Dora Bianchi

Sapienza University of Rome | la sapienza · Department of Developmental and Social Psychology

Background The long-lasting consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological well-being of young people have become an emerging research topic, which still raises several questions for post-pandemic interventions at the individual and community levels. This research investigated the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic life events and t...

Purpose This study investigated the associations between retrospective reports of body image victimization (i.e. body shaming) perpetrated by peers and by parents during childhood or adolescence, and food and alcohol disturbance (FAD) in young adulthood, considering the possible mediating role of psychological distress (i.e. subthreshold symptoms o...

The gender differences in the linguistic competencies of young children are not consistently found. However, some studies with children (Eriksson et al., 2012; Kaushanskaya et al., 2013) and with adults (e.g., Herlitz et al., 1999) have shown that females outperform males on linguistic tasks. It is fundamental to have a reliable direct measure for...

Studies have shown a significant association between effective parasympathetic modulation of the heart and processes linked to social cognition. Particularly, Quintana and colleagues documented a relation between vagally-mediated heart rate variability (vmHRV) and performance on a theory of mind (ToM) task, namely, the Reading the Mind in the Eyes...

Background The long-lasting consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on the psychological well-being of young people have become an emerging research topic, which still raises several questions for post-pandemic interventions at the individual and community levels. This research investigated the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic life events and t...

Partendo dal costrutto multidimensionale dell’immagine corporea di Cash e colleghi, lo studio propone un modello di mediazione moderata per spiegare la relazione tra due schemi del sé sull’aspetto fisico: salienza autovalutativa e salienza motivazionale (X1; X2), la soddisfazione per l’immagine corporea (M) e il binge eating (Y), ipotizzando effett...

The first aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between bullying victimization and social anxiety in native and migrant adolescents in Italy. Specifically, it was hypothesized that migrant adolescents (in comparison with natives) experience more frequent episodes of bullying victimization, which in turn, may be a risk factor for the...

Background: Existing evidence showed that social anxiety represents a significant factor in eating disorders. However, to our knowledge, no prior study has examined the association between social anxiety and drunkorexia behaviors. Objectives: The present study aimed at exploring the relationship between social anxiety and drunkorexia behaviors, and...

The Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®) is an intervention targeting social skills for autistic adolescents and those with other social challenges. The efficacy of the PEERS® on adolescents has been extensively explored but the program has not been validated in Italy. In the present study, we adapted PEERS® to Ita...

Background: Dysfunctional metacognitive processes and emotional dysregulation have been widely documented in the eating disorder literature. Despite numerous research and recent consensus suggesting the categorization of orthorexia nervosa as a form of eating disorder, no previous study has examined whether aberrant metacognitive processes also cor...

Purpose: The role of body image in adolescent binge eating is widely confirmed, albeit the various facets of this relationship are still mostly unexplored. Within the multidimensional body image framework, this study hypothesized the indirect effects of three body image coping strategies (positive rational acceptance, appearance fixing, avoidance)...

Stemming on the theoretical framework of individualism-collectivism, this study aims to interpret COVID-19 prevention behaviors in young adults in the light of cultural orientations, hypothesizing the mediating role of two pandemic affects (i.e., fear for COVID-19 consequences and psychological distress during pandemic). Participants were 296 young...

The present study investigated protective and risk factors for psychological difficulties in children and adolescents during the COVID-19 lockdown. Specifically, the role of increased use of digital devices (DDs) for recreational purposes and the role of free time spent with parents were explored. Furthermore, the possible mediating effect of incre...

The Words in Game Test (Wing; Cattani et al., 2019) is an early screening tool to assess vocabulary skills in English-speaking toddlers. The study aims to provide new evidence for the psychometric properties and diagnostic accuracy (i.e. sensitivity and specificity) of the test, complementing previous validation studies.

This poster is a systematic review on the spontaneous production of word “thank you” in social contexts. This systematic review aims to research published, unpublished articles, and unpublished theses on children's first spontaneous production of the word «thank you».

The COVID-19 outbreak negatively affected young adults’ psychological well-being, increasing their stress levels and symptoms of anxiety and depression, and potentially triggering health-risk behaviors. The present study was aimed at investigating the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol abuse and drunkorexia behaviors among you...

