The Angry Cognitions Scale (ACS; Martin and Dahlen in J Ration Emot Cogn Behav Therapy 25(3): 155–173, 2007) is a comprehensive instrument designed to test cognitions that are related to anger. This paper presents data on the Italian-language version of the Angry Cognition Scale-Revised (ACS-R; Soto and DiGiuseppe in which beliefs best predict anger, 2016) in a sample of adolescents aged 11–19 years. The revised version attempted to refine the ACS to better represent Ellis’s theory of irrational beliefs and clarify the coping strategies subscale. Our study attempted to (a) test the factorial structure of the ACS-R-adolescent version, (b) provide psychometric information on internal consistency and test–retest reliability data on the questionnaire in the Italian culture, and (c) test the convergent and predictive validity of the ACS-R-adolescent version relative to other questionnaires. Factor analysis supports a multidimensional model, but the distribution of the items is different from the original validation; in particular, a three-factor solution was supported rather the hypothesized seven factors. Specifically, we labelled the factors as follows: Factor 1 is labelled as Hostile verbal and involves catastrophic cognitive attributions; Factor 2 is labelled Adaptive thoughts on the negative consequences of anger; and Factor 3 is called Demandingness and generalizations. The internal consistency appears optimal for all three factors (from .720 to .888). In addition, analyses reveal good test–retest reliability and convergent validity.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has become a global crisis, necessitating an investigation of its effects from a mental health and wellbeing perspective. In Italy within a few weeks of detecting the first case of coronavirus (February 20, 2020), the country imposed a nationwide quarantine to reduce transmission of the virus disrupting people's daily lives, and creating a significant impact on their physical and mental health. Methods: We sought to test the mediating role of the fear of COVID-19 in the association between mental distress and risky health behaviours in a population of 592 Italian adults, including 467 females and 124 males (M= 39.7; SD= 16.4; range 18-79). First, we hypothesized a direct positive effect of mental distress, measured through the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) on risky health behaviours, recorded throughout an adaptation of the Ebola risk behaviour scale, second, a direct and negative association between mental distress and fear of COVID-19 and the mediation role of Fear of COVID (FCV) between mental distress and risky health behaviours. Results: Mental distress and risky behaviours showed to be tied thanks to the mediation of fear of the COVID-19. This relationship is an essential indicator of the role of decreased mental health in alleviating fear and exposing people to risky behaviours. Conclusions: Good mental health could protect from risk-taking behaviours when fear is not intervening as a mediator, while psychologically distressed people could perceive less fear of getting infected and be exposed to harmful and dangerous behaviours that could increase the risk of contracting the COVID-19. Our findings might help in promoting healthy behaviours during the pandemic outbreak.

The worldwide degradation of coral reefs due to local and global threats has, in the past decade, sparked the diffusion of active coral restoration programs which aim at supporting the natural process of recovery. Yet, most coral restoration projects limit monitoring to few ecological factors. The ability of measuring the effectiveness of these projects, including their socio-economic dimensions, could increase their credibility and determine their further expansion through ease access to financial resources. Here, we measured the satisfaction and the relative importance of key characteristics of the reef or "reef attributes'' for clients and residents of resorts in the Maldives through Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). Results of the fieldwork show that reef users in two resorts were not satisfied about the color, the quantity and the variety of the coral present in the locations. On the same items, importance ratings were very high thus indicating that a gap between satisfaction and importance and possibly highlighting a need for intervention. Some results were also gender-specific: women were much less satisfied than men but more willing to participate to a local coral restoration project. We recommend that evaluation of coral restoration programs include reef users' satisfaction to provide a measure of effectiveness and potentially to ensure initial and longer-term support to the initiative. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Le famiglie sono messe alla sfida dalla comunicazione della disabilità del proprio bambino. Hanno bisogno di ricreare un nuovo equilibrio per affrontare una difficoltà con un impatto così soverchiante. L'accettazione della disabilità del proprio bambino non è un processo che avviene in automatico. I genitori di bambini con disabilità di grado medio e grave sperimentano alti livelli di stress e di responsabilità, con effetti comparabili a quelli di un evento traumatico. L'Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) permette la riorganizzazione dei ricordi in un modo adattivo e funzionale in accordo ai principi dell'Adaptive Information Processing, riducendo quindi il loro impatto emozionale. L'EMDR promuove un'elaborazione adattiva dell'esperienza traumatica di ricevere una diagnosi e una prognosi negativa riguardante il proprio bambino. Questo lavoro ha lo scopo di indagare l'efficacia di un protocollo di trattamento integrativo di gruppo (EMDR-IGTP). Hanno fatto parte dello studio 39 genitori e il trattamento consisteva in 10 sessioni di gruppo. Sono stati misurati lo stress emozionale, le strategie di coping e la crescita post-traumatica prima del trattamento e tre mesi dopo il termine del progetto, attraverso un confronto tra la media di diverse scale cliniche. Questi risultati preliminari rilevano un miglioramento nei punteggi della Scala della crescita post-traumatica dopo il trattamento. Il lavoro illustrerà il protocollo d'intervento e i risultati

