Maria Giulia Olivari

• PhD
• Research Associate at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Adolescent sexting is considered a public health and social issue. Parents may play a fundamental role in shaping their children’s attitudes and behaviours toward sexting. Adolescent attitude toward sexting overall may also be relevant for sexting engagement. The present study aimed to test a conceptual model in which sexting behaviours are explain...

In Italy the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown have deeply changed the way Italian people used to live. Many emerging adults had to self-distance from their romantic partners and modify the way of communicating and relating to each other. Thus managing a romantic relationship could be very challenging.The study quantitatively and qualitatively inv...

The present study represents an effort to expand and deepen the scant literature on Adolescent Dating Aggression (ADA) within the Italian context; adolescent dating aggression is a public health issue of interest due to its increasing frequency among adolescents. The prevalence of verbal-emotional and physical ADA was examined as well as gender and...

Il presente contributo propone i risultati di uno studio esplorativo circa le conoscenze, le fonti di informazioni e i comportamenti degli adolescenti in tema di affettività e sessualità, considerando le esperienze a rischio compiute sia nella vita reale che virtuale. I partecipanti sono 1522 adolescenti di nazionalità italiana, tra i 12 e i 18 ann...

The present study investigates the link between power imbalance within the romantic couple and psychological, relational and physical adolescent dating aggression (ADA) perpetration, considering also the role of relationship duration as an indicator of the developmental stage of the relationship. This is the first investigation into whom is perceiv...

Background: Sexting has recently emerged as a public health and social issue. The present study had two aims: a) to preliminarily test adolescent gender differences on parental practices regarding adolescent online life, parental monitoring, adolescent attitude towards sexting and sexting behaviors; b) to separately test for male and female adoles...

The study examines the preliminary psychometric properties of the Romantic Competence Interview — Italian version (RCI-Iv) for adolescents, a semistructured interview assessing romantic competence adolescents. Participants were 116 Italian adolescents ( Mage = 17.61 years) who were administered the RCI-Iv and a survey investigating self-perception,...

Il contributo presenta uno studio di valutazione del programma d’educazione affettivo-sessuale Teen star su un campione di 644 adolescenti, coinvolti in 57 programmi. Il programma ha l’obiettivo di fornire ai giovani gli strumenti conoscitivi per comprendere meglio se stessi e gli altri e per scegliere in autonomia, libertà e responsabilità come ag...

Self-concept clarity is a developmentally salient resource among adolescents and is positively associated with psychological adjustment. However, the mechanism underlying the association between self-concept clarity and adjustment remains inadequately understood. This study examined whether emotion regulation mediated the relationship between self-...

A conceptual model was tested, separately for male and female adolescents, in which adolescent dating violence (ADV) perpetration toward a romantic partner is affected by the memories of authoritarian paternal and maternal parenting styles through the mediation of adolescents’ emotion dysregulation. The sample consisted of 622 Italian adolescents (...

This study aims to evaluate the influence of fathers’ negative feelings, parenting stress and post-traumatic symptomatology experienced after the premature birth of their infant onmother–child interaction and on infant’s development in the perinatal period. Forty-five fathers and 45 mothersof preterm infants (GA = 30.25 ± 2.95; birth weight = 1288....

Negli ultimi anni il progressivo sviluppo delle tecnologie di comunicazione ha comportato notevoli cambiamenti nel modo in cui gli adolescenti comunicano e si relazionano. Una nuova forma comunicativa è il sexting, termine che deriva dalle parole sex e texting, che fa riferimento allo scambio (inviare, ricevere, postare) di contenuti sessualmente e...

The aim of the study was to explore whether and how emerging adults talk about their romantic relationships with their close others, especially their parents and friends, also considering gender differences. Data were collected via eight single-sex focus groups conducted with 50 Italian emerging adults (aged 18–25), and were analyzed using thematic...

Objective: To examine cognitive, emotional, and perceptual differences in the childbirth narratives of women with high levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) compared with women with low levels of PTSS in the postpartum period. Design: A cross-sectional design. Participants were retrospectively assigned to the high or low PTSS group on t...

To maximize the advantages of the tablet personal computer (TPC) at school, this technology needs to be accepted by students as new tool for learning. With reference to the Technology Acceptance Model and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, the aims of this study were (a) to analyze factors influencing high school students' acce...

This study used the multidimensional random coefficients multinomial logit model to investigate the construct validity and detect substantial differential item functioning of the Italian version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Pintrich, & DeGroot, 1990) among high school students. The aim was fivefold: to evaluate and...

