In the last few decades, several studies have investigated the role of personality traits and attitudes toward traffic safety in predicting driving behaviors in diverse types of drivers across ...several countries. However, to the best of our knowledge, no studies so far have investigated the possible moderating role played by age in relation to predictors of accident risk. Answering this open question would provide information about the generalizability of the model across different subpopulations and would make possible the tailoring of the interventions to specific target groups. The study involved 1,286 drivers from three different age groups (young:
= 435; adult:
= 412; old:
= 439) which completed a questionnaire measuring drivers' personality traits (i.e., anxiety, hostility, excitement seeking, altruism, normlessness), positive attitudes toward traffic safety, risky driving behaviors (i.e., errors, lapses, and traffic violations), accident involvement and number of traffic fines issued in the last 12 months. Multi-group Variance Based Structural Equation Modeling (VB-SEM) across the three age groups showed that the hypothesized model had a good fit with the data in all the three age groups. However, some pattern of relationships between the variables varied across the three groups, for example, if considering the direct effects of personality traits on risky driving behaviors, anxiety, altruism, and normlessness predicted violations only in young and adult drivers, whereas excitement seeking was associated with lapses only in young drivers; anxiety was a positive predictor of drivers' errors, both in adult and older drivers, whereas excitement seeking predicted errors in adult and young drivers. On the other hand, attitudes significantly and negatively predicted violations and errors in all the three age groups, whereas they significantly and negatively predicted lapses only in young and older drivers. The results of the present study provided empirical basis to develop evidence-based road safety interventions differently tailored to the specific life's stage of the drivers.
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) represents a massive global health crisis leading to different reactions in people. Those reactions may be adaptive or not depending on situational or ...psychological processes. Disordered eating attitudes and behaviors are likely to be exacerbated by the pandemic through multiple pathways as suggested by
Rodgers et al. (2020)
. Among the psychological variables that may have increased dysfunctional eating attitudes and behaviors as a consequence of the social distancing and isolation, we looked at perfectionism. Perfectionism is a well-recognized risk and maintaining factor of eating-related symptoms and interact with stress increasing the probability of dysfunctional reactions (e.g.,
Wang and Li, 2017
). The present study investigated the relationship between multidimensional perfectionism and eating behaviors by considering the mediating role of psychological distress. Data were collected from two countries (Italy and Spain) by means of an online survey. The samples included 465 (63.4% female) participants from Italy and 352 (68.5% female) from Spain. Participants completed the short form of the Hewitt and Flett Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (
Lombardo et al., 2021
) to assess self-oriented, other-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism, as well as the short form of Three Factors Eating Questionnaire (
Karlsson et al., 2000
) and the Italian version of Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (
Bottesi et al., 2015
), respectively used to assess restrictive, emotional and uncontrolled eating on one hand, and depression, anxiety and stress on the other. Multigroup analysis was performed to test the hypothesized model. Results showed that other-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism were indirectly related to most of the dysfunctional eating aspects through the mediation of psychological distress, and the pattern obtained was consistent in both countries. These findings evidence that the psychological distress potentially related to the COVID-19 disease mediates the negative impact of interpersonal perfectionism and the tendency to eat in response to negative emotions.
Aggressiveness and unethical behaviors are an important problem in sports today. Understanding how to properly measure and manage an athlete's aggressive tendency is a crucial lesson to be learned ...within the rulesets of a sporting environment. This study aims at validating the Italian version of the Competitive Aggressiveness and Anger Scale (CAAS), specifically developed to measure aggressiveness and anger in athletes. The second aim is to investigate how aggressive and antisocial behaviors are modulated by sex, competitive level (i.e., amateur and competitive), sport contact (i.e., contact and no-contact), and sport type (i.e., team and individual). Two hundred and ninety-six athletes (mean age = 22.42 years, SD = 2.86) were asked to fill out a survey about sociodemographic variables, sport specific data, attitudes to moral decisions, past cheating behavior, and aggression. The Italian version of the CAAS presented a good fit of the data, adequate internal consistency and its construct validity was supported via convergent and discriminant validity. Both aggressiveness and anger dimensions of CAAS positively related with acceptance of cheating and gamesmanship, and past cheating behavior, while only the aggressiveness dimension of the CAAS negatively related with prosocial attitude. Competitive male athletes practicing contact sport showed the highest levels of aggressiveness, while competitive athletes practicing team sport showed the highest level of anger. This study represents the first empirical construct validity evidence of CAAS among Italian athletes and provides a deeper understanding of how athletes' aggressive tendencies and antisocial behavior differ across athlete populations.
