Position:
Research Associate
Keywords:
aesthetic experience; complexity; cross-cultural relations; diversity; empathy; human-animal relations; human violence.
Short profile:
Camilla Pagani is a social psychologist. She has a degree in Modern Languages and Literature, a PhD in Anglo-American Literature, and a degree in Psychology. Within her Project “The sense of diversity and its psychological implications” she carried out research in the following fields: children’s and adolescents’ attitudes toward multiculturalism; the perception of threat in cross-cultural relations; the role of hate and resentment in racist attitudes; empathy in cross-cultural relations; children’s and adolescents’ relationships with animals with special reference to empathy and violence; the relation between animal abuse and interhuman violence in both their socially acceptable and unacceptable forms; the identification of the basic constituents of the human-animal bond.
Presently, she is involved in the Project “Diversity and Complexity”, whose main aim is to analyze humans’ relationship with diversity not only within a traditional socio-psychological perspective but also through the use of concepts specifically pertaining to complexity theory. She is also involved in the study of the aesthetic experience as a form of knowledge and of the main constituents of the “supernatural/paranormal” experience.
She is a Fellow of the University of Denver. She is the Chair of the scientific committee of CICA (Conferencias Internacionales sobre Conflicto y Agresiόn) Foundation (Madrid). She co-authored a book and published chapters in international and national books, as well as papers in international and national journals. She organized national and international conferences. She is a member of ISRE (International Society for Research on Emotion), of IAIE (International Association for Intercultural Education), of ISAZ (International Society of Anthrozoology) and of AISC (Associazione Italiana di Scienze Cognitive).
Projects
In 2016 Camilla Pagani initiated a Project, named “Diversity and Complexity”, in which she is presently involved. In this Project the term “diversity” is used in its broad sense. Indeed, the Project mainly focuses on, but is not limited to, cultural diversity. In this context, the study of people’s relationship with diversity is carried out not only within a traditional socio-psychological perspective but also through the use of concepts (e.g., networks, order, disorder, emergence, chaos, etc.) specifically pertaining to complexity theory. The Project also partly draws on the great amount of data obtained in the last fifteen years in the course of Pagani et al.’s research studies on youth’s attitudes towards multiculturalism and on the link between youth’s complex thinking and empathy.
In the Project the concept of diversity is also connected to humans’ involvement in other specific experiences of diversity, namely the aesthetic experience and the supernatural/paranormal experience, which are here regarded as special experiences of new and diverse forms of knowledge.
