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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.

Il presente lavoro di tesi ha un duplice scopo: da un lato indagare le rappresentazioni che gli studenti italiani hanno rispetto all’omosessualità e rispetto all’unione tra persone dello stesso sesso, dall’altro valutare l’efficacia di alcuni interventi di sensibilizzazione volti a migliorare le rappresentazioni degli adolescenti stessi. Il lavoro si compone di tre diversi studi e il campione coinvolto è di circa 1500 partecipanti, di età compresa tra i 14 e i 21 anni. Gli strumenti che abbiamo utilizzato sono l’Attitudes Toward Lesbian and Gay men (ATLG), la Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS), l’ Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage (ATSM) e la Couple Rating Scale (CRS). I risultati del primo e del secondo studio suggeriscono che gli studenti maschi mostrano una rappresentazione più negativa delle femmine rispetto all’omosessualità femminile e maschile. In più, i partecipanti con una rappresentazione più tradizionale del ruolo di genere maschile, con un’assenza di contatto diretto personale con persone omosessuali e coloro i quali affermano di avere un credo religioso, hanno rappresentazioni meno positive rispetto alle minoranze omosessuali e rispetto ai matrimoni tra persone dello stesso sesso. I risultati del terzo studio indicano, invece, che dopo tre diverse attività di sensibilizzazione, sia i maschi, sia le femmine hanno rappresentazioni più positive dell’omosessualità maschile. I partecipanti con atteggiamenti iniziali più negativi, invece, hanno migliorato la propria rappresentazione sia dell’omosessualità maschile, sia di quella femminile, sia quella relativa alle coppie dello stesso sesso. In accordo con Herek et al. (2015), possiamo spiegare i risultati che abbiamo ottenuto grazie a una cornice teorica che ci permette di capire come, sia l’eterosessismo, sia lo stigma sessuale siano ancora radicate all’interno delle principali istituzioni sociali, ma che le cose stiano cambiando al di fuori delle istituzioni stesse. Da un lato in Italia le coppi, This thesis has a double aim: on the one hand, it investigates the attitudes of Italian high school students toward gay men and lesbians and same-sex marriage; on the other hand, it assesses the efficacy of some outreach interventions aimed at improving adolescents’ attitudes toward homosexuality. The research consists of three different studies, and the sample involved is approximately 1500 participants, aged 14-21 years. The instruments used are the Italian version of the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men (ATLG), the Modern Homonegativity Scale (MHS), the Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage (ATSM), and the Couple Rating Scale (CRS). The first two studies suggest that male students show a more negative attitude than females toward lesbians and gay men. Furthermore, multivariate analyses reveal that respondents with more traditional male role attitudes and a lack of direct personal contact with gay people and those professing a religious faith have less positive attitudes toward homosexual minorities and same-sex marriage. The results of the third study indicate that after three different activities, both male and female participants have more positive attitudes toward gay men. On the other hand, participants with more negative initial attitudes improved their representations of male homosexuality, female homosexuality, and same-sex couples. According to Herek, we can explain our results through a theoretical framework that allows us to understand that heterosexism and sexual stigma are still embedded in social institutions but that things are changing in the social context. On the one hand, in Italy, gay and lesbian couples still do not have the same civil rights as heterosexual ones, but today’s adolescents seem to have more positive attitudes than in the past. So, we can hypothesize that things may also change at an institutional level in the future. The hope is that more and more awareness-raising interventions could change the most negative attitudes, leadin

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.