Bruno M. Mazzara

Italian parliamentary debates on energy sustainability: How argumentative 'short-circuits' affect public engagement.

Public engagement is considered a crucial process in the transition towards sustainable energy systems. However, less space has been devoted to understand how policy makers and stakeholders view citizens and their relationship with energy issues. Nonetheless, together with technological advancements, policies and political debates on energy affect public engagement as well as individual practices. This article aims at tackling this issue by exploring how policy makers and stakeholders have socially constructed sustainable energy in Italian parliamentary debates and consultations during recent years (2009–2012). Results show that societal discourses on sustainable energy are oriented in a manner that precludes public engagement. The political debate is characterised by argumentative ‘short-circuits’ that constrain individual and community actions to the acceptance or the refusal of top-down decisions and that leave little room for community empowerment and bottom-up innovation.

Environmental Consciousness and Sustainable Energy Policies: Italian Parliamentary Debates in the Years 2009–2012

ABSTRACT This contribution examines levels and components of consciousness (knowledge, experiences, awareness, concerns, values) invoked by decision makers and key informants in their speeches on energy sustainability at the Italian parliament in the years 2009–2012. A socioconstructivist approach, indeed, suggests that meaning-making and negotiation processes involved in the creation of laws affect the cultural shift required for successful energy transitions. Discussions among decision makers (n = 90) and consultation with key informants (n = 93) were submitted to content analysis. Results show that levels of consciousness are low, and their increase is due to external events, but they rapidly return to the baseline when the events in question leave the agenda. Cognitive components largely prevail over affects and values. Concerns are associated with all the energy sources. The observed unbalance among the components of consciousness, although being a pragmatic rhetorical choice, opens several questions about the Italian approach to energy sustainability.

Collective memory and intergroup relations

Abstract The paper stresses the utility of a closer link between recent reassessments of social and collective dimensions of memory and the lines of research on intergroup relations. We maintain that by this link, suprisingly not fully explored to date, both fields could profit significantly. On one side, it is possible to highlight the crucial role of collective memories in the definition of identities and of boundaries of groups. On the other side, it could be argued that the study of the ways in which collective and social memories are actually performed in intergroup context may improve the understanding of the processes involved. In our opinion, a full development of this link have been hindered by a widely diffused individualistic reading of some classical contributions in the field of collective memory, and by the growing radicalism of recent socio-constructionist approaches to the same topic. As to the first point, we propose a new reading of Bartletts work; as to the second, we support the reduction of the clash between cognitive and socio-constructionist approaches on memory research.

Il pregiudizio, la conoscenza e l’Altro. Esplorazioni sulla natura della mente

Riassunto - Il pregiudizio costituisce un tema di grande rilievo per la psicologia non solo per l’importanza sociale dell’argomento, ma anche perche rinvia ad una serie di questioni di carattere epistemologico, tramite le quali la psicologia si collega al dibattito, antico e tuttora molto vivo in ambito filosofico, sulle possibilita e modalita di conoscenza della realta. Vengono infatti chiamati in causa nodi fondamentali quali il realismo, il relativismo, il ruolo del linguaggio nei processi di pensiero e di conoscenza, l’agentivita e la responsabilita personale, con sullo sfondo il grande tema della natura della mente. Con riferimento a tali questioni generali, la riflessione della psicologia sul tema specifico del pregiudizio si puo considerare una esemplificazione mol-to efficace del contrasto e delle possibili integrazioni fra l’approccio cognitivo e l’approccio socio-costruzio-nista. A questo dibattito gli studi sul pregiudizio possono concorrere in modo rilevante, dal momento che contribuiscono a chiarire il ruolo in qualche modo fondativo che relazione sociale e l’interazione con l’alterita possono svolgere nella stessa costituzione della mente umana. Parole chiave: Pregiudizio; Mente; Cultura; Realismo; Costruzionismo. Prejudice, Knowledge, and the Other. Explorations of the Nature of Mind Abstract - Prejudice is one of the most important topics in the history of psychological research, not only for the social relevance of the theme, but also because it implies a series of epistemological stances, much debated by philosophers, regarding the possibility of acquiring any knowledge of reality. It evokes interesting issues regarding realism and relativ-ism, the role of language in the processes of thinking and knowing, agency and personal responsibility, with – in the background – the “central question” of the nature of the human mind. With reference to these gen-eral topics, the discussion of prejudice in psychology is a good example of the contrasts between, as well as the possibility for integration of, cognitive and socio-constructionist approaches. Studies on prejudice may contribute considerably to this debate, since they highlight the crucial role of social relations, and in particu-lar of relations with the Other, in the shaping of the human mind. Keywords : Prejudice; Mind; Culture; Realism; Constructionism.

Il genere in psicologia sociale: questioni epistemologiche e metodologiche

Nella ricerca sul genere, la proposta di una prospettiva teorica innovativa - centrata sulla critica al riduzionismo biologista e all’essenzialismo - si e accompagnata a una riflessione critica sull’approccio cognitivo mainstream e sulla sua caratterizzazione di genere, il malestream. Tale riflessione viene discussa nell’articolo in relazione a temi epistemologici - il realismo e la svolta linguistica - e metodologici, relativi al confronto tra metodi qualitativi e quantitativi. Dall’analisi emerge come alcune delle questioni poste, in particolare dalla psicologia femminista, quali la soggettivita del ricercatore, il ruolo del contesto, il tema del potere nelle relazioni ricercatori-ricercati, costituiscano dimensioni problematiche tuttora rilevanti per chi fa ricerca psicosociale.