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INTRODUCTION: Creating romantic relationships characterized by high-quality, satisfaction, few conflicts, and reasoning strategies to handle conflicts is an important developmental task for adolescents connected to the relational models they receive from their parents. This study examines how parent-adolescent conflicts, attachment, positive parenting, and communication are related to adolescents' romantic relationship quality, satisfaction, conflicts, and management. METHOD: We interviewed 311 adolescents at two time points (females = 52%, ages 15 and 17) in eight countries (China, Colombia, Italy, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States). Generalized and linear mixed models were run considering the participants' nesting within countries. RESULTS: Adolescents with negative conflicts with their parents reported low romantic relationship quality and satisfaction and high conflicts with their romantic partners. Adolescents experiencing an anxious attachment to their parents reported low romantic relationship quality, while adolescents with positive parenting showed high romantic relationship satisfaction. However, no association between parent-adolescent relationships and conflict management skills involving reasoning with the partner was found. No associations of parent-adolescent communication with romantic relationship dimensions emerged, nor was there any effect of the country on romantic relationship quality or satisfaction. CONCLUSION: These results stress the relevance of parent-adolescent conflicts and attachment as factors connected to how adolescents experience romantic relationships., Research Funding; Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Grant Number: RO1-HD054805 National Institute on Drug Abuse. Grant Number: P30 DA023026 Fogarty International Center. Grant Number: RO3-TW008141

L’adozione viene definita “genitorialità sociale dipendente dal discorso". I membri della famiglia adottiva devono essere socialmente riconosciuti come famiglia e sviluppano la propria identità familiare attraverso la comunicazione, su una dimensione relazionale che incorpora simbolicamente l'aspetto biologico, connette le generazioni e fornisce un contesto di cura per il bambino. Gli aspetti sociali e comunicativi che rivelano la complessità dell'adozione sono un focus specifico di questa tesi. Essa esamina i fattori psicologici e sociali che contribuiscono al benessere della famiglia adottiva, quali le credenze sociali e le rappresentazioni relative all'adozione e alla famiglia adottiva, la comunicazione su temi legati all'adozione nel primo anno dopo l'adozione del bambino, il ruolo dell'attaccamento, della funzione riflessiva e dell'empatia dei genitori sulla comunicazione e il collegamento tra comunicazione e il benessere dei figli adottivi. Il primo capitolo esamina le rappresentazioni sociali del contesto italiano, concentrando l'attenzione su come le persone considerano la presenza di un legame biologico nella famiglia e percepiscono diversi attributi genitoriali se confrontano famiglie adottive e biologiche. I risultati mettono in evidenza la presenza, nel contesto italiano, di una tendenza complessiva a idealizzare solo i genitori adottivi e una connessione tra le credenze sull'importanza dei legami genetici all'interno della famiglia e le preoccupazioni sulle dimensioni e azioni della genitorialità, sottolineando l'importanza per ricercatori e clinici di comprendere le idee socialmente condivise sull'adozione, prevenendo comportamenti negativi verso i membri della famiglia adottiva. Il secondo capitolo si focalizza sui primi dodici mesi dopo l'arrivo del bambino nella famiglia adottiva, usando i rapporti di follow-up per valutare l'inizio della comunicazione legata all'adozione, se i bambini adottati condividono ricordi e chiedono attivamente delle lo, Adoption has been defined as a “social and discourse-dependent” form of parenthood. Adoptive family members need to be socially recognized as a family and establish their identity through communication on a relational dimension that symbolically incorporates the biological aspect, connects generations, and provides a caregiving context for the child. The social and communicative aspects that revealed the complexity of adoption are a specific focus of this dissertation. It examines the psychological and social factors contributing to the overall well-being of the adoptive family, such as social beliefs and representations about adoption and adoptive families, communication about adoption-related themes in the first year after the child’s adoption, the role of parents’ attachment, reflective functioning and empathy in communication about adoption, and the connection between communication and adopted children’s adjustment. The first chapter illustrates how adoption and adoptive family members are perceived in the Italian context, focusing on how people consider the presence and absence of a biological bond within the family and perceive various parenting attributes if they compare adoptive and birth families. Results highlight the presence, in the Italian context, of an overall tendency to idealize only adoptive parents, a connection between the beliefs about the importance of genetic bonds within the family and worries about parenting’s dimensions and actions, informing about perceptions adoptive parents and adopted children confront in their everyday lives in the Italian context, and highlighting the importance for researchers and clinicians to understand socially shared ideas about adoption, preventing negative behaviors toward adoptive family members. The second chapter focuses on the first twelve months after the child’s arrival into the adoptive family, using follow-up reports to evaluate the beginning of adoption-related communication and whether adopted childre

One way in which intercountry adoptees can elaborate on their past history is through travelling to their country of birth. This article explores the memories and experiences recalled by a group of adoptees who visited their homeland after being adopted as children by Italian families. The sample comprised 34 participants aged between 12 and 40 years who visited their birth country between 2000 and 2013. In 2017–2018, they were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to obtain retrospective recall of their experiences and feelings on return to Italy, and how their ethnic identity and psychological well-being had been affected by the trip. The results revealed that the adoptees’ emotional experiences during the return visit significantly affected their feelings towards adoption itself and that it changed their sense of belonging both to Italy and the country where they were born. Most also perceived their return travel as a momentous occasion which increased their overall knowledge about their birth country and its culture. The results are significant for providing new information about how international adoptees incorporate their homeland culture into their lives.

