Social Networks allow users to self-present by sharing personal content, and emotions expressed i... more Social Networks allow users to self-present by sharing personal content, and emotions expressed in a post affect the subsequent posts, eliciting a congruent emotion. The main goals of this research were to investigate the emotional coherence between wall posts and their comments on SNSs and to evaluate the association between the profiles' General Emotional Coherence and self-presentation styles from a sample of adolescent's Facebook profiles (n = 50; Mage = 16.95; 50% female). Two new experimental metrics were developed, describing the emotional load (positive and negative) of posts and comments, and the mood correspondence between them. The combination of these measures was used to define the profiles' "General Emotional Coherence". Results confirm how publishing an emotional post corresponds to receiving comments with a coherent mood. The more "emotionally coherent" profiles are characterized by a typical self-presentation style (more posts, more c...
Based on an ecological perspective on the COVID-19 lockdown experience, this study describes psyc... more Based on an ecological perspective on the COVID-19 lockdown experience, this study describes psychological responses among Italian university students. Our study considers three zones of the country that have differed in the intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this research explores whether differences in pandemic conditions can account for their divergent psychological outcomes. The participants were 792 university students from seven different Italian universities. Students were asked to express their emotions and describe meaningful events during the lockdown in writing. Based on the grounded theory approach, this study conducted qualitative data analysis using ATLAS.ti 8.0. The core emerged categories are emotions, emotional moods and state of mind, coping strategies, and resilience. The results describing these emergent factors in relation to environmental variables highlight differences in the feeling of anxiety among individuals: anxiety was more self-focused in...
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health problem and social issue that invo... more Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health problem and social issue that involves couples from all socioeconomic and cultural contexts. IPV may affect women and men, but these latter are the most common perpetrators of IPV. We developed stochastic Agent-Based models of IPV focused on the couple dynamics, determined by the parallel, individual behaviour of partners. Based on the psychological theory of the Cycle of Violence, we have developed a model based on four discrete states: passivity, normal situation, upset and physical assault. The individual transition probability depends on the previous state of the subject and that of the partner, and on a control parameter, the aggressiveness. We then let this parameter evolve depending on the perceived violence from past experiences (polarisation) or from the support received from the environment (social influence). From the analysis of the phase diagrams we observe the emergence of characteristic patterns, in agreem...
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex and preventable issue that involves not only victims... more Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex and preventable issue that involves not only victims and aggressors but also individuals that surrounding them (e.g., families, friends etc.), and the communities and society where they live. Literature review presents several theories that try to understand IPV dynamics. Recent promising prevention programs are the bystander interventions in which all individuals might play a positive role in reducing IPV. So far, a few studies investigated the IPV dynamics by means of alternative approach in the field of social psychology such as agent-based modeling (ABM). The current research attempted to examine the dynamically interactive processes within IPV system by means of different methods (e.g., qualitative, quantitative and ABM) and tried to compare their results, in order to obtain a broader understanding of this phenomenon and the factors that might decrease it. Applying a socio-ecological IPV bystander intervention model, the empirical st...
Facebook and social networks in general have exploded in popularity in the last several years, be... more Facebook and social networks in general have exploded in popularity in the last several years, becoming a social institution for teenagers, who use it for self-presentation and as a fundamental tool to project their personal identity and manage social relationships. Taking the opportunity to reveal psychological features by analyzing personal profiles, this study examined the relationship between linguistic style, self-presentation, and other activities on Facebook over the course of one year. Through the linguistic analysis of 50 adolescents’ profiles, a new model titled “The Excessive Online Self-Presentation Model” was developed by considering only the contents of their public posts. Results showed how excessive self-presentation consisted of disclosing personal information, and with a higher number of words per post. Moreover, it was discovered that the frequent use of sexual language was associated with attention-seeking behaviors. The findings of this study were in line with p...
