Maria Paola Paladino
Biography
Maria Paola Paladino studied psychology (Padova, Italy), before completing her PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Padova (2000). She is currently full professor in Social Psychology at the University of Trento (Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science). Her research interests are on how people perceive, relate and behave toward other people, or social relevant entities (i.e. robots). She has investigated dehumanization and its behavioral outcomes in several social contexts, ranging from national identities to gender relations, and more recently, social robots. She has also theoretically and empirically exploited the role of multisensory integration processes involved in body representation in social phenomena (e.g. moving in synchrony, self-other overlap, and personal space). The goal of this line of research is to make a bridge between cognitive neuroscience and social cognition processes. On the applied side, she is now addressing questions related to socio-economic and educational inequalities and gender-based discrimination, relying on a social psychology approach. Her work has been published on research articles in important outlets of social psychology. She has been associate editor for the Personality and Social Psychological Bullettin (2017-2020) and the European Journal of Social Psychology (2021-2022).
To know more about her current research projects, please visit the research main page.