Maria Gerbino

• Phd Psychology
• Professor (Assistant) at Sapienza University of Rome

Introduction Existing literature has highlighted the relevance of Pro‐environmental behaviors (PEBs)—actions intended to benefit the environment—to Eudaimonic well‐being (EWB, i.e., meaning in life and connectedness to others). However, most research has focused on stable individual differences and utilized cross‐sectional designs, giving limited a...

Introduction Prosocial behavior (i.e., voluntary actions aimed at benefiting others, such as helping, comforting, and sharing) has proven beneficial for individuals' adjustment during the transition to adolescence. However, less is known about the role of the broader sociocultural context in shaping prosocial development across different cultures....

Background Research suggests that positivity and self-efficacy beliefs may impact adaptive behavior and developmental outcomes, such as social adjustment and subjective wellbeing. The present study explored the effect of positive dimensions (positivity and self-efficacy beliefs) and individual characteristics (gender, type of country, age, and sexu...

Parental self-efficacy (PSE) is a pivotal determinant of change in children's adjustment. However, not only has previous research shown that PSE plays a protective role for children's rule-breaking (RB) behaviours (i.e., parent-driven process), but RB also can reduce parents' PSE over-time (i.e., child-driven process). This study examined the bidir...

Introduction Existing research highlights the significance of prosocial behavior (voluntary, intentional behavior that results in benefits for another) to people's well‐being. Yet, the extent to which this expected positive relation operates at the within‐person level (e.g., is more prosocial behavior than usual related to a higher than usual level...

The present study examined the development of perceived parental self-efficacy in school-related performance (PPSE-School; i.e., parents’ beliefs in their capabilities to positively affect their children’s academic experience) during secondary school as well as its longitudinal associations with adolescents’ academic achievement at the end of secon...

Parental self-efficacy (PSE) captures parents’ beliefs in their ability to perform the parenting role successfully and to handle pivotal issues of specific developmental periods. Although previous studies have shown that, across the transition to adolescence, parents show decreasing levels of PSE while adolescents exhibit increasing engagement in r...

Emotionality and self-regulation are crucial for positive development, especially during early adolescence whenyouths experience normative increases in behavioral problems and declines in prosociality. Using Latent ProfileAnalysis (LPA-a person-oriented technique to identify patterns of functioning within individuals), we identifiedyouths’ profiles...

Prosociality is a multifaceted concept referring to the many ways in which individuals care about and benefit others. Human prosociality is foundational to social harmony, happiness, and peace; it is therefore essential to understand its underpinnings, development, and cultivation. This handbook provides a state-of-the-art, in-depth account of scie...

Introduction Recent research highlight increasing at-risk online sexual activities and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic among young adults. Specifically, sexting refers to exchanging sexually suggestive messages, photos, and videos through technological devices, and it can be placed on a continuum from safer to riskier behavior. This study ai...

The COVID-19 crisis has had a major impact on youth. This study examined factors associated with youth’s attitudes towards their government’s response to the pandemic and their blaming of individuals from certain risk groups, ethnic backgrounds, and countries or regions. In a sample of 5,682 young adults (Mage = 22) from 14 countries, lower perceiv...

Although recent studies on the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have highlighted the negative effects of moral disengagement on intentions to comply with COVID-19 containment measures, little is known about the mediating role of moral disengagement in the relationship between regulatory self-efficacy in complying with the containment measures, b...

Research Findings: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the education system faced unprecedented challenges, including global school closures, the cancellation of face-to-face teaching, and ultimately school step-wise or partial reopening. Childcare providers have faced additional significant stressors from the beginning of the outbreak. The present study...

The present study evaluated the efficacy of an Italian school-based intervention programme adapted in three Colombian sites (Medellín, Manizales, and Santa Marta) in promoting prosocial behaviour among adolescents. Using a pre-test-post-test design with a multi-informant approach, the present study assessed 451 students (Mage = 12.77, SD = 1.06) of...

