ABSTRACT

The last decades have witnessed a consistent migratory ¯ow from less economically developed countries to more highly developed countries. Leaving one's native nation and settling in another place has inevitably produced extensive societal shifts, which have impacted not only upon economic, political, and social dynamics but also upon psychological dynamics. Contacts between people and cultures, as a consequence of these migrations, underline the need to take into account the psychological processes and relations between majority and minority groups in nonhomogeneous societies. In other words, intergroup interactions offer the opportunity to investigate the way in which various ethnic groups identify and perceive themselves and others, the value they attribute to their history, and the feelings they mutually develop when sharing the same living space.