Homelessness in Virtual Reality: Experiencing Social Exclusion Improves Attitudes and Behaviors Toward Unhoused People.

Virtual reality (VR) interventions are receiving increasing attention from research seeking to promote harmonious intergroup relations. Despite this, the effectiveness of VR methods and the underlying mechanisms for enhancing intergroup relations yield mixed findings. The current research examined if a 360° immersive video where participants embodied an unhoused person could improve attitudes and behavioral intentions toward unhoused people by making participants experience social exclusion and its psychological repercussions.

The effects of transcranial direct current stimulation over the ventromedial prefrontal cortex on reactive aggression in intoxicated and sober individuals.

Alcohol-related aggression is a widely observed phenomenon that has detrimental effects on both individuals and society, putatively caused by dysfunction in the prefrontal cortex. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays a critical role in representing the reward value of future actions. Emerging research has suggested that transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the vmPFC can reduce aggression.

Unraveling Perceived Ostracism: The Role of Antagonistic Traits and Attachment Orientation.

Perceived ostracism (e.g., feeling ignored and excluded) can lead to psychological distress.

It will (never) stop hurting: Do repeated or chronic experiences of exclusion lead to hyper- or hyposensitive psychological responses?

Unlike one-time lab manipulations of exclusion, in real life, many people experience exclusion, from others and from groups, over extended periods, raising the question of whether individuals could, over time, develop hypo- or hypersensitive responses to chronic exclusion. In Study 1, we subjected participants to repeated experiences of inclusion or exclusion (three Cyberball games, time lag of three days, = 194; 659 observations). We find that repeatedly excluded individuals become hypersensitive to inclusion, but not to exclusion.

Divergent emotional and autonomic responses to Cyberball in patients with opioid use disorder on opioid agonist treatment.

The perception of social exclusion among patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) could be affected by long-term opioid use. This study explores the emotional and cardiac autonomic responses to an experience of ostracism in a sample of participants with OUD on opioid agonist treatment (OAT). Twenty patients with OUD and twenty healthy controls (HC) performed a ball-tossing game (Cyberball) with two conditions: Inclusion and Ostracism.

On the lowest rung of the ladder: How social exclusion, perceived economic inequality and stigma increase homeless people's resignation.

Despite the relevance of social exclusion and economic inequality for homelessness, empirical studies investigating how these issues relate to homeless people's psychological well-being are scarce. We aimed to fill this gap by conducting two quasi-experimental studies on homeless and non-homeless groups. The first study (N = 200) showed that homeless (vs.

Should I trust you? Investigating trustworthiness judgements of painful facial expressions.

Past research indicates that patients' reports of pain are often met with skepticism and that observers tend to underestimate patients' pain. The mechanisms behind these biases are not yet fully understood. One relevant domain of inquiry is the interaction between the emotional valence of a stranger's expression and the onlooker's trustworthiness judgment.

Exploring the peer status prototypes: A large-scale latent profile analysis on high-school students from four European countries.

Peer status - the regard other group members have of an individual - is fundamental for youth development. Different research traditions developed independent theoretical frameworks conceiving the dimensions underlying social status, and this led to identifying a variety of peer status prototypes. In this work, we explored whether a classification based on the four dimensions of popularity, aggression, dislike, and victimization could integrate the scattered peer status profiles found in the different traditions.

Social influences in the digital era: When do people conform more to a human being or an artificial intelligence?

The spread of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in ever-widening domains (e.g., virtual assistants) increases the chances of daily interactions between humans and AI.

Associations between social isolation and parenting stress during the first wave of COVID-19 in Italian children with special educational needs.

The parents of 413 children with typical development (TD) or special educational needs (SEN) filled in an online survey to investigate the associations between the restrictions introduced to face COVID-19 and parenting stress and parental disciplinary practices. The parents of children with SEN showed a significantly higher stress level than TD children's parents. However, they showed a lower inclination to overreact.

Autonomic vulnerability to biased perception of social inclusion in borderline personality disorder.

Background: Individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) feel rejected even when socially included. The pathophysiological mechanisms of this rejection bias are still unknown. Using the Cyberball paradigm, we investigated whether patients with BPD, display altered physiological responses to social inclusion and ostracism, as assessed by changes in Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia (RSA).

Does being involved by doctors satisfy patients' fundamental psychological needs? A study on a large European sample.

The present work was aimed at investigating whether the patients' involvement by their healthcare providers may satisfy patients' fundamental psychological needs (i.e. self-esteem, belonging, control, meaningful existence), which in turn, can impact their psychological well-being.

Forced Social Isolation and Mental Health: A Study on 1,006 Italians Under COVID-19 Lockdown.