AIM To explore the association between metacognitive beliefs, rumination and shyness in a non-clinical sample of adults. METHODS One hundred and three healthy subjects from the general population were enrolled in the study. Shyness was evaluated using the Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, rumination was assessed using the Ruminative Response Scale, metacognition was evaluated using the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire 30, and anxiety levels were measured using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory form Y. Correlation analyses, mediation models and 95% bias-corrected and accelerated (BCaCI) bootstrapped analyses were performed. Mediation analyses were adjusted for sex and anxiety. RESULTS Shyness, rumination and metacognition were significantly correlated (P < 0.05). The relationship between metacognition and shyness was fully mediated by rumination (Indirect effect: 0.20; 95% BCaCI: 0.08-0.33). CONCLUSION These findings suggest an association between metacognition and shyness. Rumination mediated the relationship between metacognition and shyness, suggesting that rumination could be a cognitive strategy for shy people. Future research should explore the relationship between these constructs in more depth.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) models show both similarities and differences in conceptualizing anxiety. This work assumes that REBT’s irrational and MCT’s metacognitive beliefs play a mediation role while CBT’s disorder specific content beliefs act as triggers. This hypothesis is tested using a regression model in which metacognitive and irrational beliefs play a mediation role while content disorder beliefs are independent variables. This paper applied this model to generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), a psychiatric diagnosis in which anxiety is the major feature. In GAD, the specific content beliefs are negative problem orientation and intolerance of uncertainty. Therefore, 149 non clinical subjects completed 4 self-report questionnaires: the Negative Orientation to the Problems Questionnaire and the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale as measures for content cognitive beliefs, the Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for irrational beliefs, and the Metacognitive Questionnaire 30 Items Version for metacognitive beliefs. The generalized anxiety disorder questionnaire was chosen in order to measure anxiety as dependent variable. Regression analyses confirmed that irrational and metacognitive beliefs mediate the relation between cognitive content beliefs and GAD. We clinically interpret mediation as a second level regulation.

The objective of this study was to investigate the relative contribution of temperament and parental style in predicting Desire Thinking and Anger Rumination. 200 Italian adolescents (mean age: 15.79 ± 1.35, range 14-19) were administered self-report questionnaires to assess anxiety, depression, temperament, parental style, Desire Thinking and Anger Rumination. Hierarchical regression analyses and GLM have been implemented to investigate predictor’s effects. Results showed that Desire Thinking was predicted by low levels of Maternal Overprotection and Harm Avoidance, high levels of Novelty Seeking, whereas Anger Rumination was predicted by low levels of Maternal Overprotection, high levels of Novelty Seeking and Reward Dependence. GLM found significant interaction effects between the two variables Maternal Overprotection/Harm Avoidance for Desire Thinking. Differently, in the model on Anger Rumination we found significant interaction effects between the two variables Maternal Overprotection/Reward Dependence and Novelty Seeking/Reward Dependence. Results present important clinical implications. In particular, the knowledge of environmental and temperamental risk factors can help to identify subjects at high risk for Desire Thinking and Anger Rumination, in order to prevent psychopathology connected with these rigid thinking processes.

