Tommaso Palombi

Academically resilient students achieve high performance despite socioeconomic disadvantages. Although this population has received increasing attention, little is known about its motivational heterogeneity, a critical gap given the central role of motivation in persistence and success. Guided by Self-Determination Theory (SDT), this study examined motivational profiles among a population of academically resilient 10th-grade students in Italy (N = 15,751). Using a person-centered approach, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) identified three profiles: a “multifaceted regulation resilient” profile (72%), marked by low amotivation and high levels across regulations; a “moderately amotivated resilient” profile (21%), with higher amotivation and lower levels of regulation; and a “strongly amotivated resilient” profile (7%), characterized by the highest amotivation and the lowest levels of regulation. Auxiliary analyses indicated that the amotivated profiles, particularly the “strongly amotivated resilient” profile, exhibited higher school dropout intentions than the “multifaceted regulation resilient” profile. Overall, although the majority of academically resilient students displayed multiple coexisting forms of regulation, a non-negligible subgroup showed significant motivational vulnerability, with amotivation emerging as a central risk factor. These findings challenge the assumption that academic resilience is sufficient to protect students from motivational disengagement and dropout risk. High academic achievement, in other words, should not be taken to imply the absence of motivational concerns. This highlights the importance of moving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach, recognizing that even within resilient populations, specific subgroups remain motivationally vulnerable and in need of tailored support.

Content validation, the assessment of whether measurement items adequately capture their intended constructs, is essential to scale development in organizational research but remains resource-intensive when conducted through conventional human-rating procedures. Natural language processing (NLP) offers a scalable complement for estimating definitional correspondence and distinctiveness, yet no study has systematically compared the full range of available approaches against direct human validity judgments across both multi-item and single-item measurement formats. The present study evaluates 16 NLP models spanning five architectural families (statistical models, static word embeddings, contextual sentence embeddings, task-specific interaction models and large language models) using two independent human-rated benchmark datasets. Results indicated that no single approach dominated across validity components or measurement formats, and that computational complexity was neither necessary nor sufficient for predictive accuracy. For multi-item correspondence, contextual sentence embeddings achieved top-group accuracy alongside supervised content-validation models; the choice of similarity metric substantially moderated performance for static embeddings. For multi-item distinctiveness, a broad upper group spanning all major architectural families achieved statistically indistinguishable accuracy. Single-item correspondence revealed a task-imposed performance ceiling with no architectural advantage. Practical recommendations are derived for each use case, prioritizing reproducibility, interpretability, and generalizability alongside predictive accuracy. A freely available web application implementing the recommended pipeline is introduced.

To face ecological disasters, one of the major emergencies of modern times, fostering pro-environmental behaviors appears crucial. While research explored various behavioral drivers, few studies addressed the conceptual representation of ecological events at different ages. Our preregistered study fills this gap, examining how different generations conceptualize ecology, considering evidence suggesting a link between climate change abstractness and willingness to act pro-environmentally.Older (>65 yo) and younger (18-35 yo) individuals performed multiple tasks targeting conceptual processing (categorization), semantic organization (rating), and conceptual representation (feature generation) of ecological (e.g., deforestation) compared to concrete (e.g., spoon) and abstract (e.g., affirmation) concepts. In the categorization task, participants responded to critical ecological, concrete, and abstract words but refrained from responding to animal words. The rating task involved evaluating critical words on semantic aspects (e.g., Abstractness, Familiarity), and the feature generation task listing properties true for each concept. Innovatively, participants were tested in three possible settings (indoor, natural outdoor, urbanized outdoor) to test whether exposure to nature impacts categorization.Results showed that independent from the setting, ecological concepts were similar to abstract concepts, especially in semantic organization and conceptual representation, or more abstractly characterized than them, especially in conceptual processing. Age differences were minimal, but older adults, who showed more positive attitudes toward ecology and nature, characterized ecological concepts more concretely than younger adults. Theoretically, the multifarious characterization of ecological phenomena supports the flexibility of our conceptual system and points to the necessity of overcoming the classical concrete-abstract dichotomy and studying concepts in a more “situated” manner. From a societal point of view, the age-dependent abstractness of ecological concepts might inform policies on how to improve climate change campaigns, tailoring them for different age groups.

