Matteo Giletta

Ghent University | UGhent · Department of Developmental, Personal, and Social Psychology

Adolescents' suicidal behavior frequently is preceded by interpersonal stress, but not all who experience distress attempt to end their lives. Recent theories have posited individual differences in stress-related inflammatory reactivity may be associated with psychopathology risk; this study examined inflammatory reactivity as a moderator of the pr...

This study's aim was to examine whether there are negative increasing cycles of peer victimization and rejection sensitivity over time. Drawing from Social Information Processing Theory, we hypothesized that victimization leads to higher levels of rejection sensitivity, which would put adolescents at risk for higher future victimization. Data were...

The motivation to socially connect with peers increases during adolescence in parallel with changes in neurodevelopment. These changes in social motivation create opportunities for experiences that can impact risk for psychopathology, but the specific motivational presentations that confer greater psychopathology risk are not fully understood. To a...

Introduction: This study examined the moderating role of adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation in the relationship between general perceived stress and depressive symptoms during the first coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown in March-April 2020 in Belgium, while controlling for past depressive symptoms in 2016. Methods: Participan...

For many adolescents, the COVID-19 pandemic represents a uniquely challenging period, and concerns have been raised about whether COVID-19-related stress may increase the risk for self-injurious behaviors among adolescents. This study examined the impact of pre-existing vulnerabilities on the occurrence and frequency of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NS...

Background: Peer problems have emerged as important predictors of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) development during adolescence. However, the possibility that adolescents who engage in NSSI may, in turn, be at increased risk for experiencing difficulties with their peers has rarely been examined. This study investigated the reciprocal association...

Prior research has struggled to differentiate cortisol stress response patterns reflective of well-regulated versus dysregulated hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis function among adolescents. Here, we show how exploring profiles of joint HPA– inflammatory stress responsivity, and linking those profiles to pubertal development and peer stress...

Introduction: Although exposure to peer victimization during adolescence has been linked to poorer (perceived) physical health, little is known about how multiple peer stressors may independently and conjointly be related with adolescent physical health outcomes. The current study investigated the unique, interactive, and cumulative effects of pee...

Introduction: Borderline personality features are often associated with toxic social relationships and problematic peer functioning. Less is known, however, about the extent to which bullying experiences may shape the development and maintenance of borderline-related traits during crucial periods of rapid normative developments in impulse and emoti...

For decades, psychological research has examined the extent to which children's and adolescents' behavior is influenced by the behavior of their peers (i.e., peer influence effects). This review provides a comprehensive synthesis and meta-analysis of this vast field of psychological science, with a goal to quantify the magnitude of peer influence e...

For decades, psychological research has examined the extent to which children’s and adolescents’ behavior is influenced by the behavior of their peers (i.e., peer influence effects). This review provides a comprehensive synthesis and meta-analysis of this vast field of psychological science, with a goal to quantify the magnitude of peer influence e...

For decades, psychological research has examined the extent to which children’s and adolescents’ behavior is influenced by the behavior of their peers (i.e., peer influence effects). This review provides a comprehensive synthesis and meta-analysis of this vast field of psychological science, with a goal to quantify the magnitude of peer influence e...

Over the past 50 years, a large body of work has demonstrated that during childhood and adolescence peers are strong socialization agents influencing youth development across a wide array of behavioral domains. In this paper we highlight how this long-standing research focus on peer influence may benefit from undertaking new directions that have be...

Measuring psychophysiological signals of adolescents using unobtrusive wearable sensors may contribute to understanding the development of emotional disorders. This study investigated the feasibility of measuring high quality physiological data and examined the validity of signal processing in a school setting. Among 86 adolescents, a total of more...

Peer relationships among youth have been examined as predictors of mental health outcomes for at least fifty years, revealing dozens of discrete peer constructs that each are associated with adjustment in childhood, adolescence, and later in adulthood. Future research may benefit by examining a range of new outcomes and psychological processes that...