Two studies were carried out on a Spanish population to explore the extent to which different self-efficacy beliefs in managing positive emotions are associated with common indicators of wellbeing, such as positive and negative affect or life satisfaction. The first study was conducted on 483 participants and attested to the factorial structure of...

This longitudinal study examined the unique and joint effects of early adolescent temperament and parenting in predicting the development of adolescent internalizing symptoms in a cross-cultural sample. Participants were 544 early adolescents (T1: Mage = 12.58; 49.5% female) and their mothers (n = 530) from Medellín, Colombia (n = 88), Naples, Ital...

Evidence suggests an impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health, particularly among emerging adults. However, theories on altruism born of suffering or adversarial growth suggest that we might also see prosocial behavior as a function of the pandemic, which may protect against mental health challenges. Because cultural values are central in d...

The negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals’ psychosocial functioning was widely attested during the last year. However, the extent to which individual differences are associated with adaptive and maladaptive outcomes during quarantine in Italy remains largely unexplored. Using a person-oriented approach, the present study explored...

Despite several empirical studies on the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic that have highlighted its detrimental effect on individuals’ mental health, the identification of psychological factors that may moderate its impact on individuals’ behavior and well-being remains partly unexplored. The present study was conceived to examine the m...

Psychological Control (PC) interferes with autonomy-related processes in adolescence and has a negative impact on adolescents’ development related to internalizing and externalizing problems. Several scholars suggested that PC can be used differently by mothers and fathers. However, these differences are still understudied and mainly grounded on ma...

Psychological Control (PC) refers to the control parents exert over their offspring through strategies that limit the psychological and emotional experience of children and adolescents. Although the topic of PC has been largely investigated in the literature, very little is known on the potential differences/similarities in the use of specific psyc...

Multidimensional Perceived Self-Efficacy Scale for Children has been developed as an important tool to measure Self-Efficacy in school contexts. The present study assesses the measurement invariance of the MSPSE across two samples of Italian and Colombian adolescents using Multi-sample Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Participants were Italian (N = 56...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of prosocial behaviour against aggression in a school‐based universal intervention adapted in two different (non‐Western) countries, Colombia and Chile. Using a randomised pretest–post‐test design (and controlling for participants' gender and parents' level of education), current results highlighte...

According to Belsky’s process model of parenting, parents’ personality represents the most important factor influencing parenting and child development. While an extensive literature has empirically corroborated the role of irritability traits in predicting aggressive behaviors in laboratory-based studies, only a few studies have examined the role...

Singletrait-multistate (STMS) model of mother’s irritability across four time points (unstandardized solution). (DOCX)

LTS model relating mothers’ irritability and harsh parenting. (DOCX)

Multitrait-multistate (MTMS) model of mother’s irritability across four time points (unstandardized solution). (DOCX)

During adolescence, some personality characteristics may represent vulnerabilities to adolescents’ adjustment. Adopting a person-centered approach, the aims of this study were (a) to examine the relations of early adolescents’ personality profiles to internalizing (i.e., anxious/depressed, withdrawal, and somatic complaints) and externalizing (i.e....

The present study examines whether early adolescents' self-efficacy beliefs about anger regulation mediate the relation between parents' self-efficacy beliefs about anger regulation and early adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems. Participants were 534 early adolescents (T1: M age = 10.89, SD = .70; 50% female), their mothers (n = 5...

The present study examined the extent to which individual differences in personality that have been previously associated with aggression in non-clinical subjects (Caprara et al., European Journal of Personality, 27(3), 290–303, 2013, Caprara et al., Developmental Psychology, 50(1), 71–85, 2014) account for aggression among adolescents referred to...

Bidirectional relations among adolescents' positivity, perceived positive school climate, and prosocial behavior were examined in Colombian youth. Also, the role of a positive school climate in mediating the relation of positivity to prosocial behaviors was tested. Adolescents (N = 151; Mage of child in Wave 1 = 12.68, SD = 1.06; 58.9% male) and th...

