1,721,104 research outputs found
The hidden risks of democracy: An experimental study on acceptance of human rights violation
No full textAccording to a number of scholars (Kelman & Hamilton, 1989; Hamilton & Sanders, 1999; Haslam & Reicher, 2007), in the past and in the present century there have been many instances of crimes of obedience that are illegal or immoral acts committed in response to orders or directives from authority. Indeed, while there is broad consensus in condemning acts of destructive obedience as negative and immoral, also nowadays people sometimes approve laws that restrict individual freedoms and rights and that may lead to a curbing of civil liberties. For instance, the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act passed on October 26, 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks was accepted by U.S. citizens without causing too much of an outcry, even though some members of the US Congress did criticize it for weakening civil liberties safeguards.
In a previous research we explored how people react in front of the decision of sending innocents to anti-terrorist detention camps. Results showed that people respond differently when an illegitimate request (i.e. illegitimate detention) is put forward by a democratic or an authoritarian authority. When people perceive authorities as democratic they tend to obey, notwithstanding the legitimacy of requests.
Following these results, the present research aimed to verify, in more details, whether the perception of democracy may lead to blind obedience and acceptance of human rights violations. Two experimental studies – with both attitudinal and behavioural dependent variables – are illustrated. In each of them, the perception of democracy of the governmental institution which violates the rights was manipulated. Results confirm that when people consider the authority as democratic, they are more likely to accept undemocratic procedures. On the other hand, people oriented towards moral inclusion are more likely to have critical attitudes towards authority, independently from the perceived level of democracy of authority. Besides, they are the more likely to disobey and to engage concrete actions
Constructive and destructive aspects of heterogeneity in Bosnia-Herzegovina
No full textRecent episodes of public dissent have staked their claim to a profound focus on the meaning of disobedience within democratic systems, raising relevant questions concerning the psychological processes set off in obeying and disobeying the authority, and on the role that disobedience has in the relationship between individuals and society. Are acts of disobedience a form of non-institutionalized political action or some form of social deviance? What is the difference between pro-democratic disobedience and the disobedience that does not lead to democracy? Dahl’s political theory suggests that democratic ideals and values are fundamental for procedural and institutional democracy. The aim of this research was to consider the relationship between the ideological dimension of democracy and the meanings attributed to obedience and disobedience. We stress the differences between the dimensions of obedience and disobedience, distinguishing at least between responsible obedience and blind obedience and between pro-social disobedience and anti-social disobedience. Three studies were conducted on the World Values Survey data: Study 1 verifies the hypothesis of complementarity according to which obedience and disobedience represent complementary aspects of the support for democratic values; Study 2 verifies the hypothesis of prosociality of disobedience underlining under which psychological condition disobedience can be considered as prosocial and prodemocratic; Study 3 investigates the hypothesis of causality, according to which individual attitudes towards disobedience are predictive of the level of democracy at institutional level
Polymer-based fibrous hybrid membranes by in situ synthesis of inorganic nanoparticles
No full textWe present an innovative method to fabricate hybrid polymer/inorganic nanoparticles (NPs) fibrous membranes. In particular, the proposed method is based on a solvent-free two-step process. The first step deals with the electrospinning of a polymer/NPs precursor solution, while in the second step the in situ synthesis of NPs takes place, by mean of a thermally-induced solid-state reaction.
Such method (schem in Figure 1) allows to obtain fibres homogeneously decorated with NPs, overcoming the typical particles aggregation that affects nanocomposites prepared by conventional mixing methods. In addition, the in situ formation permits to have exposed NPs on the fibres surface, which combined with high surface area offered by the fibrous structure result in a multifunctional material. Herein, two examples of hybrid nanocomposite membranes obtained by this approach are reported.
PMMA membranes modified with ZnO NPs have shown reversible UV-switchable wettability and permeability, improved thermal stability and antibacterial activity, which can be controlled simply varying the filler content.[1]
On the other hand, PVDF/CeO2/Au fibrous nanocomposites have shown photocatalytic degradation activity induced by visible light, thanks to the modification with Au NPs, which results in a narrowing effect of the CeO2 bandgap. The Au NPs also increase the Ce+3/Ce+4 ratio that greatly enhances the radical scavenging activity of CeO2.[2]
In conclusion, the versatility of the presented multifunctional membranes as well as the light-weight and flexibility offered by the polymeric fibres, make these materials valuable alternatives to the nowadays existing systems based on NPs supported on ceramic materials.
Furthermore, the present findings demonstrate that the proposed fabrication method is a promising and straightforward approach to obtain polymer-based hybrid membranes for several applications such as filtration, wound management and water purification, among others.
