Individuals often use minimal cues such as gait, face, gestures and voice to categorise others' sexual orientation, a process known as making gaydar judgments. However, it remains unclear whether these judgments change over time, particularly as a function of personal information sharing. In this study, we examined whether heterosexual and sexual minority men made accurate gaydar judgments and whether these judgments changed during the process of getting to know the person. Participants watched videos of men who self-identified as either gay or straight and judged their sexual orientation. They did so first after observing them walking into a room, reading a written text and describing a given image, and then again seeing and hearing them talk about their personal experiences. Next, participants rated the perceived masculinity of the targets based on their gait, gesture, and voice and indicated how informative different minimal cues were for their gaydar judgments. Results showed that accuracy was higher for straight than gay targets. However, in the phase where targets talked about personal information, participants were more likely to categorise the gay targets as such. These effects emerged regardless of the raters' sexual orientation. Gay targets were perceived as less masculine than straight targets and perceived masculinity based on gestures was particularly relevant for differentiating gay and straight targets. These findings highlight the dynamic nature of gaydar judgments, suggesting that, as individuals share more personal information, perceptions shift and masculinity plays a role in making such judgments.
Environmentally specific transformational leadership (ETFL) is a form of target-specific leadership related to corporate environmental responsibility. Two cross-sectional studies were conducted to adapt the ETFL scale to the Italian context and examine its criterion validity within a relational model linking environmental leadership to selected self-reported workplace green behaviors, through the mediation of green organizational climate. Study 1 (n = 380) explored the factorial structure and psychometric properties of Robertson's (2018) scale via confirmatory factor analysis, supporting the robustness of a bifactor model, with a dominant general factor accounting for most of the items' variance. Study 2 (n = 422) tested the hypothesized model using path analysis on four easily achievable daily green behaviors. The findings revealed that ETFL is directly associated with employees' energy-saving practices and waste-separation activities. An indirect effect via green organizational climate was found only for recycling activities. Based on these results, it can be posited that when behavioral performance needs support from organizational policy (e.g., the availability of litter bins), leadership influence on behavior is conveyed by employees' perceptions of their company as environmentally responsible. In contrast, in situations where organizational procedures play a less crucial role, leaders can serve as role models, directly encouraging subordinates to accomplish eco-friendly actions.
A growing number of Ukrainian refugees are fleeing their country due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. It seems, then, relevant to deepen which factors can prevent negative attitudes towards Ukrainian refugees in the European and Italian context. This study investigated the role of beliefs in social equality and guilt in shaping such attitudes. Participants (N = 425) completed an anonymous questionnaire. Findings showed a significant negative association between social equality beliefs, guilt by omission, and negative attitudes towards Ukrainian refugees. A significant three-way interaction between beliefs in social equality, guilt by commission, and guilt by omission emerged. Our findings show that guilt by omission moderates the relationship between beliefs in social equality and negative attitudes toward Ukrainian refugees, weakening this link. This effect holds across both low and high guilt by commission, suggesting that high guilt by omission may partially inhibit beliefs in social equality's catalyst effect. Our findings could be useful for policymakers interested in favoring the acceptance of Ukrainian refugees.
The research aimed to study the social representations of representations political participation circulating in different groups of young Neapolitan university students, identify the variables involved in their cognitive-affective positioning and identify the correlations between representations, political behaviour, anomie, and perceived self-efficacy. Using a semi-Structured questionnaire, it was possible to reach a total sample of 327 university students, divided into three subgrops according to political orientations: young right-wingers (n = 37) , young left-wingers ( n = 44) and young non-partisans (n = 246) The internal structure of social presentations was reconstructed through Hierarchical vocations. At the same time, political behaviour, anomic and perceived self-efficacy were investigated through unique psychometric scales. Young right-wingers constrict their social representation of political participation around the core constituted by values, linked to peripheral elements such as commitment and community. For these participants, the disengagement scale correlates negatively with all the dimensions analysed. In the case of young left-wingers, the practice of demonstrating is central reflecting the correlations that emerged between the variables of formal participation and activism. Finally, voting is central to the representation provided by the non-pattisan youth, who show a tendency towards disillusionment with parties and institutions. Although political participation is represented differently among the groups analysed, there is no clear distinction between conventional & raquo; and & laquo;unconventional modes of participation but the phenomenon evolves over time and in different contexts, adopting updated tools and nurturing innovative practices.
Over the past decades, research has emphasized the & laquo;glass ceiling & raquo; that limits women's access to leadership roles and makes them the target of biased attitudes. This barrier persists because women continue to face challenges in breaking free from traditional gender-role stereotypes in the workplace. This study (N = 252), conducted in Italy using a cross-sectional approach, explored two key factors that might be associated with negative attitudes toward women managers: positive contact with women in leadership/managerial positions (i.e., counterstereotypic contact) and Implicit Person Theories (IPT) or mindsets, which reflect individuals' beliefs system about the malleability of individual's attributes. As expected, our findings showed that the positive quality of contact was associated with less negative attitudes towards women managers, and that participants with high IPT benefited the most from positive contact. In addition, IPT moderated the relationship between positive contact and negative attitudes towards women leaders: When individuals held an entity IPT (believing an attribute is a fixed, non-malleable trait, i.e., fixed mindset), positive contact was associated with a reduction in negative attitudes toward women leaders. This study highlights the power of positive contact in shifting rigid, stereotyped mindsets and, consequently, reducing prejudice towards women in leadership/managerial roles.
