Mental health in late adulthood: What can preserve it?

The current research investigates the part played by several socio-demographic factors, lifestyle and cognitive efficiency in predicting self-rated depressive signs in late adulthood. One hundred and ninety-one healthy adults were recruited in Northern Italy and Sardinia—an Italian island located in the Mediterranean sea known for the longevity of its elderly people—from urban and rural areas. Participants were assigned to old (60–74 years) and very old (75–99 years) groups, and were administered cognitive efficiency and self-referent depression measures. Gender and region of residence were the best predictors of self-rated depression scores. Furthermore, Sardinian participants, especially those from rural areas, showed better preserved mental health than respondents from Northern Italy. Positive aging is more evident in Sardinia, especially in rural areas, where the maintenance of an adequate social status and physical activity help guarantee a positive level of mental health in later life

Graphical statistics as an option for the improvement of learning in Psychology

Many students have difficulties in the appreciation of concepts related to statistical problems. Various researches have determined how students’ aptitude to solve statistical proofs can be affected by the methods of displaying data. The application of distinct visual aids could improve statistical reasoning, sustaining the principle of graphical facilitation. Some authors did not agree with this point of view, highlighting the complications related to the use of illustrations; they upheld that visual aids could burden the cognitive system with unserviceable information. We confront the basic level of statistical reasoning on probabilities regarding two methods of problem arrangement: verbal-numerical and graphical. Students in Spain and Italy solved the homolog and paired problems in a verbal-numerical and graphical way, in different sequences. Analysis of the correctness of responses and the reasoning applied, managed to compare these ways of presentation and to clarify the cognitive process applied in the problem solving

Assessing probabilistic reasoning in verbal-numerical and graphical-pictorial formats: An evaluation of the psychometric properties of an instrument

Research on the graphical facilitation of probabilistic reasoning has been characterised by the effort expended to identify valid assessment tools. The authors developed an assessment instrument to compare reasoning performances when problems were presented in verbal-numerical and graphical-pictorial formats. A sample of undergraduate psychology students (n=676) who had not developed statistical skills, solved problems requiring probabilistic reasoning. They attended universities in Spain (n=127; f=71.7%) and Italy (n=549; f=72.9%). In Italy 173 undergraduates solved these problems under time pressure. The remaining students solved the problems without time limits. Classical Test Theory (CTT) and Item Response Theory (IRT) were applied to assess the effect of two formats and to evaluate criterion and discriminant validity. The instrument showed acceptable psychometric properties, providing preliminary evidence of validity

Who Are the Victims of Cyberbullying? Preliminary Data Towards Validation of "Cyberbullying Victim Questionnaire”

In the literature there are more and more works dealing with cyberbullying and adolescents’ perception of this phenomenon. In particular, we are interested in cyberbullying and the effects of cyberbullying on adolescent life. What is more, in 2020 the impact of COVID-19 has increased the digital presence of cyberbullying behaviours. This phenomenon is extremely complex, since it is multicomponential and multifactorial, and many components act on it. Starting with an analysis of the literature, this work offers preliminary data towards the validation of a self-reporting questionnaire; it was administered to 650 adolescents, to evaluate their perceptions of the victims of cyberbullying. The questionnaire consisted of 33 items; Principal Component Analysis was applied, which identified the dimensions resuming the items’ variability. The findings confirmed the multidimensional nature of the issue covered by the questionnaire and highlighted three psychological dimensions: Internalisation, Counterbalance and Marginalisation. The resultssupport the structure of the questionnaire, useful to quickly collect information about adolescents’ perception of cybervictimisation. The assessment of this information might help teachers, educators, and tutors to formulate targeted interventions to combat the spread of cyberbullying aimed for example at improving emotional intelligence, starting from the construction of emotional contagion

Present and future undergraduate students’ well-being: role of time perspective, self-efficacy, self-regulation and intention to drop-out

Well-being is a multidimensional construct that affects various areas of a person’s life. In the university context, a student’s well-being can influence not only their academic and professional success but also the future development of society. This study aimed to evaluate how the interactions of time perspective (assessed by the Stanford Time Perspective Inventory—Short Form), self-efficacy (assessed by the General Self-efficacy Scale), self-regulation (assessed by the Self-regulated Knowledge Scale—University), and drop-out intention (assessed by the Intention to Drop-Out Scale) affect students’ perceptions of current and future well-being (assessed by the I COPPE Scale). Using a cross-sectional design, 192 students attending the University of Cagliari (Italy) were evaluated. A partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis was performed to examine the relationships among well-being and all the variables examined herein. The empirical findings highlighted the direct and indirect effects of the studied variables on students’ current and future well-being

Digital life, mathematical skills and cognitive processes

A consistent part of the literature shows the significant role of digital experience in digital natives’ cognitive processes. The main goal of the current study was to investigate the impact of digital learning on the improvement of mathematical skills and on some change in cognitive processes in 166 primary school children from schools located in different parts of Italy. Participants were divided in two group: one group experienced the study of math mainly through digital tools, the other spent more time on pencil-and-paper trainings. All our participants were assessed with a battery of tests measuring numerical and cognitive abilities. Our results suggest the positive effect of a different type of training for the empowerment of visuo-spatial and numerical abilities. Specifically, effects of a digital experience are particularly evident in some specific numerical areas, such us accuracy, speed, semantic and syntactic numerical knowledge. Also, participants with greater experience of digital trainings score higher on spatial orientation