This study aims to calculate a scaled risk-taking behavior index and to test a model in which maternal and paternal parenting styles affect risk-taking behavior with a mediation of adolescents’ regulatory self-efficacy. Participants were 816 adolescents (44% males) responding to a self-report questionnaire about their risk-taking behavior, regulato...

In the last decade, a growing empirical work has focused on adaptation processes of immigrants from Muslim-majority countries who live in the West, particularly Muslim youth born and/or educated in Western countries. The current study explored how Muslim boys and girls immigrated from Morocco, Egypt and Pakistan negotiate their identity on the base...

La Dating Aggression (DA) è un fenomeno in crescita nel panorama nazionale. Il presente studio mira a: a) indagare la presenza di differenze di genere rispetto alla giustificazione della violenza all’interno della coppia e all’agire comportamenti di DA, e b) verificare la presenza di un legame tra stile educativo autoritario, atteggiamento di giust...

Aim: This paper aims to investigate if the dyadic interactive behaviours were influenced by parental stress and feelings both in preterm and full-term mother-child dyads. Methods: 45 mothers (age = 35.29 ± 5.38) and fathers (age = 36.77 ± 6.89) of preterm infants (GA = 30.25 ± 2.95; BW = 1288.02 ± 488.76), and 36 mothers (age = 32.60 ± 4.56) and...

Introduzione. A livello internazionale da tempo gli studi si occupano del tema del benessere scolastico in relazione alle pratiche genitoriali, mettendo in luce come la dimensione del calore e del coinvolgimento e quella del supporto siano associate ad un miglior benessere psicologico e rendimento scolastico. In Italia il tema del benessere scolast...

Introduzione. In adolescenza sono molti i cambiamenti a livello corporeo e questi coinvolgono dimensioni psicologiche, impattando sulla percezione e soddisfazione corporea. Ad oggi sono sempre più gli adolescenti che, insoddisfatti del loro aspetto, fanno ricorso a strategie di modificazione corporea e che richiedono interventi di chirurgia estetic...

Nonostante il crescente interesse pubblico rispetto al coinvolgimento di adolescenti in comportamenti di sexting, la ricerca su questo tema è agli albori e gli studi sono principalmente di natura esplorativa. La presente review mira a delineare un quadro delle evidenze esistenti in letteratura riguardo il sexting in adolescenza. I risultati mostran...

Maria Giulia Olivari ed Emanuela Confalonieri si focalizzano sull'importanza di coniugare affettività e sessualità in adolescenza, riflettendo sulle ricadute positive e negative per la crescita dell'adolescente legate alla scelta di sperimentarsi anche nella dimensione sessuale.

Gaia Cuccì e Maria Giulia Olivari analizzano due fenomeni che in misura sempre crescente, anche in virtù della rivoluzione tecnologica, interessano gli adolescenti: il sexting e la pornografia.

Nel capitolo Maria Giulia Olivari si concentra sul tema della gravidanza e della genitorialità adolescenziale, considerando il ruolo svolto dai diversi attori che risultano coinvolti quando un’adolescente affronta tale evento, così come le occasioni di opportunità e di rischio ad esso legate.

The present study examines Greek and Italian fathers’ perceptions of different aspects of fatherhood, namely, responsibility in undertaking childcare activities, emotional expressiveness within the family as well as their accounts of what it means to them to be a father. Three hundred and eleven fathers from Greece and 291 from Italy responded to t...

Objective: Using a qualitative method, the purpose of this study was to: a) obtain information directly from the adolescents on their attitudes and knowledge regarding Emergency Contraception and b) investigate the presence of differences between male and female participants' attitudes and knowledge. Methods: This study consisted of 24 single se...

Le esperienze traumatiche in infanzia e adolescenza possono incidere, nelle fasi successive della vita, sull’adattamento dell’individuo, generando situazioni di malessere psicologico. Il presente studio si propone di indagare, in modo esplorativo, la relazione tra esperienze traumatiche infantili e adolescenziali e legame di attaccamento in un grup...

Il presente studio prende in esame il tema del benessere scolastico in un campione di 163 studenti italiani frequentanti il primo anno di tre istituti scolastici secondari di secondo grado, al fine di indagare: il livello di benessere scolastico; le relazioni tra benessere scolastico e rendimento scolastico; se motivazione e strategie di apprendime...

Traumatic experiences in childhood and adolescence may affect, in the later stages of life, the individual adaptation, generating psychological distress situations. This study aims to investigate, in an exploratory way, the relationship between traumatic experiences, lived in childhood and adolescence, and attachment bond in a group of 19 patients...

