The Relationship between Parental Monitoring, Peer Pressure, and Motivations for Responsible Drinking among Italian Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Positive Alcohol Expectancies.

This study investigated the associations between parental monitoring, peer pressure, and motivations for responsible drinking, while also taking the mediating role of positive alcohol expectancies into account. The participants were 579 Italian adolescents, aged 14-20 years (M = 16.39 years, SD = 1.27; 55.3% females), involved in a cross-sectional survey. They were administered online self-report questionnaires. Structural equation modeling revealed both direct and indirect positive associations between study variables. Parental monitoring was positively associated, both directly and indirectly, with adolescents' motivations for responsible drinking through the mediation of positive alcohol expectancies; peer pressure was negatively and indirectly associated with adolescents' motivations for responsible drinking, via the mediating role of positive alcohol expectancies. Findings highlighted the importance of environmental factors with regard to motivations for responsible drinking, suggesting the opportunity to implement prevention programs to improve parental monitoring and increase adolescents' skills to manage peer pressure and to develop realistic expectancies about drinking.

Self-Esteem and Adolescent Bullying/Cyberbullying and Victimization/Cybervictimization Behaviours: A Person-Oriented Approach.

Although previous studies seemed to recognize negative associations between self-esteem and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours, the findings are controversial. The current study tried to shed light on this issue by using a person-oriented approach among Italian adolescents. Participants included 936 students aged 13-16 years. Different domains of self-esteem and bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviour during the previous 2-3 months were assessed through a self-administered questionnaire. The results suggested four self-esteem profiles, i.e., school/family-oriented, consistently high, self-derogation, and body/peer-oriented. Students in the consistently high self-esteem profile seemed to be more protected against bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviours compared to those in the self-derogation profile. The findings showed that among adolescents there is a degree of heterogeneity in the self-esteem domain associated with different levels of bullying/cyberbullying and victimization/cybervictimization behaviour. This suggests that different domains of self-esteem and their interdependencies play a crucial role during adolescence, with consequences also in terms of diverse patterns of active and passive aggressive behaviour.

Aligning personal and collective interests in emerging adults during the COVID-19 emergency in Italy.

This study investigated the relations of emerging adults' personal (civic competence and interdependent self-construal) and community-based (sense of community and civic engagement) resources as predictors of appraisal of COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Management (PHEM) and attitudes toward preventing contagion in Italy. Participants were 2873 Italian emerging adults (71% females) aged 19-30 years (M = 22.67, SD = 2.82). Structural equation modeling revealed both direct and indirect positive associations among study variables. Civic competence and interdependent self-construal were related to sense of community and civic engagement behavior which, in turn, predicted appraisal of PHEM. Appraisal of PHEM in turn predicted attitudes toward preventing contagion. Overall, findings highlight the importance of examining the alignment between personal and collective interests to understand emerging adults' evaluative and attitudinal experiences during a period of crisis, such as that created by COVID-19.