Background Sexual dissatisfaction is common among women and is frequently associated with cognitive processes that interfere with sexual experience. Metacognitive models highlight negative beliefs about the uncontrollability and danger of thoughts as key mechanisms sustaining worry, yet their role in sexual dissatisfaction in non-clinical women remains underexplored.Objective This study examined associations between worry, metacognitive beliefs, and sexual dissatisfaction, testing whether negative metacognitive beliefs mediate the relationship between worry and sexual dissatisfaction.Methods The sample included 304 sexually active Italian-speaking women (M age = 31.96, SD = 9.01) who completed the Sexual Dissatisfaction subscale of the BISF-W, the MCQ-30, and the PSWQ. Correlation analyses, hierarchical regressions, and mediation analyses were conducted.Results Sexual dissatisfaction was positively associated with worry and metacognitive beliefs. Worry predicted sexual dissatisfaction, but this association became non-significant when negative metacognitive beliefs were included. A significant indirect effect of worry on sexual dissatisfaction through negative metacognitive beliefs emerged, while other metacognitive domains did not show consistent mediation effects.Conclusions Sexual dissatisfaction in non-clinical women appears primarily linked to negative metacognitive beliefs rather than worry itself, suggesting these beliefs as relevant targets for intervention.

Using the Elaborated Intrusion Theory of Desire and the Self-Regulatory Executive Function model of psychopathology as bases, this study explored whether metacognitive beliefs and desire thinking (DT) are associated with higher levels of Compulsive Sexual Behavior (CSB). A total of 1185 participants from the general population were included in the study (mean ± SD age = 25.32 years ± 5.58; age range = 18-19 years; females = 76.7 %). Metacognitive beliefs, DT, CSB, anxiety and depressive symptoms were assessed. Correlation analyses and path analyses were run. Results of the path analysis showed that positive metacognitive beliefs about DT were associated with DT-Imaginal Prefiguration (DT-IP), which in turn was positively associated with DT-Verbal Perseveration (DT-VP). The latter was strongly and positively associated with negative metacognitive beliefs about DT, which in turn was linked to CSB. Moreover, DT-VP was also found to be directly linked to the outcome variable and positive metacognitive beliefs about DT were also directly linked to DT-VP and negative metacognitive beliefs about DT. The total Coefficient of Determination (0.45) indicated a good fit to the observed data. Metacognitive beliefs and DT may be potential maintenance factors in CSB. Metacognitive beliefs and DT could also be considered as potential therapeutic targets in clinical interventions aimed at reducing the severity of CSB.

Sexual dysfunctions could lead individuals to experience severe impairments in health and everyday life; metacognition could play an important role in the development of sexual dysfunctions. This study aimed to synthesize evidence from studies investigating the associations between sexual dysfunctions and metacognitive beliefs. According to the PRISMA statement, literature analysis is conducted on PubMed, PsycInfo, PsycArticles, and Google Scholar. 837 participants from six studies were included; five articles were cross-sectional studies, and one was a randomized clinical trial. Individuals with sexual dysfunction adopt more metacognitive beliefs compared to the general population. The association between sexual dysfunctions and metacognitions did not show gender differences. Men with erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation show high negative metacognitive beliefs, cognitive self-consciousness, and need to control thoughts. Women with sexual dysfunctions show higher scores in negative metacognitive beliefs, cognitive self-consciousness, and need to control thoughts than the general population; the results also point out that metacognitive beliefs could have a greater influence on sexual dysfunctions than other variables such as painful symptoms. The present study has succeeded in highlighting metacognitive beliefs' role in sexual dysfunctions and the potential benefits of MCT in dealing with these conditions. The objective of this manuscript was to conduct a systematic review of research papers that connect metacognition and sexual dysfunction. The articles' primary objectives focus on the correlation between the two variables and the finding that people who experience sexual dysfunction report having more meta-beliefs. Research and clinical implications are discussed.

The present paper is aimed at highlighting the changing pathways of the knowledge production process in the Higher Education and University System. Particularly, special attention is given to the impact of historical turning points in our society, like the World War II, the capitalism, and the advent of globalization, on the re-organization of the University and research institutes according to the criteria and mechanisms of the market. Alongside the spreading of mass higher education, the issue of how defining excellence, relevance, and quality of research and teaching activities arise, as well as the issue of ranking scientific works, researchers, and journals. This has forced the introduction of quantitative indicators to evaluate the big amount of research outputs and, in parallel, fostered the creation of quality hierarchies to better orient experts in the research field. This revolutionary change of paradigm was supported by the loss of trust in the process of peer-review that paved the way for the emergence of the need of having alternative parameters to rank the scientific work of a researcher. The pro and cons of bibliometric indexes and peer-review procedures are discussed.

Vulnerable topographies, geographies of conflicts and morphologies are reservoirs of resilience to react to the social, economic, and environmental neoliberal crisis. The aim of this contribution is to investigate the current state of vulnerability in relation to climate, politic, and economic crisis in extreme territories such as Chile. These territories are leftovers of the capitalist neoliberal mode of space occupation, yet they can represent reservoirs of resilience for developing different interactions with the landscape and its ecology. The first question that the paper aims to investigate is the relation between land and the informal issue in the extreme Chilean territory. The analytical reading of the Chilean terre that we want to propose is based on social, cultural, and natural geographical conditions. In order to spatialize the Chilean context, it becomes necessary to talk about Espace to introduce spatial categories into social criticism. Thus, an open process based on mapping is set to identify a methodology to identify the risk and resources of these extreme areas. Finally, the Gran Valparaíso region case is set to visualize these spaces as geographies of possibilities.

Inspired by Donna Haraway’s concept of Making Kind, the investigation of the relationships between different objects of nature and non-nature subjected to today’s climate change is born. Looking today at the transformations of the planet, Chile represents an exemplary case study. Within its particular geomorphological condition, it is impossible to exclude the continuous evolution separating humans from other living species. This integration is the rise of campamentos, Chilean informal settlements. This contribution investigates the natural processes and informality in Chile through the lens of Landscape ecology. Specifically, it analyses the symbiotic relationship between the informal development and the morphological conformation of the natural Chilean context, with the consequent intersection of the inhabited space and the natural one.