Research: Conspiracy beliefs fuel political violence. Experimental application of the 3N model of radicalization
Education
Sapienza University of Rome
• Ph.D. candidate: Social Psychology (November 2019 – Present).
o Supervisors: Prof. Gilda Sensales, Ph.D. (corsidilaurea.uniroma1.it/it/users/gildasensalesuniroma1it), Prof. Marco Lauriola, Ph.D. (phd.uniroma1.it/web/MARCO-LAURIOLA_nC1019_IT.aspx), Prof. Erica Molinario, Ph.D. (www.fgcu.edu/cas/departments/psych/psychologyfacultystaff).
o Dissertation title: “Conspiracy beliefs fuel political violence. Experimental application of the 3N model of radicalization”. Expected discussion: December 2022.
• MA: Communication and Marketing Psychology (October 2016 – July 2018). 110/110 (Hons)
Lumsa University
• BA: Psychology (October 2013 – July 2016). 109/110
Publications
Published Journal Articles
Sensales, G., Di Cicco, G., & Baldner, C. (2021). Representations of Italian Populism and Immigration on Facebook. A Comparison of the Posts by Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini (2014-2018). Papers on Social Representations, 30(1), 2.1-2.34.
Manzi, C., Adorni, R., Di Cicco, G., Milano, V., Manunta, E., Montermini, F., Becker, M., Steca, P. (2021). Implicit and Explicit Attitudes towards Hearing Aids - The Role of Media Language. Journal of Language and Social Psychology. doi.org/10.1177/0261927X211009292
Molinario, E., Sensales, G., Kruglanski, A., Piccini, M. P., Di Cicco, G. (2021). Le basi psicologico–sociali del populismo e la sua rappresentazione nel contesto italiano. Psycho-social bases of populism and its representation in the Italian context. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia. XLVIII (1), 309-330.
Sensales, G., Areni, A., & Di Cicco, G. (2020). Sindaca o sindaco? Rappresentazioni di Virginia Raggi e Chiara Appendino sulla stampa italiana. La camera blu. Rivista di studi di genere, 21, 122–144
Di Cicco, G., & Sensales, G. (2019). Aspetti psico–sociali della comunicazione populista su Facebook. Una prima analisi delle reazioni ai post di Luigi Di Maio e Matteo Salvini/Psycho–social aspects of populist communication on Facebook. A first analysis of the reactions to the posts. Rassegna di Psicologia, 36(2), 61–71.
Manuscripts Under Review
Kruglanski, A.W., Molinario, E., Ellenberg, M., & Di Cicco, G. (2022). Terrorism and Conspiracy Theories: A View from the 3N model of radicalization. Current Opinion in Psychology [Manuscript submitted for publication].
Kruglanski, A.W., Ellenberg, M., Szumowska, E., Molinario, E., Speckhard, A., Leander, P. N., Pierro, A., Di Cicco, G., & Bushman, B. J. (2022). Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis Reconsidered: On the Psychology of Significance-Driven Hostility. [Manuscript submitted for publication].
Molinario, E., Elster, A., Kruglanski, A. W, Webber, D, Jasko, K., Sensales, G., Leander, N. P., Agostini, M., Kreienkamp, J., Sensales, G., Di Cicco, G., Jaume L. C, & Szumowska, E., (2022). Striving for Respect: Development and Validation of the Quest for Significance Scale. [Manuscript submitted for publication].
Conference Presentations
Di Cicco, G. & Molinario, E. (2022). Maladaptive personality antecedents of motivational imbalance. A correlative study. Poster presentation at Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Annual Convenction 2022, San Francisco, USA.
Di Cicco, G., Sensales, G., & D’Urso (2021). Right-wing extremist populisms and pandemic in Italy. The language of Georgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini, and their followers on Facebook. Representations under a gender perspective. Oral web presentation at International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) Annual Meeting 2021.
Sensales, G., Di Cicco, G., Molinario, E., & Kruglanski, A.W. (2021). Representations of the pandemic and populism. An exploration of the associative clusters of populist and non-populist Italian citizens. Oral web presentation at International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) Annual Meeting 2021.
Sensales, G., Di Cicco, G., Molinario, E., & Kruglanski, A.W. (2020). Rappresentazioni della pandemia da COVID–19 e populismi. Una prima esplorazione dei cluster associativi di un campione italiano. Oral web presentation at Associazione Italiana di Psicologia (AIP) 2020.
Sensales, G., Di Cicco, G., Molinario, E., & Kruglanski, A.W. (2020). The representations of populism in the associative universe of Italian citizens. Oral web presentation at International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) Annual Meeting 2020.
Sensales, G. & Di Cicco, G. (2019). Italian populism and social media. A social–psychological and linguistic comparison of Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini Facebook posts and their impact on the followers. Oral presentation at Social Psychology and Society 2019, Moscow, Russia.
Di Cicco, G. (2019). Aspetti psico–sociali della comunicazione politica su Facebook. Il caso Di Maio – Salvini. Poster presentation at AIP 2018, Rome, Italy.
Sensales, G. & Di Cicco, G. (2019). Populism and immigration in the political communication on Facebook. A comparison of the posts of Di Maio and Salvini (2014–2018). Oral presentation at European Association of Social Psychology (EASP) Meeting 2019, Warsaw, Poland.
Teaching Experiences
• Teaching assistant | Exam committee member (January 2021 – Present). Course: Political psychology. Teacher: Prof. Gilda Sensales, Ph.D. Sapienza University of Rome.
Other research Experiences
• Visiting Ph.D. student | Research assistant at the Motivated Cognition Lab (December 2021 – Present). Supervisor: Prof. Arie W. Kruglanski, Ph.D. (psyc.umd.edu/facultyprofile/kruglanski/arie), University of Maryland, USA.
• Research Assistant (April 2019 – Present). Supervisor: Prof. Gilda Sensales, Ph.D. Sapienza University of Rome.
• Marketing researcher | Data analyst (March 2017 – December 2020) at G&G Associated srl.
Awards
• Sapienza Research Call 2021 (November 2021). € 1.000,00. Project: “Do pro-establishment conspiracy beliefs legitimize political violence? A correlational study based on the 3N model.”
• Sapienza Individual Mobility 2021 (November 2021). Funded visiting period at University of Maryland (June – August 2022).
Methodological Training
Associazione Italiana di Psicologia (AIP)
• Summer school. “General, Mixed and Generalized Linear Models” (September 2021 – 64 hours). Lecturer: Prof. Marcello Gallucci, Ph.D. (www.unimib.it/marcello-gallucci).
Sapienza University of Rome
• Course. “Deep learning with Python for Big Data analysis” (www.dss.uniroma1.it/en/deep, July 2020 – 42 hours). Lecturers: Prof. Agostino Di Ciaccio, Ph.D. (www.dss.uniroma1.it/it/dipartimento/persone/di-ciaccio-agostino), Prof. Umberto Ferraro Petrillo, Ph.D. (www.dss.uniroma1.it/it/dipartimento/persone/ferraro-petrillo-umberto).
G&G Associated srl.
• Internship. “Structured and unstructured data analysis. Methods and tools” (January – March 2017). Supervisor: Anna Gigante (it.linkedin.com/in/anna-gigante-50514428).
Skills
Software.
Graphical user interface (GUI):
• MS Office suite (advanced)
• IBM SPSS (advanced)
• Jamovi (advanced)
• Coheris Analytics SPAD (advanced)
• Orange (intermediate)
• KNIME (basic)
Command line interface (CLI):
• R (intermediate)
• Python (intermediate)
• SQL (basic)
Languages:
• Italian (native)
• English (fluent)
• French (basic)
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