Italian food? Sounds good! Made in Italy and Italian sounding effects on food products' assessment by consumers

Italian Sounding—i. e., the Italian appearance of a product or service brand irrespective of its country of origin—represents a global market phenomenon affecting a wide range of economic sectors, particularly the agro-food sector. Although its economic impact has been repeatedly stressed from different points of view (policy, economy, culture, etc.), systematic scientific knowledge regarding its social–psychological bases is lacking. Three studies carried out in three different countries (Italy, China, and USA) address this literature gap. Different consumer groups (both native and/or non-native) are targeted regarding major product categories pre-selected categories, which are the major Italian food goods within the specific country according to piloting (oil and/or pasta). In each study, the main independent variable (product version) has been manipulated by presenting real product images (previously pre-selected within the tested food category in each country market), whose “Italianness” degree is effectively manipulated by the main study variable (product version) across three or four levels (Protected Designation of Origin Made in Italy, Made in Italy, Italian Sounding, and Generic Foreign). Main hypotheses are tested via a survey with the specific product images administered to samples in Italy (N = 204, 148 Italians and 56 non-Italians), China (N = 191, 100 Chinese and 91 non-Italian expatriates in China), and the USA (N = 237 US citizens). Across the three studies, results show that Made in Italy products, compared to the other ones, are advantaged in terms of the main dependent variables: reputation profile, general reputation, attitude, and willingness to pay (WTP). Moreover, Italian Sounding products are endowed with corresponding significant advantages when compared to the Generic Foreign by non-Italian samples (although to a different degree according to the different sub-samples). Results reveal the specific social–psychological profile of Italian Sounding products in terms of either weaknesses or strengths when compared to both Made in Italy products and Generic Foreign ones, differently in the eyes of Italian and non-Italian consumers across different countries. Finally, consistently across the three studies, the extent to which a food product is perceived to be Italian increases consumers' WTP for that product, and this effect is consistently mediated by the product's reputation

Flood risk management in Italy: challenges and opportunities for the implementation of the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC)

Abstract. Italy's recent history is punctuated with devastating flood disasters claiming high death toll and causing vast but underestimated economic, social and environmental damage. The responses to major flood and landslide disasters such as the Polesine (1951), Vajont (1963), Firenze (1966), Valtelina (1987), Piedmont (1994), Crotone (1996), Sarno (1998), Soverato (2000), and Piedmont (2000) events have contributed to shaping the country's flood risk governance. Insufficient resources and capacity, slow implementation of the (at that time) novel risk prevention and protection framework, embodied in the law 183/89 of 18 May 1989, increased the reliance on the response and recovery operations of the civil protection. As a result, the importance of the Civil Protection Mechanism and the relative body of norms and regulation developed rapidly in the 1990s. In the aftermath of the Sarno (1998) and Soverato (2000) disasters, the Department for Civil Protection (DCP) installed a network of advanced early warning and alerting centres, the cornerstones of Italy's preparedness for natural hazards and a best practice worth following. However, deep convective clouds, not uncommon in Italy, producing intense rainfall and rapidly developing localised floods still lead to considerable damage and loss of life that can only be reduced by stepping up the risk prevention efforts. The implementation of the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC) provides an opportunity to revise the model of flood risk governance and confront the shortcomings encountered during more than 20 yr of organised flood risk management. This brief communication offers joint recommendations towards this end from three projects funded by the 2nd CRUE ERA-NET (http://www.crue-eranet.net/) Funding Initiative: FREEMAN, IMRA and URFlood

Food Reputation and Food Preferences: Application of the Food Reputation Map (FRM) in Italy, USA, and China

Given the food challenges that society is facing, we draw upon recent developments in the study of how food reputation affects food preferences and food choices, providing here a starting standard point for measuring every aspect of food reputation in different cultural contexts across the world. Specifically, while previous attempts focused either on specific aspects of food or on measures of food features validated in one language only, the present research validates the Food Reputation Map (FRM) in Italian, English and Chinese over 2,250 participants worldwide. Here we successfully measure food reputation across 23 specific indicators, further grouped into six synthetic indicators of food reputation. Critically, results show that: (a) the specific measurement tool of food reputation can vary across cultural contexts, and that (b) people's reputation of food products or categories changes significantly across different cultural contexts. Therefore, in order to understand people's food preferences and consumption, it is important to take into account the repertoire of cultural differences that underlies the contexts of analysis: the three context-specific versions of the FRM presented here effectively deal with this issue and provide reliable context-specific insights on stakeholders' interests, perspectives, attitudes and behaviors related to food perceptions, assessment, and consumption, which can be effectively leveraged to foster food sustainability

Il reato sessuale. Prospettive di trattamento dei detenuti sex offender e formazione degli operatori penitenziari.

