Environmental influence on the phenotype: Morphological variation in human dentition

This work is about the role that environment plays in the production of evolutionary significant variations. It starts with an historical introduction about the concept of variation and the role of environment in its production. Then, I show how a lack of attention to these topics may lead to serious mistakes in data interpretation. A statistical re-analysis of published data on the effects of malnutrition on dental eruption, shows that what has been interpreted as an increase in the mean value, is actually linked to increase of variability. In Chapter 3 I present the topic of development as a link between variability and environmental influence, giving a review of the possible mechanisms by which development influences evolutionary dynamics. Chapter 4 is the core chapter of the thesis; I investigated the role of environment in the development of dental morphology. I used dental hypoplasia as a marker of stress, characterizing two groups. Comparing the morphology of upper molars in the two groups, three major results came out: (i) there is a significant effect of environmental stressors on the overall morphology of upper molars; (ii) the developmental response increases morphological variability of the stressed population; (iii) increase of variability is directional: stressed individuals have increased cusps dimensions and number. I also hypothesized the molecular mechanisms that could be responsible of the observed effects. In Chapter 5, I present future perspectives for developing this research. The direction of dental development response is the same direction of the trend in mammalian dental evolution. Since malnutrition triggers the developmental response, and this particular kind of stressor must have been very common in our class evolutionary history, I propose the possibility that environmental stress actively influenced mammals evolution. Moreover, I discuss the possibility of reconsidering the role of natural selection in the evolution of dental morphology.

Essays in Gender Economics

This thesis consists of three papers on gender economics. Chapter 1 studies whether people dislike collaborating with someone who corrects them and whether the dislike is stronger when that person is a woman. Having a good relationship with colleagues is integral in group work, potentially leading to successful collaborations. However, there are occasions when people have to correct their colleagues. Using a quasi-laboratory experiment, I find that people, including those with high productivity, are less willing to collaborate with a person who has corrected them even if the correction improves group performance. In addition, I find suggestive evidence that men respond more negatively to women’s corrections, which is not driven by their beliefs about the difference in women’s and men’s abilities. These findings suggest that there is a behavioral bias in group work that distorts the optimal selection of talents and penalizes those who correct others’ mistakes, and the distortion may be stronger when women correct men. Chapter 2 studies the role of gender and cognitive skills on other peoples’ generosity. Using a novel experimental design where I exogenously vary gender and cognitive skills and sufficiently powered analysis, I find neither the two attributes nor their interactions affect other people’s generosity; if anything, people are more generous to women with high potential. Chapter 3 studies how increased legal tolerance toward domestic violence affects married women’s welfare using the domestic violence decriminalization bill introduced to the Russian national congress in 2016. Using difference-in-differences and flexibly controlling for macroeconomic shocks, I find that the bill decreased married women’s life satisfaction and increased depression, especially among those with a college degree and a highly qualified white-collar occupation supposed to be more sensitive to gender regressive atmosphere. Consistent with this conjecture, people became more tolerant toward general and domestic violence after the bill.

Learning from errors: Psychological, relational, and cultural aspects

Although errors might foster learning, they can also be perceived as something to avoid if they are associated with negative consequences (e.g., receiving a bad grade or being mocked by classmates). Such adverse perceptions may trigger negative emotions and error-avoidance attitudes, limiting the possibility to use errors for learning. These students’ reactions may be influenced by relational and cultural aspects of errors that characterise the learning environment. Accordingly, the main aim of this research was to investigate whether relational and cultural characteristics associated with errors affect psychological mechanisms triggered by making mistakes. In the theoretical part, we described the role of errors in learning using an integrated multilevel (i.e., psychological, relational, and cultural levels of analysis) approach. Then, we presented three studies that analysed how cultural and relational error-related variables affect psychological aspects. The studies adopted a specific empirical methodology (i.e., qualitative, experimental, and correlational) and investigated different samples (i.e., teachers, primary school pupils and middle school students). Findings of study one (cultural level) highlighted errors acquire different meanings that are associated with different teachers’ error-handling strategies (e.g., supporting or penalising errors). Study two (relational level) demonstrated that teachers’ supportive error-handling strategies promote students’ perceptions of being in a positive error climate. Findings of study three (relational and psychological level) showed that positive error climate foster students’ adaptive reactions towards errors and learning outcomes. Overall, our findings indicated that different variables influence students’ learning from errors process and teachers play an important role in conveying specific meanings of errors during learning activities, dealing with students’ mistakes supportively, and establishing an error-friendly classroom environment.

Paradigmi e contrario in Senofonte. Studio dei personaggi negativi attraverso le strategie narrative e le scelte stilistiche

La presente indagine di ricerca si concentra sulle opere storiografiche di Senofonte, focalizzandosi in modo particolare su quelle figure minori presenti in esse, che mostrano caratteristiche o comportamenti tali da renderle indegne del ruolo di governo che occupano. Da tempo, infatti, la critica si è focalizzata nell’individuare e analizzare quei personaggi che rappresentano il perfetto modello di leadership descritto da Senofonte e offerto all’imitazione del suo pubblico. Tuttavia, ben poco si è detto riguardo le figure opposte, quei paradigmi e contrario, destinati non tanto ad essere imitati, ma utili, piuttosto, a rappresentare gli errori che un lettore deve evitare e a far risaltare ancor di più i modelli di leadership illuminata e capace che sono il reale focus dell’attenzione di Senofonte in diverse opere. Se, infatti, è evidente la volontà e le caratteristiche paideutiche del corpus senofonteo, destinato ad insegnare le qualità, politiche ma ancor di più morali, necessarie per ricoprire un ruolo di governo e guida; sembrerebbe logico ipotizzare che questo fine didattico delle opere di Senofonte possa trovare realizzazione anche nelle figure negative, il cui ruolo è sottolineato ed evidenziato dall’autore attraverso strategie letterarie sempre nuove.