Internet addiction disorder: an Italian study.

The Italian version of the Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT) was administered online to a sample of Italian chatters (n = 236) who were different in terms of gender, age, and occupation. Results revealed that young users are more at-risk subjects for Internet addiction than adults, perceiving a compromised social and individual quality of their life that led them to make a compensatory usage of the Internet. Similarly, employed users perceive their social and individual quality of life as more compromised by the Internet than students. Moreover, subjects who declared spending much time online obtained IAT scores higher than others in all the IAT subscales. Finally, nightly users are more at-risk subjects for developing an Internet addiction disorder, diminishing their individual quality of life and disabling their time control.     

The Development of Identity. A Critical Analysis from the Perspective of the Self as Subject

In this paper an argument is presented, suggesting that the concept of identity articulated by Erikson and reflected in ordinary pretheoretical understanding includes, as a central feature, a special experience of self, namely, the experience of a unified psychological "essence," from which superficial characteristics of the person are differentiated. However, as is shown through a close analysis of various identity measures, this subjective experiential aspect is typically neglected in identity research, including the many studies that were guided by the identity status paradigm. A new approach is then presented, aimed at recapturing the subjective meaning of identity, by viewing identity as a modality of the self as subject and as characterized by specific experiences of agency, unity, otherness, and individuality. In an effort to empirically ground this approach, a typology of identity experience, derived from Loevinger′s ego development stages, is described. Several studies are then reviewed, that confirm the viability of this typology and illustrate the advantages of studying identity from the perspective of the self as subject.     

Transient beneficial effects of excitatory theta burst stimulation in a patient with phonological agraphia after left supramarginal gyrus infarction

We report a patient showing isolated phonological agraphia after an ischemic stroke involving the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG). In this patient, we investigated the effects of focal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) given as theta burst stimulation (TBS) over the left SMG, corresponding to the Brodmann area (BA) 40. The patient and ten control subjects performed a dictational words and nonwords writing task before, and 5 and 30 min after they received excitatory intermittent TBS (iTBS) over the left BA 40, the right hemisphere homologous to BA 40, the Wernicke’s area, or the primary visual cortex.ITBS over the left SMG lead to a brief facilitation of phonological non-words writing to dictation. This case study report illustrates that rTMS is able to influence, among other language functions, the phonological loading processes during the written language production in stroke patients.     

Moral cognition and moral action: A theoretical perspective

Considerable theoretical work has been done in the area of moral reasoning. However, little conceptual thinking has been done about the relations between moral cognition and moral action. As a result, empirical research in this area has been unsystematic and difficult to interpret. A theoretical model, the Self Model, is proposed here, starting from the assumption that moral reasons are functionally related to action. First, a concept of cognitive motivation is presented as necessary for any cognitive account of morality. Two cognitive approaches to moral conduct, Piaget's and Haan's, are then discussed in their positive contributions and in their limitations. The Self Model is finally described through a set of empirically testable propositions. Its major theoretical characteristics are: it is cognitive, recognizing as the central function of human cognition the appraisal of truth; it acknowledges a basic duality of motivation, but stresses the normative pull of cognitive motivation; it is developmental; it uses the self as the central explanatory concept, establishing both the sense of personal responsibility and the dynamism of self-consistency.