Non presente

An exploratory survey to develop a questionnaire on social-psychological aspects of stem cell phenomenon

Stem cells (SC) are among the most promising research venues in medicine. They are also studied in social sciences (e.g., Nielsen et al., 2009), but the literature is fragmented and generally lacks standard tools. This paper has three aims: investigating SC social representation; presenting a first validation of some SC-relevant social-psychological constructs’ scales; comparing the two main SC donation techniques as for their relation with some social-psychological variables. Scales for the following SC-related variables were employed: subjective and objective knowledge, sources of information, attitudes, previous behaviors, motivations and deterrents, behavioral intentions, norms, satisfaction with information, perceived environmental impact of SC. Schwartz's PVQ (Schwartz et al., 2001) and PANAS (Watson et al., 1988) were also included. 78 Italian valid subjects answered a questionnaire with these scales. Some scales were adapted from existing tools found in the literature, other scales were created ex novo from literature analysis. Each scale's factorial structure (via exploratory PCA and Cronbach's alpha) and correlations between donation intentions and other variables were explored. Results show that the SC’ social representation focuses on some general medical concepts and the specific concept of umbilical cord blood SC donation. Most of the scales have been found to have a satisfactory factorial structure and internal consistency (α>.60). As for comparing the two kinds of donation, correlational analyses highlight some interesting relations, e.g. descriptive norms seem to have a positive moderate correlation (r=.40 p<.001) only to bone marrow SC donation, while umbilical cord blood donation is more related to affective reactance (r=-.26 p>.05). Results are discussed according to the literature and directions for tools development and future research are suggested. Authors acknowledge Prof. Marino Bonaiuto for this contribution's research programme

La formazione per operatori penitenziari a contatto con autori di reati sessuali: la valutazione di un intervento formativo nell’ambito del progetto PR.O.T.E.C.T. .

Questo volume è il frutto di una collaborazione corale nell’ambito del progetto “PR.O.T.E.C.T. – PreventiOn, assessment and Treatment of sex offenders. A network to ExChange good practices and develop innovaTion at EU level”. L’attuazione di percorsi formativi sono stati rivolti agli operatori penitenziari e agli educatori che operano all’interno del carcere. Per entrambi i corsi che costituiscono il progetto PR.O.T.E.C.T., i confronti tra i risultati pre-intervento formativo e post-intervento formativo si sono rivelati più che soddisfacenti, confermando tutte e tre le ipotesi di ricerca

Perceived Residential Environment Quality Indicators (PREQIs) relevance for UN-HABITAT City Prosperity Index (CPI)

This paper presents some relevant tools for UN-HABITAT CPI, addressing the relationship between residential neighbourhood assessment, neighbourhood attachment and overall residential satisfaction of residents in the Iranian the city of Tabriz. The first aim of the study is to validate some cross-cultural tools e focusing on the Quality of Life (QOL) spoke of the CPI's wheel of urban prosperity e for use in an urban residential context (Fornara et al., 2010); specifically an abbreviated version of the Perceived Residential Environment Quality Indicators (PREQIs) and the Neighbourhood Attachment Scale (NAS), as well as items for measurement of Residential Satisfaction (RS). The instruments consist of 11 scales measuring PREQIs, one scale measuring Neighbourhood Attachment and three items about RS. The second aim is to test a model of the links among the constructs measured by these tools that deal with different features of QOL. For example, if some global PREQIs (i.e., pace of life) mediate the relationship between other, more specific PREQIs and Neighbourhood Attachment; and then if they ultimately predict RS, they may be considered as final outcome criteria. PREQIs, NAS and RS items are included in a selfreport questionnaire, (translated from English into Farsi language) and then administered to 239 residents of Tabriz, Iran. Multivariate statistical analyses of the survey results extends the cross-cultural validity of the tools, as well as testing relationship models going from specific to global PREQIs, to NAS, finally predicting RS. The discussion argues for the relevance of PREQIs, NAS and RS constructs and tools in deepening the knowledge on the QOL spoke within the UN-HABITAT CPI