Background: Depression rates increase markedly for girls across the adolescent transition, but the social-environmental and biological processes underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. To address this issue, we tested a key hypothesis from Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression, which posits that individuals who mount stronger inflamma...

In adolescence, sensitivity to peers is heightened, which makes peer experiences highly salient. Recent work suggests that these experiences may influence individuals' immune system functioning. Although there is a need to investigate which types of developmental salient social experiences affect inflammation, no studies have examined the role of p...

Substantial research suggests that excessive reassurance-seeking behavior is associated with exacerbations in depressive symptoms and later interpersonal rejection, yet remarkably few studies have examined predictors of this maladaptive social behavior. This study proposed and examined a diathesis stress model suggesting that beyond the effects of...

Purpose: Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is associated with increased risk of suicide attempts. Theories of NSSI assert interpersonal stress as a common risk factor for, and perhaps consequence of, NSSI. Prior research has not examined reciprocal associations between chronic interpersonal stress and NSSI. This study used a multi-wave, prospective de...

Prior studies suggest that hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress response is a relatively stable risk factor for suicidal behavior in adults, and also that fluctuations in developmentally salient social stress (i.e., peer stress) predict acute suicidal ideation and behavior in adolescent females. Here, we test the hypothesis that periods...

This study examined associations between multiple types of interpersonal and noninterpersonal stressors and the subsequent occurrence of suicide ideation and attempts among female adolescents. Adolescents ages 12 to 18 years old (n = 160) at elevated risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors were followed for 18 months, divided into two 9-month epoc...

Background: During adolescence, peer victimization is a potent type of social stressor that can confer enduring risk for poor mental and physical health. Given recent research implicating inflammation in promoting a variety of serious mental and physical health problems, this study examined the role that peer victimization and cognitive vulnerabil...

Objective: This study tests a novel, within-person model that reexamines depression and stress as risk factors for suicidal ideation and behavior among adolescent girls with and without sexual/physical abuse histories. Method: This longitudinal study includes data from 220 adolescent girls between 12 and 16 years of age (M = 14.69 years, SD = 1....

Poor physiological self-regulation has been proposed as a potential biological vulnerability for adolescent suicidality. This study tested this hypothesis by examining the effect of parasympathetic stress responses on future suicide ideation. In addition, drawing from multilevel developmental psychopathology theories, the interplay between parasymp...

The current study demonstrated that chronic peer victimization, as compared to time-limited victimization, is particularly associated with peer status and peer-reported adjustment at the adolescent transition. Using a cohort sequential design, a sample of 653 adolescents (48% female, 87% Caucasian) in Grades 6–8 were assessed at 3 annual time point...

Objective: Implicit attitudes toward alcohol predict drinking among adults and adolescents. If implicit attitudes reflected associations learned through direct experience with drinking, then they would likely only predict drinking among individuals who have previously consumed alcohol. In contrast, if implicit attitudes reflected indirect experien...

Peers provide a context in which child and adolescent development occurs. Peers may right wayward developmental trajectories, buffering the effects of deleterious risk factors. Adverse peer experiences also may distort developmental pathways, contributing to psychopathology. Numerous distinct peer constructs that signal developmental perturbations...

Peer influence processes have been documented extensively for a wide range of maladaptive adolescent behaviors. However, peer socialization is not inherently deleterious, and little is known about whether adolescents influence each other’s prosocial behaviors, or whether some peers are more influential than others towards positive youth outcomes. T...

Adolescents tend to form friendships with similar peers and, in turn, their friends further influence adolescents' behaviors and attitudes. Emerging work has shown that these selection and influence processes also might extend to bully victimization. However, no prior work has examined selection and influence effects involved in bully victimization...

Objective: This study expanded knowledge about the development of suicide ideation and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among adolescents by investigating (a) peer experiences as predictors of trajectories of suicide ideation and NSSI, (b) the joint development of suicide ideation and NSSI, and (c) the risk for suicide attempts (SA) across joint tra...