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 2021
Following an ecological perspective, reactions to a disaster-such as the COVID-19 pandemic-should... more Following an ecological perspective, reactions to a disaster-such as the COVID-19 pandemic-should be analysed in the interdependence between individual and community dimensions. The present study aims to analyse individual emotional dimensions (anxiety, joy, fear or depressive feelings) and their community dimensions (connectedness, emotional sharing and solidarity) with a longitudinal approach among university students from Italian universities. Participants were 746 university students at t1 (during the lockdown) and 361 at t2 (after the lockdown) recruited in six Italian universities from different areas of Italy. Comparing emotional dimensions in the two times, t2 is characterized by a generalized ambiguity: both happiness or joy because of the end of limitations and a kind of 'postlockdown anxiety' because of a sense of individual inadequacy in facing the return to normality, conducting daily activities and attending community spaces. Data confirms that after the so-called 'honeymoon phase' in community dimensions (first phase of t1 time), a sort of 'depressive reaction' arises at t2: Italian university students seem more
This study investigated how young Italian people experienced the period of peak spread of COVID-1... more This study investigated how young Italian people experienced the period of peak spread of COVID-19 in their country by probing their emotions, thoughts, events, and actions related to interpersonal and community bonds. This approach to the pandemic will highlight social dimensions that characterized contextual interactions from the specific perspective of Community Psychology. The aim was to investigate young people's experiences because they are the most fragile group due to their difficulty staying home and apart from their peers and because they are, at the same time, the most potentially dangerous people due to their urge to gather in groups. The research involved 568 university students, 475 females, and 93 males, with an average age of 21.82 years (SD = 4.836). The collected data were analyzed with the Grounded Theory Methodology, using the Atlas 8.0 software. From the textual data, representative codes were defined and grouped into 10 categories, which reflect the individ...
Worldwide, organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises have already disruptively changed... more Worldwide, organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises have already disruptively changed in many ways their physiological inner mechanisms, because of information and communication technologies (ICT) revolution. Nevertheless, the still ongoing COVID-19 worldwide emergency definitely promoted a wide adoption of teleworking modalities for many people around the world, making it more relevant than before to understand the real impact of virtual environments (VEs) on teamwork dynamics. From a psychological point of view, a critical question about teleworking modalities is how the social and cognitive dynamics of collaborative facilitation and collaborative inhibition would affect teamwork within VEs. This study analyzed the impact of a virtual environment (VE) on the recall of individuals and members of nominal and collaborative groups. The research assessed costs and benefits for collaborative retrieval by testing the effect of experimental conditions, stimulus materials, grou...
Il contributo descrive la valutazione di un’esperienza di Service-Learning (S-L) realizzata con s... more Il contributo descrive la valutazione di un’esperienza di Service-Learning (S-L) realizzata con studenti di Psicologia, in collaborazione con un Servizio di Salute Mentale. Gli studenti hanno esplorato il ruolo di un’associazione sportiva, frequentata da pazienti, operatori del ser-vizio e cittadini, nel migliorare l’integrazione sociale. Obiettivi. Valutare l’impatto del S-L sull’apprendimento accademico, la crescita personale e l’impegno nella comunita locale. Metodo. Il S-L e stato monitorato con i diari e gli incontri di supervisione. E stata svolta un’Analisi Semantica del contenuto dei diari attraverso il software TLAB. Risultati. Sono emersi sei cluster tematici, riferiti ad aspetti emozionali, cognitivi e alle dif-ficolta nello svolgere il compito. Il S-L migliora la capacita degli studenti di applicare i concetti teorici e gli strumenti di ri-cerca in risposta ai bisogni della Comunita.
The aim of the present study was to explore sleep problems in sexually abused preschoolers over a... more The aim of the present study was to explore sleep problems in sexually abused preschoolers over a year. Methods: The sample consisted of 224 abused children and 83 nonabused children aged 3 to 6 years old at enrolment into the study (T1), and 85 abused children and 73 nonabused children at the second evaluation, approximately 1 year later (T2). Sleep problems were assessed using parental reports on the Child Behavior Checklist-Preschool Version. Results: Multivariate analysis of covariance revealed that sexually abused preschoolers presented higher scores of sleep problems than nonabused children on all items related to sleep problems at T1. Results from a regression analysis revealed that sexual abuse remained associated with higher levels of sleep problems after controlling for sociodemographical variables. At T2, abused preschoolers still presented more sleep problems than nonabused children on all but one of the sleep items. Results from a repeated measure one-way analysis of covariance revealed that abused preschoolers presented higher total sleep scores at both measurement times. Time was not associated with levels of sleep problems and sleep problems did not evolve differently for abused and nonabused children. Conclusions: Sexually abused preschoolers are at risk of presenting with sleep problems. These results are worrisome given the negative impacts of sleep problems on child development. Research and clinical implications are discussed.
