This paper examines the impact of dispositional Need for Cognitive Closure (NFC) on different political attitudes and on the “person blame” and the “system blame” dimensions. Two hundred and thirty‐four psychology students completed a questionnaire containing the Italian version of the Need for Closure scale, a measure of political and ideological attitudes, a measure of the person‐system blame dimensions, and a measure of past voting. Results showed that high NFC individuals (vs. low NFCs) reported having voted for a right‐wing party and holding more conservative attitudes. High NFCs (vs. low NFCs) turned out to have stronger anti‐immigrant attitudes, to be more nationalistic, to prefer an autocratic leadership and a centralized form of political power. High NFCs also value religiosity more highly than low NFCs. High NFCs (vs. low NFCs) scored lower on pluralism and multiculturalism. Furthermore, high NFCs (vs. low NFCs) revealed a tendency to blame individuals for social problems, but no significant difference was found with regard to the system blame dimension. Results are discussed in the light of the motivated social cognition approach (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003).

This research on press communication uses a synchronic perspective concerning eighteen ministers, balanced by gender, in the Renzi government (in 2014), as well as a diachronic perspective concerning women ministers from five governments (from 2006-2014). The governments in 2014 and of 2013 were predominantly center-left, with the participation of center and center-right parties, whereas the previous governments had technical-professional rather than political ministers (in 2011), center-right (in 2008), and center-left (in 2006) ministers. In the synchronic analysis we explored the different ways in which the ministers are named, the relative presence of sexist/non-sexist, agentive/non-agentive, and abstract/concrete language in which they were presented. The first analysis comprised 332 headlines and the second comprised 1,356 headlines; we conducted a numerical and lexicographical analysis on the headlines. The results showed: more coverage for men than for women; gender biases in naming ministers involving a greater number of citations of women with both first and last name, whereas there were a greater number of citations of men with their first name only; the prevalence of sexist language that uses the generic masculine rather than the specific feminine (that is, the grammatical feminization of a typically masculine form) in representing women; an increment of the specific feminine in representing women in the last three governments over the previous two; no gender differences in the use of “I” and “We” as markers of agency; more quotations of direct discourse for women than for men; language slightly more abstract than concrete, for both men and women; more positive adjectives for women, and more negative adjectives for men. The results are discussed in relation to the international literature and to the Italian cultural-political context.

A comparative study of the structure of attitudes toward computers, science, and technology was carried out with 320 university students equally distributed by country (Italy and the United States), by field of study (humanities, psychology, science, and engineering), and by gender. The instrument used was a Likert-type scale of 56 statements. First, individual items were analyzed for cross-national differences. Then items showing a range of values within both national groups were analyzed by factor analysis to reveal the latent dimensions underlying the set of items. We extracted three factors that, together, accounted for 39% of the variance: attribution to the computer of negative effects, both at an individual psychological level (Factor 1) and at a social psychological level (Factor 2); and the attribution to science, to technology, and to the computer of positive effects at an instrumental and organizational level (Factor 3). Attitudes toward computers, science, and technology were generally more positive than negative in both countries. Nevertheless, against this background of cross-national similarity, sociocultural factors produced attitudinal differences. In particular, the nationality of the subjects made the greatest difference, whereas gender showed a less important influence than did field of study.

The study, a descriptive type, is focused on the role of language in confirming or changing stereotypical feminine representations through a linguistic analysis of Italian newspaper communication concerning women politicians. It explored sexism/nonsexism in political communication on 20 female ministers from four different Italian governments (2006, 2008, 2011, and 2013). It was conducted by textual analysis of 1,244 press headlines with the Spad-t statistical package. Results showed an overutilization of sexist language and variations in the degree of linguistic sexism with respect to different periods (less sexism in the headlines of the last two governments). In this way, findings underlined the conservative role of newspapers that eclipses women’s active contribution, maintains their secondary role, and preserves politics as essentially alien to the female universe. This trend appears sensitive to the cultural and political context showing an increase of linguistic nonsexism in the time paralleled to an increase in the number of women parliamentarians.