Marika Rullo
Biographic Data
| ID | 230781 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marika Rullo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marika |
| FAMILY NAME | Rullo |
| SIGNATURE | RULLO M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Siena |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0642-5985 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 32 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Uncertainty Avoidance, Conspiracy Mentality and Populist Attitudes in Italy
This study investigates the role of some psychological variables associated with populist attitudes, specifically focusing on Conspiracy Mentality (CM) and Uncertainty Avoidance (UA). This approach allows for the examination of both belief‐system orientations and cognitive predispositions in explaining the psychological underpinnings of populism. Although CM has been previously linked to populism, our research reveals new insights into the intera…
Gender inequality and cultural values in explaining gender differences in positive and negative emotions
The coronavirus pandemic posed a major challenge to mental health. Existing evidence shows that COVID-19 is related to poor emotional well-being, particularly among women. However, most work on the subject uses single-country samples, limiting the ability to generalize the disparity or explain it as a function of societal variables. The present study investigates the expression of positive and negative emotions during the pandemic as a function o…
Re-Constructing “Populism” as a Signifier of the Changing Meanings of the Political World
This paper investigates the concept of “populist attitudes” resulting from the emotional symbolization of the political world. While contemporary scholars link populism to individual attitudes or socio-economic shifts, we argue that understanding populism’s underlying dynamics offers a more nuanced perspective. Addressing these emotional symbolizations sheds light on how populist attitudes and structural conditions become salient and lead to a gl…
A threat-complexity hypothesis of conspiracy thinking during the Covid-19 pandemic
One way to cope with crises is by attributing their ultimate causes to malevolent conspiracies. As crises are rarely simple, and may involve an interplay between multiple, co-occurring threats, we suggest that conspiracy thinking mainly occurs among individuals who experience conditions of threat complexity - such as socioeconomic vulnerability paired with a sense of helplessness in society, and who are also sufficiently paranoid to infer a consp…
Sexuality and Morality
The present research explored the relationship between sexual experiences and self-humanity perceptions. We investigated and found that the immoral perceptions of a sexual experience negatively predict self-humanity perceptions (Study 1), and that the recalling of a perceived moral sexual experience predicts higher self-humanity perceptions as compared to the recalling of an everyday social interaction (control group; Study 2b) and of a perceived…
Conspiring under threats! An investigation of associations between Covid ‐19 health and economic threats and conspiracy beliefs in Italy and Argentina
Theory and research suggest that threats aroused by a given crisis lead to conspiracy beliefs. Although crises involve the arise of multiple threats (e.g., economic, safety, etc.) diversely affecting various needs and outcomes (i.e., cognition, emotion and behaviour), no research has yet focused on specific relations that different threats may have with the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs. In this study, we distinguished between health and econ…
Supporting Ukrainian refugees
The escalation of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict has forced many Ukrainian people to leave their country seeking safety and support. To date, more than 6 million of refugees have crossed the borders into neighbouring countries. Nearly all European countries were involved in refugee‐hosting, including Italy. In a cross‐sectional study with Italian respondents ( N = 338), we examined direct contact with and empathy towards Ukrainians and identifica…
The Precarity of Progress
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a shift toward a more traditional division of labor–one where women took greater responsibility for household tasks and childcare than men. We tested whether this regressive shift was more acutely perceived and experienced by women in countries with greater gender equality. Cross-cultural longitudinal survey data for women and men ( N = 10,238) was collected weekly during the first few months of the pandemic…
Intentions to be Vaccinated Against Covid-19
Understanding the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake is important to inform policy decisions and plan vaccination campaigns. The aims of this research were to: (1) explore the individual- and country-level determinants of intentions to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, and (2) examine worldwide variation in vaccination intentions. This cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, involving 6697 responden…
Pandemic boredom
Some public officials have expressed concern that policies mandating collective public health behaviors (e.g., national/regional "lockdown") may result in behavioral fatigue that ultimately renders such policies ineffective. Boredom, specifically, has been singled out as one potential risk factor for noncompliance. We examined whether there was empirical evidence to support this concern during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large cross-national sampl…
Omertà in intragroup cheating
Why are people willing to denounce or, contrarily, to keep silent on others’ misconduct? We hypothesized that people would be more likely to cheat, and consequently less likely to blow the whistle, when among an ingroup (vs. outgroup). In two experiments, participants witnessed a same nationality or a different nationality group member cheating during a group task. Participants either had the opportunity to cheat themselves before witnessing this…
Identifying important individual‐ and country‐level predictors of conspiracy theorizing
Psychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing—explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make it difficult to examine the relative importance of predictors, and risk overlooking some potentially rel…
Lockdown Lives
