How mindfulness, decentering, nonattachment and rumination interact with the temporal associations between emotions and thoughts: An experience sampling study.

The way emotions and thoughts affect each other in daily life deeply impacts an individual's well-being. This experience sampling study (N = 132, 24 random-schedule signals in 6 days) aimed to (a) test the bidirectionality of within-person concurrent (simultaneous) and prospective (from time t-1 to time t) associations between real-life emotions and thoughts; (b) explore the moderator roles of dispositions involving the ability to take an aware and detached perspective on inner experience (i.e.

COVID-19 threat and perceptions of common belonging with outgroups: The roles of prejudice-related individual differences and intergroup contact.

COVID-19 represents a multidimensional threat with the potential to worsen intergroup relations, but perceiving a common belonging with various outgroups may prevent intergroup tensions. During the Italian lockdown, we conducted an online survey with 685 Italian participants investigating whether perceptions of common belonging (belonging to a common group, sharing a common destiny, perceiving the difficulties faced by other groups) with disadvantaged and national outgroups were associated with perceived COVID-19 threat and prejudice-related individual differences, namely social dominance orientation (SDO), need for cognitive closure (NFC), deprovincialization, pre-lockdown positive and negative face-to-face contact with immigrants. We also explored the moderating roles of individual differences in the link between perceived threat and perceptions of common belonging.

Attachment-security prime effect on skin-conductance synchronization in psychotherapists: An empirical study.

Physiological synchronization (PS) is a phenomenon of simultaneous activity between two persons' physiological signals. It has been associated with empathy, shared affectivity, and efficacious therapeutic relationships. The aim of the present study was to explore the possible connections between PS and the attachment system, seeking preliminary evidence of this link by means of an experimental manipulation of the sense of attachment security in psychotherapists according to a protocol by Mikulincer and Shaver (2001), which has been proven to elicit empathetic behavior.

Advanced dementia: opinions of physicians and nurses about antibiotic therapy, artificial hydration and nutrition in patients with different life expectancies.

Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate the proportion of physicians and nurses who agree with the administration of antibiotic therapy (AT), artificial hydration (AH), and artificial nutrition (AN) in patients with advanced dementia and different life expectancies. Furthermore, we aimed at analyzing the correlates of the opinion according to which medical treatments should no longer be given to advanced dementia patients once their life expectancy falls.

Methods: End-of-life decisions and opinions were measured with a questionnaire that was sent to geriatric units, hospices and nursing homes in three different regions of Italy.

Artificial nutrition and hydration in terminally ill patients with advanced dementia: opinions and correlates among Italian physicians and nurses.

Background: Although their benefits are controversial, artificial nutrition and hydration are often administered as a form of basic care to terminally ill patients. An important reason for this may be that these treatments have strong emotional and psychological meanings.

Aims: In the present article we investigated the opinions of Italian physicians and nurses on the administration of artificial nutrition and hydration to terminally ill patients with advanced dementia.

Implicit sexual attitude of heterosexual, gay and bisexual individuals: disentangling the contribution of specific associations to the overall measure.

The article aims to measure implicit sexual attitude in heterosexual, gay and bisexual individuals. A Many-Facet Rasch Measurement analysis was used to disentangle the contribution of specific associations to the overall IAT measure. A preference for heterosexuals relative to homosexuals is observed in heterosexual respondents, driven most by associating positive attributes with heterosexuals rather than negative attributes with homosexuals.

It's never too late for 'us' to meet 'them': prior intergroup friendships moderate the impact of later intergroup friendships in educational settings.

Background: In this paper, we focused on mixing in educational settings between members of Catholic and Protestant ethnoreligious groups in Northern Ireland.

Aims: In Study 1, we examined whether opportunities for contact at home and at university were associated with greater actual out-group friendships, and whether this friendship was associated with a reduction in prejudice. We also assessed whether the impact of out-group friendships at university was moderated by experience of out-group friendships outside university, such that the prejudice-reducing effect of university friendships was stronger for those with fewer friendships at home.

Somatic underpinnings of perceived empathy: the importance of psychotherapy training.

This study investigated the somatic underpinning of empathy using an interpersonal physiology approach. Thirty-nine dyads were formed by a "pseudo-patient" and a "listener" (a therapist, a psychologist, or a non-therapist). Dyadic physiological concordance in electrodermal responses and listeners' empathy were evaluated during simulations of clinical sessions.

