Davide Morselli
- Media Contact
- SPN Mentor
My research is mainly concerned with the individual-authority relationship, intergroup relations, and contextual effects. My early work was focused on obedience and disobedience dynamics vis-à-vis the authority. Together with Dr. Stefano Passini, I developed the concept of prosocial disobedience as a social resource. The basic idea is that, whereas people may disobey the authority with analogous behaviours, there may be different psychological underpinnings of disobedience that lead to very different aims and results. In particular, prosocial disobedience is defined as a type of disobedience intended to create social change, and such a change does not represent a benefit for only one or few social groups, but society as a whole, without excluding any outgroup. Several studies I conducted showed that psychological processes of inclusion (e.g., moral inclusion and inclusive self-categorization) are associated with and predictive of prosocial disobedience. I have also shown that this type of disobedience is linked to the enhancement of democracy at the individual and societal levels.
More recently, I have studied contextual factors influencing individual perception and attitudes. Here the focus is on collective experience and the idea that people are influenced by the context they live in. This approach is complementary to the previous one, where we investigate the way that individuals influence the social context. In the framework of the contextual effects, I study reactions to collective vulnerability experiences such as civil conflicts and collective economic deprivation. The hypothesis here is that when risks are shared equally within a given community or context, the existence of a collective vulnerability (common destiny) leads community members to reinforce social norms and social resources.
Another interest of mine is statistics and methods. The research I've conducted so far focuses on several aspects of multilevel modelling, such as multilevel structural equation modelling, multilevel mixture models, and multilevel longitudinal models. Far from being a pure methodologist, I believe in an interdisciplinary approach that translates also into the use of statistical models applied in other human science (e.g., political science, economics and econometrics, sociology) and natural science (e.g., geography, biology).
Primary Interests:
- Aggression, Conflict, Peace
- Applied Social Psychology
- Attitudes and Beliefs
- Culture and Ethnicity
- Group Processes
- Intergroup Relations
- Life Satisfaction, Well-Being
- Persuasion, Social Influence
- Political Psychology
- Prejudice and Stereotyping
- Research Methods, Assessment
- Sociology, Social Networks
Research Group or Laboratory:
Books:
- Morselli, D. (2010). Obbedienza e disobbedienza: Dinamiche piscosociali per la democrazia [Obedience and disobedience: Socialpsychological dynamics for democracy]. Toronto: Lulu Press.
- Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2010). Psicologia dell’obbedienza e della disobbedienza [Psychology of obedience and disobedience]. Roma: Carrocci.
Journal Articles:
- Morselli, D., & Passini, S. (2012). Disobedience and support for democracy: Evidences from the World Values Survey. Social Science Journal, 49, 284-294.
- Morselli D., & Passini S. (2012). Rights, democracy and values: A comparison between the representations of obedience and disobedience in Italian and Finnish students. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36, 682-693.
- Morselli D., & Passini, S. (2011). New perspective on the study of the authority relationship: Integrating individual and societal level research. Journal of Theory of Social Behaviour, 41(3), 291-307.
- Morselli D., & Passini, S. (2010). Avoiding crimes of obedience: A comparative study of the autobiographies of M. K. Gandhi, N. Mandela & M. L. King. Peace & Conflict. Journal of Peace Psychology, 16(3), 231-255.
- Morselli D., Spini, D., & Devos, T. (2012). Human values and trust in institutions across countries: A multilevel test of Schwartz’s hypothesis of structural equivalence. Survey Research Methods, 6, 49-60.
- Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2013). The triadic legitimacy model: Understanding support to disobedient groups. New Ideas in Psychology.
- Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2011). In the name of democracy: Disobedience and value-oriented citizenship. Journal of Community and Social Psychology, 21, 255-267.
- Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2010). Obedience to an illegitimate demand: The effect of perceived democracy. Political Psychology, 31(3), 315-328.
- Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2010). The obedience–disobedience dynamic and the role of responsibility. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 20, 1-14.
- Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2009). Authority relationships between obedience and disobedience. New Ideas in Psychology 27(1), 96-106.
- Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2006). La dinamica tra obbedienza e disobbedienza: un modello di rapporto con l’autorità. [The dynamic between obedience and disobedience: A model for the authority relationship] Nuove Tendenze della Psicologia, 2, 179-198.
- Passini, S., & Morselli D. (2006). La responsabilità tra autoritarismo e valori [Responsibilty between values and autoritarianism]. Psicologia sociale,3, 501-516.
- Pratto, F., Çidam, A., Stewart, A.L., Bou Zeineddine, F., Aranda, M., Aiello, A., Chryssochoou, X., Cichocka, A., Cohrs, C., Durrheim, K., Eicher, V., Foels, R., Górska, P., Lee, I., Licata, L., Li, L., Liu, J., Morselli, D., Meyer, I., Muldoon, O., Muluk, H., Petrovic, N., Prati, F., Papastamou, S., Petrovic, I., Prodromitis, G., Rubini, M., Saab, R., van Stekelenburg, J., Sweetman, J., Zheng, W., Henkel, K.E. (2013). Social Dominance in Context and in Individuals: Contextual Moderation of Robust Effects of Social Dominance Orientation in 15 languages and 20 countries. Social Psychology and Personality Science, in press.
- Speltini, G., Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2010). Questioni di pulizia: rappresentazioni e valori [A matter of cleaness: Representations and values]. Giornale Italiano di Psicologia.
- Villano, P., Passini, S., & Morselli, D. (2010). Discorso e terrorismo: la rappresentazione degli arabi nella stampa italiana e internazionale dopo l’11 settembre 2001[Discourse and terrorism: The representation of Arabs in Italian and International press after 09/11]. Psicologia Sociale, 3, 441-460.
Other Publications:
- Bruni, S., Lolli, M., & Morselli, D. (2008). Il passaggio da progetto a servizio: gli interventi di educativa di strada nel distretto di Casalecchio di Reno [Passing from project to service: Educative interventions on the street in the Casalecchio district]. In G. Cattabriga (Ed.), Volere volare. Giovani e occasioni di cittadinanza. Bologna: Clueb.
- Morselli, D., & Passini, S. (2012). Measuring moral inclusion: A validation of the Inclusion/Exclusion of Other Groups (IEG) Scale. LIVES Working Papers, 2012/14.
Davide Morselli
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences
University of Lausanne, Bâtiment Geopolis
CH-1015 Lausanne
Switzerland
- Phone: +41 (0)21 692 38 54
- Skype Name: d-mors