Two studies address the role of hormonal shift across menstrual cycle in female dehumanization of other women. In Study 1, normally ovulating women (NOW) and women who use hormonal contraceptives (HCW) are compared in terms of how much they dehumanize other women and two other control targets (men and elderly people). In NOW, the level of dehumanization of other women, but not of men and elderly people, increases as the conception risk is enhanced. HCW do not show this pattern of results. In Study 2, we investigate the level of dehumanization of other women and of intra-sexual competition. Findings concerning dehumanization replicate those of Study 1. Intra-sexual competition increases with the rise of conception risk only in NOW. In addition, dehumanization is significantly associated with intra-sexual competition in NOW but not in HCW. Together, these studies demonstrate that dehumanization of women is elicited by menstrual cycle-related processes and associated with women's mate-attraction goals.

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This study investigates whether homophobic labels and category-neutral terms are differently appraised as a function of levels of coming-out. After reporting their coming-out status, participants were exposed to either homophobic or category labels and reported their semantic associations, level of internalized homophobia, and body perceptions. Results show that labels were more positively evaluated as participants’ coming-out increased. High–coming-out individuals reported higher internalized homophobia and body concerns in the homophobic rather than category labels condition. Low–coming-out individuals displayed the reverse pattern

This cross-sectional research investigates the individual (i.e., sexual prejudice, contact with lesbian 5" and gay [LG] people, and perceived seriousness of homophobic epithets) and contextual (i.e., 6" homophobic bullying observed by school staff and perceived colleague reactions to homophobic 7" bullying) factors as predictors of school staff intervention against vs. legitimization of homophobic 8" bullying. Data were collected in secondary schools in the North of Italy via a paper-and-pencil 9" survey. Participants were school staff members (N = 273) from 24 Italian secondary schools. The 10" results have indicated that the higher the sexual prejudice and the lower the contact with LG 11" individuals, the higher the legitimization of homophobic bullying. Also, perceiving colleagues as 12" legitimizing or intervening in cases of homophobic bullying predicted similar reactions on the part 13" of school staff participants. The findings are discussed with respect to the current literature 14" regarding homophobic bullying, and applied interventions for school staff training programs to 15" tackle homophobic bullying at school are put forward.

In this set of research, we investigated the effects of intergroup physical contact on intergroup attitudes by relying on indirect contact strategies, namely the imagined contact paradigm. We implemented the imagined contact paradigm by leading participants to shape the mental imagery upon pictorial information. Specifically, in Study 1 participants saw a picture of a white hand touching a black hand [i.e., intergroup physical contact condition (InterPC)] or a picture of an outdoor scene (i.e., control condition), and were asked to imagine being either the toucher or in the outdoor scene, respectively. Results demonstrated that InterPC compared to control condition reduced intergroup bias. In Study 2 we compared the InterPC condition to a condition in which participants saw a white hand touching another white hand [i.e., intragroup physical contact (IntraPC)], and imagined to be the toucher. Again, we found that participants in the InterPC condition showed reduced intergroup bias compared to the IntraPC. Study 3 replicated results of Studies 1 and 2 by using an implicit measure of prejudice. Also, Study 3 further showed that asking participants to merely look at the picture of a white hand touching a black hand, without imagining being the toucher was not effective in reducing implicit prejudice. Results were discussed with respect to the literature on physical contact and prejudice reduction processes.