Discussing end-of-life care issues with terminally ill patients and their relatives: comparisons among physicians, nurses and psychologists.

Background And Aims: The aim of this study was to analyse the end-of-life topics most frequently discussed by Italian physicians, nurses and psychologists with terminally ill patients and their relatives. Findings were compared with the levels of communication reported by physicians in other countries involved in the EURELD research project, in Europe and elsewhere.

Methods: An ad hoc questionnaire was prepared to measure levels of communication and administered to 716 professionals (181 physicians, 454 nurses and 81 psychologists) employed in geriatric hospital wards, hospices and nursing homes, or registered with professional associations in the Veneto and Trentino Alto-Adige regions of north-east Italy.

Affective mediators of intergroup contact: a three-wave longitudinal study in South Africa.

Intergroup contact (especially cross-group friendship) is firmly established as a powerful strategy for combating group-based prejudice (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). Great advances have been made in understanding how contact reduces prejudice (Brown & Hewstone, 2005), highlighting the importance of affective mediators (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008). The present study, a 3-wave longitudinal study undertaken among minority-status Colored high school children in South Africa (N = 465), explored the full mediation of the effects of cross-group friendships on positive outgroup attitudes, perceived outgroup variability, and negative action tendencies via positive (affective empathy) and negative (intergroup anxiety) affective mediators simultaneously.

Direct contact as a moderator of extended contact effects: cross-sectional and longitudinal impact on outgroup attitudes, behavioral intentions, and attitude certainty.

Cross-group friendships (the most effective form of direct contact) and extended contact (i.e., knowing ingroup members who have outgroup friends) constitute two of the most important means of improving outgroup attitudes.

A test of the extended intergroup contact hypothesis: the mediating role of intergroup anxiety, perceived ingroup and outgroup norms, and inclusion of the outgroup in the self.

S. C. Wright, A.

Reducing explicit and implicit outgroup prejudice via direct and extended contact: The mediating role of self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety.

In 4 studies, the authors investigated mediators of the effect of cross-group friendship. In Study 1, cross-group friendship among White elementary school children predicted more positive explicit outgroup attitude toward South Asians, mediated by self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety. In Study 2, cross-group friendship and extended contact among White and South Asian high school students positively predicted explicit outgroup attitude, mediated by self-disclosure and intergroup anxiety.

Contact with out-group friends as a predictor of meta-attitudinal strength and accessibility of attitudes toward gay men.

Two studies examined the effects of cross-group friendships on heterosexuals' attitudes toward gay men. In Study 1, the authors tested the effects of cross-group friendships with gay men on out-group attitudes, meta-attitudinal strength, and attitude accessibility. The authors simultaneously explored mediational effects of intergroup anxiety.

The link between identification and in-group favouritism: effects of threat to social identity and trust-related emotions.

The relation between identification and in-group favouritism was analysed across two studies, in which the relevance of three intervening factors was demonstrated: (a) the moderating role of social identity threat, (b) the mediating role of trust-related emotions experienced towards in-group and out-group members, and (c) the importance of the distinction between in-group and out-group evaluations. When the in-group was not threatened, the link between identification and in-group bias was unreliable. The effect of in-group identification on in-group bias was stronger when either the value or the distinctiveness of the in-group were threatened.

Grandparent-grandchild contact and attitudes toward older adults: moderator and mediator effects.

Two studies tested the intergroup contact hypothesis in the context of the grandparent-grandchild relationship. The hypothesis suggests that contact with an out-group member has more influence on attitudes toward the out-group when group memberships are salient. In Study 1, the predicted link was found but only for grandparents with whom the grandchild had more frequent contact.

Effects of direct and indirect cross-group friendships on judgments of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland: the mediating role of an anxiety-reduction mechanism.

Recent evidence suggests that both direct and indirect friendship with outgroup members (knowledge of ingroup members' friendship with outgroup members) can reduce prejudice toward the outgroup. Two surveys of cross-community relationships in Northern Ireland, using a student sample (N = 341) and a representative sample of the general population (N = 735), tested whether (a) direct and indirect friendships had generalized effects on both prejudice and perceived outgroup variability and (b) reduced anxiety about future encounters with outgroup members mediated such relationships. Structural equation modeling confirmed that, in both samples, direct and indirect cross-group friendships between Catholics and Protestants were associated with reduced prejudice toward the religious outgroup and increased perceived outgroup variability, via an anxiety-reduction mechanism.