Attachment style,attachment to God,religiosity, and moral disengagement: a study on offenders

The present study investigates religiosity, moral disengagement, attachment to God, and interpersonal attachment in 30 offenders within Italian jails. We administered a semi-structured interview to collect data about family, social and medical history, and the manner in which the deviant act was carried out; the Moral Disengagement Scale; the Attachment to God Inventory; the Revised Intrinsic/Extrinsic Religious Orientation Scale; and the Attachment Style Questionnaire. Results show how intrinsic religiosity negatively predicts moral disengagement; the “Preoccupation with Relationships” Scale (anxious/ambivalent attachment) predicts avoidant attachment to God; and the “Secondariety for Relationship” Scale (dismissing attachment) predicts personal extrinsic religiosity and negatively predicts intrinsic religiosity. Studying these constructs in offenders is important not only to increase the literature but also to implement interventions aimed at reeducation focused on issues relevant to personal adjustment.     

Word length effect in early reading and in developmental dyslexia

Vocal reaction times were measured in Italian dyslexics and in proficient readers while they read single words. Three groups of control participants (for a total of 79) were tested. All were in the first, second or third grade of elementary school. Nine third graders with a low level of reading ability when assessed by standard reading procedures were also tested. Results indicated that vocal RTs of control participants were faster and less sensitive to word length as a function of age; also, there was a particularly marked change between first and second graders. Dyslexics' vocal RTs and errors were much worse than those of peer control participants and resembled those of first grade controls. It is suggested that normal readers in an orthographically transparent language (Italian) adopt a lexical strategy quite early in their learning. On the contrary, dyslexics seem unable to learn this mode of processing and continue to use a sub-lexical reading procedure.     

Cognitive-Based Compassion Training: A Promising Prevention Strategy for At-Risk Adolescents

Compared to the general population, youth in foster care experience multiple psychosocial difficulties due to exceptionally high rates of maltreatment. Many youth in care receive psychological and/or psychotropic treatment but not all require or are willing to accept that level of intervention. For many, a “mental health” approach feels pathologizing. Nevertheless, these youth have suffered maltreatment and interventions to improve their ability to cope with past trauma and their often uncertain present are clearly needed. Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT) provides an alternative perspective on suffering and can be framed as a wellness intervention that is appropriate for all humans. The present study examined whether a 6-week CBCT intervention would improve psychosocial functioning among adolescents in foster care. Seventy adolescents were randomized to CBCT (twice weekly) or a wait-list condition. Youth were assessed at baseline and after 6 weeks. Groups did not differ on measures of psychosocial functioning following training; however practice frequency was associated with increased hopefulness and a trend for a decrease in generalized anxiety. Qualitative results indicated that participants found CBCT useful for dealing with daily life stressors. Adolescents in care were willing to engage in CBCT. The majority reported CBCT was very helpful and almost all reported they would recommend CBCT to a friend. Participants reported specific instances of using CBCT strategies to regulate emotion, manage stress, or to respond more compassionately towards others. Standardized self-report measures were not sensitive to qualitative reports of improved functioning, suggesting the need for measures more sensitive to the positive changes noted or longer training periods to demonstrate effects. Practical issues surrounding implementation of such programs in high-risk youth populations are identified. Recommendations are provided for further development.     

Evaluating Students’ Comprehension of Messages on Panels

ABSTRACT

In science museums, teaching panels are an important means of cultural mediation and communication. This study focused on the use and features of panels in museums and we tested panels’ efficacy in conveying information. We assessed the understandability of their messages by verifying the acquisition of information over the short term (quantitative aspect) and identifying difficulties in reading (qualitative aspects). Two panels in the Museo di Biologia Marina “Pietro Parenzan” in Porto Cesareo (Province of Lecce, Italy) were evaluated. The panels had the same content but were different from linguistic and graphic points of view. The study was carried out by interviewing 1,898 middle and secondary-school students of the Province of Lecce (their ages ranging between 11 and 19 years).     

Stress-Induced Cardiomyopathy and Psychological Wellbeing 1 Year After an Acute Event

Stress cardiomyopathy (SCM) typically presents similar symptoms to acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, these symptoms differ when it comes to a transient and completely reversible myocardial dysfunction, which is frequently precipitated by acute stressful events, occurring in the absence of plaque rupture and coronary thrombosis. The purpose of this study was to investigate health-related quality of life (HRQL) and emotional burden subsequent to cardiac events in SCM patients. Thirty-seven SCM patients were compared with 37 matched AMI patients. All selected patients were assessed for HRQL and psychological distress at baseline and 1-year after the acute event. After controlling for covariates, scores on the Psychological General Well Being Index indicated that depressed mood had increased in both groups, but the increase for SCM patients was greater than for AMI patients. The AMI group displayed greater decreases than the SCM in physical quality of life and in total cardiac-related health quality of life. The percentage of patients with psychological distress increased significantly more in the SCM group than in the AMI group, and it made no difference whether the triggering event was emotional or physical. Our results suggest that, despite the more favorable medical prognosis of SCM patients, their cardiac condition being transient and resolving completely in few weeks, the psychological impact associated with their condition is more negative 1 year later than in the case of AMI patients whose medical prognosis is less favorable, and this difference is independent of type of trigger event.     

