Autonomy and relatedness are fundamental needs both in adolescence and in emerging adulthood which are affected by parental support and are linked to children's psychological distress. The study investigated autonomy and relatedness in late adolescents and emerging adults living in Italy, analyzing the relationships with perceived parental support and psychological distress. Selfreport data were collected from a sample of 325 Caucasian adolescents and emerging adults (males = 41 %) ranging in age from 17 to 26 years and living in Sicily (southern Italy). Results showed that: (a) both autonomy and relatedness were positively predicted by parental support to these needs, (b) perceived support for autonomy was positively associated with perceived support for relatedness, (c) autonomy and relatedness were positively related to each other for emerging adults, but they were not related for teens, (d) autonomy predicted negatively depression and loneliness, while relatedness predicted negatively externalizing problems (only for adolescents), stress, depression, and loneliness. Taken together, the findings confirmed that autonomy and relatedness are fundamental needs for both teens and emerging adults related to parental support and psychological health. Notwithstanding, age moderated some of the investigated relationships suggesting that autonomy and relatedness have different meanings, as well as playing different roles during adolescence and emerging adulthood.

The results suggest that the nature of children's loneliness may be affected by the broad socio-cultural context.

A group of Italian children (790 boys and 717 girls), 10-13 years old, were administered the Revised Class Play (Masten, Morison, & Pellegrini, 1985) in order to explore cross-cultural differences in social reputation with respect to North American studies. Children also were given sociometric nominations to examine the association between social reputation and peer acceptance-rejection. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed a 4-factor structure with the original Leadership-Sociability factor split in 2 separate dimensions: leadership and sociability. Leadership items seemed to draw a profile of a well-behaved, polite and socially correct child, whereas Sociability items seemed to draw a profile of a child that is sociable, liked, exuberant, and ready to make friends and to interact with others. Moreover, the data suggested somewhat subtle forms of association between Aggression and Sociability. Results on relations between peer acceptance-rejection and social reputation confirmed North American findings.

The prevalence of behavioral inhibition in toddlers was examined in five cultures. Participants in this study included 110 Australian, 108 Canadian, 151 Chinese, 104 Italian, and 113 South Korean toddlers and their mothers who were observed during a structured observational laboratory session. Matched procedures were used in each country, with children encountering an unfamiliar stranger with a truck and a robot. Indicators of inhibition included the length of time toddlers delayed before approaching the stranger and the duration of contact with their mother while the stranger was in the room. Results were generally consistent with expectations and showed differences between eastern and western cultures; Italian and Australian toddlers were less inhibited than toddlers from the other countries, whereas Chinese and South Korean toddlers were more inhibited. The implications of these findings are discussed and a research agenda for further exploration of inhibition is outlined.

The Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) is a standardized self-report measure of disposition to empathic responsiveness for the general adult population (the domain for which it was developed), and for the general adolescent population. The IRI has a number of problems, however, including some uncertainty about its factor structure, low reliabilities, and poor readability of some items for people with limited literacy skills. To address these issues, we constructed an abbreviated form of the index, the Brief IRI (B-IRI). Three studies demonstrated that this 16-item B-IRI has a clear and coherent factor structure, adequate internal consistency, measurement invariance across gender and age, and theoretically meaningful associations with a range of external criteria that support its construct validity. The B-IRI substantially preserves the psychometric properties of the long form, and we recommend its use in all research settings.