Background/Objectives: Adolescence is a critical developmental phase marked by rapid cognitive, emotional, and social changes that influence how individuals experience psychological energy and exhaustion. Self-Determination Theory recently proposed a dual-process model, based on two distinct, yet related, constructs: Subjective Vitality, associated with well-being and positive health outcomes, and Subjective Depletion, associated with illbeing and negative emotions. Since, to date, no study has investigated vitality and depletion during adolescence, this study aims to validate the Subjective Vitality/Depletion Scale (SVDS) in a large sample of adolescents. Methods: A total of 1111 Italian adolescents (Mage = 14.49, SDage = 1.49; 48% females) completed the SVDS and other validated self-report measures. Specifically, the psychometric properties of the SVDS across biological sex and age groups and latent mean differences across these groups were assessed. Results: Findings supported the dimensionality of the SVDS with two correlated factors, and its construct validity through associations with positive and negative affect and basic psychological needs satisfaction. Full invariance for the SVDS was achieved across biological sex and age groups. Latent mean analyses indicated that males reported higher levels of vitality compared to females (Cohen’s d = 0.46), with no significant differences for depletion; older adolescents reported lower levels of vitality (d = −0.23) and higher levels of depletion (d = 0.20) compared to younger adolescents. Conclusions: These findings support the SVDS as a valid and reliable instrument for assessing energy-related experiences in adolescence. The results suggest meaningful sex differences and a potential developmental trend of declining subjective energy from early to later adolescence.

Adolescent school victimization is a socially regulated experience, making it important to consider classroom-level compositional effects beyond individual characteristics. This study investigated the role of classroom characteristics, specifically, classroom socioeconomic status, average academic achievement, sex composition, immigrant density, and class size, in shaping students’ experiences of school victimization. Victimization was analyzed using a doubly latent multilevel modeling approach, which accounts for measurement error at both individual and classroom levels. The analyses drew on the entire Italian 10th grade student population (N = 254,177; M_age = 15.58 years; SD_age = 0.74) and a considerable number of classrooms (N classrooms = 14,278), a sample size rarely available in the social sciences. Results indicated that classroom characteristics played a significant role in victimization, beyond individual-level variables. The most important factors were sex and prior academic achievement: classrooms with a higher proportion of male students experienced greater victimization, whereas higher average achievement was associated with lower victimization. A greater proportion of second-generation immigrant students, but not first-generation students, was also associated with increased victimization. By contrast, classroom socioeconomic status and class size were not significant predictors of victimization. In conclusion, these findings highlight the importance of considering the additional influence of the classroom context for school-based interventions, particularly the composition of classrooms in terms of sex and academic achievement, when addressing student victimization.

Background/Objectives: Negative emotional inertia describes the extent to which a prior emotional state can predict the subsequent one, and it is considered a significant indicator of psychological maladjustment that has several negative consequences in the workplace. The current study tested a theoretical model in which the inertia of negative emotions is moderated by regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs (RESE) in managing negative affects across workers of different ages. Specifically, we hypothesized that RESE moderates the relation between negative emotions at consecutive time points, reducing their persistence, and that age would influence this relation, with older workers relying less on this resource than younger ones. Methods: Participants were 221 workers (57.8% females) exposed to social work stressors who reported their affectivity every evening for 31 consecutive days. We analyzed the data using dynamic structural equation models (DSEM), which enable examining within-person time series trends while estimating individual differences therein. Results/Conclusions: In line with our predictions, results suggest that emotional self-efficacy is a key personal resource that might be able to buffer individuals from emotional stasis, a resource primarily useful for younger workers who rely less on actual emotional regulation expertise than older adults.

The present study explores the innovative application of virtual reality (VR) in conducting the Radial Arm Maze (RAM) task, a performance-based test traditionally utilized for assessing spatial memory. This study aimed to develop a gamified version of the RAM implemented in immersive VR and investigate the interaction between the sense of presence, movement features, and performance within the RAM. We developed software supporting a head-mounted display (HMD), addressing prior limitations in the scientific literature concerning user interaction, data collection accuracy, operational flexibility, and immersion level. This study involved a sample of healthy young adults who engaged with the immersive VR version of the RAM, examining the influence of VR experience variables (sense of presence, motion sickness, and usability) on RAM performance. Notably, it also introduced the collection and analysis of movement features within the VR environment to ascertain their impact on performance outcomes and their relationship with VR experience variables. The VR application developed is notable for its user-friendliness, adaptability, and integration capability with physiological monitoring devices, marking a significant advance in utilizing VR for cognitive assessments. Findings from our study underscore the importance of VR experience factors in RAM performance, highlighting how a heightened sense of presence can predict better performance, thereby emphasizing engagement and immersion as crucial for task success in VR settings. Additionally, this study revealed how movement parameters within the VR environment, specifically speed and directness, significantly influence RAM performance, offering new insights into optimizing VR experiences for enhanced task performance.