The present study examined measurement invariance and convergent validity of a novel vignette-based measure of emotion-specific self-regulation that simultaneously assesses attributional bias, emotion-regulation, and self-efficacy beliefs about emotion regulation. Participants included 541 youth–mother dyads from three countries (Italy, the United...

Objective: Researchers have demonstrated the prediction of academic functioning by children's prosocial behavior (PB). The goal of our study was to examine the contribution of adolescents' PB for middle and senior high school grades after controlling for stability of achievement and for intelligence, Big Five traits, and socio-demographic variable...

. Recent research has pointed to the benefits of positive emotions and their appropriate modulation in buffering the impact of negative experience, and in promoting well-being. Two studies examined the psychometric properties of a new scale that was designed to assess perceived self-efficacy in using memories of positive emotional experiences and h...

This study examined the longitudinal reciprocal relationships between positive orientation (i.e. the common latent variable at the core of self-esteem, life satisfaction, and optimism) and anxious and avoidant relationship styles in young adulthood. Four hundred and sixty-seven youths (52% girls) were assessed three times, at intervals of 4 years....

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the longitudinal relationship between Positivity (POS), defined as a stable disposition to view at experience under a positive outlook, and physical and psychological functioning in a sample of cancer patients immediately after diagnosis and one year later. Methods: 110 patients (40% males) wit...

Prosocial behaviors are considered integral to intervention goals that seek to promote successful youth development. This study examines the effect of a school-based intervention program entirely designed to promote prosocial behaviors called Promoting Prosocial and Emotional Skills to Counteract Externalizing Problems in Adolescence (Italian acron...

En un escenario globalmente complejo y con importantes fractu-ras en la cohesión social, es amplio el consenso entorno a la necesi-dad de educar al ejercicio de una ciudadanía activa, abriendo nuevos espacios educativos que garanticen la promoción de comportamien-tos socialmente positivos, como los comportamiento prosociales. Sin embargo, muchos de...

The goal of this study was to investigate the development of mother-adolescent hostile aggressive conflict (MHAC) from late adolescence to young adulthood. The role of child' depressive and delinquency problems and family characteristics, as well as the relation of level and change in MHAC to adolescents' delinquency and depression in early adultho...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of a pilot school-based intervention called CEPIDEA, designed to promote prosocial behavior in early adolescence. The study took place in a middle school located in a small city near Rome. The intervention group included 151 students (52.3% males; Mage = 12.4), and the control group 173 students...

The goal of this longitudinal study was to investigate the relation of adolescents' Big Five factor (BFF) personality to the development of different patterns of mother–adolescent hostile, aggressive conflict (MHAC) from late adolescence to young adulthood. Furthermore, we examined the prediction of Antisocial Problems (AP) and Depressive Problems...

The contribution to academic achievement of personality traits, self-esteem, and self-efficacy beliefs has been ex-amined in high school. SEM analysis showed that conscientiousness, openness, and self-esteem were positively inter-related, with both traits and self-esteem increasing students' perceived academic self-efficacy, which in turn mediated...

The contribution to academic achievement of personality traits, self-esteem, and self-efficacy beliefs has been examined in high school. SEM analysis showed that conscientiousness, openness, and self-esteem were positively inter-related, with both traits and self-esteem increasing students' perceived academic self-efficacy, which in turn mediated t...

This paper examined empirically the value of a conceptual model in which emotional stability and agreeableness contribute to engagement in aggression and violence (EAV) indirectly through irritability, hostile rumination and moral disengagement. Three hundred and forty young adults (130 male and 190 female) participated in the study. The average ag...

Perceived self-efficacy in emotion regulation facilitates various aspects of psychosocial adjustment. The Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy scale (RESE) by Caprara and Gerbino (2001) measures perceived capabilities to express positive emotions (POS) and to manage negative emotions, namely, despondency/distress (DES) and anger/irritation (ANG). The...

BACKGROUND. The personal determinants of academic achievement and success have captured the attention of many scholars for the last decades. Among other factors, personality traits and self-efficacy beliefs have proved to be important predictors of academic achievement. AIMS. The present study examines the unique contribution and the pathways throu...

