Ricerc@Sapienza

The study was designed to test the impact of study interests on achievement, considering the mediating role of future time perspective and basic positive affect (attentiveness, joviality and selfassurance). A total of 675 Italian students attending 10th and 11th grade of high school (F = 342, 50.7%) were involved in the current study. Students’ ages ranged from 16 to 19 years (Mage = 17.44 years; SD = .84 years).

Recent research has pointed to the benefits of positive emotions and their appropriate modulation in buffering the impact of negative experience, and in promoting well-being. Two studies examined the psychometric properties of a new scale that was designed to assess perceived self-efficacy in using memories of positive emotional experiences and humor to face challenges and to cope with stressful experiences. In the first study, we examined the factor structure and internal validity of two scales in youths from the United States (N = 1277), Italy (N = 363), and Spain (N=223).

The present study examined in a stringent developmental model whether positivity, conceptualized as a pervasive mode of appraising, viewing, and perceiving life from a positive stance, predicts chronic positive affectivity across time or vice versa. Participants [263 participants (47 % males)], aged 15.5 at the beginning of the study and 23.5 at the end, reported on measures of positivity and dispositional positive affect four times.