Objective: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with a host of deleterious impacts, yet little ... more Objective: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with a host of deleterious impacts, yet little is known about the short-term correlates in children. This study aimed to investigate the association between dissociation and sleep problems in a sample of preschool-age sexual abuse victims while controlling for potentially confounding variables, including gender, age, polytrauma, CSA characteristics, and parental distress. Method: The sample consisted of 179 children (ages 3-6 years) and their non-offending parents. Parents completed questionnaires assessing their child's dissociative symptoms and sleep problems as well as their own level of psychological distress. Results: Regression analyses revealed that sleep problems were significantly associated with dissociative symptoms over and above all other control variables (children's gender and age, polytrauma, and parental distress). A longer duration of sexual abuse also predicted greater dissociative symptoms in preschool children. Conclusion: Findings highlight the association between sleep problems and dissociation in preschool-age victims of CSA. Further research is needed to understand their impact on children's development to design appropriate treatment and prevention initiatives aimed at fostering resilience in young vulnerable children.
Today, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are often applied to assist learning pro... more Today, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are often applied to assist learning processes. Peculiar objectives of ICT use in this topic are to facilitate collaboration and to increase learning through sharing and distributing knowledge. This study aimed to investigate the effects that a small group has on the individual and collaborative learning. A virtual environment was used to study the dynamics of social behaviors in collaborative and non-collaborative experimental conditions. Our results seem to support the hypothesis that social scripts are started, even when people are in non-interactive situations, and this is shown in virtual environments, too. Such outcomes, and the virtual interactions content analysis may suggest useful advices about collective reasoning and e-learning dynamics, which are very relevant topics in the study of web communities and educational communities.
Multiple studies have demonstrated that adolescent dating violence is highly prevalent and is ass... more Multiple studies have demonstrated that adolescent dating violence is highly prevalent and is associated with internalizing and externalizing problems. A number of prevention initiatives are being implemented in North American high schools. Such initiatives aim to raise awareness among potential victims and offenders, and also among peer bystanders. As teenagers mainly reach out to their peers when experiencing adversity, it is important to address adolescents’ efficacy in dealing with witnessing dating violence or with friends disclosing dating abuse, in addition to increasing their ability to deal with experienced dating violence victimization or perpetration. The aim of this study is to explore adolescents’ self-efficacy to deal with dating violence victimization and perpetration in their relationships and those of their peers. A paper-and-pencil questionnaire was completed by 259 14−18-year-olds in Quebec, Canada. The data allow building insight into adolescents’ confidence to r...
Social Networks allow users to self-present by sharing personal content, and emotions expressed i... more Social Networks allow users to self-present by sharing personal content, and emotions expressed in a post affect the subsequent posts, eliciting a congruent emotion. The main goals of this research were to investigate the emotional coherence between wall posts and their comments on SNSs and to evaluate the association between the profiles' General Emotional Coherence and self-presentation styles from a sample of adolescent's Facebook profiles (n = 50; Mage = 16.95; 50% female). Two new experimental metrics were developed, describing the emotional load (positive and negative) of posts and comments, and the mood correspondence between them. The combination of these measures was used to define the profiles' "General Emotional Coherence". Results confirm how publishing an emotional post corresponds to receiving comments with a coherent mood. The more "emotionally coherent" profiles are characterized by a typical self-presentation style (more posts, more c...
Based on an ecological perspective on the COVID-19 lockdown experience, this study describes psyc... more Based on an ecological perspective on the COVID-19 lockdown experience, this study describes psychological responses among Italian university students. Our study considers three zones of the country that have differed in the intensity of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, this research explores whether differences in pandemic conditions can account for their divergent psychological outcomes. The participants were 792 university students from seven different Italian universities. Students were asked to express their emotions and describe meaningful events during the lockdown in writing. Based on the grounded theory approach, this study conducted qualitative data analysis using ATLAS.ti 8.0. The core emerged categories are emotions, emotional moods and state of mind, coping strategies, and resilience. The results describing these emergent factors in relation to environmental variables highlight differences in the feeling of anxiety among individuals: anxiety was more self-focused in...
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health problem and social issue that invo... more Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant public health problem and social issue that involves couples from all socioeconomic and cultural contexts. IPV may affect women and men, but these latter are the most common perpetrators of IPV. We developed stochastic Agent-Based models of IPV focused on the couple dynamics, determined by the parallel, individual behaviour of partners. Based on the psychological theory of the Cycle of Violence, we have developed a model based on four discrete states: passivity, normal situation, upset and physical assault. The individual transition probability depends on the previous state of the subject and that of the partner, and on a control parameter, the aggressiveness. We then let this parameter evolve depending on the perceived violence from past experiences (polarisation) or from the support received from the environment (social influence). From the analysis of the phase diagrams we observe the emergence of characteristic patterns, in agreem...
