Prof. Dr. Michela Menegatti

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Academic Career Length

21Years (2006-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

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12 March 2013 in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Journal Article

Michela Menegatti

Monica Rubini

Three studies examined the production of political messages and their persuasive impact on recipients as a function of speaker–audience similarity. The first two studies found support for the hypothesis that political leaders (Study 1) and party activists (Study 2) formulate more abstract messages when the audience is politically similar to them than when the audience is dissimilar or heterogeneous. The third study examined the persuasive impact of message abstractness versus concreteness. We predicted and found that abstract messages are more effective in convincing an audience whose political positions are similar to the speaker’s and concrete messages are more effective in convincing an audience whose political positions differ from the speaker’s or are heterogeneous. Implications of these findings for the relation between language and social cognition are discussed.

24 July 2014 in Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Journal Article

Hindering Women’s Careers in Academia

Monica Rubini

Michela Menegatti

This article addresses the role of language abstraction as a means to discriminate female applicants in academic personnel selection. The level of abstraction of 814 judgments, which were drawn from publicly available archival material, was coded. Results reveal that judgments of female applicants were formulated using negative terms at a more abstract level and positive terms at a more concrete level than those of male applicants. Moreover, this gender linguistic discrimination was perpetrated only by male committee members. Further analysis of the use of linguistic category shows that this discrimination was mainly based on the use of negative adjectives. The implications of language abstraction as a subtle means through which women’s academic careers are hindered are discussed.

1 January 2014 in European Review of Social Psychology

Journal Article

The strategic role of language abstraction in achieving symbolic and practical goals

Monica Rubini

Michela Menegatti

Silvia Moscatelli

17 January 2008 in Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Journal Article

Linguistic Bias in Personnel Selection

Monica Rubini

Michela Menegatti

The present research examines how hiring committees strategically use language abstraction to collectively account for their decision to hire a job applicant over the others. In addition, the authors investigate how work interdependence between single members of hiring committees and applicants and common affiliation to the same work organization affect the language used to write individual reports on job candidates. Results of the first study show that selected applicants were described with positive terms at a higher level of abstraction and negative terms at a lower level of abstraction. The second study supports the selection linguistic bias in individually written reports and demonstrates that members of hiring committees describe interdependent applicants and those belonging to their group with negative terms at a lower level of abstraction than other applicants. The implications of the findings for the wider personnel selection context are discussed.

1 July 2016 in Biological Psychology

Journal Article

Enjoying vs. smiling: Facial muscular activation in response to emotional language

20 January 2015 in Journal of Language and Social Psychology

Journal Article

The Beneficial Role of Multiple Categorization and Intergroup Contact in Reducing Linguistic Out-Group Derogation

Francesca Prati

Michela Menegatti

Monica Rubini

The present research addressed for the first time conditions under which linguistic out-group derogation can be hindered by increasing the qualitative and quantitative complexity of out-group members categorization. An analysis was made of the spontaneous language used to describe counterstereotypic versus stereotypic portrayals of Romanians (Study 1) and multiple versus single categorizations of immigrants (Study 2). Results showed that counterstereotypic and multiple categorization of highly discriminated targets decreased the level of abstraction of negative terms used, thus reducing out-group linguistic derogation. Furthermore, multiple versus single categorization effect on linguistic derogation toward immigrants was mediated by individuation of immigrants and moderated by intergroup contact. The implications of the sociocognitive interventions used and intergroup contact in hindering linguistic out-group derogation are discussed.

About Me

Michela Menegatti is Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Psychology, University of Bologna. She completed her Ph.D. in Social, Developmental, and Organisational Psychology, at the Department of Education, University of Bologn (2005) a, Italy, and her Degree (equivalent to M.A.) in Psychology, University of Bologna, Italy (2001). During her Ph.D. study, she won the Best Italian PhD Dissertation in Social Psychology (Italian Association of Psychology). She also won the Journal of Language and Social Psychology Top Paper Award 2008-2009 in 2010 and 2015-2017 in 2018. She is a member of the European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) and the Italian Association of Psychology (AIP)—Social Psychology Section. She is Associate Editor for the European Journal of Social Psychology and consulting Editor for Psychology of Women Quarterly. Her research focuses on inclusive language, gender-based violence, and gender discrimination in organizational settings.

Prof. Dr. Michela Menegatti

Prof. Dr. Michela Menegatti

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About Me