Using a qualitative method, our study aims to explore, identify, and describe Italian health care providers’ reflections on the contraceptive behaviors of adolescents attending family health centers, and health care providers’ self-perception of their own job attitudes toward these adolescent patients. Semi-structured interviews with 46 Italian hea...

Discrepancies in perceived parenting and parental roles across European countries could be due to the use of different assessment techniques or due to mean level differences in the authoritative, authoritarian, or permissive parenting styles. The present study aimed to examine the psychometric characteristics of the Parenting Styles and Dimensions...

Literature has paid little attention to the inclusion of multiple informants in the evaluation of parenting styles, not considering that different respondents could hold different perceptions and experiences of the parenting process (Fok & Shek, 2011). Therefore it is important to examine whether adolescents and their parents’ perceptions of parent...

Research demonstrated that the quality of parent-adolescent relationship significantly prevents adolescent Risk Taking Behavior (Rtb) and that adolescents raised by authoritative parents engage less in Rtb compared to peer raised by non-authoritative parents (Coley et al., 2009; Newman et al., 2008). In the engagement in Rtb (Steinberg et al., 2007...

Recently, in the European context, the presence of teen Dating Violence (DV) has increased. Several studies have investigated the role of the familiar context in relation to this phenomenon, focusing in particular on family violence exposure -both experienced or witnessed- (Wolf & Foshee, 2003; Foshee et al., 2011), or on parenting behaviours (i.e....

Di recente il fenomeno della Dating Violence (DV) ha registrato un aumento tra gli adolescenti. A livello internazionale è stato indagato il ruolo di alcune variabili individuali che possono favorire la messa in atto di comportamenti di DV verso il partner, quali difficoltà di regolazione emotiva (Gratz et al., 2009) e tendenza a giustificare compo...

Recently the presence of conflict behaviors among adolescents experiencing romantic relationships is increasing also in the European context. Several research have investigated the role of the familiar context in relation to this phenomenon, focusing in particular on family violence exposure -both experienced or witnessed- (Wolf & Foshee, 2003; Fos...

Research question and significance: This study aimed to investigate mother-child interaction, comparing mother-preterm child dyads with mother full term child dyads. We wanted to investigate if the dyadic interactive behaviours were influenced by infants’ condition at birth and by parental stress and negative feelings. What is already known? Preter...

Emergency contraception (EC) is available in Italy since 2000. However few studies, to our knowledge, have investigated this topic focusing on adolescents (Tafuri et al., 2012), and no study have explored their perceptions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to obtain information directly from the adolescents on their beliefs regarding EC. Thi...

Nel corso degli ultimi anni si è registrato un aumento dell’interesse rispetto allo studio e alla valutazione degli stili educativi genitoriali, in quanto fortemente legati all’adattamento e al benessere psicologico del bambino e dell’adolescente. Uno degli strumenti maggiormente utilizzati per rilevare tale costrutto è il Parenting Styles and Dime...

This work aimed at exploring, throughout an electronic role playing simulation, the attitudes of a convenience sample of male adolescents (N = 125; mean age = 16.87) toward an unplanned pregnancy. The aim of this work was threefold: (1) to describe the emotional and cognitive adolescent reactions and their decisions regarding the pregnancy; (2) to...

Lo studio intende valutare a livello esplorativo il programma di educazione affettivo-sessuale Teen STAR che ha l’obiettivo di promuovere la conoscenza del corpo, le dimensioni affettivo-relazionali ad esso connesse, il senso di responsabilità e l’autonomia di scelta nei contesti affettivi e sessuali. Sono stati valutati due corsi, seguiti da 34 ad...

This study aims to (a) examine the links between adolescents’ memories of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles and parent–child communicative processes; (b) test adolescents’ and parents’ gender differences. Data were collected from 479 Italian adolescents (Mage = 16.62 years; SDage = 1.46) attending public high schools. Pa...

Introduzione Fra i diversi compiti di sviluppo che l’adolescente è chiamato a portare a termine uno dei più importanti riguarda la sfera delle relazioni: l’adolescente è chiamato a sperimentare nuove capacità relazionali, sociali ed affettive e ad implementare la sua competenza interpersonale. Recenti ricerche hanno dimostrato che gli stili educati...

Our aim was to explore health workers' perceptions of providing sexuality and contraception care for female adolescents within family health centers. We interviewed 26 volunteer health workers and analyzed the interviews using thematic analysis. We identified three main themes: (1) “Adolescents and Sexuality,” with the sub-themes “Initiation Rite,”...