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex and preventable issue that involves not only victims... more Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex and preventable issue that involves not only victims and aggressors but also individuals that surrounding them (e.g., families, friends etc.), and the communities and society where they live. Literature review presents several theories that try to understand IPV dynamics. Recent promising prevention programs are the bystander interventions in which all individuals might play a positive role in reducing IPV. So far, a few studies investigated the IPV dynamics by means of alternative approach in the field of social psychology such as agent-based modeling (ABM). The current research attempted to examine the dynamically interactive processes within IPV system by means of different methods (e.g., qualitative, quantitative and ABM) and tried to compare their results, in order to obtain a broader understanding of this phenomenon and the factors that might decrease it. Applying a socio-ecological IPV bystander intervention model, the empirical st...
Facebook and social networks in general have exploded in popularity in the last several years, be... more Facebook and social networks in general have exploded in popularity in the last several years, becoming a social institution for teenagers, who use it for self-presentation and as a fundamental tool to project their personal identity and manage social relationships. Taking the opportunity to reveal psychological features by analyzing personal profiles, this study examined the relationship between linguistic style, self-presentation, and other activities on Facebook over the course of one year. Through the linguistic analysis of 50 adolescents’ profiles, a new model titled “The Excessive Online Self-Presentation Model” was developed by considering only the contents of their public posts. Results showed how excessive self-presentation consisted of disclosing personal information, and with a higher number of words per post. Moreover, it was discovered that the frequent use of sexual language was associated with attention-seeking behaviors. The findings of this study were in line with p...
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 2021
Following an ecological perspective, reactions to a disaster-such as the COVID-19 pandemic-should... more Following an ecological perspective, reactions to a disaster-such as the COVID-19 pandemic-should be analysed in the interdependence between individual and community dimensions. The present study aims to analyse individual emotional dimensions (anxiety, joy, fear or depressive feelings) and their community dimensions (connectedness, emotional sharing and solidarity) with a longitudinal approach among university students from Italian universities. Participants were 746 university students at t1 (during the lockdown) and 361 at t2 (after the lockdown) recruited in six Italian universities from different areas of Italy. Comparing emotional dimensions in the two times, t2 is characterized by a generalized ambiguity: both happiness or joy because of the end of limitations and a kind of 'postlockdown anxiety' because of a sense of individual inadequacy in facing the return to normality, conducting daily activities and attending community spaces. Data confirms that after the so-called 'honeymoon phase' in community dimensions (first phase of t1 time), a sort of 'depressive reaction' arises at t2: Italian university students seem more
This study investigated how young Italian people experienced the period of peak spread of COVID-1... more This study investigated how young Italian people experienced the period of peak spread of COVID-19 in their country by probing their emotions, thoughts, events, and actions related to interpersonal and community bonds. This approach to the pandemic will highlight social dimensions that characterized contextual interactions from the specific perspective of Community Psychology. The aim was to investigate young people's experiences because they are the most fragile group due to their difficulty staying home and apart from their peers and because they are, at the same time, the most potentially dangerous people due to their urge to gather in groups. The research involved 568 university students, 475 females, and 93 males, with an average age of 21.82 years (SD = 4.836). The collected data were analyzed with the Grounded Theory Methodology, using the Atlas 8.0 software. From the textual data, representative codes were defined and grouped into 10 categories, which reflect the individ...
Worldwide, organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises have already disruptively changed... more Worldwide, organizations and small and medium-sized enterprises have already disruptively changed in many ways their physiological inner mechanisms, because of information and communication technologies (ICT) revolution. Nevertheless, the still ongoing COVID-19 worldwide emergency definitely promoted a wide adoption of teleworking modalities for many people around the world, making it more relevant than before to understand the real impact of virtual environments (VEs) on teamwork dynamics. From a psychological point of view, a critical question about teleworking modalities is how the social and cognitive dynamics of collaborative facilitation and collaborative inhibition would affect teamwork within VEs. This study analyzed the impact of a virtual environment (VE) on the recall of individuals and members of nominal and collaborative groups. The research assessed costs and benefits for collaborative retrieval by testing the effect of experimental conditions, stimulus materials, grou...