The aim of this exploratory study was to investigate the correlation between cultural and psychological factors in relation to predicting eating disorders in two different non-clinical Italian (n = 61) and Swedish (n = 31) female populations, thought to have different cultures and lifestyles. The Swedish sample would reflect an emancipated model of women pursuing autonomy and freedom but also an ideal of thinness, while the Italian sample would reflect a difficult transition from traditional submissiveness to modern autonomy. Both groups completed self-report instruments assessing cultural values (e.g., collectivism and individualism) and features of eating disorders (e.g., drive for thinness, bulimia, body dissatisfaction, self-esteem, parental criticism and perfectionism). Swedish women were found to display higher levels of bulimia, perfectionism, and individualism than Italian women, while regression analysis showed that in the Italian sample high levels of collectivism were correlated with measures of EDs. The results support the hypothesis that EDs are linked with both modern values of autonomy, independence and emancipation, and situations of cultural transition in which women are simultaneously exposed to traditional models of submission and opportunities for emancipation and autonomy.

BACKGROUND Emotional instability and dyscontrolled behaviours are central features in borderline personality disorder (BPD). Recently, some cognitive dysfunctional mechanisms, such as anger rumination, have been found to increase negative emotions and promote dyscontrolled behaviours. Even though rumination has consistently been linked to BPD traits in non-clinical samples, its relationship with problematic behaviour has yet to be established in a clinical population. AIM The purpose of the study was to explore the relationships between emotional dysregulation, anger rumination and aggression proneness in a clinical sample of patients with BPD. METHODS Enrolled patients with personality disorders (93 with BPD) completed a comprehensive assessment for personality disorder symptoms, anger rumination, emotional dysregulation and aggression proneness. RESULTS Anger rumination was found to significantly predict aggression proneness, over and above emotional dysregulation. Furthermore, both BPD diagnosis and anger rumination were significant predictors of aggression proneness. CONCLUSION Future research should examine whether clinical techniques aimed at reducing rumination are helpful for reducing aggressive and other dyscontrolled behaviours in treating patients with BPD.

Research has indicated that beliefs about inflated responsibility, beliefs about perceived control over anxiety-related events and reactions (anxiety control) and metacognitive beliefs about the need to control thoughts are associated with obsessive compulsive symptoms. In the current study we tested a mediation model of the interactions between these variables in predicting obsessive compulsive symptoms. Thirty-seven individuals with obsessive compulsive disorder and 31 controls completed the following self-report instruments: the Responsibility Attitude Scale, the Anxiety Control Scale, the Beliefs about Need to Control Thoughts sub-scale of the Metacognitions Questionnaire 30, and the Padua Inventory. Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that participants in the clinical group scored significantly higher than those in the non-clinical group on all variables. In the mediation model we found that the relationship between beliefs about inflated responsibility and obsessive compulsive symptoms was fully mediated by anxiety control and beliefs about the need to control thoughts. These findings provide support for the significant role played by beliefs about control in predicting the severity of obsessive compulsive symptoms.

The scientific literature has suggested that stress undergirds the development of eating disorders (ED). Therefore, this study explored whether laboratory induced stress increases self-reported drive for thinness and bulimic symptoms measured via self-report. The relationship between control, perfectionism, stress, and cognition related to ED was examined using correlational methodology. Eighty-six participants completed an experimental task using a personal computer (PC). All individuals completed a battery of tests before and after the stressful task. Analyses showed a significant statistical increase in average scores on the drive for thinness and bulimia measured before and after a stressful task, and path analysis revealed two different cognitive models for the mechanism leading to drive for thinness and bulimia. These findings suggest that stress is an important factor in the development of the drive for thinness and bulimia.