Physical aggression declines for the majority of children from preschool to elementary school. Although this desistance generally continues during adolescence and early adulthood, a small group of children maintain a high level of physical aggression over time and develop other serious overt and covert antisocial behaviors. Typically, researchers h...

In this research, we examined the psychometric properties of the Revised Ego Resiliency 89 Scale (ER89-R; Alessandri, Vecchio, Steca, Caprara, & Caprara, 2008), a brief self-report measure of ego resiliency. The scale has been used to assess the development of ego resiliency from late adolescence to emerging adulthood, focusing on different ways to...

A prospective study was conducted to examine a conceptual model in which affective and interpersonal social self-efficacy beliefs affect depression and delinquency concurrently and at 4 years of distance, controlling for earlier adolescents’ exposure to family violence and adolescents’ self-regulation problems. Three hundred and ninety adolescents...

To longitudinally describe prosocial behaviour development from childhood to adolescence, using multiple informants within Canadian and Italian samples. Participants in Study 1 were 1037 boys from low socioeconomic status (SES) areas in Montreal, Canada, for whom yearly teacher and mother reports were obtained between the ages of 10 and 15. Partici...

The Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy (RESE) scale was developed to assess perceived self-efficacy in managing negative (NEG) and in expressing positive (POS) affect (G. V. Caprara & M. Gerbino, 2001). In this study of young adults, the factorial structure of the RESE scale was found to be similar in Italy, the United States, and Bolivia. In addit...

The present study aimed at examining processes contributing to prosocial behavior and underlying psychological structures. In particular the role of values, prosocial moral reasoning, and moral disengagemnt in prosocial behavior (rated by peer) has been explored. Participants were 495 students (286 boys and 211 girls) attending 9th and 10th fgrade...

In a longitudinal design, 650 young adolescents’ multi-faceted self-efficacy beliefs (academic, social and self-regulatory), academic achievement and peer preference in middle school were used to predict life satisfaction five years later.Hierarchical regression analysis showed that for both genders, academic and social self-efficacy beliefs in ear...

This study examined the developmental trends of Irritability and Hostile Rumination at different times over the course of adolescence in a sample of 500 youth. Participants were 12 years old at the time of the first assessment and 20 years old at the last assessment time. Three objectives were pursued: (a) investigation of the stability and change...

Resumen El objetivo del estudio es examinar la estabilidad y el valor predictivo de la agresion fisica y verbal evaluada por multiples informantes (los propios ninos, sus profesores y companeros) desde la ultima etapa de la ninez a la adolescencia media, la convergencia entre informantes y el valor predictivo a largo plazo de la agresion fisica y v...

The present study is part of a longitudinal project aimed at identifying the personal characteristics and the developmental pathways conducive to successful adaptation from childhood to adulthood. The study examined the concurrent and longitudinal impact of self-efficacy beliefs on subjective well-being in adolescence, namely positive thinking and...

El objetivo del estudio es examinar la estabilidad y el valor predictivo de la agresión física y verbal evaluada por múltiples informantes (los propios niños, sus profesores y compañeros) desde la última etapa de la niñez a la adolescencia media, la convergencia entre informantes y el valor predictivo a largo plazo de la agresión física y verbal co...

This study aims at examining the role of a number of protective (such as self efficacy in different domains, and family functioning) and risk factors (such as externalizing and internalizing behaviors) related to severe alcohol and drug in boys and girls during adolescence. As a part of a longitudinal project, 481 adolescents (240 boys and 241 girl...

This prospective study with 464 older adolescents (14 to 19 years at Time 1; 16 to 21 years at Time 2) tested the structural paths of influence through which perceived self-efficacy for affect regulation operates in concert with perceived behavioral efficacy in governing diverse spheres of psychosocial functioning. Self-efficacy to regulate positiv...

Thesis (M.A.)--Hamline University, 1999. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-82). "A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in Education."