No abstract

With the COVID-19 outbreak, structural constraints and social psychological factors changed the dietary habits of many people. This two-wave longitudinal study performed in Italy aimed to explore people’s perceptions of changes in healthy and unhealthy food consumption before and during the first lockdown and the possible persistence of such changes after its official end, as a function of the number of people cohabiting, negative emotion activation, and individual eating styles. A total of 728 Italian adults completed self-reported food consumption measures and related psychological variables at both time points. In the lockdown period, participants reported an increase in healthy food consumption and involvement in cooking and a decrease in the consumption of junk food. This general pattern was stronger for both young and restrained eaters. The intensity of negative emotions and the number of cohabitants were not associated with the examined behaviour. In the post-lockdown period, the new consumption pattern acquired during the confinement was partially discontinued: participants cut down their healthy food consumption as well as their involvement in food preparation, but they continued to reduce their junk food intake. These results suggest that people’s food consumption patterns can easily improve when the situation is favourable (e.g., more time and opportunities for cooking healthy meals) and offer an interesting theoretical contribution to understanding the factors useful in promoting healthy eating, in the event of a future outbreak.

The association between certain foods and masculinity or femininity has been widely discussed in different disciplines. However, extant research has yet to clarify which are the critical dimensions lending these gender connotations to food and thus impacting on the willingness to eat it. We present a study on the role of food type, portion size, and dish presentation as potential factors constituting the gender-based stereotype about food, and their indirect or mediated effect on the intention of men and women to eat certain feminine/masculine stereotyped foods. We manipulated the three features cited above in a 2 (food type: Caprese vs. hamburger) × 2 (portion size: small vs. big) × 2 (presentation: elegant vs. rough) full factorial design. Results confirmed a model of moderated mediation: the Caprese salad, the small portion and the elegantly presented dish (in respect to the hamburger, the big portion and the roughly presented dish) tend to be considered "feminine food", and thus women expressed a more pronounced intention to eat it than men. The implications of the findings for both theory and practice are discussed.

This study analyses the relevance and the meaning given by Italians to the political labels ‘left’ and ‘right’ between 1975 and 2006. Based on responses to the open‐ended question ‘What do you mean by “left/right” in politics?’, the study compares five alternative hypotheses on the meaning of the left‐right axis and show that, despite the alleged end of ideologies, the relevance of the axis has increased over time. A core of abstract meanings persists throughout the thirty‐year period considered. As the importance of abstract meanings has increased over time, reference to more concrete contents (such as ‘parties’ and ‘leaders’) has decreased. The findings thus support the hypothesis that the left‐right axis has the functional characteristics of social representations.

An experimental study investigated the effect of politicians' profanity and gender on their perceived and actual persuasiveness. Results showed that a candidate's use of swear words increased the perception of language informality and improved the general impression about the source. The latter effect was particularly strong for male candidate, as female candidate was already evaluated positively, irrespective of her cursing. In addition, though the manipulation of the politician's vulgarity did not directly affect participants' self-reported likelihood of voting for him or her, an indirect effect through language informality and impression about the candidate emerged. On the contrary, profanity use reduced perceived persuasiveness of the message, suggesting that the influence of swearing could be automatic and unaware. Theoretical implications are discussed.