•The CAAS provides valid measures of aggressiveness and anger with Italian athletes.•CAAS-aggressiveness depicts more physical than verbal aggressiveness.•Aggressiveness levels correlate with self-reported cheating.•Anger and aggressiveness levels correlate with acceptance of cheating and gamesmanship.•Competition modulates aggressive and antisocial behaviors in contact and team sports.
One of the most tangible effects of music is its ability to alter our perception of time. Research on waiting times and time estimation of musical excerpts has attested its veritable effects. ...Nevertheless, there exist contrasting results regarding several musical features’ influence on time perception. When considering emotional valence and arousal, there is some evidence that positive affect music fosters time underestimation, whereas negative affect music leads to overestimation. Instead, contrasting results exist with regard to arousal. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, a systematic investigation has not yet been conducted within the audiovisual domain, wherein music might improve the interaction between the user and the audiovisual media by shaping the recipients’ time perception. Through the current between-subjects online experiment (n = 565), we sought to analyze the influence that four soundtracks (happy, relaxing, sad, scary), differing in valence and arousal, exerted on the time estimation of a short movie, as compared to a no-music condition. The results reveal that (1) the mere presence of music led to time overestimation as opposed to the absence of music, (2) the soundtracks that were perceived as more arousing (i.e., happy and scary) led to time overestimation. The findings are discussed in terms of psychological and phenomenological models of time perception.
Anti-doping policies represent a group of regulations and procedures that are applied by anti-doping organizations in order to safeguard sports against doping. Evidence implies that, for anti-doping ...policies to be effective, they need to be endorsed by athletes. Still, there is scarce evidence on the process through which athletes decide to endorse and support anti-doping policies and the role of anti-doping education. The main objective of the study was to empirically examine a behavioural model of active anti-doping policy support.
A self-reported survey with measures of perceived anti-doping legitimacy, social support via expected obedience, perceived trustworthiness and social cognitive variables associated with anti-doping policy support (attitudes, social norms, descriptive norms, perceived behavioural control, regret, and intention) was completed by 1328 competitive athletes in 6 countries (Germany, Greece, Italy, Russia, Serbia, UK).
Athletes who live in countries with comprehensive (emphasis on individual development and competency with a focus on sport and personal integrity) anti-doping education (ADE) and had received ADE are more supportive of anti-doping policies than athletes from countries with basic education provision anti-doping education (information type education). Furthermore, athletes who received ADE reported significantly higher levels of perceived legitimacy, trustworthiness, and obedience. The results of the SEM revealed that perceptions of legitimacy had both direct and indirect effects on intentions to support anti-doping policies. The effect of perceptions of legitimacy was mediated by social cognitive variables, which demonstrated strong direct effects on intentions. Importantly, the model was invariant across the countries, although mean differences in several constructs emerged.
Anti-doping milieu and education impact athletes’ willingness to support anti-doping policies. Interventions targeting legitimacy beliefs and social cognitive variables can be effective in promoting anti-doping policy support in competitive athletes. These interventions should expand beyond anti-doping policy legitimacy and target the specific beliefs (e.g., norms) that are pertinent to policy support in different countries.
•Athletes receiving comprehensive ADE are more supportive of anti-doping policies than athletes who haven’t received ADE.•Anti-doping education can increase the legitimacy of authorities implementing anti-doping policies.•Perceptions of legitimacy have both direct and indirect effects, through social cognitive variables, on intentions to support anti-doping policies.•The effect of legitimacy perceptions on intentions to support anti-doping policies is invariant across the countries, but mean differences exist.
