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Purpose: Research on quality of working life in academia appears surprisingly rare in many countries, and in some cases nearly absent. Trying to fill this gap, a team formed by W/O psychologists from 16 Italian universities developed a tool for the assessment of psychosocial risks as well as workers health and wellbeing in universities. The validation of this tool (theoretically based on the Job Demands- Resources model) will be presented in this contribution. Design: A pilot study was conducted on a sample of 120 Italian university researchers/teachers, to make a preliminary test of the psychometric properties of the tool. In order to finalize the validation of the tool a second study was planned on a sample of 1500 researchers/teachers. Results: Factorial analysis and reliability check reported satisfying and promising evidence of the robustness of the tool. Limitations: The pilot nature of the study only allowed us to obtain preliminary results, that should be further examined on a wider sample. The second study will help to support these preliminary results with a more robust confirmatory approach. Practical Implications: Results indicated that the proposed tool is reliable and could be used for depicting university researchers/teachers’ health, wellbeing, and working conditions. Moreover, useful insights for implementing organizational interventions could also be obtained. Originality/Value: The tool, proposed by a team of W/O psychologists from 16 Italian universities, aims to offer the academic community with a scientifically reliable diagnostic tool, able to suggest also useful insights for the improvement of working conditions and wellbeing.

In one theory as perceived surprise increases, arousal increases and pleasantness increase up to a point, after which it levels off or decreases. However, studies indicate that for environmental response, arousal and pleasantness are independent of one another. Those studies did not examine movement through spaces. We sought to study response to surprise as experienced in moving between pairs of offices. We created three simulated offices (A, B, and C) and nine virtual walks between each possible pair, such that some walks had no physical differences (AA, BB, and CC), some had moderate physical differences (AB, BA, BC, CB), and some had larger physical differences (AC, CA). A test confirmed that the manipulations worked as planned. To measure arousal and pleasantness, we created two three-item scales (each in English and Italian). We assigned participants in the US (121 adults, 47 men, 84 men) and Italy (67 adults, 343 men, 33 women) at random to either a within-group condition or one of the three between-group conditions (Low Surprise, Medium Surprise, or High Surprise). We used the within group to test the CFA model, and we used the between group conditions to test the effects of surprise. The CFA found the two three-item scales fit the multi-level model well. We combined the items into two three-item scales for the analysis of effects of surprise. Both arousal and pleasantness increased from low to moderate surprise, but decreased from moderate to high surprise. The results suggest value in studying dynamic environmental experience., Visions for Sustainability, No 11 (2019)