Summary Bringing to bear an ecological perspective on functioning and well-being, the present work investigated the relationship between impact of trauma in children living in war-like conditions and their parents’ quality of life (QoL). Seventy-four school-aged children completed self-report measures assessing their personal life satisfaction and perceptions of parental support. Fifty-three parents completed self-report measures assessing their own quality of life. Findings Although these Palestinian children presented a moderate degree of traumatization, they nonetheless continued to display considerable resources and functioning factors in terms of satisfaction with their families, school and environment. However, ‘social suffering’ on the part of families, which impacts on economic, social, political, and cultural aspects of health and well-being, may undermine the resources that children can draw on in adjusting to trauma. Applications Clinical and social work interventions should be targeted at strengthening aspects of positive functioning, rather than at ‘correcting’ symptoms protecting Palestinian social capital, in terms of cohesion at the levels of clan, family and community networks.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) assumes that therapeutic change de-pends mainly on change of cognitive content, while, from a theoretical viewpoint, other processes are excluded. This study aims to explore standard CBT interventions using a model of therapeutic change that includes both emotional and cognitive processes, i.e., the therapeutic cycle model (TCM; Mergenthaler, 1985; 1996), which describes the pro-cesses of therapeutic change in terms of cycles involving both emotional arousal and ab-stract thinking activation. We classified standard CBT interventions in three main are-as: assessing, disputing, and reframing biased beliefs. In 10 individual cognitive therapy sessions with a 30-year-old patient affected by a panic disorder with agoraphobia (PDA), this study aimed to explore whether cognitive interventions are not only related to abstract thinking but also to the emotional activation phases of TCM. Three inde-pendent judges assessed the presence of cognitive therapeutic interventions using the Comprehensive Psychotherapeutic Interventions Rating Scale (CPIRS; Trijsburg et al., 2002). A software program measured the TCM cognitive and emotional variables. The measures revealed significant correlations between cognitive therapeutic interventions and phases of abstract thinking activation during the therapeutic process. The results clarified the role of cognitive interventions in the therapeutic process as a useful instru-ment aimed to increase reality testing.

Emotional dysregulation is a process which consists in mitigating, intensifying, or maintaining a given emotion and is the trigger for some psychological disorders. Research has shown that an anxiety control plays an important role in emotional expression and regulation and, in addition, for anorexia nervosa (AN) and, more in general, in drive for thinness. Scientific literature suggests that in AN there is a core of emotional dysregulation and anxiety control. The aim of this study is to explore the roles of emotional dysregulation and anxiety control as independent or third variables in a mediational regression model related to drive for thinness. One hundred fifty-four clinical individuals with anorexia participated in the study and all completed a set of self-report questionnaires: eating disorders inventory version 3 (EDI-3), DERS, and the anxiety control questionnaire. The data confirmed a mediational model in which the relation between emotional dysregulation and drive for thinness is mediated by anxiety control. The current study partially supports a clinical model in which emotional dysregulation is a distal factor in eating disorders while the mediator variable anxiety control is a proximal factor in the psychopathological process underlying it.

