Coping and emotions of global higher education students to the Ukraine war worldwide.

Trauma scientists have raised the alarm about the devastating consequences of the Ukraine war on mental health. We examined how higher education students-as indirect victims-coped with this conflict and how they emotionally reacted during 2022. We involved 2314 students from 16 countries through an online survey. A structural equation model indicated significant relations between war-related worry about military and macroeconomics domains and two coping strategies (opposition, support giving), in turn significantly linked with six emotions. The model was strongly invariant across gender, study field, and geographic area. The most frequent emotions were anger and anxiety, followed by two future-centred emotions (hopelessness and hope). Emotions were more frequent for females and students of the countries geographically close to the war region. Our findings call for evidence-based policy recommendations to be implemented by institutions to combat the negative short and long-term psychological sequelae of being witnesses of armed conflicts.

Measuring pandemic-related anxiety and confidence in care in chronic patients using the Psychological Consequences of a Pandemic Event (PCPE) questionnaire.

The COVID-19 pandemic has determined a considerable increase in psychological distress worldwide. Compared with the general population, patients with chronic conditions experience higher stress levels due to the increased risk of worse health outcomes from COVID-19 infection. Worries and fear of contagion could cause them to avoid going to their health facilities for medical examinations, which results in higher risks of morbidity and mortality. The present study aimed to develop and validate the Psychological Consequences of a Pandemic Event (PCPE) self-report questionnaire, and to assess the psychological effects of exposure to a pandemic on mood and on treatment adherence appropriate for patients with chronic diseases. Data were analysed with Rasch analysis after an Exploratory Factor Analysis and a Confirmatory Factor Analysis. We identified a final set of 10 items, divided into two independent factors labelled "pandemic-related anxiety" and "confidence in care". Finally, we transformed the raw scores of both factors into two interval scales (two rulers) that met the requirements of the fundamental measurement. The PCPE questionnaire has demonstrated to be a short and easy-to-administer measure, with valid and reliable psychometric properties, capable of assessing pandemic-related anxiety and confidence in care in patients with chronic clinical conditions.

Can a web application foster emotional competence in children and adolescents? The case of PandHEMOT®.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had many traumatic consequences for the physical and psychological functioning of children and adolescents. Internet-based interventions can reach a large audience and be a potentially powerful resource for promoting well-being among young people. We tested the efficacy of the web application PandHEMOT®, developed ad hoc for increasing knowledge about pandemics, emotions, and emotion regulation. We involved a sample of 147 Italian third and seventh graders. The sample was assigned to an experimental (participating in the training) and a waitlist condition (who participated following a waitlist design). All the participants completed pretest and posttest measures. The intervention was structured into three units. The training took place between November and December 2021. Generalized linear mixed models and linear mixed models revealed that knowledge about pandemics, emotions, emotion regulation, and metacognitive awareness increased for the experimental condition. Moreover, adolescents performed better than children. The findings supported the efficacy of an Internet-based training for increasing children and adolescents' resilience, according to the standards of evidence-based research.

The Perception of Similarity, Difference and Opposition.

After considering the pervasiveness of same/different relationships in Psychology and the experimental evidence of their perceptual foundation in Psychophysics and Infant and Comparative Psychology, this paper develops its main argument. Similarity and diversity do not complete the panorama since opposition constitutes a third relationship which is distinct from the other two. There is evidence of this in the previous literature investigating the perceptual basis of opposition and in the results of the two new studies presented in this paper. In these studies, the participants were asked to indicate to what extent pairs of simple bi-dimensional figures appeared to be similar, different or opposite to each other. A rating task was used in Study 1 and a pair comparison task was used in Study 2. Three main results consistently emerged: Firstly, opposition is distinct from similarity and difference which, conversely, are in a strictly inverse relationship. Secondly, opposition is specifically linked to something which points in an allocentrically opposite direction. Thirdly, alterations to the shape of an object are usually associated with the perception of diversity rather than opposition. The implications of a shift from a dyadic (same/different) to a triadic (similar/different/opposite) paradigm are discussed in the final section.

Big Five personality traits and coping strategies of Italian university students during the COVID-19 pandemic first wave.

Introduction: Little is known about the role personality traits may have played for university students in diminishing and compensating for the negative impact of COVID-19 in its early phases, promoting adaptive coping. University students represent a population which was consistently obliged to follow social distance rules due to the early shift of many organizations from face-to-face to online learning. Therefore, it is worth exploring whether the Big Five traits acted as risk or protective factors after the outbreak of a disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic for Italian university students. Methods: We involved a sample of 2,995 university students who completed an online survey in March 2020. We measured the Big Five personality traits through the Big Five Inventory-2-XS and their coping strategies through the Robust-Pandemic Coping Scale. The latter assessed four COVID-19-related coping dimensions, namely Despair (e.g., including helplessness and feeling lack of control), Aversion (e.g., referring to oppositive strategies), Proactivity (e.g., comprising problem solving and information seeking), and Adjustment (e.g., concerning reappraisal and assertiveness). Results: Preliminarily, two Linear Mixed Models indicated that university students had higher scores in Conscientiousness, followed by Open-Mindedness, and then Agreeableness. These three traits were, in turn, higher than Extraversion and Negative Emotionality, which did not differ among them. Concerning coping, university students reacted more frequently utilizing adaptive strategies (with Proactivity used more frequently than Adjustment) rather than maladaptive strategies (with Despair higher than Aversion). A Path Analysis examining the relations between the Big Five traits and the four coping dimensions showed that Negative Emotionality can be considered as a risk factor, and that Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Open-Mindedness can be conceptualized as protective factors. More interestingly, we found that Extraversion entailed both a risk and a protective role for Italian university students after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Discussion: Notwithstanding limitations, these findings can be the basis for developing disaster preparation and prevention actions, aiming at promoting students' positive coping towards current and future disasters.

Training People to Think in Opposites Facilitates the Falsification Process in Wason's Rule Discovery Task.

With reference to Wason's 2-4-6 rule discovery task, this study investigated the effects of a simple training session that prompted participants to "think in opposites". The results showed a significant improvement in performance under the training condition when compared to the control condition, both in terms of the proportion of participants who discovered the correct rule and how quickly it was discovered. An analysis of whether or not participant submitted test triples formed of descending numbers showed that fewer participants under the control condition considered ascending/descending to represent a critical dimension and, in any case, this occurred later (that is, after more test triples) than in the training condition. These results are discussed in relation to previous literature showing improvements in performance that were prompted by strategies involving "contrast" as a critical factor. The limitations of the study are discussed, as well as the benefits of a training program like this, which is non-content related.

Preparing children to cope with earthquakes: Building emotional competence.

Natural disasters, including earthquakes, can have a traumatic impact on children's psychological wellbeing and development. The efficacy of interventions aimed at enhancing children's socio-emotional learning has been documented in the literature. At the same time, these techniques are the key for training children for possible future disasters by enhancing their knowledge about behavioural preparedness and emotional competence. However, research on evidence-based training programs on earthquakes combining digital and traditional activities is scarce. We tested the efficacy of a 10-unit training program for primary school children, developed within the Emotional Prevention and Earthquakes in Primary School (PrEmT) project. The program aimed at increasing knowledge of and metacognition about earthquakes, safety behaviours, emotions, and coping strategies, through digital (using the web-application HEMOT® , Helmet for EMOTions, developed ad-hoc) and traditional activities (completing paper-and-pencil tasks). The participants were 548 second and fourth-graders from Italian schools. They were divided into an experimental group (participating in the training program) and a control group. Both groups participated in pretests and posttests to evaluate changes in their knowledge of training-related contents. For ethical reasons, we also measured children's wellbeing. Generalized linear mixed models indicated an improvement in the experimental group's knowledge and metacognition about earthquakes, safety behaviours, emotions, and coping strategies after the training program, compared to the control group. Children's general wellbeing did not deteriorate during participation in the project. The results documented the efficacy of the evidence-based training program developed within the PrEmT project. The program provides a preventive method for enhancing earthquake-related resilience that could be generalized to other kinds of disasters.

Reading with induced worry: The role of physiological self-regulation and working memory updating in text comprehension.

BACKGROUND: An interplay of emotional and cognitive aspects underlies academic performance. We focused on the contribution of such interplay to text comprehension. AIMS: We investigated the effect of worry on comprehension and the role of two potential moderators of this effect: physiological self-regulation as resting heart rate variability (HRV) and working memory updating. SAMPLE: Eighty-two seventh graders were involved in a quasi-experimental design. METHODS: Students read an informational text in one of two reading conditions: to read for themselves to know more (n = 46; low-worry condition) or to gain the highest score in a ranking (n = 36; high-worry condition). Students' resting HRV was recorded while watching a video of a natural scenario. The executive function of working memory updating was also assessed. After reading, students completed a comprehension task. RESULTS: Findings revealed the moderating role of HRV in the relationship between induced worry and text comprehension. In the high-worry condition, students with higher resting HRV performed better than students who read under the same instructions but had lower HRV. In contrast, in the low-worry condition, students with higher resting HRV showed a lower performance as compared to students with lower HRV. Finally, working memory updating was positively related to text comprehension. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that the cognitive component of anxiety, that is, worry, plays a role in performing a fundamental learning activity like text comprehension. The importance of physiological self-regulation emerges clearly. In a condition of high worry, higher ability to regulate emotions and thoughts acts as a protective factor.

Interviews about pandemics and protective measures: studying key informants' representation to develop a web-application for fostering children and adolescents' resilience.

COVID-19 pandemic can be defined as a biological disaster whose impact is particularly evident for children and adolescents, vulnerable populations because of their level of cognitive and affective development. For this reason, it is of paramount relevance to develop actions focused on disaster-related prevention and preparedness, including psycho-education. In this study, we aimed at exploring key informants' representation of the pandemic, also to identify the contents for the first two levels of a psycho-educational web-application for children and adolescents, i.e., PandHEMOT® (Pandemics - Helmet for EMOTions). We involved 25 experts with different professional roles through semi-structured interviews about a variety of aspects related to the pandemic. We coded each proposition according to four categories (i.e., Basic knowledge, Procedural knowledge, Safety behaviors, and Consequences). First, a generalized linear mixed model revealed that Safety behaviors was the most frequent category, followed by Consequences, and in turn by Procedural and Basic knowledge. Second, through a cluster analysis we identified three clusters corresponding to different response patterns and pandemic representations. Third, we conducted a thematic analysis to select the items to be inserted in the first and second level of PandHEMOT®, focused on the nature of pandemics and pandemic-related protective measures. Notwithstanding the limitations related to the small sample, this research permitted to explore the representation of different experts concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, these findings enabled to identify the contents for the initial levels of a web-application designed for increasing children and adolescents' knowledge on pandemics, emotions, and coping strategies. This initiative can be an example of a psycho-educational tool to enhance young people's disaster-related resilience.

Italian validation of the situational Brief Cope Scale (I-Brief Cope).

The Brief COPE (Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced) inventory is 14 faced scales used to assess coping strategies. It has been administered on different population samples and translated into several languages. Nonetheless, the Italian validation of its situational format is missing, and the present study aimed to fill this gap. To this end, the original English version of the scale was translated into Italian and administered to a sample of 682 Italian healthcare workers (HCWs), during the first wave of COVID-19. The Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (EFA and CFA) were performed and led to the validation of the Italian Brief COPE (I-Brief COPE) scale, consisting of 21 items, loading properly on 6 factors, which range from activation (F1) to deactivation (F2), via social support (F3), humorous reframing (F4), religious/spiritual reliance (F5), substances use (F6). The six factors identified represent, according to our analyses, the relevant dimensions of coping in a stressful situation such as COVID-19. The results of this study reveal that the I-Brief Cope can be considered as a valid tool for measuring coping strategies in facing stressful, unpredictable, and damaging events.

Development and evaluation of psychoeducational resources for adult carers to emotionally support young people impacted by wars: A community case study.

Wars and armed conflicts have a devastating impact at the economic, social, and individual level. Millions of children and adolescents are forced to bear their disastrous consequences, also in terms of mental health. Their effects are even more complicated when intertwined with those of other disasters such as the current COVID-19 pandemic. To help them face such adverse events, lay adults can be supported by psychoeducational interventions involving simple tools to assist children and adolescents emotionally. Hence, we planned and implemented two public communication campaigns concerning wars to support adult carers such as parents, teachers, educators, psychologists, first responders, and others interested in young people's wellbeing. We developed psychoeducational materials to help children and adolescents cope with negative emotions related to indirect and direct exposure to wars. This study had the objective to identify the content for two pamphlets, testing their comprehensibility, usability, and utility, and monitoring their dissemination. First, based on classifications of coping strategies and on a previous campaign about COVID-19 pandemic, we decided to include in the psychoeducational materials basic information on news about wars and common reactions to wars, respectively; on emotions that might be experienced; and on coping strategies for dealing with negative emotions. For the first pamphlet, we identified the strategies involving 141 adults. They completed an online survey with open-ended questions concerning ways to help children and adolescents cope with negative emotions associated with the Russia-Ukraine war. For the second pamphlet, we selected the contents based on Psychological First Aid manuals. Through content analyses, we chose 24 strategies. Second, data gathered with 108 adults who had consulted the psychoeducational materials supported their comprehensibility, usability, and utility. Third, we monitored the visibility of the campaigns after the release of the pamphlets, using Google Analytics™ data from the HEMOT® website through which we disseminated them. To conclude, our findings supported the comprehensibility, the usability, and the utility of the two pamphlets, to be disseminated as psychoeducational materials in the early phase of a disaster.

The Italian epistemic marker mi sa [to me it knows] compared to so [I know], non so [I don't know], non so se [I don't know whether], credo [I believe], penso [I think].

The two studies presented in this paper concern the Italian epistemic marker mi sa [lit. to me it knows], which seems to have no equivalent in other European languages and has received very little attention in the literature. No analysis of the occurrences of mi sa in contemporary spoken corpora can be found (first gap) as well as no investigation on the epistemic relationship between mi sa and (1) the other modal expressions that use the verb sapere [to know] in the first person singular of the simple present, i.e., so [I know], non so [I do not know], non so se [I do not know whether] as well as (2) its supposed synonyms credo [I believe] and penso [I think] (second gap). The two studies are closely intertwined, the first being an exploratory, qualitative pilot study for the second. Study 1 aims to fill the first gap through the analysis of the contemporary Italian spoken corpus KIParla. The quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed five types of occurrences (theoretically reducible to two main ones), the most numerous of which are 'mi sa che + proposition'. Study 2 aims to fill the second gap through a questionnaire administered online. The quantitative and statistical results showed the epistemic relationships between the six markers: for the majority of the participants, in the epistemic continuum that goes from unknowledge to uncertainty and then to knowledge, (1) non so refers to unknowledge; non so se, mi sa, credo and penso refer to uncertainty; so refers to knowledge; (2) mi sa, credo, penso confirm to be synonyms; (3) non so se is evaluated as much more uncertain than mi sa, credo, penso. These four epistemic markers seem to occupy a different position along the uncertainty continuum ranging between two poles: doubt (high uncertainty) and belief (low uncertainty).

Higher education students' achievement emotions and their antecedents in e-learning amid COVID-19 pandemic: A multi-country survey.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a wide range of negative consequences for higher education students. We explored the generalizability of the control-value theory of achievement emotions for e-learning, focusing on their antecedents. We involved 17019 higher education students from 13 countries, who completed an online survey during the first wave of the pandemic. A structural equation model revealed that proximal antecedents (e-learning self-efficacy, computer self-efficacy) mediated the relation between environmental antecedents (cognitive and motivational quality of the task) and positive and negative achievement emotions, with some exceptions. The model was invariant across country, area of study, and gender. The rates of achievement emotions varied according to these same factors. Beyond their theoretical relevance, these findings could be the basis for policy recommendations to support stakeholders in coping with the challenges of e-learning and the current and future sequelae of the pandemic.

The Robust Italian Validation of the Coping Humor Scale (RI-CHS) for Adult Health Care Workers.

The Coping Humor Scale (CHS) is a seven-item tool widely used to assess the use of humor in coping with stressful situations. The beneficial effect of humor in buffering the impact of negative experiences has been investigated in several contexts and populations; for this reason, the CHS has been used in many languages, but its solid validation in Italian is still missing. Our study aimed at building a robust instrument to measure coping humor strategies among Italian health care workers, a category which has been particularly exposed to stressful situations in the last two years. The CHS translated into Italian was administered to a sample of 735 health care workers during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Confirmatory factor analysis and Rasch analysis were performed. As a result, a six-item Robust Italian Coping Humor Scale (RI-CHS) was validated and ready to use for future studies on Italian health care workers' samples. This study gives evidence that our six-item solution works as a ruler (i.e., an instrument that meets the conditions of fundamental measurement in the context of the human sciences) to measure the degree to which Italian health care workers rely on humor to cope with stress.

Long-term intergenerational transmission of memories of the Vajont disaster.

OBJECTIVE: Previous literature documented the traumatic consequences of exposure to disasters on psychological functioning, but little attention has been paid to the intergenerational transmission of the memory of disasters. We explored long-term effects on the memory of the Vajont dam disaster in Northeast Italy that claimed 1,910 lives in 1963. METHOD: We collected data from 52 two-generation families in which the first generations were born before the disaster and the second generations after. The families were divided into an experimental group whose first generation survived the disaster and a control group whose first generation had moved there afterward. The interviews included an open-ended narrative on the memory of the disaster. We coded free narratives focusing on the richness of the memories (i.e., length, causes, core, aftermath), analyzing negative emotions and salience of the natural and psychological domains. RESULTS: We applied generalized linear mixed models. The richness of the memories, including references to negative emotions, diminished with lower exposure and with intergenerational transmission. Moreover, the participants built a shared representation of the disaster that did not markedly differ across exposure or generation. The reported causes were attributed more to the natural rather than the human domain; the consequences more to the psychological compared to the material domain. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the processes through which collective memories of historical traumatic events are built over the long term and the way a collective identity develops to bear the burden of highly dramatic events and to transmit intergenerational lessons from the past. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Development and Validation of the Robust - Pandemic Coping Scale (R-PCS).

The psychological consequences of epidemics/pandemics, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, include an increase in psychopathological symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and stress, and negative emotions, such as fear. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how people cope with the pandemic. Coping is a multi-component process, helping to diminish the traumatic impact of stressful events in a variety of ways. We studied how university students coped with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, by developing the Robust - Pandemic Coping Scale (R-PCS), a new scale for measuring coping strategies related to epidemics/pandemics. The scale is based on a classification of coping strategies referred to the needs of competence, relatedness, and autonomy. To create a robust scale, such that the item values would be independent of the sample used for developing it, we employed Rasch modeling. We used a sample of 2,987 Italian university students who participated in an online survey including the R-PCS and the Power to Live with Disasters Questionnaire (PLDQ), during March 2020. First, we applied a dual approach combining exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, which supported the goodness of a 4-factor model (i.e., Despair, Adjustment, Proactivity, and Aversion) for the R-PCS, invariant across gender and age of respondents (younger or as old as 23 years, older than 23 years). We then transformed the raw scores of the R-PCS into interval logit scale scores applying the Rasch model. Second, our findings supported the discriminant validity and the criterion validity of the R-PCS, examining the correlations with the PLDQ. They also confirmed its predictive validity: the R-PCS scores were related to 2-month-later enjoyment and anger, indicating that Adjustment and Proactivity were adaptive while Despair and Aversion were maladaptive. Third, our study revealed gender and age differences: the scores were higher for Despair, Adjustment, and Proactivity for females; for Aversion for males; and for Proactivity for students older than 23 years. The study suffers from limitations related to social desirability, gender imbalance, and self-selection effects in the recruitment.

Opposites in Reasoning Processes: Do We Use Them More Than We Think, but Less Than We Could?