[1] Morselli D. et al., Thermally-induced in situ growth of ZnO nanoparticles in polymeric fibrous membranes, Composites Science and Technology 149 (2017) 11-19
[2] Morselli D. et al., Ceria/gold nanoparticles in situ synthesized on polymeric membranes with enhanced photocatalytic and radical scavenging activity, accepted on ACS Applied Nano Materials (2018
The Legitimacy Triadic Model: Understanding the Support to Protests and Disobedient Groups
No full textAlmost everyday, media talk about the arise of some new movement of protest and about signatures collections to support new politics or social groups. These protests become relevant or just disappear due to the more or less support that they receive from the population. But why do people support a protest in some cases and not in others? What elements do people consider in deciding whether to join an online petition for a cause? By integrating the tripolar model proposed by Mugny (1982) with Kelman and Hamilton’s (1989) theory on legitimacy, in this study we consider the issue of legitimacy concerning disobedient groups. Indeed, two legitimacy can be identified: (1) the legitimacy of the group – i.e., disobedient groups may be perceived as victims or threats and this exerts a different influence on population’s support (see Moscovici & Perez, 2007); (2 ) the legitimacy of disobedient groups’ requests – i.e., their requests may support a social change enacted for the sake of every social group or achieve specific and restricted rights. The question is whether supporting or ignoring disobedient groups’ request depends on the legitimacy of the request claimed or on the perceived legitimacy of that group. Results show that in general participants support more the protest of the victimized than the threatening group, while no difference emerges from what concern the request’s legitimacy. However, value-oriented citizens (i.e., people attaching importance to the universal values of justice and equality) tend to accept more the inclusive than the exclusive group’s request
Accepting human rights violation under a democratic or authoritarian system
No full textAccording to some criminological literature (Weber, 2005), illegitimate detention and human rights violation as consequence of anti-terrorism measures are to be considered crimes of obedience. Indeed, in a previous research Passini and Morselli (2010) explored how people react in front of the decision of sending innocents to anti-terrorist detention camps. Results showed that people respond differently when an illegitimate request (i.e. illegitimate detention) is put forward by a democratic or an authoritarian authority. When people perceive authorities as democratic they tend to obey, notwithstanding the legitimacy of requests.
Following these results, the present research aimed to verify, in more details, whether the perception of democracy may lead to blind obedience and acceptance of human rights violations. Three experimental studies – with both attitudinal and behavioural dependent variables – are illustrated. In each of them, the perception of democracy of the governmental institution which violates the rights was manipulated. Results confirm that when people consider the authority as democratic, they are more likely to accept undemocratic procedures. On the other hand, all the three studies point out that people oriented towards moral inclusion (Opotow, 1990) are more likely to have critical attitudes towards authority, independently from the perceived level of democracy of authority. Besides, they are the more likely to disobey and to engage concrete actions
Social movements or rebel groups? Disobedience as a prediction of the level of democracy at institutional level
No full textThe relationship between the individual and the authority has a pivotal importance within the social sciences and political psychology. Although obedience to authority has been thoroughly studied in its positive and negative aspects, many cross-cultural studies still tend to consider obedience as a one-dimensional phenomenon. Some theoretical frameworks have instead underlined that obedience is a multidimensional issue and disobedience is far to be merely the opposite side of obedience. The aim of this research was to empirically verify the multidimensionality of obedience and disobedience and their role in supporting the ideological dimension of democracy. This research has been developed from cross-cultural data (source: World Values Survey). Results underline that obedience has, at least, two dimensions which correlate in a different way with the support for democracy. Differences between these dimensions are mirrored also in the correlations with pro-social disobedience, which may be considered a complementary aspect of the pro-democratic obedience
The many facets of obedience and disobedience and their role in supporting democracy
No full textSocial movement studies and political sciences have studied for long ingoing processes among protest groups and activists. However, little empirical research has been addressed to relating movements to the type of social change they endeavour to achieve. In particular, we suggest that different psychosocial processes may distinguish between different types of movements and protest. In this article we cross lines between classical social psychology studies on the individual-authority relationship and studies on protest and social movements. We focused our attention on the psychological processes (such as inclusion/exclusion processes) triggered off in obeying/disobeying. Our results, based on survey data (source: World Values Survey), underscored that when disobedience is associated with attitudes of inclusiveness, it is positively linked to the enhancement of democracy at both the individual and the institutional levels
Construction and validation of the moral exclusion/inclusion scale
No full textAs many scholars have pointed out (Bandura, 1990; Deutsch, 1985; Opotow, 1990; Staub, 1989) our moral values, beliefs and norms apply to people we include within our scope of justice and our moral community. This community may include different levels of people such as family members, friends, neighbours, compatriots, and so on, until it is referred to every person in the world. Thus, if moral exclusion is defined as excluding other individuals or groups from one’s own moral community (Opotow, 1990), moral inclusion – in its more extensive range – refers to the inclusion and extension of social justice to all social groups. That is, the extension of the same rules and norms applied to one’s own ingroup to all the other groups. The aim of the present work is the construction and validation of an instrument that analyze attitudes of moral exclusion and inclusion referred to some target groups. In particular, on the basis of the moral exclusion scale by Passini (2005) and the social distance scale by Bogardus (1933), a moral exclusion/inclusion scale was constructed as composed by 3 seven-point differential semantic items referred to four groups – two groups supposedly close to subjects’ social groups and two far. Results indicate good psychometric properties of the scale
The social psychology of dominance and counter-dominance: The role of political complexity evaluation in legitimizing moral vs. hegemonic intervention in protests against Authoritarian government.
No full text"Assessing the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship in vocational students using the European qualification framework"
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