Given the evidence for the dysfunctional effects of rumination, the fundamental question remains: why depressed patients continue to ruminate over long periods of time? Watkins has shown that unconstructive repetitive thought is focused on "why", aiming at detecting the personal reasons of negative events. This strategy leads people to find evaluative answers of personal inadequacy or negativity of the world. The research aims at (a) test the hypotheses that why RI is significantly correlated to negative mood, even when controlling for depressive symptoms; (b) test whether non-clinical participants really tend to prefer the "how" RI, when coping with an unexpected negative event of everyday life; this results would suggest that the "how" style is more functional than the "why" style; (c) exploring beliefs that may guide the choice between the "how" or the "why" modes; (d) investigate the influence of a previous choice on the subsequent thinking style. 212 participants have been recruited. We include questionnaires about rumination and depression and 8 vignette describing negative unexpected situations, followed by three tasks. The results confirm the detrimental role of why focused repetitive thinking on mood state and show a significant influence of a "why tendency". (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background: The perception of self-discrepancies between the actual self and the ideal self has been defined as a cognitive risk factor for depression (Higgins, 1987). In this view, self-discrepancy monitoring (SDM) refers to the voluntary re-orientation of attention towards detecting discrepancies between ideal and actual selves, even in a positive situation. Aims: The goal of this study was to explore the impact of SDM on levels of mood in the face of positive stimuli. Method: Two clinical and two non-clinical samples were recruited from two different European countries (Italy and Romania). All participants were asked to focus on a past positive experience, and were then randomly allocated to one of two induction tasks. The experimental condition consisted of monitoring discrepancies between personal goals and the recalled positive experience, while the control condition consisted of observing what the participant was feeling. Results: The findings show that, after recalling a positive memory, SDM leads to a significant decrease in mood over a short period independent of the severity of depressive symptoms. This effect is partially mediated by the concurrent change in levels of brooding. Conclusions: Self-discrepancy monitoring in response to positive stimuli tends to lower current mood independent of the initial level of depressive symptoms, and seems to be a global trigger of emotional distress that does not refer only to a depressed cognitive style.

This study explored the moderating effect of sense of coherence on the impact of trauma and psychological health in a group of helpers and social workers operating in war contexts. We hypothesised that a strong ability to construct meaning in uncertain and traumatic conditions would favour psychological well-being and quality, limiting the direct and indirect effects of war-related trauma. Three self-reported measuresuSense of Coherence (SOC-29) Scale, Impact of Events Scale (IES) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ)uwere completed by 140 helpers operating in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (Occupied Palestinian Territories). Multivariate analysis of variance, partial correlational analysis and mediation (path) analysis were carried out to verify the effects of sense of coherence on psychological stress and trauma. The moderating effect of sense of coherence on mental health and impact of trauma was confirmed. No gender differences emerged in the subgroups. Implications for civilian populations affected by war are discussed.

Introduction: Desire thinking is a voluntary cognitive process involving verbal and imaginal elaboration of a desired target. Recent research has highlighted the role of desire thinking in the maintenance of addictive disorders over and above that of other psychological antecedents including negative affect and urges. The goal of this research project was to explore the role of desire thinking across the continuum of nicotine dependence. Method: A sample of 156 smokers recruited from the general population completed measures of negative affect, smoking urges, desire thinking and nicotine dependence. Results: Individuals high on nicotine dependence reported significantly higher scores on desire thinking dimensions controlling for age, gender, negative affect and smoking urges. In addition, the verbal perseveration component of desire thinking was the strongest predictor of nicotine dependence independently of negative affect and smoking urges across the nicotine dependence spectrum. Conclusions: Findings suggest that desire thinking may be a risk factor for nicotine dependence and that cognitive-behavioural interventions for treating nicotine dependence may benefit from targeting specifically desire thinking.

Cognitive theory conceptualizes worry as influenced by metacognitive beliefs about worry, intolerance of uncertainty, and perceptions of control over events and reactions. This study tests the hypothesis that the effect of intolerance of uncertainty would interact with meta-cognitive beliefs on worry and perceived control. One hundred eighteen individuals with generalized anxiety disorder and 54 controls completed the Meta-Cognition Questionnaire, the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale, the Anxiety Control Scale, and the Penn State Worry Questionnaire. Models were tested measuring interactive effects in multiple regression linear analysis. The interaction model was confirmed. The effect of intolerance of uncertainty on worry was increased by its interaction with metacognitive and control beliefs. The finding emphasizes the significant role of metacognitive and control beliefs in the cognitive process that leads to the development of worry. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.