Il contributo descrive la valutazione di un’esperienza di Service-Learning (S-L) realizzata con s... more Il contributo descrive la valutazione di un’esperienza di Service-Learning (S-L) realizzata con studenti di Psicologia, in collaborazione con un Servizio di Salute Mentale. Gli studenti hanno esplorato il ruolo di un’associazione sportiva, frequentata da pazienti, operatori del ser-vizio e cittadini, nel migliorare l’integrazione sociale. Obiettivi. Valutare l’impatto del S-L sull’apprendimento accademico, la crescita personale e l’impegno nella comunita locale. Metodo. Il S-L e stato monitorato con i diari e gli incontri di supervisione. E stata svolta un’Analisi Semantica del contenuto dei diari attraverso il software TLAB. Risultati. Sono emersi sei cluster tematici, riferiti ad aspetti emozionali, cognitivi e alle dif-ficolta nello svolgere il compito. Il S-L migliora la capacita degli studenti di applicare i concetti teorici e gli strumenti di ri-cerca in risposta ai bisogni della Comunita.
The aim of the present study was to explore sleep problems in sexually abused preschoolers over a... more The aim of the present study was to explore sleep problems in sexually abused preschoolers over a year. Methods: The sample consisted of 224 abused children and 83 nonabused children aged 3 to 6 years old at enrolment into the study (T1), and 85 abused children and 73 nonabused children at the second evaluation, approximately 1 year later (T2). Sleep problems were assessed using parental reports on the Child Behavior Checklist-Preschool Version. Results: Multivariate analysis of covariance revealed that sexually abused preschoolers presented higher scores of sleep problems than nonabused children on all items related to sleep problems at T1. Results from a regression analysis revealed that sexual abuse remained associated with higher levels of sleep problems after controlling for sociodemographical variables. At T2, abused preschoolers still presented more sleep problems than nonabused children on all but one of the sleep items. Results from a repeated measure one-way analysis of covariance revealed that abused preschoolers presented higher total sleep scores at both measurement times. Time was not associated with levels of sleep problems and sleep problems did not evolve differently for abused and nonabused children. Conclusions: Sexually abused preschoolers are at risk of presenting with sleep problems. These results are worrisome given the negative impacts of sleep problems on child development. Research and clinical implications are discussed.
Objective: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with a host of deleterious impacts, yet little ... more Objective: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with a host of deleterious impacts, yet little is known about the short-term correlates in children. This study aimed to investigate the association between dissociation and sleep problems in a sample of preschool-age sexual abuse victims while controlling for potentially confounding variables, including gender, age, polytrauma, CSA characteristics, and parental distress. Method: The sample consisted of 179 children (ages 3-6 years) and their non-offending parents. Parents completed questionnaires assessing their child's dissociative symptoms and sleep problems as well as their own level of psychological distress. Results: Regression analyses revealed that sleep problems were significantly associated with dissociative symptoms over and above all other control variables (children's gender and age, polytrauma, and parental distress). A longer duration of sexual abuse also predicted greater dissociative symptoms in preschool children. Conclusion: Findings highlight the association between sleep problems and dissociation in preschool-age victims of CSA. Further research is needed to understand their impact on children's development to design appropriate treatment and prevention initiatives aimed at fostering resilience in young vulnerable children.
Today, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are often applied to assist learning pro... more Today, information and communication technologies (ICTs) are often applied to assist learning processes. Peculiar objectives of ICT use in this topic are to facilitate collaboration and to increase learning through sharing and distributing knowledge. This study aimed to investigate the effects that a small group has on the individual and collaborative learning. A virtual environment was used to study the dynamics of social behaviors in collaborative and non-collaborative experimental conditions. Our results seem to support the hypothesis that social scripts are started, even when people are in non-interactive situations, and this is shown in virtual environments, too. Such outcomes, and the virtual interactions content analysis may suggest useful advices about collective reasoning and e-learning dynamics, which are very relevant topics in the study of web communities and educational communities.
Multiple studies have demonstrated that adolescent dating violence is highly prevalent and is ass... more Multiple studies have demonstrated that adolescent dating violence is highly prevalent and is associated with internalizing and externalizing problems. A number of prevention initiatives are being implemented in North American high schools. Such initiatives aim to raise awareness among potential victims and offenders, and also among peer bystanders. As teenagers mainly reach out to their peers when experiencing adversity, it is important to address adolescents’ efficacy in dealing with witnessing dating violence or with friends disclosing dating abuse, in addition to increasing their ability to deal with experienced dating violence victimization or perpetration. The aim of this study is to explore adolescents’ self-efficacy to deal with dating violence victimization and perpetration in their relationships and those of their peers. A paper-and-pencil questionnaire was completed by 259 14−18-year-olds in Quebec, Canada. The data allow building insight into adolescents’ confidence to r...
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Papers by Elisa Guidi