Emilio Paolo Visintin

Imagined intergroup contact promotes cooperation through outgroup trust

The present research aims to investigate whether salience of memberships during imagined contact is necessary for producing generalized positive attitudes toward the outgroup and promoting intergroup cooperation. After a warm-up task that involved reciprocal self-disclosure during the imagined interaction with an outgroup member, we manipulated interpersonal versus intergroup features of imagined contact. Results indicated that participants who imagined a conversation with a Muslim focusing on intergroup differences subsequently reported more positive attitudes and cooperative intentions toward Muslim immigrants compared to either participants who imagined the interaction at the interpersonal level or participants in a control condition. Moreover, these effects were found to be mediated by outgroup trust. These findings attest to the strength of interventions based on imagined intergroup contact and suggest a possible implementation of the technique.

‘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.

Literary plastination: From body's objectification to the ontological representation of death, differences between sick-literature and tales by amateur writers

This article presents a qualitative analysis of published and unpublished texts, aimed to understand a new narrative phenomenon named “sick-lit.” This is a genre of stories, written by professional novelists, rooted in disease, self-harm, suicide, sufferance from violence, death, and dying. In the Internet it has been considered as a trivialization of serious issues and even potentially encouraging readers to harm themselves. Our hypothesis is that this negative judgment is based on the ontological representation of death and the objectification of the body depicted in these stories. In order to inquire into this possibility and to compare this anomalous form of story-telling with another kind of narration reflecting the wider common sensibility, a qualitative analysis was realized on six sick-lit novels (SLNs) and 21 unpublished tales written by amateur writers (AWTs). The results confirm the hypothesis: the SLNs represent death also as an absolute annihilation and the body is always reified through medical language, while the AWTs represent death only as a passage or reincarnation and the description of the deteriorated body is minimal.

Deumanizzazione del paziente oncologico nei contesti medici

In this paper the authors explore the presence of infrahumanization effects when the target is cancer patients. Participants were physicians and nurses working in cancer institutes or oncology departments of hospitals. Participants were asked to judge their own category and that of cancer patients on a set of traits. Uniquely human (e.g., rationality, reasoning) and non-uniquely human traits (e.g., impulse, instinct) were used. Patients were also judged on traits expressing the essence of human nature, such as emotionality and relational capacities. The denial of traits of human nature leads to a type of dehumanization, that is called mechanistic dehumanization. Findings show that both physicians and nurses assign the unique features of human category less to patients than to health professionals (infrahumanization effect). In contrast, effects of mechanistic dehumanization were not revealed. In the discussion, the authors examine the potential consequences of cancer patients’ infrahumanization on the therapeutic relationship and treatment effectiveness.

Inclusive Normative Climates Strengthen the Relationship Between Identification With Europe and Tolerant Immigration Attitudes: Evidence From 22 Countries

Europe as a supranational entity is frequently associated to inclusive and cosmopolitan values, which explains why identification with Europe generally relates to tolerant attitudes toward immigrants. However, because of major immigration movements, Europe has recently gone through demographic and social changes that have challenged its values and identity. In this context, we argue that, because national immigrant integration policies convey social norms about how citizens should deal with issues related to immigration, policies should also shape the association between identification with Europe and attitudes toward immigrants. Indeed, tolerant, more so than intolerant, policies in a country lay the foundations for interpreting identification with Europe as an inclusive stance, and consequently should enhance the association between identification with Europe and reduced anti-immigrant attitudes. To investigate these associations, we conducted a cross-country multilevel analysis including 22 European countries from the 2013 International Social Survey Programme. As predicted, identification with Europe was associated to reduced anti-immigrant prejudice. Furthermore, this negative association was stronger in countries with more tolerant, inclusive policies (assessed by the Migrant Integration Policy Index [MIPEX]) compared with countries with more intolerant, exclusive policies. Results are discussed in light of the content of European identity and of different embodiments of social norms.

From ethnic group boundary demarcation to deprovincialization: The interplay of immigrant presence and ideological climate

Intergroup contact (i.e. personal encounters with and presence of immigrants) has frequently been related to improved immigration attitudes among the national majority. The impact of ideological climates, in turn, has received scant attention. Drawing on the notion of deprovincialization, we argue that, in proximal geographical contexts, contact with immigrants as well as progressive (vs conservative) ideological climates engender a reappraisal of national ingroup boundaries by attenuating ethnic views of nationhood. As expected, multilevel regression analyses with the Swiss ISSP 2013 data (N = 1019 Swiss respondents living in 136 districts) revealed that personal encounters with immigrants related to reduced ethnic boundary making. Importantly, on the district level, immigrant presence buffered the impact of conservative ideological climates.

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 “Sick-Lit” Question and the Death Education Answer. Papageno Versus Werther Effects in Adolescent Suicide Prevention

Abstract This study analyzes the “sick-lit” narrative phenomenon, a story writing genre rooted in self-harm and suicide, which seems to be gaining remarkable popularity amongst adolescents. This success is a symptom of young people’s need to address the issue of death. The qualitative research was composed of two parts: the first explored the ambivalent representation of sick-lit on the internet, where two opposing factions argue about its educative usefulness vs. its potentially dangerous copycat effect. The second part investigated six novels and their representations of self-harm, death, sufferance and suicide. The analysis confuted the idea that sick-lit may be a positive instrument for making adolescents aware of mortality and showed the need to transform the Werther risk effect into the Papageno possibility by exploring the content of these books with adolescents in death education courses.