Critical fluctuations and anomalous transport in soft Yukawa-Langevin systems

Simulation of a Langevin-dynamics model demonstrates emergence of critical fluctuations and anomalous grain transport which have been observed in experiments on "soft" quasi-two-dimensional dusty plasma clusters. It has been suggested that these anomalies derive from particular non-equilibrium physics, but our model does not contain such physics: the grains are confined by an external potential, interact via static Yukawa forces, and are subject to stochastic heating and dissipation from neutrals. One remarkable feature is emergence of leptokurtic probability distributions of grain displacements $\xi(\tau)$ on time-scales $\tau<\tau_{\Delta}$, where $\tau_{\Delta}$ is the time at which the standard deviation $\sigma(\tau)\equiv ^{1/2}$ approaches the mean inter-grain distance $\Delta$. Others are development of humps in the distributions on multiples of $\Delta$, anomalous Hurst exponents, and transitions from leptokurtic towards Gaussian displacement distributions on time scales $\tau>\tau_{\Delta}$. The latter is a signature of intermittency, here interpreted as a transition from bursty transport associated with hopping on intermediate time scales to vortical flows on longer time scales.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure

To what extent can dynamical models describe statistical features of turbulent flows?

Statistical features of "bursty" behaviour in charged and neutral fluid turbulence, are compared to statistics of intermittent events in a GOY shell model, and avalanches in different models of Self Organized Criticality (SOC). It is found that inter-burst times show a power law distribution for turbulent samples and for the shell model, a property which is shared only in a particular case of the running sandpile model. The breakdown of self-similarity generated by isolated events observed in the turbulent samples, is well reproduced by the shell model, while it is absent in all SOC models considered. On this base, we conclude that SOC models are not adequate to mimic fluid turbulence, while the GOY shell model constitutes a better candidate to describe the gross features of turbulence.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, in press on Europhys. Lett. (may 2002

The Italian Adaptation and Validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS): Assessing Coping Strategies for the Climate Emergency Among Young Adults

Climate change is one of the most urgent issues of our time. Its increasingly visible effects make it a global worry and a chronic stressor, especially for specific developmental targets such as young adults. This study outlines the process of the Italian adaptation and validation of the Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS), an instrument that examines three distinct coping strategies for addressing climate change. Study I, conducted with a sample of 230 Italian young adults (42.6% males; 57.4% females), explores the latent structure of the instrument using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Parallel Analysis (PA) and outlines the preliminary psychometric properties of the CCCS. A distinct sample of 500 Italian young adults (38.6% males; 61.4% females) was selected for Study II, which presents the results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), supporting a first-order factor structure with three correlated dimensions. These dimensions, as in the original scale, are labeled ’Meaning-Focused Coping’ (five items), ’Problem-Centered Coping’ (five items), and ’De-Emphasizing/Avoidance Coping’ (six items). The internal reliability of the CCCS, the measurement of invariance between males and females, and its discriminant and convergent validity are also described. Finally, significant differences in the levels of the three identified coping strategies are presented and discussed in relation to sociodemographic variables, including gender, political orientation, occupational and relationship status, and participation in environmental organizations. Overall, the results of Studies I and II highlight the reliability, validity, and robustness of the Italian version of the Climate Change Coping Scale

Italian Adaptation and Validation of the Fear of War Scale and the Impact of the Fear ofWar on Young Italian Adults’ Mental Health

The return of war to Europe with the Russo-Ukrainian conflict generated mental health effects even in countries not directly involved in the war. The present study describes the Italian adaptation and validation of the Fear of War Scale (FOWARS), i.e., a 13-item Likert scale built by a Romanian research team and exploring the fear of war. For the Italian adaptation, a sample of 150 young Italian adults (aged 18–30, M = 21.7; SD = 2.2) has been collected. Exploratory Factor Analysis conducted with PCA confirmed the bifactorial structure of the scale and detected two dimensions, i.e., the “Physiological dimension of fear” and the “Experiential dimension of fear”. The results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis show adequate goodness of fit and the last version of the scale, consisting of 12 items, shows good internal consistency and convergent and discriminant validity. Positive significant correlations with the Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ) and the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21) were also found. Moreover, results from ANOVA display significant differences between men and women, with the latter showing higher values of fear of war. Finally, t-test analyses highlight the impact of the fear of war on Italian young adults’ mental health and worry. The Italian adaptation of FOWARS has good overall psychometric properties and can be used to explore the fear of war in the Italian young adult population to highlight the psychological impact of war and its relationship with mental health

Serial Mediation Models of Future Anxiety and Italian Young Adults Psychological Distress: The Role of Intolerance of Uncertainty and Non-Pathological Worry

