Adults’ implicit associations to infant positive and negative acoustic cues: Moderation by empathy and gender

In this study a novel auditory version of the Single Category Implicit Association Test (SC-IAT-A) was developed to investigate (a) the valence of adults’ associations to infant cries and laughs, (b) moderation of implicit associations by gender and empathy, and (c) the robustness of implicit associations controlling for auditory sensitivity. Eighty adults (50% females) were administered two SC-IAT-As, the Empathy Quotient, and the Weinstein Noise Sensitivity Scale. Adults showed positive implicit associations to infant laugh and negative ones to infant cry; only the implicit associations with the infant laugh were negatively related to empathy scores, and no gender differences were observed. Finally, implicit associations to infant cry were affected by noise sensitivity. The SC-IAT-A is useful to evaluate the valence of implicit reactions to infant auditory cues and could provide fresh insights into understanding processes that regulate the quality of adult–infant relationships.     

Measuring Care and Justice Moral Orientation: Italian Adaptation and Revision of the MMO-2 Scale

This study presents the Italian adaptation of the Measure of Moral Orientation, second revision (MMO-2). Based on Carol Gilligan’s theory of the Ethics of Care, the MMO-2 was designed to measure two complementary moral stances, namely, Care and Justice. For this study, questionnaire responses from 683 university students were assessed against an Italian-adapted MMO-2 scale. Data were analyzed through exploratory structural equation modeling first as separate scenarios and then as a single model. The final model comprises 4 intercorrelated pairs of latent variables and shows highly satisfactory goodness of fit indices with moderate construct validity and reliability. Strengths, limitations, and directions for the future developments of the MMO-2 are discussed.     

Emotional inertia emerges after prolonged states of exhaustion: Evidences from a measurement burst study

Motivation and Emotion - Exhaustion refers to the feeling of ongoing loss of emotional, physical and cognitive resources. The present study draws on the Conservation of Resources Theory to examine...     

The role of body image and self‐perception in anorexia nervosa: the neuroimaging perspective

Anorexia nervosa is a severe psychiatric illness characterized by intense fear of gaining weight, relentless pursuit of thinness, deep concerns about food and a pervasive disturbance of body image. Functional magnetic resonance imaging tries to shed light on the neurobiological underpinnings of anorexia nervosa. This review aims to evaluate the empirical neuroimaging literature about self‐perception in anorexia nervosa. This narrative review summarizes a number of task‐based and resting‐state functional magnetic resonance imaging studies in anorexia nervosa about body image and self‐perception. The articles listed in references were searched using electronic databases (PubMed and Google Scholar) from 1990 to February 2016 using specific key words. All studies were reviewed with regard to their quality and eligibility for the review. Differences in brain activity were observed using body image perception and body size estimation tasks showing significant modifications in activity of specific brain areas (extrastriate body area, fusiform body area, inferior parietal lobule). Recent studies highlighted the role of emotions and self‐perception in anorexia nervosa and their neural substrate involving resting‐state networks and particularly frontal and posterior midline cortical structures within default mode network and insula. These findings open new horizons to understand the neural substrate of anorexia nervosa.     

Factor Analysis of the Italian Version of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire in a Community Sample

Despite difficulties measuring parenting styles, many studies have demonstrated a significant relationship between disruptive children and certain parenting practices. One of the most frequently used scales to measure parenting styles is the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ). This scale was originally defined based on theoretical dimensions and using samples from the USA. Therefore, both factor analysis studies and its adaptation to other countries have been proposed to improve and widen its use. The aim of this study was to adapt the APQ to the Italian population. A community sample of 258 mothers and children (94 %) and 192 fathers (70 %) from 274 families with children from 10- to 14-years-old who agreed to participate and met the inclusion criteria completed the APQ. Principal components and exploratory factor analyses resulted in a unique 19-item version of the APQ for mothers, fathers, and children. This unified version has resulted in two factor categories: positive (12 items) and negative parenting (7 items). The internal consistency and goodness of fit of the model were satisfactory. Moderate and significant convergent validity were found for mothers and fathers but not for children. In fact, we found differences in validity rates among the participants. Children perceived less positive and more negative parenting than did fathers and mothers, and mothers believed that they provided more positive parenting than did other parents. In conclusion, the APQ Italian version of the parents and children global report forms are considered a suitable measure for positive and negative parenting styles with acceptable validity and reliability indices.     

Distinct mechanisms in visual category learning

The ways in which visual categories are learned, and in which well-established categories are represented and retrieved, are fundamental issues of cognitive neuroscience. Researchers have typically studied these issues separately, and the transition from the initial phase of category learning to expertise is poorly characterized. The acquisition of novel categories has been shown to depend on the striatum, hippocampus, and prefrontal cortex, whereas visual category expertise has been shown to involve changes in inferior temporal cortex. The goal of the present experiment is to understand the respective roles of these brain regions in the transition from initial learning to expertise when category judgments are being made. Subjects were explicitly trained, over 2 days, to classify realistic faces. Subjects then performed the categorization task during fMRI scanning, as well as a perceptual matching task, in order to characterize how brain regions respond to these faces when not explicitly categorizing them. We found that, during face categorization, face-selective inferotemporal cortex, lateral prefrontal cortex, and dorsal striatum are more responsive to faces near the category boundary, which are most difficult to categorize. In contrast, the hippocampus and left superior frontal sulcus responded most to faces farthest from the category boundary. These dissociable effects suggest that there are several distinct neural mechanisms involved in categorization, and provide a framework for understanding the contribution of each of these brain regions in categorization.     

Social experience and school bullying

The goal of the present study is to investigate the relationship between school bullying and various aspects of the urban and scholastic environment where participants live, such as sense of community, exposure to dangerous and violent situations within the neighbourhood, perceptions of the safety of the neighbourhood and perceptions of the school environment. The research, performed in Ercolano, a town near Naples, covered the whole of Ercolano's population (n = 734) of 7th, 10th and 13th grade students. Data were analysed using a multivariate analysis of variance. Results showed that bullying role (pure bullies, pure victims, bully victims, not‐involved) is significantly associated with the way subjects perceive their exposure to dangerous and violent situations within the neighbourhood, their relationship with classmates and their relationship with teachers. Pure bullies and bully victims are especially likely to experience dangerous and violent situations in the neighbourhood where they live and have a more negative perception of their relationship with teachers; for pure victims and bully victims, a significant association is obtained with negative perceptions of relationships with classmates. These findings suggest the need for intervention strategies that extend beyond the classroom to the broader community and neighbourhood. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do Coping Strategies Discriminate Eating Disordered Individuals Better Than Eating Disorder Features? An Explorative Study on Female Inpatients with Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa

The purpose of this explorative research was to examine how the COPE (Coping Orientation to Problem Experienced Inventory), an established instrument for measuring coping styles, and EDI-2 (Eating Disorder Inventory-2), a widely used questionnaire for assessing psychological and behavioural features of eating disorders (ED), discriminate among healthy individuals, inpatients with anorexia nervosa (AN) and inpatients with bulimia nervosa (BN). A discriminant analysis approach was used. Results showed that coping styles such as positive attitude, planning and social support are even more discriminative variables than eating disorder features. Implications for further studies are discussed.