Salvatore Sergio

This paper reports the framework, method and main findings of an analysis of cultural milieus in 4 European countries. The analysis is based on a questionnaire applied to a sample built through a two-step procedure of post-hoc random selection from a broader dataset based on an online survey. Responses to the questionnaire were subjected to multidimensional analysis-a combination of Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis. We identified 5 symbolic universes, that correspond to basic, embodied, affect-laden, generalized worldviews. People in this study see the world as either a) an ordered universe;b) a matter of interpersonal bond;c) a caring society;d) consisting of a niche of belongingness;e) a hostile place. These symbolic universes were also interpreted as semiotic capital: they reflect the capacity of a place to foster social and civic development. Moreover, the distribution of the symbolic universes, and therefore social and civic engagement, is demonstrated to be variable across the 4 countries in the analysis. Finally, we develop a retrospective reconstruction of the distribution of symbolic universes as well as the interplay between their current state and past, present and future socio-institutional scenarios.

This paper moves from the idea that contemporary psychology is essentially a psychology of objects—an inquiry about conditions and processes that lead the cognitive agent to attribute qualities to mental objects whose existence is taken for granted. Mental objects are assumed as given and as such considered the starting point of the psychology inquiry.The givenness of mental objects is grounded on a metaphysical assumption of the autonomous ontological status of the external reality, namely, that it consists of objects endowed with their own substance—mental contents are inner representational equivalents to self-contained entities, which have their place in the world-out-there: banknotes, screwdrivers, pens, computers, doors, soccer teams, and so forth are considered pieces of the external reality and therefore contents of our minds. They contain representations of things because there are things that can be represented. Needless to say, it is recognized that mental representations may introduce a more or less relevant degree of transformation when the external reality is mirrored in the mind, as well as that certain representations have no equivalent in reality (i.e., they are products of imagination (Zittoun T, Gillespie A. Imagination in human and cultural development. Routledge, 2016))—yet this does not contradict the ontological assumption of substances as the ground for mental representations.

A volume in Advances in Cultural Psychology Series Editor: Jaan Valsiner, Aalborg University This book is long awaited within the contemporarily creative field of cultural psychologies. It is a theoretical synthesis that is at the level of innovations that Sigmund Freud, James Mark Baldwin, William Stern, Kurt Lewin, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Jan Smedslund have brought into psychology over the past century (...).Here we can observe a creative solution to integrating cultural psychology with the rich traditions of psychodynamic perspectives, without repeating the conceptual impasses in which many psychoanalytic perspectives have become caught. (Jaan Valsiner)

Il presente articolo propone una prospettiva teorica di tipo fenomenologico e intende mostrare che l’intersoggettività e le sue dinamiche di costituzione di senso sono coerenti con una vision emergentista del sé personale. In particolare, questo studio propone un modello semiotico di mente e una concezione correlata del sé come “segno iper-generalizzato”. Il punto di partenza di questa analisi poggia sui modelli proposti dalla ricerca fenomenologica, cognitiva e da quella ispirata dalla teoria dell’enazione che distinguono tra una coscienza pre-reflessiva e un sé non concettuale proprio del corpo vissuto. Il presente studio mira a proporre un singolo costrutto non-ipostatizzato di tipo psicologico e psicodinamico capace di ricomprendere e integrare tutte quelle proprietà intersoggettive della cognizione che sono oggi oggetto d’indagine della ricerca fenomenologica sulle varie tipologie di sé, le quali vengono anche indagate nelle scienze cognitive da coloro che seguono l’approccio incarnato e situato.