We examine how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. From the PsyCorona database, we obtained longitudinal data from 23 countries, collected between March and May 2020. The results demonstrated that although online contacts help to reduce feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to use that strategy. Solidarity played only a small role in s…
Stay humble and enjoy diversity
Humble and Kind
With the rise of prejudice and discrimination against ethnic and immigrant minorities, strategies to reduce prejudice and discrimination, and to counteract the impact of intolerant, anti-egalitarian ideologies, are needed. Here we focused on cultural humility, i.e., the ability to have a humble and other-oriented approach to others’ cultural backgrounds, resulting from self-examination and critical thinking about structural privileges and inequal…
We are all in the same boat’
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global health crisis. Consequently, many countries have adopted restrictive measures that caused a substantial change in society. Within this framework, it is reasonable to suppose that a sentiment of societal discontent, defined as generalized concern about the precarious state of society, has arisen. Literature shows that collectively experienced situations can motivate people to hel…
The dangers of distrustful complacency
People comply with governmental restrictions for different motives, notably because they are concerned about the issue at hand or because they trust their government to enact appropriate regulations. The present study focuses on the role of concern and political trust in people’s willingness to comply with governmental restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. We conducted a survey amongst Italian and French participants ( N = 372) in March 2020…
When motivation is not enough
Retention of volunteers is a main issue for no‐profit organizations. In the present study, using a cross‐sectional design, determinants of volunteers’ intentions to continue their service were investigated in a sample of 116 volunteers at different Italian organizations (M age = 42.32, SD age = 15.91). Guided by the conceptual model of the volunteer process, we hypothesized that organizational socialization should mediate the link between prosoci…
In the name of truth
Usually people consider morality traits to be highly valuable, both in themselves and in others. Moreover, they tend to select moral groups and are often motivated to protect the positive identity of their groups by derogating immoral ingroup members. However, sometimes even moral ingroup members could represent a threat to the group and therefore be negatively evaluated, such as in the case of people who report another person’s wrongdoing (whist…
Preprint_The rocky road to prosocial behavior
Among relevant consequences of organizational socialization, a key factor is the promotion of organizational citizenship behaviors toward individuals (i.e. OCBI). However, the relation between organizational socialization and OCBI has received little attention. This study tests the validity of a moderated mediation model in which we examine the mediating effect of a decreased interpersonal strain on the relationship between organizational sociali…
Time Heals All (Shallow) Wounds
This paper examines how a social threat posed by a deviant behavior affects second-hand forgiveness over time toward ingroup and outgroup transgressors. In Study 1, using real news reports, we investigated intergroup rivalries between soccer fans in order to understand the role of group membership in predicting the intention to forgive transgressors. Results suggested that transgressors were less likely to be forgiven by ingroup members rather th…
Motivational Underpinnings of Intergenerational Transmission
This commentary discusses Tam’s contributions concerning the perceived norms perspective on the study of intergenerational cultural transmission; its aim is to provide insights into the impact of human cognition on the emergence of a culture and the normative structure of society. To that end, we elaborate the implications of parents’ goals for interaction between perceived norms, personal orientation, and intergenerational cultural transmission.…
The dangers of distrustful complacency
People comply with governmental restrictions for different motives, notably because they are concerned about the issue at hand or because they trust their government to enact appropriate regulations. The present study focuses on the role of concern and political trust in people’s willingness to comply with governmental restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. We conducted a survey amongst Italian and French participants ( N = 372) in March 2020…
The Precarity of Progress
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a shift toward a more traditional division of labor–one where women took greater responsibility for household tasks and childcare than men. We tested whether this regressive shift was more acutely perceived and experienced by women in countries with greater gender equality. Cross-cultural longitudinal survey data for women and men ( N = 10,238) was collected weekly during the first few months of the pandemic…
Identifying important individual‐ and country‐level predictors of conspiracy theorizing
Psychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing—explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make it difficult to examine the relative importance of predictors, and risk overlooking some potentially rel…
Humble and Kind
With the rise of prejudice and discrimination against ethnic and immigrant minorities, strategies to reduce prejudice and discrimination, and to counteract the impact of intolerant, anti-egalitarian ideologies, are needed. Here we focused on cultural humility, i.e., the ability to have a humble and other-oriented approach to others’ cultural backgrounds, resulting from self-examination and critical thinking about structural privileges and inequal…
We are all in the same boat’
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global health crisis. Consequently, many countries have adopted restrictive measures that caused a substantial change in society. Within this framework, it is reasonable to suppose that a sentiment of societal discontent, defined as generalized concern about the precarious state of society, has arisen. Literature shows that collectively experienced situations can motivate people to hel…
When motivation is not enough
