CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES ON ADOLESCENCE: NEW INSIGHTS AND DIFFERENT APPROACHES

Adolescence is a challenging period in which bio-physiological changes interact with cultural and psychosocial forces in shaping how adolescents think, feel, and behave, with consequences on their adjustment. Taking into account these challenges, this symposium aims to gather different perspectives in investigating, identifying, and outlining both protective and risk factors with implications for prevention programs. Contributions will be the following: (1): Dr. Bassi, Dr. Del Guerra, Dr. Brusadelli, Dr. Vetere , and Prof. Silvia Salcuni used a multi-dimensional approach to investigate predictors of maladaptive personality traits and internalizing/externalizing
symptomatology concerning emotional (dys)regulation, pro-social behavior, and epistemic trust among 323 Italian adolescents. (2) Dr. Mancinelli, Dr. Sukhija, and Prof. Silvia Salcuni illustrate a network analysis for sub-scales selection used to optimize the screening phase by determining the most relevant dimensions to evaluate at-risk youth and thus reduce redundancy and participants; effort during questionnaires completion. This process was carried out within the LOOK@ME project, a research-project aimed at identifying at-risk youth and their problematic areas of functioning based on questionnaires evaluating emotional regulation capacities, psychological symptoms and Problematic Smartphone Use (PSU). (3) Dr. Gemignani, Dr, Giannotti, Dr, Filippi, Prof, Rigo, and Prof. De Falco shed light on the unique strengths of LGBTQIA+ Italian parents focusing on parent-child interactions in Italian families of same-sex mothers and support the importance of extending future studies on parent-child relationship including adolescents and their same-sex parents. (4) Dr, Gorla, Dr. Fusco, and Prof. Santona focus their attention on communicating adoption-related themes within the adoptive family during adolescence when adolescents develop personal identities by coming to terms with their past experiences. They aimed to understand the role of 124 adoptive parents’ reflective functioning skills and empathy in communicating about adoption with their 13-18 years children.