As the global older population grows, research increasingly focuses on their well-being and quality of life, aspects that are often impacted by a perceived loss of energy and fatigue. To describe individuals' energy dynamics, Self-Determination Theory (SDT) has recently proposed a dual-process model based on two constructs: Subjective Vitality and Depletion. The present study aims to validate the Subjective Vitality/Depletion Scale (SVDS), an instrument based on this model. A sample of 726 older adults (over 65) from two countries, USA and Italy (M_age = 72.57, SD_age = 6.49), completed the SVDS, the Big Five Inventory 2 - Extra Short Form (BFI-2-XS), the 12-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12), and the Godin-Shephard Leisure-Time Physical Activity Questionnaire (GSLTPAQ). Confirmatory factor analyses of the SVDS support the SDT hypothesis that Subjective Vitality and Depletion are two distinct, yet related constructs. Full measurement invariance for the scale was achieved across gender and age subgroups, while partial scalar invariance was established across different countries, suggesting some specific influence of cultural factors. Correlations with BFI-2-XS, SF-12, and GSLTPAQ support the SVDS validity. The study provided evidence that the SVDS based on SDT is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing Subjective Vitality and Depletion among older individuals.

Background: Despite the well-documented health benefits of Physical Activity (PA), older adults often struggle to engage in PA. The present review examines the relationship between PA, motivation and basic psychological needs among older adults aged 65 and over, through the lens of Self-Determination Theory (SDT). Methods: Relevant studies that used qualitative methodologies and applied SDT framework were systematically searched in five electronic databases (i.e. Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed, PsycINFO and CINAHL). Methodological rigour was assessed using the GRADE-CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research). Results: 21 studies met inclusion criteria (N = 412; ages 65–97). Four themes and nine subthemes were identified. Peer relationships emerged as a pivotal element in supporting most autonomous forms of motivation and satisfying psychological needs (i.e. autonomy, competence and relatedness). A peer coach was preferred during several health programs, enhancing competence and relatedness. Outdoor activities in natural settings promoted intrinsic motivation, while indoor activities were driven more by extrinsic motivation. Barriers included ageist stereotypes and perceptions of inevitable physical decline, which negatively impacted competence and autonomy, ultimately reducing motivation for PA. Conclusions: This qualitative synthesis highlights a complex interplay of SDT components and social factors in influencing PA behaviours among older adults. Tailored interventions that integrate social interaction, provide feedback from coaches and offer choices among several exercises with graduate intensity levels are likely to enhance adherence in PA. Future interventions should address both psychological and social barriers to create inclusive PA strategies that meet older adults’ needs and motivation.

The demographic challenges posed by the aging population, represent a strain on national healthcare systems and highlight the need for preventive measures to improve this population's health. Previous studies have emphasized the benefits of Physical activity (PA) on cognitive and physical health, especially in late life. Despite the well-established advantages of PA, a substantial portion of the global population remains insufficiently engaged in such activities. In this scenario technologies, such as smartphones, wearable devices, exergaming, and virtual reality, have the potential to promote an active lifestyle. The primary aim of the present systematic review is to summarize the evidence regarding the motivational factors associated with technological devices that lead to an increase in engagement in PA by healthy older adults through different measures of motivation. To further understand the role of technologies, this study considers if the outdoor environment and technology might enhance motivation for PA more effectively than either element alone. Results of the study showed that technologies have shown the potential for increasing PA in this population, activating different motivational dynamics. Moreover, the meta-analysis results showed a small significant effect of technologies on Intrinsic Motivation (i.e., exercising for the inherent enjoyment or satisfaction it provides). However, the included literature has shown major limitations such as a lack of a clear definition of the construct of motivation, the presence of methodological biases, and high heterogeneity. Future research should overcome those limitations and provide more solid evidence of the motivational effect of technologies in the old adult population.