Future-oriented or present-focused? The role of social support and identity styles on ‘futuring’ in Italian late adolescents and emerging adults

Late adolescence and emerging adulthood are periods in the life cycle when individuals are involved in anticipating and planning for the future (futuring). However, in the last five or six years, as the effects of the recession have made themselves felt in Southern Europe, the situation that young people face has deteriorated dramatically. As a consequence, contemporary young people’s relationship with the future is strongly marked by these social difficulties, and family support becomes essential to their survival. The present study was interested in how futuring could be influenced by identity styles and perceptions of social support. Participants were 1201 Italian late adolescents and emerging adults attending the last year of high school and first years of university. We used three self-report measures: Functions of Identity Scale, Identity Style Inventory, and Social Support Scale. Findings indicate that futuring was influenced by the normative style and the diffuse-avoidant style and by the interactions between both normative identity style and diffuse/avoidant identity styles with peer support. Gender and age differences are discussed.     

Company Post-Crisis Communication Strategies and the Psychological Mechanism Underlying Consumer Reactions

A theoretical framework is developed to explain the mechanisms that underlie the effectiveness of matching postcrisis communication strategies to the crisis types on relevant consumer reactions. Two studies are conducted regarding an actual crisis case: the Costa Concordia shipwreck on 2012. Study 1 provides evidence of more favorable consumer reactions to a company when confession strategy and preventable crisis are matched. The results verify that consumers’ emotions of anger and sympathy play a mediating role. Study 2 demonstrates corporate reputation's moderating role on the link between postcrisis communication strategy and sympathy and, through it, on consumers’ attitudinal and behavioral responses.     

Unique and Interactive Effects of Empathy and Social Status on Involvement in Bullying

This study investigated the relationships between affective and cognitive empathy, social preference and perceived popularity, and involvement in bullying situations by bullying others or defending the victimized children. The participants were 266 primary and 195 secondary school students. Affective and cognitive empathy, as well as the status variables, had some significant main effects on involvement in bullying. In addition, several interaction effects emerged. For instance, the positive association between affective empathy and defending behavior was stronger among boys who had a high status (i.e., were highly preferred) in the group. The results highlight the importance of studying child-by-environment models, which take into account both child characteristics and interpersonal variables in predicting social adjustment.     

Subjective well-being in European countries��on the age-specific impact of physical activity

As an attempt to measure the ‘experienced’ utility of individuals in economics, the investigation of individuals’ subjective well-being (SWB) was pioneered by Van Praag and Frijters (1999) and Kahneman et al. (1999). Since then, a number of studies has analysed the factors associated with SWB and policy makers are now recognising the importance of SWB as a policy target, with the implication being that one could target its factors associated with increase in the overall SWB in countries. However, despite its significance to economies, and increasing policy relevance, investigations on the impact of sport and physical activity on SWB are relatively rare [e.g. Rasciute and Downward in Kyklos 63(2):256–270, 2010]. More specifically, despite sports participation and engagement in physical activity having a strong age-specific profile (Breuer et al. in Eur Rev Aging Phys Act 7:61–70, 2010; Hinrichs et al. in Eur J Sport Soc 6(1):49–57, 2010; Mechling and Netz in European Rev Aging Physical Activity 6(2):89–97, 2009), there is no study that investigates whether the magnitude of this impact is age-specific. Consequently, this paper seeks to make a unique contribution to the existing literature by exploring the age-specific effects of physical activity on SWB for a broad cross-section of 19 European countries. Overall, the results suggest that engagement in physical activity generally contributes to the SWB of individuals on a European level but that significant age-specific differences exist.     

Assessing corporate governance quality: substance over form

After the 2008 global financial crisis and corporate scandals, assessing and improving corporate governance quality (CGQ) is essential. This paper proposes a different approach to evaluate CGQ, to overcome the conceptual and methodological limits of the previous rating systems. It tries to go beyond the objectives of the existing models by suggesting an alternative operating model, (aligned with the new CG guidelines) that provides a concise index for monitoring and decision-making. Using a Fuzzy Expert System (FES), the authors propose a formalized model that: (1) represents all the factors (structural and behavioral) that affect the quality of corporate governance in terms of practical and objective decision-making procedure; (2) is a flexible and useful management tool for supporting the “Board review” and assessing the increase in CGQ associated with particular decisions; (3) supervisors can use to assess CG adequacy by replacing or integrating the experts’ opinions with interviews/questionnaires filled in by directors and managers or through direct observation, as recently suggested by EBA/ESMA. This paper highlights the importance of behavioral features and group dynamics in corporate governance and represents them in an integrated model together with other structural and organizational elements.     

Agentic or Communal? Associations between Interpersonal Goals,Popularity, and Bullying in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence

This study investigated whether perceived popularity mediates and/or moderates the association between agentic goals and bullying, and whether sociometric popularity mediates and/or moderates the association between communal goals and bullying. Age and gender differences were also examined. Participants were 276 fourth and fifth graders (middle childhood sample) and 196 seventh and eighth graders (early adolescence sample). Peer status and bullying were assessed with sociometric measures, interpersonal goals with self‐reports. The theoretical model included both mediation and moderation effects. An age‐related reversal was found in how status mediated the associations between goals and bullying. Sociometric popularity mediated the association of agentic goals with bullying in middle childhood but of communal goals with bullying in early adolescence. Perceived popularity mediated the association of communal goals with bullying in middle childhood but of agentic goals with bullying in early adolescence. In middle childhood, perceived popularity also moderated the effect of agentic goals on bullying. The results were discussed in terms of the role of bullying as a means to enhance status in early adolescence.