Fulvio Tassi

Behaviors associated with negative affect in the friendships of children with ADHD: An exploratory study

Our objective was to identify behaviors and contextual situations associated with negative affect observed in the interactions of children with and without ADHD and their real-life friends. We expected negative affect to be linked to rule violations and disagreements about the choice of games. Loss of game was associated with episodes of negative affect in a structured game. Negative appraisal of friends ability was most frequently associated with negative affect during unstructured free play. Comparison children expressed greater frustration regarding their own abilities, whereas children with ADHD commented more frequently about the inabilities of their friends.

Callous-unemotional traits, borderline personality, and self-injury in gothic subculture

Abstract The present study investigates individual characteristics of a sample of young adults from gothic subculture, in terms of personality traits (i.e., borderline personality and callous-unemotional traits), prevalence and functions of non-suicidal self-injury behaviours (i.e., internal emotion regulation, external emotion regulation, social influence, and sensation seeking). Fifty-one young adults (28 girls and 23 boys, mean age = 26.20, SD = 4.61) were recruited at a gothic meeting in Italy. They completed self-report questionnaires related to self-injury behaviours and self-injury functions, along with measures of borderline personality disorder and callous-unemotional traits. The results indicated that nearly 65% of the participants reported having committed self-injury at least once. Moreover, both bivariate and multivariate analyses indicated that self-injury behaviours were related to borderline personality and internal emotion regulation function. Lastly, association between considered personality traits and self-injury functions were investigated. Overall, results indicated that in gothic subculture self-injury has the function of regulating emotion to maintain the integrity of the Self and is related to the perception of a traumatic reality in which derealization coexists with extreme self-directed aggression.

Prosocial Behavior in Competitive Games: A Study Of Gender-Differences at Primary School Age

An increased interest in children’s interaction strategies can be observed in recent developmental research. In particular, behavioral patterns employed by children while interacting with peers in competitive contexts have received a great deal of attention. The purposes of this study are to investigate the ability of primary school-age children to maintain their relationships with peers and to respect the rules in a competitive context, to examine gender-differences in this ability, and to verify whether this ability relates to their ability to produce realistic estimations of their own skills. The study was conducted with 98 children between the ages of 7 to 8 years (i.e., 48 girls and 50 boys). To assess the children’s ability to maintain their relationships with others and to respect the rules in a competitive context, a pair competition test was devised. For the evaluation of the children’s ability to offer realistic estimation of their own abilities, the children were required to perform a task involving motor skills. Before each performance the children were asked to predict their own efficacy. The results show that boys and girls do not so much differ in their predisposition for competitive or prosocial behavior, but rather in the range of use of these types of behavior. While girls seem to succeed in reconciling behaviors directed at realizing personal success with consideration for the needs of their companion-suggesting a more social interactive approach, boys show a larger individual, behavioral variability in their approach to situations such as competitive play.