Previous research has already examined the relationship between Future Anxiety, a construct recently introduced in Italy, and mental health in young adults, although possible mediating variables in this relationship have so far never been investigated. The present study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the incidence of Future Anxiety on psychological distress (i.e., Stress, Anxiety and Depression) in a group of 302 young Italian adults (18–30 years; M = 21.9; SD = 2.6; 49.0% males; 51.0% females), presenting and evaluating the simultaneous mediating effect of Intolerance of Uncertainty and Non-Pathological Worry. Findings highlighted how Future Anxiety had a positive and significant direct effect on Stress and Depression, but not on Anxiety. In the three serial mediation models proposed, Intolerance of Uncertainty and Non-Pathological Worry mediated the relationship between Future Anxiety and mental health outcomes. The results also confirmed the hypothesized serial mediation effect by highlighting how young adults with greater Future Anxiety experienced more Intolerance of Uncertainty, which positively affected Non-Pathological Worry levels and, in turn, exacerbated psychological distress. Finally, results indicated that female participants experienced more Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in relation to Future Anxiety compared to males. Starting from the review of main references on this subject, the results discussed provide new insights for understanding youth psychological distress. Finally, practical implications for the design of supportive interventions for this study’s target group are proposed

Is Climate Change Worry Fostering Young Italian Adults’ Psychological Distress? An Italian Exploratory Study on the Mediation Role of Intolerance of Uncertainty and Future Anxiety

Climate Change is a phenomenon that has been increasingly investigated in the literature from a psychological perspective for its impact on mental health, particularly that of young adults who, already affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, are highly worried about it. Despite this, few studies have been conducted in the Mediterranean region, especially in southern Italy, and little consideration has been given to the role of other variables in the relationship between environmental emotions and mental health. The present study aims to explore the relationship between Climate Change Worry and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress in a sample of 283 Italian young adults (age range 18–25; M = 21.3; SD = 1.7) from Southern Italy (91% from Campania), examining the mediating effect that Intolerance of Uncertainty and Future Anxiety have on the target. At the same time, it endeavors to explore the joint effect of the two mediators in the relationship between Climate Change Worry and Psychological Distress. Findings highlighted that Climate Change Worry had a significant positive effect on Anxiety and Stress levels and positively influenced Intolerance of Uncertainty and Future Anxiety; the latter two also increased the impact of Climate ChangeWorry on Psychological Distress, acting as vulnerability factors in all parallel mediation models performed and, specifically, in the fully mediated Depression model. Furthermore, the findings of the serial model corroborated the joint effect of the two mediators and highlighted how young adults with higher levels of Climate ChangeWorry experienced more Intolerance of Uncertainty, which positively influenced Future Anxiety levels and, in turn, exacerbated the Global Psychological Distress. Finally, levels of Psychological Distress, Climate ChangeWorry, and Future Anxiety were significantly higher in women. To conclude, exploring the indirect pathways through which negative environmental emotions affect Psychological Distress seems to be a fertile research area to study in more depth the impact of the climate crisis on new generations

Development and Validation of the War Worry Scale (WWS) in a Sample of Italian Young Adults: An Instrument to Assess Worry About War in Non-War-Torn Environments

The expansion of wars around the world fosters a macrosocial stress with mul- tilevel effects that also affect the mental health of populations not directly involved, in particular of evolutionary targets in delicate transition. The present study describes the pro- cess of development, validation, and evaluation of the psychometric properties of the War Worry Scale (WWS), an instrument that explores the psychological impact of war in contexts not directly involved and, in particular, in the target population of young Italian adults. The process of construct definition and item generation of the WWS is presented here and then verified in Study I, which, using a sample of 250 young adults (40.4% male and 59.6% female), describes the exploration of the factor structure of the instrument through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and presents preliminary psychometric properties. An independent sample of 500 young adults (39.4% male; 60.6% female) was recruited for Study II, which describes the results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supporting the second-order structure with two first-order dimensions, Worry about the Present (WWP) and Worry about the Future (WWF), composed of 10 items (5 per dimension). The internal consistency of the WWS, convergent, discriminant, and concurrent validity with other validated measures, and measurement invariance between males and females are further described. Finally, significant differences in the levels of Worry about War are found in rela- tion to several sociodemographic variables, i.e., gender, occupational status, relationship status, and political orientation. Overall, the results of Studies I and II confirm the validity, robustness, and reliability of the War Worry Scale

