, é possível compreender de maneira acessível e ilustrativa o sentido prático do que foi elaborado na parte teórica. A análise dos dois casos clínicos foi possível a partir do diálogo com várias disciplinas que se debruçaram sobre fenômenos relacionados à violência, utilizando-se uma abordagem multi e inter-disciplinar

The present research is focused on historically and spatially generalized phenomena, which have been recently interested by important developments both in term of prevention and protection, on a global scale: the violent phenomena. The fast social and cultural changes, typical of the globalization era, lead us to speculate on what we categorize as violence and on the historical and cultural evolutions that these dynamics are referred to. Primary goal of this work is therefore the analysis and the re-interpretation of enlightening contributions provided by a vast range of disciplines in the context of conceptualization of violence. On our side, we also report two clinical cases seen through the lens of the systemic approach. It is in this way possible to understand in a straightforward and continuative manner the practical sense of what elaborated in the theoretical section. The analysis of the two clinical cases is made possible solely by means of an interaction among the different sciences which have dealt with the phenomena linked to violence, according to a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach