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Europe has recently seen a massive multi-ethnic influx of migrants, marred by high social costs of inter-ethnic confrontation. This has prompted scholars to develop training schemes to improve the social skills needed to cope with this situation. Decades of studies have acknowledged empathy as a crucial variable in the development of positive interpersonal and intergroup relations. In this study, we tested a training program for enhancing empathy towards ethnically diverse people in 170 six- to nine-year-old children. The materials were drawn from other best-known training schemes and active techniques were used. Multicultural empathy was assessed with a self-report measure. Test, retest and follow-up (at 6 months) comparisons demonstrated the training's efficacy, with improvement in multicultural empathy persisting six months later. The results suggest that it can be a useful tool to encourage the development of ethnocultural empathy starting from the first years of elementary school. The practical implications for school education are discussed.

This study investigated how Italian emerging adults coped during COVID-19 from a Positive Youth Development framework. Five hundred sixty-five 18- to 29-year-olds completed surveys measuring personal (cognitive reappraisal, optimism), ecological (support and emotional connection with community) assets, and adaptation outcomes (anxiety and future societal expectations) during (T1) and after (T2) lockdown. Utilizing a person-centered approach, four profiles emerged at T1: promotive (high personal/ecological assets), personal (high personal/low ecological), contextual (low personal/high ecological), vulnerable (low on both). The promotive profile had the highest future societal expectations. The promotive/personal/contextual profiles reported the lowest anxiety at T2. Employing a variable-centered approach, only support and emotional connection with the community at T1 linked to reduced anxiety at T2; personal/ecological assets at T1 were not related to future societal expectations at T2. Findings supported PYD assumptions, indicating alignment of personal/ecological assets aids adaptation. We discuss implications for supporting young adults during crises like pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID‐19 pandemic may be considered a unique mass‐trauma experience. This study examined the relations between Italian late adolescents' emotion regulation strategies, their anxiety states, and their experience of the lockdown (in terms of discomfort related to restrictions, capacities to create new functional daily routines, and to find positive changes in one's own life) during the first wave of this pandemic. We analysed how participants' reports of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression were associated with anxiety states during the 2020 Italian COVID‐19 lockdown (large scale physical distancing and movement restrictions) and one month after the lockdown restrictions had been removed. We also examined how cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, and anxiety states were linked to late adolescents' experience of lockdown. The participants were 497 Italian adolescents, aged from 17 to 24 years (Mage = 21.11, SD = 1.83). A longitudinal structural equation modelling showed that emotion regulation strategies and anxiety states were not associated across time. Cognitive reappraisal was positively associated with routine reorganization and positive changes. In contrast, participants' expressive suppression was negatively related to their discomfort related to restrictions, ability to functionally reorganise their daily routine, and ability to find positive changes related to the COVID‐19 emergency. Anxiety was positively linked to discomfort related to restrictions. The findings are discussed in light of the current literature related to emotion regulation and anxiety. Limitations and implications for practice are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the validity of the Basic Empathy Scale (BES) [Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2006a). Development and validation of the Basic Empathy Scale. "Journal of Adolescence," 29, 589-611; Jolliffe, D., & Farrington, D. P. (2006b). Examining the relationship between low empathy and bullying. "Aggressive Behavior," 32(6), 540-550.] and found further evidence for the scale's good psychometric properties. The BES was administered to a sample of 655 Italian adolescents to examine the generalizability and reliability of its factor structure. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed a reasonable data fit with the two hypothesized BES domains of Cognitive Empathy and Affective Empathy. Scale reliability was also satisfactory, showing good internal consistency. Lastly, BES scores were significantly associated with other empathy questionnaire scores (the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale) and with a scale measuring prosocial behavior. Research and practice implications are discussed. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)

Studies of the development of mental rotation have yielded conflicting results, apparently because different mental rotation tasks draw on different cognitive abilities. Children may compare two stimuli at different orientations without mental rotation if the stimuli contain orientation-free features. Two groups of children (78 6-year-olds and 92 8-year-olds) participated in an experiment investigating development of the ability to mentally rotate and the ability to recognize and use orientation-free features. Children compared two stimuli, one upright and one rotated, and responded as quickly as possible indicating whether the stimuli were the same or different. The stimuli were either two panda bears or two ice-cream cones with three scoops of ice-cream of different colors. The panda bears were either identical or mirror images. The cones were either identical, mirror images, or non-mirror images. Response times increased linearly as a function of the angle of orientation when stimuli were the same and when the stimuli were mirror images. But response times were much less dependent on angle of orientation for non-mirror image stimuli. Children as young as 6 years recognized orientation-free stimulus features and responded without mentally rotating when the task permitted this strategy.

The literature on participant roles in bullying lacks empirical studies that seek to explain what differentiates defenders from outsiders (or passive bystanders). The present study tested a conceptual model in which two personal characteristics of early adolescent students (empathy and perceived social self-efficacy) were considered as possible determinants of their participant behavior in bullying episodes. A total of 294 Italian early adolescents (mean age=13.3 years, range: 12-14) participated in the study. The structural equation modeling showed that high levels of empathic responsiveness were positively associated with both active defending and passive bystanding behavior, as assessed through peer nominations. In contrast, high levels of social self-efficacy were associated with helping behavior, whereas low levels of social self-efficacy were associated with passive bystanding behavior. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications for researchers and educational practitioners.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]