Ricerc@Sapienza

Background: In Italy, chronic pain affects more than a quarter of the population, while the average European prevalence is 21%. This might be due to the high percentage of people who do not receive treatment, even after the passing of law 38/2010. Aims: To investigate the clinical characteristics of patients with non-cancer chronic pain. Methods: An observational, multi-center, cross-sectional study was performed and clinical records of adult chronic pain patients attending pain management clinics in the Latium Region, Italy, were retrospectively reviewed. Results.

In recent years, research regarding the use of fully autonomous cars (FACs) has been intensified. This research has revealed gender difference in the acceptance of FACs: men imagine themselves using this type of cars more than women (Schoettle and Sivak, 2014); they would buy the car with higher probability than women (Payre, Cestac and Delhomme, 2014) and would pay more to own one (Kyriadikis, Happee and de Winter, 2015).

The main aim of this research was to test the factorial validity and measurement invariance across genders and countries of a set of instruments designed to assess high-school students’ attitudes, self-regulatory efficacy, and moral disengagement with regard to doping. A second aim was to examine the criterion and predictive validity of these scales.

We investigated the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and personality traits, socioeconomic status (SES), and body image (BI) at the beginning of preadolescence. Data were collected from 238 Italian children aged 10–11 years using self-report scales. Information about SES was derived from parental education and professional status. BI was the variable the most strongly associated with BMI. Controlling for BI, SES, and gender, Agreeableness was inversely associated with BMI, whilst Extroversion was related to BMI in girls only.

Research on gender differences in intelligence has led to inconsistent results. Different methods seem to provide different estimates using the Wechsler scales. The present study analyzed WAIS-IV and WAIS-R standardization data. We assessed gender differences in subtest scores, indices, and IQs and used a Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA) to investigate whether gender differences were due to differences in ability factors or test bias. The larger effect sizes in favor of men were found in the Arithmetic subtest and the Working Memory Index of the WAIS-IV.

The present study examined the predictive role played by the three time perspective’s
dimensions (Present-Hedonistic, Present-Fatalistic and Future) on the satisfaction
with life and the mediational role of hope in adolescence, using cross-sectional data.
Participants were 675 adolescents (333 males and 342 females), with a mean age of
17.4 years (SD = .84). Adolescents lived in Rome and its surroundings regions and
attended the 3th or the 4th year of high school. A structural equation modeling was used.

In this study, normative data for the age-range 18–40 years have been provided for the Verbal
Judgment Test (VJT), which underpins abstract reasoning on the basis of four subtests:
“Differences”, “Proverbs”, “Absurdities” and “Classifications”. 554 participants (280 males and 274
females) were recruited and the following data were provided: means and standard deviations divided
by gender, educational level (8, 13 and 18 years) and age group (18–20 years, 21–25 years,

The authors examined the contributions of empathic concern, perspective taking, theory of mind (ToM), and receptive language to prosocial behavior in a sample of primary school children between 8 and 11 years old. Results showed that empathic concern, perspective taking, and ToM had direct positive effects on prosocial behavior. Girls exhibited higher levels of empathic concern and prosocial behavior; furthermore, gender moderated the observed associations, as perspective taking and ToM were positively and significantly associated with prosocial behavior in boys but not in girls.

The present study has two-fold aims: to investigate whether gender differences persist even when more time is given to acquire spatial information; to assess the gender effect when the retrieval phase requires recalling the pathway from the same or a different reference perspective (egocentric or allocentric). Specifically, we analyse the performance of men and women while learning a path from a map or by observing an experimenter in a real environment. We then asked them to reproduce the learned path using the same reference system (map learning vs.

Moral sense is defined as a feeling of fairness or unfairness of an action that knowingly causes harm to people other than the subject. It is crucial in determining human behavior and becomes pivotal in operational environments. Here we assessed whether professional daily life experience in an operational environment affects moral judgment by asking 41 military pilots ofthe ItalianAir Force (P) and 69 controls (C) to solve 40 moral dilemmas. We found that P gave more morally acceptable utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas.