Flora Gatti | Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II" (original) (raw)

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Papers by Flora Gatti

Frontiers in Education, 2022

The study provides a portrait of teachers’ stress experience in the face of the needed introducti... more The study provides a portrait of teachers’ stress experience in the face of the needed introduction of information systems (IS) during COVID-19-related emergency remote teaching. Researchers contacted the headmasters at several Italian schools, who choose teacher’s representatives. The latters shared the online questionnaire among colleagues; the teachers voluntarily decided to participate. The cross-sectional study involved 237 Italian teachers (81.5% female; Mage = 50.20; SDage = 8.87). This survey wanted to detect information systems-related distress and eustress on the job, and technostress creators and inhibitors. Descriptive statistics, correlational analyses, and a multiple regression model using structural equation modeling were run. As according to the model, IS-related distress and eustress on the job were the dependent variables, technostress creators and inhibitors the independent ones, and respondents’ gender and age the control ones. Both technostress creators and inhibitors showed significant relationships with IS-related distress and eustress. Technostress creators showed a positive relationship with IS-related distress and a negative one with IS-related eustress; conversely, technostress inhibitors showed an opposite pattern of relationships. Only technostress creators significantly associate to both age and gender in the model, suggesting that older, female teachers tended to experience more technostress creators. Due to the increases in remote work, the awareness of IS-related stress experiences represents a key factor to evaluate work-related risks and prevent stress-related problems. The results from this study suggest that using technologies can represent both a threat to one’s well-being, highlighting the need to provide adequate trainings and support, but also a resource for personal enrichment.

Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology

In the face of the first wave of COVID-19 contagion, citizens all over the world experienced conc... more In the face of the first wave of COVID-19 contagion, citizens all over the world experienced concerns for their safety and health, as well as prolonged lockdownswhich brought about limitations but also unforeseen opportunities for personal growth. Broad variability in these psychological responses to such unprecedented experiences emerged. This study addresses this variability by investigating the role of personal and community resilience. Personal resilience, collective resilience, community disaster management ability, provided information by local authorities, and citizens' focus on COVID-19-related personal concerns and lockdown-related opportunities for personal growth were detected through an online questionnaire. Multilevel modelling was run with data from 3,745 Italian citizens. The potential of personal resilience as a driver for individuals to overcome adverse situations with positive outcomes was confirmed. Differently, the components of community

Gli assistenti sociali del Comune di Bologna: una comunità professionale alla ricerca della propr... more Gli assistenti sociali del Comune di Bologna: una comunità professionale alla ricerca della propria identità

Journal of Community Psychology

The changes in teaching due to COVID-19-related restraints generated distress among teachers, put... more The changes in teaching due to COVID-19-related restraints generated distress among teachers, putting their job-related efficacy and satisfaction at risk. This study deepens the community-related protective and risk factors in teachers' experience. An online questionnaire detecting social distancing burnout, job-related distress experience, efficacy and satisfaction, and Sense of Community (SoC) was administered to 307 Italian teachers. A multiple mediation model was tested with Structural Equation Modeling. Evidence showed that social distancing burnout could increase teachers' distress rates and, through them, impact their job-related efficacy and satisfaction; however, its effects on the latter depended on the kind of distress mediating. Conversely, SoC could support their jobrelated efficacy and satisfaction, yet no association with their distress rates emerged. The role of social distancing and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)-related distress as the main threats for teachers stems, along with the one of job distress and the community of belonging as assets on which teachers relied.

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, Feb 28, 2022

D1.2 Report on the conceptual, innovative, evaluation and ethical framework for youth citizen soc... more D1.2 Report on the conceptual, innovative, evaluation and ethical framework for youth citizen social science [m11] stems from the work, that has been conducted under WP1. This report describes the conceptual framework for youth involved citizen social science in the YouCount project. Moreover, the report presents the use of citizen social science as a mean for social innovation, highlights the dialogical framework for co-creative youth citizen social science, explores the conceptual and methodological framework for evaluation of the outcomes, and discusses ethical considerations and risk mitigation strategies when conducting youth involved citizen social science. The conceptual, innovative, evaluation and ethical framework is a starting point for setting a strategy of empirical research and, as a living document, will be developed during the implementation of the YouCount project.

International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 2022

Background The efficacy of public measures for reducing the transmission of the COVID-19 infectio... more Background The efficacy of public measures for reducing the transmission of the COVID-19 infection relies on citizens’ voluntary adherence with prescribed actions. Drawing on prior literature about compliant behavior, this study aimed to identify factors associated with people engagement in health-protective behaviors by including a conjoint complement of instrumental/self-oriented, normative/community-based, and affective variables. Method A cross-sectional study involving a non-representative sample of 4045 Italian citizens was carried out during the first stage of the pandemic (April–May 2020). Variables associated with health-protective behaviors were perceived personal and societal concerns and perceived effectiveness of the institutional response to the outbreak (instrumental dimensions), and family and friends perceived norms and sense of community responsibility (normative dimensions). Two negative emotions (anxiety and fear) were included as mediators between personal and s...

The aim of this study is to examine the association between citizens' perceptions of the effe... more The aim of this study is to examine the association between citizens' perceptions of the effectiveness of the institutional response, their connection and responsibility to their community (Sense of Community-SoC; Sense of Community Responsibility-SoC-R), and their personal and social concerns about the current emergency and their perceptions of a postpandemic future during the first COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Another variable considered was the personal reflexivity about the COVID-19 pandemic. 3925 Italian adults completed an online questionnaire during the first COVID-19 lockdown. A structural equation model with mediation was tested. Institutional effectiveness was associated with SoC, SoC-R, current social concerns, and perceptions of a postpandemic future. SoC and SoC-R were associated with current personal and social concerns, and perceptions of a postpandemic future. Reflexivity was negatively associated with SoC and positively associated with SoC-R, mediating the relationships between SoC, SoC-R and current personal and social concerns and perceptions of a postpandemic future. Findings indicate the need to adopt a perspective that considers individual and socio-political levels and their interaction to better understand the impact of the pandemic during a national lockdown.

There is growing support for viewing communities as a multilevel construct in which the interdepe... more There is growing support for viewing communities as a multilevel construct in which the interdependence between individuals and community systems contributes to the promotion of individual responsibilities in thinking and enacting changes to respond to people's and community's needs. However, there is currently scant evidence regarding the influence of psychological sense of community and the role of community assets on prosocial behavior during the COVID-19 national lockdown. The main aim of the current study was to test a conceptual model of community assets as predictors of prosocial behavior during Italy's COVID-19 national lockdown. A sample of 3,964 Italian adults was involved in the current study. We collected data using an online questionnaire, between April 12 and May 21, 2020, during the nationwide lockdown restrictions. To collect data, we employed convenience and virtual snowball sampling strategies (i.e., email, social networks, and online channels). Using s...

With the lack of “gay” social spaces, their community has gone through integration but also fragm... more With the lack of “gay” social spaces, their community has gone through integration but also fragmentation processes; the need to relate safely still emerges among its members. This study aims to understand whether the relationships between loneliness and relational motives towards People-Nearby Applications (PNAs) uses are moderated by individuals’ sexual orientation. An online questionnaire including the Cyber Relationships Motives Scale and the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults – short version was administered to 618 PNAs users. No significant differences emerged between heterosexual people and people from sexual minorities except for the relationship between Social Loneliness and PNAs use to search for love, which emerged as positive for the first group and negative for the latter. These results suggest that nowadays the loneliness characterizing how people live local communities has the same role for both heterosexual people and sexual minorities, but also that th...

Human Affairs, 2019

This contribution explores the role that the Sense of Responsible Togetherness (SoRT) exerts with... more This contribution explores the role that the Sense of Responsible Togetherness (SoRT) exerts with reference to Participation and Sense of Community. The study was conducted on a university campus, as campuses represent places where academic and community lives go hand in hand and the community is heterogeneous. A questionnaire with the SoRT scale, the Participation scale and the Italian Scale of the Sense of Community (SISC) was administered to 130 university students. SoRT had a significant indirect effect on the students’ Participation via their Sense of Community, suggesting that the promotion of individuals’ Sense of Responsible Togetherness within their community, along with the emotional and affective bond to it, may allow us to recover symbolic and physical spaces in which participation can be fostered. A need for and significance of interventions aimed at promoting collective actions within intermediate systems (groups, educational systems, work ones, etc.).

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019

Communication through social media characterizes modern lifestyles and relationships, including f... more Communication through social media characterizes modern lifestyles and relationships, including family interactions. The present study aims at deepening the role that parents’ perceptions about social media effects on family systems can exert within their family functioning, specifically referring to the relationship between collective family efficacy and open communications within family systems with adolescents. A questionnaire to detect the openness of family communications, the collective family efficacy and the perceptions about the impacts of social media on family systems was administered to 227 Italian parents who had one or more teenage children, and who use Facebook and WhatsApp to communicate with them. From the results, these perceptions emerge as a mediator in the relationship between the collective family efficacy and the openness of communications, suggesting that it is not only the actual impact of social media on family systems that matters but also parents’ percept...

Sustainability, 2020

In the face of emergency situations, such as a global pandemic, individuals rely on their persona... more In the face of emergency situations, such as a global pandemic, individuals rely on their personal resources, but also on community dimensions, to deal with the unprecedented changes and risks and to safeguard their well-being. The present study specifically addresses the role of individual resources and community dimensions with reference to academic communities facing COVID-19-related lockdowns and the changes that these have implied. An online questionnaire was administered to 1124 Italian University students. It detected their sense of belonging and of responsible togetherness with reference to their academic community through community dimensions, their student self-efficacy as an individual resource, and their academic stress—potentially stemming from studying in the middle of a pandemic. A multiple mediation model was been run with structural equation modeling. The results show that both the community dimensions associate with higher student self-efficacy and the sense of res...

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about disruptive changes in individuals’ lives, breaking the es... more The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about disruptive changes in individuals’ lives, breaking the established systems of meaning worldwide. Indeed, in the first months of the pandemic, with individuals being forced to stay at home for a prolonged time to contain the spread of the virus, the need to build new meanings to understand and face this crisis emerged. Building on this, the present study contributes to the understanding of how sensemaking processes were shaped in the face of COVID-19 collective trauma during the very first months of the pandemic. Hence, 36 Italian young adults aged between 21 and 25 submitted daily diary entries for two weeks (T1 was the third week of Italian National lockdown; T2 was the penultimate week before the ease of such stay-at-home orders), resulting in 504 texts. The stimulus was always “Could you describe your daily experience and feelings?”. The Grounded Theory was used. Thus, 15 categories emerged, grouped into three macro-categories. The core cat...

Current Psychology

The COVID-19 pandemic caused abrupt and profound changes to teaching and learning. The present st... more The COVID-19 pandemic caused abrupt and profound changes to teaching and learning. The present study seeks to understand adolescents’ experiences of the emergency adoption of online school learning (OSL) during the first national lockdown in Italy. Sixty-four students in their final two years of high school were interviewed and content analysis was performed. The findings describe students’ views of the changes related to OSL according to structural, individual and relational dimensions. Schools’ lack of organization, overwhelming demands, as well as experience of difficulties in concentration, stress and inhibited relationships with teachers and classmates were among the challenges evidenced in the transition. OSL, however, has also made it possible to experience a new flexibility and autonomy in the organization of learning. The study stresses the importance of fostering adaptation of teacher-student relationships and collaborative learning in order to improve schools’ preparednes...

In modern communities, the perception of low individual and collective civic engagement makes it ... more In modern communities, the perception of low individual and collective civic engagement makes it difficult to think and act to create contexts of responsible ways of togetherness. Indeed, the civic engagement represents a key element in creating social relationships and developing a sense of responsible togetherness (SoRT), because it promotes prosocial values and increases active citizenship and sense of community (SoC). For these reasons, a new vision of local communities that refers to collaborative dimensions and social responsibility is always more outlining in and through social practices. The present study aims to explore the role of local community engagement attitudes and behaviors in promoting collective actions and members’ representations about their interactions with the local community, through their SoC. Three hundred twelve participants (57% is female) aged between 17 and 27 (M = 22.23, SD = 1.92) answered a self-report questionnaire. A structural equation modeling w...

Within territorial communities, social actions and especially their members' behavior and int... more Within territorial communities, social actions and especially their members' behavior and interpersonal style have a critical role in shaping the effects of their social participation on their social well-being. The present study aims to explore the role of the Sense of Responsible Togetherness (SoRT) played in the relationship between social participation and social wellbeing. Three-hundred and fifty questionnaires were administered to Italian citizens living in the Campania Region. From the analyses, the SoRT proved to be a partial mediator in the above-mentioned relationship. These results highlight the significance that interventions which can foster a different and more responsible perception about the relational contexts and produce a greater well-being could have.

Frontiers in Education, 2022

Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology

Journal of Community Psychology

CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research - Zenodo, Feb 28, 2022

International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 2022

Human Affairs, 2019

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019

Sustainability, 2020

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health

Current Psychology

CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2020

People-Nearby Applications (PNAs) social and community-related uses could represent an alternativ... more People-Nearby Applications (PNAs) social and community-related uses could represent an alternative way to live urban spaces and sociability when citizens experience offline constraints in doing so in their city or neighborhood. Indeed, the features of PNAs suggest that they could represent reliable tools to glue local social fabrics, enhancing their local community experience. Thus, this study aims at deepening whether PNAs social (i.e., for friend-ship/network) and specifically community-related (i.e., for location-based searching of new people to meet) uses can improve citizens' local community experience through fostering face-to-face meetings with other users nearby and a more involved way of living their neighborhoods at last. An online questionnaire was administered to 302 Italian PNAs users. The results show that only PNAs the community-related use associates with more frequent face-to-face meetings with other users nearby and with a more involved way of living one's neighborhood via this frequency. Conversely, no significant association emerged for PNAs social use. These results suggest that PNAs can improve us-ers' local community experience as they seem able to enhance local social relationships and their users' feeling of involvement in their neighborhood through fostering new local acquaintances and interactions and further opportunities to live local common places and socialize. Moreover, this supports the insights about PNAs role and potentialities as an alternative path to rely on for users having unmet aggregative needs yet experiencing constraints in straightly living their neighborhood through enjoying urban spaces and local sociability.

Comunità Imperfette. Dalle dinamiche disgregative al decision making comunitario, 2019

Nell’ambito del III Workshop Cities from the sea – Maritime Identity and Urban Regeneration, gli ... more Nell’ambito del III Workshop Cities from the sea – Maritime Identity and Urban Regeneration, gli Psicologi di Comunità hanno lavorato in collaborazione con Architetti, Urbanisti ed Economisti per progettare interventi di rigenerazione urbana per l’area di Nisida e Bagnoli (NA), con focus sul rapporto della comunità locale con il mare. L’obiettivo generale è la progettazione di interventi per la valorizzazione delle risorse sociali ed urbane preesistenti. In un primo step, attraverso la creazione di una rete sociale, si creeranno connessioni tra le realtà associative ed imprenditoriali presenti sul territorio; in una fase successiva, si creeranno tavoli di progettazione sociale ed urbana a cui possano partecipare attivamente gli attori così connessi ed i referenti Istituzionali. Il fine ultimo è restituire alla cittadinanza il waterfront di Bagnoli come spazio pubblico ed elemento identitario attraverso processi decisionali e partecipativi condivisi. Sono state condotte interviste semi-strutturate finalizzate alla comprensione del legame con i luoghi, dei bisogni e desideri espressi da cittadini e Stakeholders (rappresentanti di associazioni, imprenditori, rappresentanti delle Istituzioni) rispetto all’area. Attraverso queste interviste, sono state esplorate anche le relazioni sociali esistenti all’interno della comunità locale, che sono state rappresentate ricorrendo alla Carta di Rousseau (Rousseau, Bélanger, 1985). Dal quanto emerso dall'analisi del tessuto sociale e dei legami con il luogo, dalle interviste alla cittadinanza e agli Stakeholders, il gruppo di lavoro ha formulato alcune possibili strategie progettuali da proporre agli attori sociali coinvolti per l’implementazione della rete: 1) organizzazione di focus group nei quali discutere e negoziare percezioni, visioni e desideri inerenti l’area ed il suo rapporto con il mare, per giungere alla definizione di chiari obiettivi comuni; 2) organizzazione di eventi con la finalità di valorizzare le risorse ambientali e culturali presenti, rafforzando l’identità locale ed il senso di appartenenza; 3) “adozione” da parte di cittadini ed associazioni di spazi pubblici, con l’intento di trasformarli da luoghi degradati a luoghi di aggregazione, con la finalità ultima di promuovere la partecipazione attiva nella cura degli spazi comuni. La vision che guida tale progettazione in divenire è volta a ripensare i sentimenti derivanti dalla rappresentazione dell’area di Bagnoli come “territorio ferito” per tradurli da agito comune, attraverso l’isolamento e la chiusura, in processi collaborativi che ridefiniscano gli elementi identitari e di aggregazione. L’identificazione di tali elementi, infatti, potrebbe implementare la coesione della rete sociale e, in ultima analisi, innescare processi empowering all’interno della comunità stessa.

Comunità Imperfette. Dalle dinamiche disgregative al decision making comunitario, 2019

Le diverse e nuove tecnologie comunicative caratterizzano le nostre comunità con effetti diretti ... more Le diverse e nuove tecnologie comunicative caratterizzano le nostre comunità con effetti diretti e indiretti sulla gestione delle relazioni sociali (Schmitz, 2016), favorendo forme di isolamento, tendenza all’individualismo, assenza di impegno sociale e nelle relazioni significative; altro impatto sociale significativo è la tensione verso gli interessi personali piuttosto che lo sviluppo di processi cooperativi e azioni collettive (Procentese, Scotto di Luzio, & Natale, 2011). Obiettivo del presente studio è stato comprendere se il senso di solitudine esperito dalle persone nei loro contesti sociali significativi (solitudine familiare, sociale, romantica) e la loro specifica motivazione a conoscere nuove persone (per desiderio sociale o romantico, per compensazione sociale) abbiano influenzato il loro comportamento (nello specifico, la self-presentation e self-disclosure, aspetti fondamentali nella creazione di relazioni intime e significative, Ward, 2016) nella relazione con le persone conosciute attraverso le app di dating online. Un questionario online è stato somministrato a 636 online daters, di età compresa tra 16 e 67 anni (M = 26.59; SD = 8.66), con le seguenti scale: Cyber Relationships Motives Scale (α = 87) di Wang e Chang (2010), short version della Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale for Adults (SESLA-S, α = 82) di DiTommaso, Brannen e Best (2004), Online Self-Openness Scale (α = 68) (Procentese, & Gatti, 2017). Dallo studio, sono emersi come predittori significativi di autentica apertura nelle relazioni attraverso le app di dating online la solitudine (β = .143, p < 0.01), il desiderio di conoscere nuove persone (β = .193, p < 0.01), il desiderio di trovare un partner per una relazione potenzialmente duratura (β = .125, p < 0.01); non è emerso come predittore significativo, invece, la compensazione sociale (β = -.08, ns). I risultati dello studio suggeriscono che l’apertura degli online daters sia influenzata dal senso di solitudine che essi esperiscono nell’ambito dei loro contesti sociali significativi (familiare, sociale, romantico) e dal loro desiderio di conoscere nuovi potenziali amici o partner per relazioni romantiche. Sembra emergere uno spostamento dei luoghi di incontro e relazione nell’ambito delle comunità, dai luoghi tradizionali di aggregazione (piazze, bar, discoteche, etc.) verso gli ambienti online (tra cui le app di dating online). Queste ultime, infatti, vengono oggi utilizzate con diverse finalità anche in relazione al contesto geografico e sociale nel quale si vive (contesto metropolitano, piccole città, etc.) ed ai bisogni individuali insoddisfatti (di aggregazione, di identificazione, di soddisfazione sessuale, relazionali, etc.) (Van De Wiele, & Tong, 2014).