Retention of volunteers is a main issue for no‐profit organizations. In the present study, using a cross‐sectional design, determinants of volunteers’ intentions to continue their service were investigated in a sample of 116 volunteers at different Italian organizations (M age = 42.32, SD age = 15.91). Guided by the conceptual model of the volunteer process, we hypothesized that organizational socialization should mediate the link between prosoci…
In the name of truth
Usually people consider morality traits to be highly valuable, both in themselves and in others. Moreover, they tend to select moral groups and are often motivated to protect the positive identity of their groups by derogating immoral ingroup members. However, sometimes even moral ingroup members could represent a threat to the group and therefore be negatively evaluated, such as in the case of people who report another person’s wrongdoing (whist…
Motivational Underpinnings of Intergenerational Transmission
This commentary discusses Tam’s contributions concerning the perceived norms perspective on the study of intergenerational cultural transmission; its aim is to provide insights into the impact of human cognition on the emergence of a culture and the normative structure of society. To that end, we elaborate the implications of parents’ goals for interaction between perceived norms, personal orientation, and intergenerational cultural transmission.…
Re-Constructing “Populism” as a Signifier of the Changing Meanings of the Political World
This paper investigates the concept of “populist attitudes” resulting from the emotional symbolization of the political world. While contemporary scholars link populism to individual attitudes or socio-economic shifts, we argue that understanding populism’s underlying dynamics offers a more nuanced perspective. Addressing these emotional symbolizations sheds light on how populist attitudes and structural conditions become salient and lead to a gl…
A threat-complexity hypothesis of conspiracy thinking during the Covid-19 pandemic
One way to cope with crises is by attributing their ultimate causes to malevolent conspiracies. As crises are rarely simple, and may involve an interplay between multiple, co-occurring threats, we suggest that conspiracy thinking mainly occurs among individuals who experience conditions of threat complexity - such as socioeconomic vulnerability paired with a sense of helplessness in society, and who are also sufficiently paranoid to infer a consp…
Motivational Underpinnings of Intergenerational Transmission
This commentary discusses Tam’s contributions concerning the perceived norms perspective on the study of intergenerational cultural transmission; its aim is to provide insights into the impact of human cognition on the emergence of a culture and the normative structure of society. To that end, we elaborate the implications of parents’ goals for interaction between perceived norms, personal orientation, and intergenerational cultural transmission.…
Preprint_The rocky road to prosocial behavior
Among relevant consequences of organizational socialization, a key factor is the promotion of organizational citizenship behaviors toward individuals (i.e. OCBI). However, the relation between organizational socialization and OCBI has received little attention. This study tests the validity of a moderated mediation model in which we examine the mediating effect of a decreased interpersonal strain on the relationship between organizational sociali…
Time Heals All (Shallow) Wounds
This paper examines how a social threat posed by a deviant behavior affects second-hand forgiveness over time toward ingroup and outgroup transgressors. In Study 1, using real news reports, we investigated intergroup rivalries between soccer fans in order to understand the role of group membership in predicting the intention to forgive transgressors. Results suggested that transgressors were less likely to be forgiven by ingroup members rather th…
In the name of truth
Usually people consider morality traits to be highly valuable, both in themselves and in others. Moreover, they tend to select moral groups and are often motivated to protect the positive identity of their groups by derogating immoral ingroup members. However, sometimes even moral ingroup members could represent a threat to the group and therefore be negatively evaluated, such as in the case of people who report another person’s wrongdoing (whist…
When motivation is not enough
Retention of volunteers is a main issue for no‐profit organizations. In the present study, using a cross‐sectional design, determinants of volunteers’ intentions to continue their service were investigated in a sample of 116 volunteers at different Italian organizations (M age = 42.32, SD age = 15.91). Guided by the conceptual model of the volunteer process, we hypothesized that organizational socialization should mediate the link between prosoci…
The dangers of distrustful complacency
People comply with governmental restrictions for different motives, notably because they are concerned about the issue at hand or because they trust their government to enact appropriate regulations. The present study focuses on the role of concern and political trust in people’s willingness to comply with governmental restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic. We conducted a survey amongst Italian and French participants ( N = 372) in March 2020…
Humble and Kind
With the rise of prejudice and discrimination against ethnic and immigrant minorities, strategies to reduce prejudice and discrimination, and to counteract the impact of intolerant, anti-egalitarian ideologies, are needed. Here we focused on cultural humility, i.e., the ability to have a humble and other-oriented approach to others’ cultural backgrounds, resulting from self-examination and critical thinking about structural privileges and inequal…
We are all in the same boat’
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused a global health crisis. Consequently, many countries have adopted restrictive measures that caused a substantial change in society. Within this framework, it is reasonable to suppose that a sentiment of societal discontent, defined as generalized concern about the precarious state of society, has arisen. Literature shows that collectively experienced situations can motivate people to hel…
Lockdown Lives
We examine how social contacts and feelings of solidarity shape experiences of loneliness during the COVID-19 lockdown in early 2020. From the PsyCorona database, we obtained longitudinal data from 23 countries, collected between March and May 2020. The results demonstrated that although online contacts help to reduce feelings of loneliness, people who feel more lonely are less likely to use that strategy. Solidarity played only a small role in s…