The present study aimed to: (a) validate the factor structures of three scales assessing driving behavior, attitudes toward traffic safety (ATTS) and self-regulation in driving, in a sample of ...Italian older adults, through confirmatory factor analyses and (b) to determine the effectiveness of these measures in predicting the likelihood and the frequency of collision involvements in the following year. A 28-item driver behavior questionnaire (DBQ), a 16-item ATTS, a 21-item extended driving mobility questionnaire (DMQ-A) were administered to 369 active Italian drivers, aged between 60 and 91 years. Results showed a four-factor structure for the DBQ, a five-factor structure for the ATTS and a two-factor structure for the Extended DMQ-A, as the best fitting models. Hurdle model analysis of count data with extra-zeros showed that all factors of DBQ predicted the likelihood of road collisions. Risky behavior, except for aggressive violations, self-regulation and attitudes toward traffic rules were associated with the frequency of collision involvement. The aforementioned three scales seemed to be a useful and concise suite of instruments assessing risky as well as protective factors of driving behavior in elderly.
The present study tested Lee et al.'s (2008) model of moral attitudes and cheating behavior in sports in an Italian sample of young tennis players and extended it to predict behavior in actual match ...play. In the first phase of the study we proposed that moral, competence and status values would predict prosocial and antisocial moral attitudes directly, and indirectly through athletes' goal orientations. In the second phase, we hypothesized that moral attitudes would directly predict actual cheating behavior observed during match play.
Adolescent competitive tennis players (
= 314, 76.75% males,
age = 14.36 years,
= 1.50) completed measures of values, goal orientations, and moral attitudes. A sub-sample (
= 90) was observed in 45 competitive tennis matches by trained observers who recorded their cheating and gamesmanship behaviors on a validated checklist.
Consistent with hypotheses, athletes' values predicted their moral attitudes through the effects of goal orientations. Anti-social attitudes directly predicted cheating behavior in actual match play providing support for a direct link between moral attitude and actual behavior.
The present study findings support key propositions of Lee and colleagues' model, and extended its application to competitive athletes in actual match play.
The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a media literacy intervention targeting, for the first time, the specific topic of Performance and Appearance Enhancing Substances (PAESs) ...use in high-school students. Overall, 389 students (52% male) aged between 13 and 19 years (mean = 16.56 year;
= 1.26) participated to a media literacy intervention (i.e., "
") while 103 students aged between 14 and 19 year (mean = 16.10 year;
= 1.38) were considered as the control group (i.e., "
"). In two separate occasions over the course of six consecutive months, students in both groups filled out a set of questionnaires which included measures of social-cognitive beliefs (i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, intentions) and a self-reported measure of retrospective use of doping (Yes/No) and supplements (Yes/No). Compared to students in the control group (Mean
= 1.96; SD
= 0.85; and Mean
= 2.09; SD
= 0.94), intervention students on average expressed relatively stronger attitudes against doping use over time (Mean
= 2.2; SD
= 0.85; and Mean
= 2.05; SD
= 0.82). Students in the latter group also showed a statistically significant decrease in self-reported supplement use (Use
= 6.7%; Use
= 3.8%;
= 0.05, McNemar Test). Interestingly, albeit marginally significant, students in the control group showed a relative increment in the self-reported use of supplements over time (Use
= 4.9%; Use
= 8.7%;
= 0.22, McNemar Test). Overall, the media literacy intervention investigated in the present study was effective in decreasing adolescent student's positive attitudes toward doping use and in reducing the use of legal PAES. These findings supported the generalizability and the usefulness of a media literacy approach in the specific field of PAES.
The expression of original and functional motor actions (e.g. motor creativity) has been associated to various self-concept constructs such as self-efficacy (Richard et al., 2018). The aim of the ...present study was to investigate how motor creativity and self-efficacy could change according to gymnastics practice years. Thirty-five young gymnasts (N = 17 élite; N = 18 recreational) participated in the study. Gymnasts performed the motor creativity tests (Bertsch, 1983) and they were administered the self-efficacy in physical activities inventory (Morano et al., 2019). Analyses of variance showed significant differences in all creativity dimensions (i.e. fluency, flexibility and originality) with flexibility showing the lowest differences between groups. Furthermore, élite gymnasts showed higher values both in bench than in floor and hoop creativity tasks, than recreational group. Significant differences between groups emerged in self-efficacy levels too, with élite gymnasts showing higher values than recreational gymnasts. Finally, creativity and selfefficacy resulted more related in élite gymnasts than in recreational ones. Motor creativity interventions could help both élite and recreational gymnasts to perform a greater variety and adaptability of movement solutions to achieve a task goal also in advancing technical expertise.
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