The present study investigated the effects of leisure activities and online peer relationships on the development of psychological difficulties in adolescents during the COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. Data were collected in April and May 2020. The parents of 1,020 Italian adolescents aged 14–18 (51.9% girls) completed questionnaires about the experien...

Italian adolescents returned to school in September 2021 after almost one year of online school lessons due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The prolonged deprivation of social contacts with peers and teachers at school and new difficulties implied by digital learning may have impaired relational and emotional adjustment through a loss of critical develop...

Introduction: Sexting refers to the exchange of sexually or provocative contents (messages, images, videos) via smartphones and Social networks. It has received substantial public health attention because of its associations with moral disengagement, health risky behaviors, and autoregulatory self-efficacy. Nevertheless, little research has be done...

Background: Although metacognition processes are a core feature of restrictive eating and alcohol cravings and entail an individual to control both of his/her emotions and thoughts, yet, to our knowledge, a scarcity of research has examined their potential role in drunkorexia as cognitive and emotional predictors. The following study investigates t...

Background: Drunkorexia refers to limited intake of high calorie food to avert gaining weight and the need to increase in alcohol excessive consumption. The present study aimed to check for an association between depression, anxiety, and stress with drunkorexia behaviors/motives among Lebanese adults, while evaluating the mediating role of inapprop...

Background Food and alcohol disturbance (FAD) represents a phenomenon characterized by a range of dysfunctional eating behaviors individuals engage in when they plan to drink alcohol in order to compensate for alcohol-related calories. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between FAD and coping styles among young adults....

This study investigated COVID-19 preventive behaviors in young adults, exploring the predictive roles of health locus of control and pandemic fear. A sample of 188 Italian young adults (M age = 22.76, SD age = 1.95; 85% girls) completed an anonymous online survey assessing preventive behaviors, health locus of control styles (i.e. internal, chance,...

Purpose The COVID-19 lockdown measures have had a significant impact on risk behaviors as alcohol use and disordered eating. However, little is known about a serious health-risk-behavior named “food and alcohol disturbance” (FAD), characterized by engaging in dysfunctional eating on days of planned alcohol consumption. The aim of the present study...

/*Free access to the article before April 2022. Share link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1egxChNfKvcMs ABSTRACT: School absenteeism is a serious problem among very-low-income students, with long-term consequences for well-being. Unfortunately, most acknowledged risk factors are difficult to modify through school-based interventions. However it i...

This study investigated binge behaviors during COVID-19 lockdown in Italy, exploring individual and contextual risk factors. Participants were 1925 emerging adults (M age = 24.18, SD age = 2.75; 71.9% women), recruited during the national lockdown in Italy. An online survey investigated binge behaviors both prior and during quarantine. Binge drinki...

Positive developmental outcomes among youth living in poverty have rarely been studied. Despite numerous risk factors, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to positive developmental outcomes among youth in poverty. Using the Self-Determination Theory framework, this two-wave longitudinal study investigated the contribution of b...

Introduction This study investigated the relationships of pandemic-related stress and coping strategies with different kinds of sexting (i.e., experimental, risky, and emotional) during the COVID-19 lockdown in the Italian context. Methods A sample of 1929 emerging adults ( M age = 24.17, SD age = 2.75; 71.6% girls) completed an online survey abou...

This study investigated the individual and contextual correlates of problematic alcohol use among young adults during COVID-19 lockdown in Italy. Participants were 1533 young adults aged 18 to 26 (Mage = 23.12, SDage = 2.11; 73.2% women), who completed an online survey during national lockdown. Inclusion criteria for this study were the age-range (...

Sexting is the exchange of sexually suggestive contents via Internet, Smartphone, and Social Networking Websites. Recently, the research on sexting motivations increased in order to distinguish between experimental and aggravated sexting. This study investigated individual correlates of three sexting motivations: sexual purposes, instrumental/aggra...

According to the triangular love theory, this study investigated the roles of three components of love (i.e., passion, intimacy, commitment) and the moderating role of conflicts in predicting different forms of sexting (i.e., experimental, nonconsensual, under pressure) in teen dating relationships. Participants were 409 adolescents (M age = 17.20,...

The psychological well-being at school of immigrant students living in poverty is currently an understudied topic in developmental psychology. This is an important shortcoming because this population, which is rapidly increasing in many western countries, is in a double minority condition and has a greater risk of experiencing psychological distres...

