Ricerc@Sapienza

Previous research has shown that the act of disclosing sexual orientation, known as coming out (CO), yields various benefits for gay and lesbian (GL) persons. Moreover, some researchers have found that CO is negatively related to internalized sexual stigma (ISS). However, most research has focused on CO to parents and a few studies have examined CO to siblings. The aim of this research is to deepen the understanding of the role of CO to siblings in protecting GL persons' wellbeing.

Research on vicarious ostracism showed that people observing another person ostracized try to support him or her and punish the perpetrators. The current brief report investigated the effect of observing an ostracized or included gay man (vs. heterosexual man), among 87 Italian female university students. They firstly observed a first interaction game named Cyberball and then took part in a second Cyberball with the same fictitious players.

Because sexual orientation is a crucial factor in social discrimination, this study assessed how the working memory capacity of gay-men and heterosexual-men is affected by a social exclusion event (N = 88). To manipulate the experience of social exclusion participants were included or excluded from a game of Cyberball. To assess working memory capacity, participants had to recall a series of letters while performing math problems in an automated version of the operation span task.

Literature suggests that several demographic variables are linked with religiosity in adolescence, such as gender, age and parental religiosity. The sample consisted of 910 young people (53% female) between 14 and 19 years of age, attending secular secondary schools in Rome, Italy. They self-identified as heterosexual adolescents (91.6%), and lesbian/gay (LG) adolescents (8.4%).

Italy's government has enacted few supportive policies for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and all other sexual orientations and gender identities with which persons may identify (LGBTQ+), and most of the fundamental rights for sexual minorities are still not recognized. Despite this social and political situation, the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology of the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome established "Be as You Are," the first Italian clinical research center specifically created for LGBTQ + people on a university campus.

Objectives Siblings have been recognized as playing a major role in the coming out process, because they share the same family as the lesbian and gay individual and are often of the same generation. Despite this recognized role, however, research on coming out has mainly focused on parents, and only few studies have examined the coming out process with respect to siblings. Methods This study used a sample of 241 lesbians and 171 gay men to examine the frequency with which Italian sexual minorities come out to significant persons in their life.

Introduction The present study examined father-–child relationships, parenting quality, and child psychological adjustment in 35 gay single father surrogacy families, 30 heterosexual single father surrogacy families, 45 gay two-father surrogacy families, and 45 heterosexual two-parent IVF families, when children were aged 3–10 years. Methods In each family, fathers were administered standardized questionnaires and interviews, and participated in three videorecorded observational tasks with their child. Teachers and a child psychiatrist further rated child adjustment.

Sexting is the exchange of sexually suggestive contents via Internet, Smartphone, and Social Networking Websites. Recently, the research on sexting motivations increased in order to distinguish between experimental and aggravated sexting. This study investigated individual correlates of three sexting motivations: sexual purposes, instrumental/aggravated reasons, and body image reinforcement. The study involved 488 adolescents and young adults aged from 14 to 30 years. Sexual purposes and body image reinforcement were the most commonly reported motivations for sexting.