La pandemia da Covid-19, un potenziale trauma collettivo

Le trasformazioni relazionali e sociali che la pandemia ha imposto hanno spinto la ricerca psicologica ad esplorare la sua potenzialità traumatica. L’aumento del disagio psichico e la crescita esponenziale di problematiche internalizzanti e stress-correlate in target a rischio come quello dei giovani, spinge oggi a parlare di una vera e propria emergenza psicologica giovanile. A partire dall’integrazione di alcune tra le prospettive che hanno contribuito a costruire una psicologia del trauma collettivo, il presente lavoro si propone di approfondire alcuni aspetti che hanno inciso sulla traumaticità dell’esperienza pandemica. L’ipotesi che la pandemia, come ogni trauma collettivo, funga da lente di ingrandimento sul presente ha guidato l’approfondimento della sua relazione con le forme del malessere contemporaneo. Nei giovani, l’assenza di un adeguato bagaglio di esperienze e di strumenti necessari per affrontare e significare quest’esperienza sembra collegata anche a specifiche caratteristiche della società di Narciso in cui sono nati. La cultura dell’illimitato, del controllo e della prestazione potrebbero aver funzionato come fattori di fragilizzazione psichica. Lo strumento della narrazione testimoniale nel dispositivo gruppale potrebbe orientare la costruzione di progetti di intervento che mirino al superamento del vuoto rappresentazionale cui il trauma pandemico confronta. Al contempo, il supporto allo sforzo di comprensione e di intelligibilità di questo trauma potrebbe sostenere il processo di ri-costruzione di una memoria collettiva condivisibile. The relational and social changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic have urged psychology to explore its traumatic potential. Moreover, the increase of psychic distress as well as internalising and stress-related problems in young adults is to be defined as a real psychological emergency. The present study examines several aspects of the traumatic experience of the pandemic starting from a critical discussion of some scholarly work contributing to the development of collective trauma psychology. The hypothesis according to which the pandemic, as all collective traumas, gives insights into the present has prompted to shed new light on its relationship with the different forms of contemporary malaise. Young adults' lack of experience and tools to cope with and give meaning to such an event is likely to be connected also to several specific characteristics of the Narcissus society in which they were born. Limitless, control and performance cultures may have functioned as drivers of psychic fragility. Testimonial narratives in group settings could be tools in the development of intervention programmes aiming not only at overcoming the representational vacuum caused by the traumatic pandemic event but also at re-constructing a shared collective memory around this trauma

Development and First Validation of the Perceived Young Adult Lockdown Parental Relationship Scale (PYALPRS): An Italian Case Study

The COVID-19 pandemic and the confinement experience have significantly affected the relationship between young adults and their parents. The present study focuses on the design and validation of the Perceived Young Adult Lockdown Parental Relationship Scale (PYALPRS), a measure assessing two dimensions of the child–parent relationship associated with the COVID-19 lockdown period: Oppression-Conflict and Closeness-Support. After a phase of construct definition and item design and purification, 100 Italian young adults (M = 24; SD = 3.9) were recruited to explore the factor structure of the scale. Then, a sample of 259 Italian young adults (aged 18–35; M = 24; SD = 3.8) was used to demonstrate the psychometric validity of the scale. The results of our confirmatory factor analysis, which resulted in high goodness of fit scores, support two identifiable factors reflecting the theory-based constructs of the PYALPRS. Moreover, internal consistency and convergent and divergent validity analyses show that the PYALPRS can be considered a reliable and valid instrument. ANOVA demonstrated that there were significant differences between being a cohabitant or single as well as between different perceptions of the home space during lockdown on the Oppression-Conflict dimension, while a larger home space perception was associated with the Closeness-Support dimensio

La pandemia da covid-19 come trauma collettivo e lente sul malessere contemporaneo: tra limiti e risorse

Le trasformazioni relazionali e sociali che la pandemia ha imposto hanno spinto la ricerca psicologica ad esplorare la sua potenzialità traumatica. L’aumento del disagio psichico e la crescita esponenziale di problematiche internalizzanti e stress-correlate in target a rischio come quello dei giovani, spinge oggi a parlare di una vera e propria emergenza psicologica giovanile. A partire dall’integrazione di saperi che hanno contribuito a costruire una psicologia del trauma collettivo, il presente lavoro si propone di approfondire alcuni degli aspetti che hanno inciso sulla traumaticità dell’esperienza pandemica. L’ipotesi che la pandemia, come ogni trauma collettivo, funga da lente di ingrandimento sul presente ha guidato l’approfondimento della sua relazione con le forme del malessere contemporaneo. Nei giovani, l’assenza di un adeguato bagaglio di esperienze e di strumenti necessari per affrontare e significare quest’esperienza sembra collegata a specifiche caratteristiche della società di Narciso in cui sono nati. La cultura dell’illimitato, del controllo e della prestazione appaiono funzionare come fattori di fragilizzazione psichica