The present paper focuses on the antecedents of solidarity behavior towards Ukrainian refugees, specifically examining the role of subjective uncertainty generated in public opinion by the aggression of Ukraine on feelings of compassion and perceptions of refugees as a threat. Based on pooled data from six representative samples collected in different waves during the first six months of the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine among a representative sample of adult Italian citizens (N = 6,063), the study provided support for the intensification hypothesis, suggesting that uncertainty can act as an affective amplifier. Indeed, the results showed that uncertainty increased perceptions of refugees as a threat (acting on its emotional component, i.e., anxiety), but also feelings of compassion, which is a main driver of solidarity. Moreover, compassion seemed to reduce the (perceived) threat posed by refugees on an economic, cultural, security, or political level. The pattern of relationships tested in the model proved to be stable across different areas of the country and for the first 6 months of the Russian invasion, suggesting that the empathic concern generated by the suffering of the Ukrainian population under attack did not significantly diminish its effects over the period considered.

The purpose of the article is to discuss the cultural hindrances and assets that promote constructive self-to-others relationships and active citizenship. Building on Carl Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction, we argue that in contemporary societies the public and the private dimensions of the enemy have conflated, as the result of two concurrent phenomena: the politicization of otherness and the privatization of enemies. An integrated framework including approaches of social psychology and semiotic cultural psychology is proposed to account for both phenomena. The notions of symbolic universes and semiotic capital are introduced as key concepts to understand the current socio-political dynamics and to promote fairer, more inclusive societies.

The concept of health is a challenge of great complexity in terms of theoretical, methodological and intervention within the idiographic frame. Health cannot be considered an abstract condition, but a means, a resource aimed at achieving objectives that relate to the ability of people to lead their lives in a productive way- individually, socially, and economically. Health is a process that is not based on the definition of standards and categories on the basis of which typifying the states of health. Rather, it has to be considered a process, on a large scale and on many entangled levels, aimed at generating a culture of the health as a resource for individuals and communities and to promote skills needed to transform these resources into developmental goals. The notion of health, indeed, defined and interpreted in terms of "state" and not of process, meets the immediate paradox of being an indicator of normativity by reason of which we risk a proliferation of new and potentially infinite forms of "deviation". The approach of the idiographic sciences (see previous volumes of the Yearbook Idiographic Science Series, by same publisher IAP) considers that every psychological process (but in general every process, from organic to the social and cultural ones) is characterized by a contextual, situated and contingent dynamics. That dynamics is always characterized by a never-ending opening of its cycles and great variability. Conditions of stagnation and hypostatization are characteristic of all forms of disease (physical, mental and social) that sclerotize relational links between people and their environments. Health is therefore a process that presents oscillation in the same way of any developmental process that has moments of crisis and rupture in order to re-organize new forms of relationship with the social and cultural environment. This book represents a fruitful way to deep many cogent issues and to dialogue with an idiographic perspective in order to discuss the concept of health, to define its cultural meanings and possible polysemy (e.g., wellness, care, hygiene, quality of life, resilience, prevention, healing, deviation/normality, subjective potentiality for development, etc.), its areas of pertinence and intervention (somatic, psychological, social) trying to offer possible alternatives to the "normalization" of health and creating new incentives for the reflection.

_Objective:_ The present work aims to detect the role of the rate of speech as a mechanism able to give information on patient's intrapsychic activity and the intersubjective quality of the patient–therapist relationship. _Method:_ Thirty clinical sessions among five patients were sampled and divided into idea units ( N = 1276) according to the referential activity method. Each idea unit was rated according to referential activity method and in terms of speech rate (syllables per second) for both patient and therapist. A mixed-effects model was applied in order to detect the relationship between the speech rate of both the patient and the therapist and the features of the patient's verbal production in terms of referential activity scales. A Pearson correlation was applied to evaluate the synchrony between the speech rate of the patient and the therapist. _Results:_ Results highlight that speech rate varies according patient's ability to get in touch with specific aspects detected through referential activity method: patient and the therapist speech rate get synchronized during the course of the sessions; and the therapist's speech rate partially attunes to the patient's ability to get in touch with inner aspects detected through RA method. _Conclusion:_ The work identified speech rate as a feature that may help in the development of the clinical process in light of its ability to convey information about a patient's internal states and a therapist's attunement ability. These results support the intersubjective perspective on the clinical process.