The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ; Pintrich & DeGroot,1990) is one of the most used instruments to assess self-regulated learning. In Italy, the psychometric properties of the MSLQ have not been investigated, although its frequent use. The aim of this research was to investigate MSLQ psychometric properties in an Italian hig...

Comparative research on parenting styles among Nordic and Mediterranean countries is still missing, despite the increasing number of studies on parenting styles in adolescence. This study explores similarities and differences in adolescents' retrospective perceptions of parenting styles, for both parents, in Sweden, Italy and Greece, using the Pare...

This paper assessed the emotional and cognitive decision-making process regarding a hypothetical unplanned pregnancy in a convenience sample of female adolescents (N = 85; mean age 16.8), throughout an electronic role playing simulation. This work aimed at: describing adolescent’s emotional reactions and cognitive responses to an unplanned pregnanc...

The paper analyzes the psychometric properties of the G1 version of the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire, a self-report instrument designed to investigate how adolescents or adults were parented during childhood. The sample included 1451 Italian adolescents in high school. Three studies tested the scale’s structure, invariance, and con...

Increasing interest in measuring parenting styles, especially with the Parenting Style and Dimensions Questionnaire, has emerged in the last 17 years. However, a critical review of studies using this instrument to assess parenting styles has not been done. The present article proposes an extensive review of studies that applied the instrument, focu...

Traumatic events in adolescence: Psychological and behavioural implications Adolescents exposed to a traumatic event may often develop PTSD and/or other emotional and behavioural problems. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of negative or potentially traumatic events and PTSD symptoms both on behavioural disorders and the way the a...

Abstract This article investigates adolescent men’s pregnancy resolution choices in Australia, Ireland, and Italy. It addresses two main gaps in the literature: the lack of research on (adolescent) men’s views on unintended pregnancy and pregnancy resolution and the lack of international comparative case studies on men and reproductive choices. Con...

Adolescents exposed to a traumatic event may often develop PTSD and/or other emotional and behavioural problems. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of negative or potentially traumatic events and PTSD symptoms both on behavioural disorders and the way the adolescents narrate the negative event that they experienced. 747 adolescents...

Introduzione Dalla letteratura anglosassone è emerso che in adolescenza la scelta inerente l’esito di una gravidanza inattesa è correlata all’atteggiamento personale favorevole o meno alla prosecuzione o all’interruzione della gravidanza (Corkindale et al., 2009) e alle aspettative rispetto ad una reazione dei propri genitori favorevole o meno alla...

This research is part of a broader cross-cultural study investigating Italian and Swedish adolescents’ attitudes and behaviours toward sexuality, pregnancy and parenthood. This exploratory study was aimed, in particular, at investigating Italian adolescents’ attitudes toward sexuality focusing on their contraceptive self efficacy. Moreover, adolesc...

Drawing inspiration from an Australian study (Condon et al., 2006), this work assessed male and female Italian adolescents’ decision-making regarding an unplanned pregnancy. A cross-sectional survey was carried out on a convenient sample of 166 adolescents aged 14-19 (81 males; 85 females) living in the North of Italy. Two computerized simulation w...

Background: Although debate on adolescent pregnancies has continued for many years, only a few studies have paid attention to the attitudes of health workers and their perceptions of these teens. Objective: The main purpose of this study was to investigate and describe midwives’ and psychologists’ perceptions of the pregnant teens arriving at the h...

INTRODUZIONE La gravidanza in adolescenza è un evento critico che comporta un’importante limitazione allo sviluppo dell’individuo e rappresenta un passaggio difficile sia che si decida di portare a termine la gravidanza, sia che si opti per un’interruzione (Petrillo & Caso, 2008). La ricerca in Italia non si è sinora occupata di approfondire il ruo...

Drawing inspiration from a recent Australian study (Condon et al., 2006), this work assessed male and female Italian adolescents’ decision-making regarding an unplanned pregnancy. 166 participants aged 14-19 (81 males; 85 females) were identified with a convenience sampling. Two computerized simulation were used. "If I were Ben" (Condon et al., 200...

Nel presente studio sono indagate, con uno strumento self-report, le percezioni di 897 adolescenti rispetto agli stili educativi autorevole, autoritario e permissivo di madri e padri. Dai risultati emerge come gli stili siano caratterizzati da specifiche sottodimensioni. In generale, gli adolescenti percepiscono una maggiore autorevolezza nello sti...