Moral disengagement, empathy, and cybervictim’s representation as predictive factors of cyberbullying among italian adolescents

This study aimed to evaluate which aspects of moral disengagement (MD), empathy, and representations of the victim’s experience (VER) could be predictors of cyberbullying (CB). One hundred and eight-nine students (11–17 years old) completed 3 self-report questionnaires: An MD scale, an empathy scale, and a CB questionnaire. In relation to the personal experience of CB, four groups were identified: Victim, bully, bully/victim, and no experience with CB. The linear bivariate correlation analysis shows correlations between empathy and VER, between empathy and MD, and between MD and VER. A multinomial logistic regression identified which predictors could increase a subject’s probability of belonging to one of the four groups regarding the personal experience of CB (victim, bully, bully/victim, no experience). Findings highlighted that low cognitive empathy might increase the probability for a student to belong to the bullies’ group, rather than the victims’ group. Furthermore, low perception of the consequences of CB on the victim might increase the probability of belonging to the bully, bully/victim, and no experience groups. Then, a high score in the diffusion of responsibility was a significant predictor of belonging to the victim group rather than the no experience group. Results from this study confirm the need for preventive measures against CB, including the empowerment of cognitive empathy, decreasing the diffusion of responsibility, and increasing the awareness of the consequences of CB on the victim

Cognitive failures in late adulthood : The role of age, social context and depressive symptoms

The incidence of self-reported cognitive failures among older adults may be an index of successful cognitive aging. However, self-reported cognitive failures are biased by variation in depressive symptomatology. This study examined age-related and socio-cultural context effects on cognitive failures while controlling for depressive symptoms. Both overall and specific factors of cognitive failures were determined. A further goal was to investigate the relationship between working memory and cognitive efficiency measures and cognitive failures. One hundred and thirty-nine cognitively healthy adults were recruited from two populations known to differ in their dispositions toward cognitive failures and depressive symptoms (Sardinia and northern Italy). The participants were assigned to Young Old (65–74 years old), Old (75–84 years of age) or Oldest Old (≥85 years of age) groups, and individually presented with a test battery including the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, the Centre for Epidemiological Studies of Depression Scale, and Forward and Backward Digit Span tests. Specific factors of cognitive failures were differentially associated with measures of depression and working memory. While age had no impact on any aspect of cognitive failures, overall and specific dispositions varied between the two populations. The overall liability to cognitive failure was lower in participants from Sardinia, however, this group also had a higher liability to lapses of action (Blunders factor). Overall, these findings highlight that richer information about cognitive failures may be revealed through the investigation of specific factors of cognitive failures. They also confirm that the absence of changes in cognitive failures across old age is independent of variation in depressive symptoms, at least among cognitively healthy elders

Psychological Well-Being in Italian Families : An Exploratory Approach to the Study of Mental Health Across the Adult Life Span in the Blue Zone

Self-reported measures of psychological well-being and depressive symptoms were examined across differently aged family members, while controlling for the impact of marital status and personal satisfaction about family and non-family relations. Twenty-one grandchildren (i.e., ages 21-36 years) were recruited with their parents (i.e., 48-66 years old) and grandparents (i.e., 75-101 years of age) in the 'blue zone' of Ogliastra, an Italian area known for the longevity of its inhabitants. Each participant was individually presented a battery of questionnaires assessing their lifestyle and several perceived mental health indices, including the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS, Tennant et al., 2007), and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (i.e., CES-D, Radloff, 1977). After assessing the level of concordance among adults sharing the same context, the Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) approach was used to assess the nested dataset. It was found that family membership (i.e., grandchildren versus parents and grandparents) predicted the WEMWBS score but not the CES-D when the impact of marital status and personal satisfaction about social (i.e., family and non-family) ties was controlled for. Moreover, two separate repeated-measure Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) documented similar level of personal satisfaction about social relationships across the three family groups. In conclusions, satisfying social ties with friends and family members together with an active socially oriented life style seems to contribute to the promotion of mental health in adult span

Resilience in Elders of the Sardinian Blue Zone : An Explorative Study

Background: older adults from the Sardinian Blue Zone self-report low depressive symptoms and high psychological well-being. However, the role of dispositional resilience as a determinant of these characteristics is unknown. Objectives: the current study had three aims. First, to investigate associations among several putative predictors, including dispositional resilience and three established markers of positive and negative mental health. Second, to determine if gender differences in dispositional resilience, independent of age and cognitive impairment, are present in this population. Third, to examine the relative importance of the predictors of self-reported mental health and well-being. Methods: 160 elders were recruited in the Sardinian Blue Zone. The participants completed self-report measures of dispositional resilience, satisfaction with social ties, physical health, depressive symptoms, and psychological well-being. Results: trait resilience was significantly associated with predictors and markers of mental health. Males had significantly greater trait resilience. In regression analyses, dispositional resilience and satisfaction with social ties were significant predictors of all markers of mental health. Other factors were significantly associated only with certain markers. Conclusions: trait resilience and strong social ties appear to be key determinants of the high mental health of Sardinian Blue Zone older adults