Dominant accounts of sexual prejudice posit that negative attitudes toward nonheterosexual individuals are stronger for male (vs. female) targets, higher among men (vs. women), and driven, in part, by the perception that gay men and lesbian women violate traditional gender norms. We test these predictions in 23 countries, representing both Western and non-Western societies. Results show that (1) gay men are disliked more than lesbian women across all countries; (2) after adjusting for endorsement of traditional gender norms, the relationship between participant gender and sexual prejudice is inconsistent across Western countries, but men (vs. women) in non-Western countries consistently report more negative attitudes toward gay men; and (3) a significant association between gender norm endorsement and sexual prejudice across countries, but it was absent or reversed in China, India, and South Korea. Taken together, this work suggests that gender and sexuality may be more loosely associated in some non-Western contexts.

Background The COVID‐19 pandemic in Italy represents a unique threat in terms of psychological distress. This cross‐sectional study aims to investigate the psychological health of Italian healthcare professionals during the COVID‐19 outbreak. We assessed participants’ current psychological distress and coping strategies in the midst of the COVID outbreak (March–April 2020), and also asked them to retrospectively report how they remember feeling before the COVID‐19 outbreak (December 2019). We examined associations between psychological distress and coping strategies with mental health and infection perceptions. Methods Self‐administered questionnaires were distributed online to healthcare professionals ( N = 580) residing in different Italian regions from 26 March to 9 April 2020. The questionnaire measured changes in psychological states, coping strategies, and demographic variables testing variations in mental health and infection risk perception among Italian healthcare workers. Results Overall, approximately 33.5 per cent of healthcare professionals in our sample meet the threshold for psychiatric morbidity. Participants perceive their current psychological health to be worse during the COVID‐19 emergency outbreak as compared to before the outbreak, and this was especially true among women. Conclusions Both immediate and long‐term monitoring psychological assistance services for healthcare workers should be implemented by national institutions to re‐establish the psychological well‐being and enhance the self‐confidence and resilience of hospital personnel.

Despite the fact that women face socially and politically sanctioned disadvantages every day, a large percentage of women and men report that gender discrimination is no longer a problem. Across three studies, which together include over 20,000 participants from 23 countries, we test the hypothesis that denial (vs. acknowledgement) of gender discrimination is associated with higher subjective well-being among women (Studies 1-3), and this is because denying gender discrimination promotes the view that the system is fair (Study 1). We further show that this happens above and beyond personal experiences with sexism (Study 1) and that the association is stronger in countries where sexism is relatively high (vs. low; Study 3). We argue that denial of discrimination is an individual-level coping mechanism and that, like other self-group distancing strategies, it may perpetuate gender inequality.

Background–The pandemic of COVID-19 in Italy represents a unique threat in terms of psychological distress, especially among healthcare professionals. This study represents a first attempt to investigate both the psychological states and coping strategies of Italian healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 outbreak. Importantly, we assessed psychological distress and coping strategies regarding two phases, pre-COVID (asking participants to retrospectively recall their state in December 2019) and during the time of survey, which was in the midst of the COVID emergency outbreak (March-April 2020).Methods–Self-administered questionnaires were distributed online to healthcare professionals of different Italian regions from March 26 to April 9, 2020. The questionnaire included three main sections measuring changes in psychological states, coping strategies and demographic variables. Two linear regression models were run to analyze variations in both general health and infection-risk perception depending on changes in psychological states, coping strategies, personality trait, and demographic variables.Results– Altogether, the direct exposure to the virus and a negative impact of the COVID-19 emergency outbreak on contextual psychological functioning contribute to the deterioration of physical and mental health, which may lead to severe future consequences for Italian healthcare workers, if not provided immediately with an effective support program. Conclusions– Both immediate and long-term monitoring psychological assistance services for healthcare workers should be implemented by local and national institutions to reestablish psychological well-being and enhance self-confidence and resilience of Italian hospital personnel. These intervention programs should especially target women, and professionals at their first steps into the hospital job.

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Despite the fact that gay men and lesbian women face significant economic disparities compared to their heterosexual counterparts, people appear to believe that the opposite is true, a phenomenon which has been dubbed the "myth of gay affluence."In the current research (N tot = 2,162), we address the consequences of this belief. Specifically, we hypothesize and find that believing that gay men and lesbian women are financially well off-either chronically (Study 1) or because of an experimental manipulation (Studies 2-3)-leads participants to deny discrimination against gay men and lesbian women, above and beyond anti-gay attitudes, and this is mediated by the belief that there is a "gay agenda" that is backed by powerful lobbyists. Thus, perpetuating this myth-either intentionally or inadvertently-could have deleterious effects on efforts for social change and the promotion of rights for sexual minorities.

A huge and diverse amount of information is available online. In 4 studies, we provided complementary evidence about the psychosocial processes involved in online information gathering about vaccinations and the associated relation with trust in their safety. Study 1 investigated the relation between Italian Google inquiries and vaccine coverage for 0- to 2-year-old Italian children from 2000 and 2015, showing a correlation that turned negative over time. In Study 2, participants randomly assigned to a message providing a dual perspective (false balance condition) endorsed more conspiracy beliefs, which, in turn, reduced trust in vaccines compared with provaccine, antivaccine, and control messages. In Study 3, participants actively selected Google outputs that were in line with their opinion, and this confirmatory bias was particularly strong among participants distrusting vaccination. This association was disrupted by the exposure to provaccine messages, but only if antivaccine alternatives were absent. In Study 4, exposure to online comments questioning the human papilloma virus vaccination influenced attitudes toward the vaccination in a sample of not-yet-vaccinated young women. Practical implications for the way that media cover vaccination topics and for interventions addressing vaccine hesitancy are discussed.

Serial positioning biases are well documented and generally take a U-shaped form, with better memory for first (primacy) and last items (recency). Here, we test the hypothesis that the relative strength of primacy and recency depends on script direction. When presented with large arrays of images, people are expected to first direct attention to the side where they usually start reading (in our case, left among Italian, and right among Arabic speakers) and to then scan the remaining images along the habitual text trajectory. Besides supporting the predicted scanning direction with an eye-tracker methodology, Study 1a (n = 56 Italians) provides evidence for a spatial memory advantage for images positioned to the left. Study 1b (n = 34 Italians) shows that people are aware of the asymmetric scanning and the memory advantage deriving from it. Study 3 (n = 67 Italian and n = 44 Arabic speakers) shows opposite memory biases in the two samples, with best performance for images on the left among Italian and for images on the right among Arabic speakers. Together these studies contribute to the growing literature showing that scanning habits due to script direction exert a subtle influence on basic cognitive processes.