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A robust body of research has identified school transitions during adolescence, and in particular the transition from middle to high school, as one of the riskiest phases for school failure, being characterized by significant social, emotional and behavioral changes. This transition is critical even with respect to academic achievement: in Italy, the highest frequency of school dropout can be observed in the 9th and 10th grades, partly as a consequence of poor adjustment to the new school context. The impact of students' relationships with their teachers may be particularly relevant during critical developmental periods. Indeed, student-teacher relationships have been widely recognized as protective factors in school adjustment and, in case of negative relationships, also as a factor that increases the risk of maladjustment. Positive and affective student-teacher relationships may play an important role in students' adaptation to the school environment, favoring both academic achievement and adaptive behaviors. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the quality of teacher-student relationships, as perceived by pupils, on academic achievement, and problem and prosocial behaviors during the relevant school transition. The sample consisted of 122 students (55% female). We employed a self-report questionnaire to collect information on: demographic characteristics, quality of the relationship with teachers, problem and prosocial behaviors, and academic achievement. Students filled in the questionnaires twice: once during the 8th grade and 1 year later, during their first year of high school (9th grade). Regression analyses indicated that both average and varying levels of closeness with teachers significantly predicted changes in academic achievement: A perceived increase in closeness in 9th grade, as well as a higher mean closeness level, was associated with an increase in academic achievement. In turn, an increase in the level of perceived conflict with teachers significantly predicted an increase in conduct problems and hyperactive behaviors. This study supports the significance of student-teacher relationships as a protective factor during students' transition to high-school. Our findings also highlight the importance of relationship quality in preventing students' risk of school failure.

Digital traces of activity on social network sites represent a vast source of ecological data with potential connections with individual behavioral and psychological characteristics. The present study investigates the relationship between user-generated textual content shared on Facebook and emotional well-being. Self-report measures of depression, anxiety, and stress were collected from 201 adult Facebook users from North Italy. Emotion-related textual indicators, including emoticon use, were extracted form users’ Facebook posts via automated text analysis. Correlation analyses revealed that individuals with higher levels of depression, anxiety expressed negative emotions on Facebook more frequently. In addition, use of emoticons expressing positive emotions correlated negatively with stress level. When comparing age groups, younger users reported higher frequency of both emotion-related words and emoticon use in their posts. Also, the relationship between online emotional expression and self-report emotional well-being was generally stronger in the younger group. Overall, findings support the feasibility and validity of studying individual emotional well-being by means of examination of Facebook profiles. Implications for online screening purposes and future research directions are discussed.

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Several links between aspects of executive functioning and the development of social competence have been established. The present study investigates the relation between executive inhibitory control and cooperative/non-cooperative behavior, in an ecological setting, and from a longitudinal perspective. Elementary school children (n=195) of three age groups (7, 9, 11 years, initially) were measured at two consecutive time points, at a one-year interval, with tasks tapping executive inhibitory control (the Stroop test), and social competence (a collaborative puzzle solving task). Executive inhibition was identified as the most influential stable predictor only in the case of non-cooperative behavior and presented strong concurrent relations with both cooperative and non-cooperative behavior at follow-up, even when controlling for previous level of the same behavior. The findings imply the need to consider the important role of executive inhibitory processes in multifactorial models of social competence development and in the refinement of present interventions.

The increasing utilization of social media provides a vast and new source of user-generated ecological data (digital traces), which can be automatically collected for research purposes. The availability of these data sets, combined with the convergence between social and computer sciences, has led researchers to develop automated methods to extract digital traces from social media and use them to predict individual psychological characteristics and behaviors. In this article, we reviewed the literature on this topic and conducted a series of meta-analyses to determine the strength of associations between digital traces and specific individual characteristics; personality, psychological well-being, and intelligence. Potential moderator effects were analyzed with respect to type of social media platform, type of digital traces examined, and study quality. Our findings indicate that digital traces from social media can be studied to assess and predict theoretically distant psychosocial characteristics with remarkable accuracy. Analysis of moderators indicated that the collection of specific types of information (i.e., user demographics), and the inclusion of different types of digital traces, could help improve the accuracy of predictions.