Long-term memory for traumatic events: experiences and emotional reactions during the 2000 flood in Italy

The authors investigated how people remember real-life traumatic events. Adult residents (N = 145) of an Italian community that was flooded in fall of 2000 completed a questionnaire 3 years after the flood. Respondents briefly recounted their personal experiences with the flood and answered questions about emotional reactions to the flood, appraisal processes, and disaster exposure. Results showed that participants tended to recall experiences that occurred during the most critical phases of the disaster. The emotions most strongly experienced by respondents-sadness, fear, and surprise-were associated with specific appraisals. Content and amount of memories about flood experiences did not significantly vary as a function of flood exposure. Moreover, there was no significant relationship between memory quantity and emotional intensity. The authors discuss findings in the context of literature on traumatic memory and emotion.     

A Coalgebraic View of Heyting Duality

We give a coalgebraic view of the restricted Priestley duality between Heyting algebras and Heyting spaces. More precisely, we show that the category of Heyting spaces is isomorphic to a full subcategory of the category of all -coalgebras, based on Boolean spaces, where is the functor which maps a Boolean space to its hyperspace of nonempty closed subsets. As an appendix, we include a proof of the characterization of Heyting spaces and the morphisms between them.     

Happiness Components and their Attainment in Old Age: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between Italy and Cuba

This study investigates the subjective representation of the components of happiness and their attainment in older adults from two countries with different economic well-being and cultural orientations: Italy and Cuba. Two hundred and nine Italians and 186 Cubans completed a questionnaire. Respondents were asked to write down at least five components that made them feel happy. A measure of overall happiness was also obtained by asking the subjects to rate to what extent they had attained each component in their life and calculating their mean. The results showed that there was agreement amongst the participants over their choice of components used to represent happiness; however, there were cross-cultural differences regarding the frequency of citation and importance of these components. The fact of living in Italy or Cuba was not a predictor of overall happiness, despite the difference in national income. This is in line with previous research highlighting how subjective well-being does not depend wholly on economic well-being.     

Parental Attitudes,Attachment Styles,Social Networks,and Psychological Processes in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

In this study the authors used a cross-cultural approach to examine parental attitudes, attachment styles, social networks, and some of the psychological processes involved in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Fifty-two children (aged 4–11 years) took part in the study: 30 Italians (15 with ASD and 15 controls) and 22 Cubans (11 with ASD and 11 controls). Findings indicated significant differences between the two cultural groups in terms of the structure of the children's social network and parental attitudes toward their children. However, the mother–child attachment relationship and cognitive and emotional functioning of the study participants were independent of culture.     

Housing-Related Subjective Well-Being in Turin (Italy) and Havana (Cuba): Dimensions and Prediction

In the present study, we conceptualized housing-related subjective well-being (HRSWB) as a three-dimensional construct, defined by positive and negative emotions related to housing and housing satisfaction. Moreover, we predicted the construct via a mediated model, with the objective characteristics of the household as exogenous variables and its subjective evaluation as a mediator. A survey performed on 409 participants (285 residents in Torino, Italy, women = 52.3%, M_age = 42.81, SD = 12.73, and 124 residents in Havana, Cuba, women = 58.1%, M_age = 40.48, SD = 19.21) showed that fewer square meters per capita and living in an apartment had a negative association with perceived housing quality, which in turn had a positive association with HRSWB. Home ownership was not associated with HRSWB. The model was invariant across genders, age classes, and cities of residence. Possible developments and limitations of this research are discussed.