Background Very-low-income students are a population at a high risk of perpetrating and suffering bullying at school, and at the same time the peer group at school is often one of the few sources of support for these minors. Objective This two-wave study is aimed to disambiguate the two different roles of peer acceptance and friendship on bullying...

PurposeAlthough drunkorexia seems to represent a new form of eating disorder, it shares several features with traditional eating disorders. However, very little is known about the association between drunkorexia and a widely studied correlate of eating disorders, such as psychological distress and about mechanisms underlying this association. The p...

Background: Sexting is an increasingly common phenomenon among adolescents and young adults. Some studies have investigated the role of personality traits in different sexting behaviors within mainstream personality taxonomies like Big Five and HEXACO. However, very few studies have investigated the role of maladaptive personality factors in sexti...

This study aimed to investigate Theory of Mind (ToM) and emotional awareness in drunkorexia, an emerging behavior characterized by calorie restriction when drinking alcohol is planned. A sample of 246 adolescents (148 females, 98 males; range 17–20) completed self-reported measures assessing drunkorexia, ToM and lack of emotional awareness. Drunkor...

Background Social anxiety is negatively related to peer communication quality during adolescence, with detrimental consequences for social functioning. However, the research about the factors that may moderate this relationship is still limited, and no studies have yet explored the possible interaction role of empathy systems.Objective The study in...

The present study, based on data concerning 2328 immigrant children attending a representative sample of 561 schools, investigates the impact of various group, family and individual characteristics as well as proficiency in the national language on acceptance and friendship among classmates, while controlling for measurement errors by means of a st...

Moral Disengagement (MD) has been found to be related to higher levels of different aggressive and bullying behaviours. Although some studies found that it plays an important role in cyberbullying too, results in this field are still puzzling and the association between MD and cyberbullying is still unclear. Therefore, this systematic review was ai...

Sexting has been defined as sharing sexually suggestive content (i.e., sexts) via Internet or smartphone. To date, only a few studies investigated the role of personality traits in relation to sending or receiving sexts, and most of them used the Five Factor Model of Personality. No studies applied the theoretical model of HEXACO six personality tr...

Purpose Drunkorexia represents an emerging phenomenon that is still understudied especially among adolescents. The present study aimed to investigate the relation between drunkorexia and psychological characteristics relevant and commonly associated with existing forms of eating disorders. Methods The sample was composed of 849 adolescents (513 bo...

Although metacognitive dysfunction has been associated with eating disorders, to our knowledge no study has yet explored the relation between metacognition and drunkorexia. The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential role of metacognitive processes in drunkorexia in a sample of adolescents. A total sample of 719 adolescents (353 f...

La drunkorexia consiste nel ridurre l’assunzione di calorie prima del consumo di alcol, ed è un comportamento a rischio molto diffuso in adolescenza. Questo studio indaga il ruolo predittivo del funzionamento familiare nell’assunzione di comportamenti di drunkorexia in adolescenza, controllando per gli effetti delle variabili anagrafiche (genere, e...

Binge eating and binge drinking are two of the most common health-risk behaviors among young people showing to frequently co-occur in nonclinical samples of adolescent boys and girls. The present study examined the role of different dimensions of family functioning in binge behaviors among adolescents. One thousand and twenty young to late adolesce...

Homophobic bullying is bullying related to sexual orientation and gender identity. This study investigated the moderating role of the dark triad traits (i.e., psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) in the relationship between being a victim of homophobic bullying and being in turn a perpetrator of homophobic bullying. Participants were 285...

Online exchange of sexual content (“sexting”) is associated with potentially negative consequences, especially for girls. We investigated possible associations between family functioning and girls’ sexting. Italian teenage girls ( N = 250; M age = 16.36 years; SD age = 1.88) completed online surveys that evaluated family functioning (communication,...

Background: Heavy episodic drinking (HED) implies severe consequences for health, both in the short and long term. Peer conformity has shown contradictory relationships with HED, suggesting the presence of a complex interaction between social and individual factors. Objective: This study investigated the moderation role of conformity in the rela...

The individual predictors of drinking behaviors among second-generation immigrant adolescents are still understudied. This study investigated emotion regulation strategies and alcohol abuse in 472 adolescents (86 second-generation immigrants and 386 Italian natives; age range: 17–18). The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the Alcohol Use Disord...

