Psychological well-being is usually conceptualized as a combination of positive affective states such as happiness (the hedonic perspective) and the capacity to function effectively in one’s personal and social life (the eudaimonic perspective) (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Accordingly, Huppert (2009, p.137) summarized it as follows: “Psychological well-being is about lives going well. It is the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively.” To reach psychological well-being might be particularly challenging during adolescence as it foresees morphological and functional transformations in the brain functioning and structuring, along with hormonal and other biological changes. These bio-physiological changes interact with cultural and psychosocial forces in shaping how adolescents think, feel, and behave, with consequences on their adjustment and overall well-being. Taking into account these challenges, this symposium aims to gather different perspectives in investigating adolescents’ psychological well-being to identify and outline both protective and risk factors with implications for prevention programs. Contributions will be the following: (1) Dr. Bassi, Dr. Mancinelli, and Prof. Salcuni will focus their presentation on a very current issue: The perpetuation of the Covid-19 Social and Scholastic Restrictions and their impact on Italian Adolescents’ Well-being; (2) Dr. Mancinelli, Dr. Bassi and Prof. Salcuni will focus their attention on a specific issue in well-being related research: flourishing (i.e., the fulfillment of needs of competence, relatedness and self-acceptance and the possession of psychological capital such as optimism and self-efficacy) and its relationship with family processing, distinguishing specifically between maternal vs. paternal variables. (3) Prof. Liberska, in her presentation, will underline the importance of family types by comparing attachment, anxiety, depression, and aggression in youth coming from functional vs. dysfunctional families; (4) Dr. Gorla, Dr. Tognasso, and Prof. Santona will focus their attention on homosexuality presenting an overview on how Italian adolescents perceive homosexuality.

Adriana Lis

Senior Professor. University of Padova, Italy

Senior Professor at the University of Padova from 1/10/2014.  She was Full Professor at the same University and she taught Psychology of Family Relation in 2014/2015, 2015/2016, 2016/2017. Moreover, she was Professor of Psychology of family relation, Psychodynamic diagnosis, Intervention models for family relationships, Evaluation of psychotherapeutic interventions. She published over 45 national and international papers as well as several national and international books. Her research interests are about attachment, parenting, issues about adolescence and childhood.