Chiara Verzeletti

Food-related family lifestyle associated with fruit and vegetable consumption among young adolescents in Belgium Flanders and the Veneto Region of Italy.

The present paper examined the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and food-related family lifestyle (dinner with parents, family food rules, and television viewing behaviors) in a sample of 14,407 adolescents from Belgium Flanders (N=7,904) and the Veneto Region of Italy (N=6,503) using multilevel binary logistic regression analyses. The data are part of the Health Behavior in School-aged Children cross-sectional survey. Daily dinner with parents, having more strict family food rules, and low television viewing behaviors were associated with daily fruit and vegetable intake. Watching television during meals was not associated with the outcome variables.

Emotion regulation strategies and psychosocial well-being in adolescence

Abstract To study whether and how emotion regulation (EmR) strategies are associated with adolescents’ well-being, 633 Italian adolescents completed a survey that measured, using the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ), the strategies of cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES), and their relationship with several well-being measures. Factor analysis and reliability results confirmed the validity of ERQ to assess adolescents’ regulation strategies. Correlation and regression results showed that a greater reliance on CR was positively associated with better well-being outcomes for most indicators, especially life satisfaction, social support perception, and positive affect; greater preference for ES conversely was associated with lower well-being level for all indicators, including psychological health, emotional loneliness, and negative affect. Neither gender nor age differences were observed for CR and ES; CR and ES were positively correlated with each other. Both analysis of variance and regression results showed gender to be a significant factor for well-being indicators (e.g. males’ higher positive affect and life satisfaction than females’), whereas age was associated with differences in psychological health only, with 16-year olds reporting the lowest health, and 14-year olds the highest. The findings overall show that adolescents’ well-being is related to preferred EmR strategies, mirroring associations found in the adult population. The study results also suggest the need to further explore this relationship in adolescence.

Comportamento antisociale e contesti di vita in preadolescenza

The aim of the present study is to analyze the influence of different contexts on the development of antisocial behaviours during early-adolescence. We analyzed different contexts such as family, peer group, school and neighbourhood. The sample was composed by 1.155 students (51.3% males) from 5 middle schools in Veneto Region. A multiple regression and a cluster analysis were used to analyze different interrelation among contexts’ perceptions. Results show that antisocial behaviours are more frequent among older students, males and youths living in an industrial suburban area. Higher level of monitoring, peer support and positive relationship with teachers play the role of protective factors while autonomous decisions and, especially, deviant peers can be considered highly dysfunctional. Significant interactions between monitoring and deviant peer, and between relationships with teachers and autonomous decisions were found. These interactions will be deeply commented in the paper. Cluster analysis was used to define contextual patterns (developed by multiple contextual aspects) and to analyze the relation among these clusters and antisocial behaviours. Results show that there are two specific groups of students that have higher levels of antisocial behaviours: these two groups are characterized by an high level of frequencies of deviant peer, or by a negative perception of all the contextual aspects considered.

Fare ricerca in psicologia di comunità

Research in Community Psychology - The need of a strong disciplinary identity in Community Psychology leads several researchers and professionals to consider action-research as the main, or even the only, peculiar methodology of the discipline. However the choice of a research method should be leaded by the aim of research. So, the disciplinary identity of community psychology has to be found in the subject of study: the community. Keywords: community psychology, community, action-research, participation