Development and Validation of an Explicit Aggressive Beliefs and Attitudes Scale

This work outlines the development and validation of a new self-report measure that assesses explicit aggressive beliefs and attitudes within the normal adult population (using 7 samples, total N = 3,533). These explicit aggressive beliefs and attitudes are expected to reflect aggressive biases including hostile attribution, potency, retribution, victimization by powerful others, derogation of target, and social discounting. The resulting scale is reliable with a hierarchical 6-factor structure, and displays convergent and discriminant validity. Criterion-related validity studies indicate incremental effects over socially desirable response bias, related implicit and explicit aggression measures, and is predictive of self-reported and other-reported aggression-related behaviors.     

Tower of London test: a comparison between conventional statistic approach and modelling based on artificial neural network in differentiating fronto-temporal dementia from Alzheimer's disease

The early differentiation of Alzheimer's disease (AD) from frontotemporal dementia (FTD) may be difficult. The Tower of London (ToL), thought to assess executive functions such as planning and visuo-spatial working memory, could help in this purpose. Twentytwo Dementia Centers consecutively recruited patients with early FTD or AD. ToL performances of these groups were analyzed using both the conventional statistical approaches and the Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) modelling. Ninety-four non aphasic FTD and 160 AD patients were recruited. ToL Accuracy Score (AS) significantly (p < 0.05) differentiated FTD from AD patients. However, the discriminant validity of AS checked by ROC curve analysis, yielded no significant results in terms of sensitivity and specificity (AUC 0.63). The performances of the 12 Success Subscores (SS) together with age, gender and schooling years were entered into advanced ANNs developed by Semeion Institute. The best ANNs were selected and submitted to ROC curves. The non-linear model was able to discriminate FTD from AD with an average AUC for 7 independent trials of 0.82. The use of hidden information contained in the different items of ToL and the non linear processing of the data through ANNs allows a high discrimination between FTD and AD in individual patients.     

The Impact of Culture on the Individual Subjective Well-Being of the Italian Population: An Exploratory Study

The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between cultural access and individual psychological well-being, in order to provide a possible estimation of the impact of cultural participation upon subjective perceptions of well being. Our exploratory research was based on a cross-sectional survey undertook on a medium-large sample (n = 1500) of Italian residents in fall 2008. We refer to the Psychological General Well-Being Index–PGWBI, a tool that has been validated through 30 years of research, as an index of measurement. Moreover, we have administered to the sample an additional questionnaire inquiring about access to 15 distinct culturally related activities. Data are processed by means of a specific methodology based on ANN and Called TWIST. TWIST has been developed by the Semeion Research Center, Rome. Our analysis suggests that culture has a relevant role as a determinant of individual psychological well-being, in that a selected subset of cultural variables turn out to perform among the best predictors of individual PGWB levels. Our results also allow some preliminary considerations about innovative, well-being focused public health policies leveraging upon the human and social developmental role of culture.     

The Interaction Between Culture, Health and Psychological Well-Being: Data Mining from the Italian Culture and Well-Being Project

The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of health status and cultural participation upon psychological well-being, with special attention to the interaction between patterns of cultural access and other factors known to affect psychological well-being. Data for this report were collected from a sample of 1,500 Italian citizens. A multi-step random sampling method was adopted to draw a large representative sample from the Italian population. Subjects underwent a standard questionnaire for psychological well-being [the Italian short form of the Psychological General Well Being Index (PGWBI)], and a questionnaire related to the frequency of participation to 15 different kinds of cultural activities during the previous year. The results show that, among the various potential factors considered, cultural access unexpectedly rankes as the second most important determinant of psychological well-being, immediately after the absence or presence of diseases, and outperforming factors such as job, age, income, civil status, education, place of living and other important factors. According to a semantic map generated by a powerful data mining algorithm, it turns out that different factors (among which cultural access and health status in particular) may be viewed as concurrent elements of a complex multi-causal scheme that seems to play a primary role in determining psychological distress or well-being. In particular, distress seems to be tightly connected with: living in the Southern part of Italy, average income level, living in semi-urban and urban areas, age group 46–60, presence of more than two concomitant diseases and a low level of cultural access. Well being, on the other hand, is tightly connected with: male gender, high cultural access, and absence of diseases. Some of these associations are confirmed by Principal Component Analysis.