Two-part latent growth models examined associations between two forms of peer status (popularity, likability) and adolescents' alcohol use trajectories throughout high school; ethnicity was examined as a moderator. Ninth-grade low-income adolescents (N = 364; Mage = 15.08; 52.5% Caucasian; 25.8% African American; 21.7% Latino) completed sociometric...

Most peer influence research examines socialization between adolescents and their best friends. Yet, adolescents also are influenced by popular peers, perhaps due to misperceptions of social norms. This research examined the extent to which out-group and in-group adolescents misperceive the frequencies of peers' deviant, health risk, and adaptive b...

A performance-based measure of peer influence susceptibility was examined as a moderator of the longitudinal association between peer norms and trajectories of adolescents' number of sexual intercourse partners. Seventy-one 9th grade adolescents (52% female) participated in an experimental "chat room" paradigm involving "e-confederates" who endorse...

Although prevalence rates of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) has been established throughout adolescence, little is known about the progression of NSSI, and consequently, about the risk factors for youth NSSI engagement. This study aimed to describe the overall longitudinal course of NSSI and the latent trajectory classes of NSSI in a population-bas...

Adopting a multi-level approach, this study examined risk factors for adolescent suicidal ideation, with specific attention to (a) hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress responses and (b) the interplay between HPA-axis and other risk factors from multiple domains (i.e., psychological, interpersonal and biological). Participants were 138 a...

Self-Determination Theory discerns goals and values in terms of whether they are intrinsic or extrinsic in nature. Although research substantiates the importance of goal preferences for a host of outcomes, few studies examined how such preferences develop, and studies that did pay attention to this focused on parental influence processes. The prese...

This study investigated selection, deselection, and influence processes of happiness in adolescent friendship networks. Longitudinal data on friendship networks and happiness of 426 adolescents (M=15.78, SD=0.65) were analyzed, using stochastic actor-based models. Although happiness similarity did not predict friendship formation (selection), happi...

This study examined direct and indirect forms of peer socialization of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) in adolescent friendship networks. Data were collected among 348 adolescents (55% females; M-age=15.02years; SD=0.53) at four assessment waves. Stochastic actor-based models revealed no evidence for direct socialization of NSSI: adolescents whose f...

Driven by existing socialization theories, this study describes specific friendship contexts in which peer influence of alcohol misuse and depressive symptoms occurs. In the fall and spring of the school year, surveys were administered to 704 Italian adolescents (53 % male, M age = 15.53) enrolled in Grades 9, 10 and 11. Different friendship contex...

This study examined rates and correlates of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) across three non-clinical adolescent samples from different countries. Surveys were administered to 1862 adolescents (M(age)=15.69, S.D.=0.87) from Italy (n=827), the Netherlands (n=675), and United States (n=360), including measures of NSSI, substance use, internal (i.e.,...

The present study investigated regulatory self-efficacy (RSE) as a predictor of friendship and adolescent alcohol intoxication and as a moderator of peer socialization processes related to alcohol intoxication. The longitudinal sample included 457 Italian adolescents (262 females and 195 males) ranging in age of 14 to 20 years (M = 16.1 years of ag...

This study examined friendship selection and socialization as mechanisms explaining similarity in depressive symptoms in adolescent same-gender best friend dyads. The sample consisted of 1,752 adolescents (51% male) ages 12-16 years (M = 13.77, SD = 0.73) forming 487 friend dyads and 389 nonfriend dyads (the nonfriend dyads served as a comparison g...

This study applied a multi-method approach to examine the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and the experience of victimization during adolescence by investigating the role of intrapersonal feelings. The sample consisted of 2051 adolescents (M=13.8 years, S.D.=0.7; 51% male) from seven high schools in the Netherlands. Participants' weight...

Few studies have explored the combination of individual and contextual conditions that influence psychological health among older people. This study aimed to analyse the sense of coherence (SOC) in a sample of Italian senior citizens in relation to gender, educational level, living arrangements and former employment, when controlling for age. The s...