Most countries have been struggling with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic imposing social isolation on their citizens. However, this measure carried risks for people's mental health. This study evaluated the psychological repercussions of objective isolation in 1,006 Italians during the first, especially strict, lockdown in spring 2020.

Surrendering to social emptiness: Chronic social exclusion longitudinally predicts resignation in asylum seekers.

The current knowledge of the long-term consequences of social exclusion mostly relies on theoretical assumptions. (Williams, 2009, Adv. Exp.

Being liked or not being liked: A study on social-media exclusion in a preadolescent population.

Introduction: Social-media can contribute to building up adolescents' relationships, but they might also bring negative exclusionary experiences. Being excluded is a subtle yet hurtful form of relational aggression, which affects people's psychological wellbeing, especially during developmental stages. In this study, we (1) analyzed the effects of social-media exclusion adapting the Ostracism Online paradigm to a cohort of Italian preadolescents (Mage = 11.

In Vitro Re-Hardening of Bleached Enamel Using Mineralizing Pastes: Toward Preventing Bacterial Colonization.

The search for materials able to remineralize human hard tissues is a modern medical challenge. In this study, the protective effect on the enamel microhardness by a paste based on hydroxyapatite and sodium fluoride (Remin Pro) was evaluated after two different enamel bleaching procedures. Forty sound human incisors were randomly assigned to different treatments: bleaching with an in-office agent (Perfect Bleach Office+); bleaching with an at-home agent (Perfect Bleach); bleaching with the in-office agent followed by the prophylaxis paste; bleaching with the athome agent followed by the prophylaxis paste; no treatment (control).

Stimulating the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) modulates frustration-induced aggression: A tDCS experiment.

Background: The prefrontal cortex is crucial for top-down regulation of aggression, but the neural underpinnings of aggression are still poorly understood. Past research showed the transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) modulates aggression following exposure to risk factors for aggression (e.g.

Lonely hearts and angry minds: Online dating rejection increases male (but not female) hostility.

The present work explores the hostile tendencies elicited by romantic rejection in the increasingly common context of online dating. To empirically investigate this issue, we created an ad hoc online dating platform in which fictitious online dating partners romantically rejected heterosexual male and female participants. Results revealed that male-but not female-participants who were rejected by desired dating partners displayed increased hostility.

Turning Away From Averted Gazes: The Effect of Social Exclusion on Gaze Cueing.

Past studies showed increased sensitivity to other people's gaze after social exclusion. In the present research, across two studies, we tested whether social exclusion could affect the basic cognitive phenomenon of gaze-cueing effect, namely, the tendency to redirect visual attention to the same location that other people are looking at. To this purpose, participants were socially excluded or included using the manipulation.

The Psychology of Smartphone: The Development of the Smartphone Impact Scale (SIS).

Smartphones are changing lives in a number of ways. However, the psychological literature has primarily focused on smartphone overuse, neglecting the impacts that are not strictly related to problematic use. The present research was aimed to develop a comprehensive self-report scale that accounts for the cognitive, affective, social, and behavioral impacts of smartphones in everyday life-the Smartphone Impact Scale (SIS).

Stimulating Self-Regulation: A Review of Non-invasive Brain Stimulation Studies of Goal-Directed Behavior.

Self-regulation enables individuals to guide their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a purposeful manner. Self-regulation is thus crucial for goal-directed behavior and contributes to many consequential outcomes in life including physical health, psychological well-being, ethical decision making, and strong interpersonal relationships. Neuroscientific research has revealed that the prefrontal cortex plays a central role in self-regulation, specifically by exerting top-down control over subcortical regions involved in reward (e.

Selective changes in moral judgment by noninvasive brain stimulation of the medial prefrontal cortex.

Multiple cortical networks intervene in moral judgment, among which the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the medial prefrontal structures (medial PFC) emerged as two major territories, which have been traditionally attributed, respectively, to cognitive control and affective reactions. However, some recent theoretical and empirical accounts disputed this dualistic approach to moral evaluation. In the present study, to further assess the functional contribution of the medial PFC in moral judgment, we modulated its cortical excitability by means of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and tracked the change in response to different types of moral dilemmas, including switch-like and footbridge-like moral dilemmas, with and without personal involvement.

Modulation of negative emotions through anodal tDCS over the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

Increasing evidence suggests that the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) plays a critical role in emotion regulation, in particular concerning negative feelings. In the present research, we applied anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the rVLPFC with a twofold purpose. First, we aimed at exploring the feasibility of modulating the subjective experience of emotions through tDCS in healthy participants.

Connecting with a Slot Machine: Social Exclusion and Anthropomorphization Increase Gambling.

Two studies tested whether social exclusion can increase gambling behavior. In Study 1, participants were asked to relive a socially painful instance, a physically painful instance or a control condition and were then presented with a real online gambling device (i.e.