Our aim in this paper is to contribute toward acknowledging the general role of opposites as an organizing principle in the human mind. We support this claim in relation to human reasoning by collecting evidence from various studies which shows that "thinking in opposites" is not only involved in formal logical thinking, but can also be applied in both deductive and inductive reasoning, as well as in problem solving. We also describe the results of a series of studies which, although they have been developed within a number of different theoretical frameworks based on various methodologies, all demonstrate that giving hints or training reasoners to think in terms of opposites improves their performance in tasks in which spontaneous thinking may lead to classic biases and impasses. Since we all possess an intuitive idea of what opposites are, prompting people to "think in opposites" is something which is undoubtedly within everyone's reach and in the final section, we discuss the potential of this strategy and suggest possible future research directions of systematic testing the benefits that might arise from the use of this technique in contexts beyond those tested thus far. Ascertaining the conditions in which reasoners might benefit will also help in terms of clarifying the underlying mechanisms from the point of view, for instance, of analytical, conscious processing vs. automatic, unconscious processing.

Associations between Personality Traits, Intolerance of Uncertainty, Coping Strategies, and Stress in Italian Frontline and Non-Frontline HCWs during the COVID-19 Pandemic-A Multi-Group Path-Analysis.

The COVID-19 pandemic represented a very difficult physical and psychological challenge for the general population and even more for healthcare workers (HCWs). The main aim of the present study is to test whether there were significant differences between frontline and non-frontline Italian HCWs concerning (a) personality traits, intolerance of uncertainty, coping strategies and perceived stress, and (b) the models of their associations. A total of 682 Italian HCWs completed a self-report questionnaire: 280 employed in COVID-19 wards and 402 in other wards. The analysis of variance omnibus test revealed significant differences between the two groups only for perceived stress, which was higher among the frontline. The multi-group path analysis revealed significant differences in the structure of the associations between the two groups of HCWs, specifically concerning the relations between: personality traits and intolerance of uncertainty; intolerance of uncertainty and coping strategies. Regarding the relation between coping strategies and stress no difference was identified between the two groups. In both of them, emotionally focused coping was negatively related with perceived stress, whereas dysfunctional coping was positively related with stress. These results could be useful in planning actions aiming to reduce stress and improve the effectiveness of HCWs' interventions. Training programs aimed to provide HCWs with a skillset to tackle uncertain and stressful circumstances could represent an appropriate support to develop a preventive approach during outbreaks.

Italian onco-haematological patients' preferences in bad news communication: a preliminary investigation.

BACKGROUND: The manner in which bad news is communicated in oncological contexts can affect patients' engagement, their coping strategies and therapeutic compliance. Although this topic has been broadly investigated since the nineties, to the best of our knowledge, little has been written about Italian patients' experiences and preferences concerning what the oncologists should disclose and how they should intimate patients about their health conditions in different stages of oncological disease. METHODS: In an attempt to fill this gap, an online self-report questionnaire was administered to a sample of Italian onco-haematological patients. Data were analysed both qualitatively (by a content analysis) and quantitatively (by descriptive analysis and Generalized Linear Mixed Model). RESULTS: While the majority of patients elected to know the truth during their clinical course, a polarisation between those arguing that the truth be fully disclosed and those claiming that the truth be communicated in a personalised way was observed at the attitude level. Among demographic variables accounted for, age seems to most affect patients' preferences. Indeed, younger Italian patients decidedly reject concealment of the truth, even when justified by the beneficence principle. This result could be a reaction to some protective and paternalistic behaviours, but it could even reflect a relation according to which the more the age increases the more the fear of knowing rises, or an intergenerational change due to different ways of accessing the information. The qualitative analysis of the final open-ended question revealed three main sources of problems in doctor-patient encounters: scarcity of time, absence of empathy and use of not-understandable language that makes it difficult for patients to assume a more active role. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study, which represents a preliminary step in the subject investigation, will be deployed for the construction and validation of a more sophisticated questionnaire. Better awareness of the Italian onco-haematological patients' preferences concerning bad news communication and truth-telling could be useful in adopting more suitable medical practices and improving doctor-patient relationships.