Adolescence is characterized by several transformations, such as identity construction, progressive estrangement from parents, relational interest in peers, and body changes that also involve sexuality issues. In this process, attachment patterns play a fundamental role in relationships, and when these are dysfunctional, they can result in internalizing and externalizing problems. Often, females show their relational difficulties through internalizing expressions and males through externalizing expressions. Additionally, given the sexual progress involved in this life moment, psychological symptomatology may influence adolescents’ perception of sex and performance. Our purpose is to study the mediating role of internalizing and externalizing symptomatology in the relationship between attachment patterns and sexual and psychological dimensions. In addition, we investigated the moderating effect of the sex assigned at birth on this mediation model. n = 493 adolescents (38.3% males; Mage = 16.51; SD = 1.17) participated in the study. The results show a significant mediation effect of internalizing symptomatology on the relationship between attachment and sexual anxiety. Additionally, this effect is moderated significantly by assigned-at-birth sex. These results confirm that in adolescence, attachment patterns can influence adolescents’ perception of sex. The connection between these two psychological dimensions is influenced by symptomatologic expression. Further investigations are needed.

Same-Sex Intimate Partner Violence (SSIPV) among lesbian women has been underestimated until few decades ago. While the association between romantic attachment and SSIPV has been widely demonstrated, mechanisms that mediate this association and the complex relationships between romantic attachment, SSIPV, and SSIPV-specific risk factors have not been adequately investigated to date. The current study assessed the influence of romantic attachment on SSIPV perpetration among lesbian women, exploring the mediating role of internalized homonegativity within this association. Three hundred and twenty-five Italian lesbian women with a mean age of 30 years were recruited and completed the following self-report measures: the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R), the Measure of Internalized Sexual Stigma, and the Revised Conflict Tactics Scale Short Form. The results showed a positive association between attachment anxiety, and general and psychological SSIPV perpetration. Similarly, attachment avoidance was positively related with general, psychological, and physical SSIPV perpetration. The association between romantic attachment, and general and psychological SSIPV was partially mediated by internalized homonegativity. These findings have theoretical implications and provide valuable information to implement services and interventions tailored for SSIPV, to date scarce and not effective.

A mother’s responses to her newborn and her confidence in the child’s caretaking depend on her attachment security, general parental stress, and perceived self-efficacy. However, few studies have analyzed maternal confidence in caretaking and how it is influenced by some mothers’ characteristics. We aimed to examine the association between maternal adult attachment and confidence in a child’s caretaking and to understand whether this relationship was mediated by parenting stress and maternal self-efficacy. The sample consisted of 96 mothers with a mean age of 33 years with newborn children aged between 3 and 30 days. The instruments used were the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R), the Mother and Baby Scale (MABS), the Parenting Stress Index Short Form (PSI-SF), and the Maternal Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (MEQ). The results showed a positive association between attachment avoidance and lack of confidence in caretaking, and this association was mediated by parenting stress. Conversely, attachment anxiety appeared not to influence confidence in caretaking, and maternal self-efficacy did not appear to mediate the relationship between attachment and confidence in the caretaking of infants. Our results could guide new research in studying confidence in caretaking and enable healthcare professionals to recognize at-risk situations early from the first month after childbirth.

La presente ricerca esplora alcune caratteristiche psicologiche presenti nei fratelli con funzione di caregiver di pazienti con gravi patologie psichiche. Gli autori si focalizzano su aspetti quali la percezione della relazione con le figure genitoriali, le esperienze traumatiche, i tratti di personalità e alcune caratteristiche psicosociali. Il campione è costituito da 60 partecipanti: 30 fratelli di persone con gravi patologie psichiatriche (Gruppo A), reperiti all'interno di associazioni di fami liari e servizi psichiatrici territoriali, e 30 partecipanti del gruppo di controllo (Gruppo B) reclutati bilanciandoli al gruppo A in termini di caratteristiche; i partecipanti di entrambi i gruppi risultano residenti al Nord Italia. Sono stati impiegati i seguenti questionari self-report: il Parental Bonding Instrument- PBI, il Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 2-MMPI-2, l'Inventario delle Esperienze Traumatiche- TEC e un Questionario anamnestico. I risultati mettono in luce come i fratelli caregiver di persone con grave disagio psichico presentino diverse caratteristiche peculiari rispetto al gruppo di controllo; ci si riferisce, in particolare, alle caratteristiche della struttura familiare, alle difficoltà relazionali con le figure genitoriali e alle esperienze traumatiche vissute a livello familiare.