Stay humble and enjoy diversity
Intentions to be Vaccinated Against Covid-19
Understanding the determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake is important to inform policy decisions and plan vaccination campaigns. The aims of this research were to: (1) explore the individual- and country-level determinants of intentions to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, and (2) examine worldwide variation in vaccination intentions. This cross-sectional online survey was conducted during the first wave of the pandemic, involving 6697 responden…
Pandemic boredom
Some public officials have expressed concern that policies mandating collective public health behaviors (e.g., national/regional "lockdown") may result in behavioral fatigue that ultimately renders such policies ineffective. Boredom, specifically, has been singled out as one potential risk factor for noncompliance. We examined whether there was empirical evidence to support this concern during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large cross-national sampl…
Omertà in intragroup cheating
Why are people willing to denounce or, contrarily, to keep silent on others’ misconduct? We hypothesized that people would be more likely to cheat, and consequently less likely to blow the whistle, when among an ingroup (vs. outgroup). In two experiments, participants witnessed a same nationality or a different nationality group member cheating during a group task. Participants either had the opportunity to cheat themselves before witnessing this…
Identifying important individual‐ and country‐level predictors of conspiracy theorizing
Psychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing—explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make it difficult to examine the relative importance of predictors, and risk overlooking some potentially rel…
Sexuality and Morality
The present research explored the relationship between sexual experiences and self-humanity perceptions. We investigated and found that the immoral perceptions of a sexual experience negatively predict self-humanity perceptions (Study 1), and that the recalling of a perceived moral sexual experience predicts higher self-humanity perceptions as compared to the recalling of an everyday social interaction (control group; Study 2b) and of a perceived…
Conspiring under threats! An investigation of associations between Covid ‐19 health and economic threats and conspiracy beliefs in Italy and Argentina
Theory and research suggest that threats aroused by a given crisis lead to conspiracy beliefs. Although crises involve the arise of multiple threats (e.g., economic, safety, etc.) diversely affecting various needs and outcomes (i.e., cognition, emotion and behaviour), no research has yet focused on specific relations that different threats may have with the endorsement of conspiracy beliefs. In this study, we distinguished between health and econ…
Supporting Ukrainian refugees
The escalation of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict has forced many Ukrainian people to leave their country seeking safety and support. To date, more than 6 million of refugees have crossed the borders into neighbouring countries. Nearly all European countries were involved in refugee‐hosting, including Italy. In a cross‐sectional study with Italian respondents ( N = 338), we examined direct contact with and empathy towards Ukrainians and identifica…
The Precarity of Progress
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic saw a shift toward a more traditional division of labor–one where women took greater responsibility for household tasks and childcare than men. We tested whether this regressive shift was more acutely perceived and experienced by women in countries with greater gender equality. Cross-cultural longitudinal survey data for women and men ( N = 10,238) was collected weekly during the first few months of the pandemic…
Gender inequality and cultural values in explaining gender differences in positive and negative emotions
The coronavirus pandemic posed a major challenge to mental health. Existing evidence shows that COVID-19 is related to poor emotional well-being, particularly among women. However, most work on the subject uses single-country samples, limiting the ability to generalize the disparity or explain it as a function of societal variables. The present study investigates the expression of positive and negative emotions during the pandemic as a function o…
Re-Constructing “Populism” as a Signifier of the Changing Meanings of the Political World
This paper investigates the concept of “populist attitudes” resulting from the emotional symbolization of the political world. While contemporary scholars link populism to individual attitudes or socio-economic shifts, we argue that understanding populism’s underlying dynamics offers a more nuanced perspective. Addressing these emotional symbolizations sheds light on how populist attitudes and structural conditions become salient and lead to a gl…
A threat-complexity hypothesis of conspiracy thinking during the Covid-19 pandemic
One way to cope with crises is by attributing their ultimate causes to malevolent conspiracies. As crises are rarely simple, and may involve an interplay between multiple, co-occurring threats, we suggest that conspiracy thinking mainly occurs among individuals who experience conditions of threat complexity - such as socioeconomic vulnerability paired with a sense of helplessness in society, and who are also sufficiently paranoid to infer a consp…
Uncertainty Avoidance, Conspiracy Mentality and Populist Attitudes in Italy
This study investigates the role of some psychological variables associated with populist attitudes, specifically focusing on Conspiracy Mentality (CM) and Uncertainty Avoidance (UA). This approach allows for the examination of both belief‐system orientations and cognitive predispositions in explaining the psychological underpinnings of populism. Although CM has been previously linked to populism, our research reveals new insights into the intera…
Psychology (20 works) · Social Psychology (19 works) · Political science (12 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Medicine (9 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Pandemic (7 works) · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment (7 works) · Politics (6 works)