Sexting has been commonly defined as the sharing of sexually suggestive content via new technologies. The relationship between sexting motivations and both online and offline aggressive behaviors (i.e., sexual harassment, dating violence, and bullying) is still understudied. This study aimed to investigate the association between three sexting moti...

Purpose Binge eating is predicted by emotion dysregulation and poor emotional awareness. Dysfunctional metacognition is also implied in several eating disorders, but research has not yet investigated the interactions among emotional and metacognitive processes involved in binge eating. The present study investigated the relation between metacogniti...

Bu çalışmanın amacı, gençler arası flört ilişkilerinde flört şiddetini ölçmek için geliştirilen ve modifiye edilen Gençler Arası Flört İlişkilerinde Çatışma Ölçeği’nin (GAFİÇÖ –ME) yapı geçerliği ve güvenirliğine ilişkin kanıtları flört ilişkisi olan üniversite öğrencileri örnekleminde incelemektir.

This study aimed to test the applicability of a dating violence measure, the modified version of the Conflict in Adolescent Dating Relationships Inventory (CADRI-M; Wolfe et al., 2001), in a sample of dating participants in Turkey, and to provide some validity, particularly construct validity and reliability evidences.

Binge drinking during adolescence is influenced by peer pressure and group norms as risk factors. Conversely, drinking refusal self-efficacy is a protective factor. Thus, adolescents with impaired social skills could be more vulnerable to binge drinking. However, there is still little research on impaired social abilities, such as low empathy, in a...

The aim of this study was to investigate the associations of relationship with parents, emotion regulation, and callous-unemotional traits with Internet addiction in a community sample of adolescents. Self-report measures of relationship with parents (both mothers and fathers), emotion regulation (in its two dimensions: cognitive reappraisal and ex...

When Sexting Becomes a Kind of Violence? Sexting Motivations and Dating Violence among Young Adults With Internet, dating violence started to happen also in online context. Research showed that sexting, that is the exchange of sexual suggestive images via Internet, is related to perpetration and victimization of dating violence. This study investig...

Sexting motivations during adolescence are related to developmental dimensions-such as sexual identity and body-image development-or harmful intentions-such as aggression among peers and partners. Sociocultural and media models can affect explorations of sexuality and redefini-tions of body image, which in turn are related to sexting behaviors and...

Poster presented to the 30th Conference of Italian Psychological Association (AIP), section of Developmental and Education Psychology

Sexting is defined as the exchange of provocative or sexually explicit content via smartphone, Internet, or social networks. Previous studies found a relationship between cyber pornography and sexting. The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between sexting, cyber pornography, and alcohol consumption. Previous evidence underlined t...

Cyber dating abuse is a new kind of dating violence. Several recent measures assess this phenomenon, but do not focus on a severe aggression that aims to spoil a partner’s relational network (relational cyber abuse). This study developed and validated the Cyber Dating Violence Inventory (CDVI) with 1405 adolescents and young adults (Mage = 18.17; S...

Selfies are self-portrait photos shared on Social Networks. Previous literature has investigated how personality traits, and specifically narcissism, are associated with selfie-posting behaviors. In this contribution we investigated how selfie-posting behaviors are predicted by the six HEXACO personality traits, controlling for age, gender and sexu...

There has been a lack of research into the motivations for sexting. This study presents a self report instrument, the Sexting Motivations Questionnaire (SMQ), evaluating three sexting motivations: sexual purposes, instrumental/aggravated reasons and body image reinforcement. We also investigated which sexting motivations predict different sexting b...

Background: Sexting is the exchange of sexually explicit or provocative content (text messages, photos, and videos) via smartphone, Internet, or social networks. Recent evidence enlightened its relationships with several risk and aggressive behaviors. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the amount of sexting, psychological dis...

Sexting is usually defined as the exchange of provocative or sexually explicit contents (text messages, photos, and/or videos) via smartphone, Internet, or social networks. This behavior is becoming more and more popular among adolescents, yet is related to many risky behaviors, such as alcohol and substance abuse, as well as high-risk sexual behav...

Sexting is popular within boys and girls: they send and/or receive sexually suggestive messages, photos, videos via smartphone, internet or social networks. It is important to understand when sexting can be considered a self-expression and when it becomes a risky behavior, in particular for adolescents and young adults. We investigated the role of...