Ricerc@Sapienza

Background: Several studies have suggested that the early loss of parents is a potentially traumatic experience, exposing adolescents to a higher risk for the onset of psychopathological symptoms. Furthermore, research has shown an association between the loss of a parent in childhood and subsequent physical illnesses, but much less attention has been given to the predictive role of loss in the development of physical illness in adolescence.

Literature reviews have shown that trait-mindfulness is significantly correlated to emotional wellbeing, both in adults and in children. Particularly, being judgemental towards one's inner thoughts, feelings and sensations, and acting unawares, is associated with higher maladjustment. In the present cross-sectional study, we explored the role of the different facets of mindfulness in both anxiety and depression, controlling for the effects of gender, age, rumination, and worry, and analysed which facets of mindfulness have the strongest effect in predicting depression and anxiety.

The term intrinsic motivation refers to an activity being seen as its own end. Accordingly, we conceptualize intrinsic motivation (IM) as (perceived) means-ends fusion and define an intrinsicality continuum reflecting the degree to which such fusion is experienced. Our means-ends fusion (MEF) theory assumes four major antecedents of activity-goal fusion: (a) repeated pairing of the activity and the goal, (b) uniqueness of the activity-goal connection, (c) perceived similarity between the activity and its goal, and (d) temporal immediacy of goal attainment following the activity.

The present experiment examined how the interaction between senders' communicative competence, veracity and the medium through which judgments were made affected observers' accuracy. Stimuli were obtained from a previous study. Observers (N = 220) judged the truthfulness of statements provided by a good truth teller, a good liar, a bad truth teller, and a bad liar presented either via an audio-only, video-only, audio-video, or transcript format.

Several studies have underlined how chronic exposure to environmental noise may have negative effects on performance, wellbeing, and social relations. The present study (N = 90 employees of a motor factory who are chronically exposed to environmental noise) investigated whether the negative effects of chronic exposure of noise-sensitive individuals to noise in the workplace may be moderated by the need for cognitive closure (i.e., an epistemic tendency to reduce uncertainty; NFCC, Kruglanski, 2004).

Believing in conspiracy theories is a common phenomenon that is attracting attention from the scientific community because of its important individual- and social-level implications. Here we examine the association between attachment styles and conspiracy ideation. We anticipated that avoidant attachment style, because of its emphasis on self-reliance, its motivation to suppress psychological distress, and a Manichean view of the world based on a neat distinction between good and bad, would be associated with conspiracy ideation.

This paper has two aims: testing the Perceived Residential Environment Quality Indicators (PREQIs', Bonaiuto et al., 2003) factorial structure and reliability in the French context and testing a three-level model where more specific PREQIs cover the first level, more molar PREQIs about pace of life (i.e., the attribution of qualities such as stimulating vs. boring and relaxing vs. distressing) cover the second level, and neighbourhood attachment represents the final outcome variable.

Objective: Core alexithymic features, such as the difficulty in identifying and describing feelings, are associated with poor attachment styles and emotional trauma, which influence the capacity to regulate affect. Additionally, emotional regulation has been found to be the most commonly identified function associated with non-suicidal self-injury behavior (NSSI) in adolescents as they attempt to modulate strong emotions.

Recalling information from a particular category can reduce one's memory capability for related, non-retrieved information. This is known as the retrieval-induced forgetting effect (RIF; Anderson et al., 1994). The present paper reviews studies that show that the RIF effect is motivated. More specifically, we describe research showing that the need for closure (NFC; the motivation to attain epistemic certainty; Kruglanski and Webster, 1996) generally enhances the RIF, because this prevents uncertainty and confusion from the intrusion of unwanted memories during selective-retrieval.

The aim of the present study was to identify sub-types of moped riders based on a cluster analysis of specific personality characteristics (i.e., driving anger, anxiety, angry hostility, excitement-seeking, altruism, normlessness, and driving locus of control) within a large sample of Italian adolescents. The study had also the aim to compare the emerged sub-types of moped riders on measures of attitudes toward safe driving, risky driving behaviors (e.g., rule's violations and speeding, not using helmet, drinking and driving, etc.), and self-reported tickets and accident involvement.