The present study aimed at verifying the relation between factors of resilience and perceived self-efficacy in life skills, considering a sample of 302 Italian early, middle, and late adolescents, recruited from State Junior and High Schools of the Eastern Sicily, Italy. We used the Perceived Self-efficacy in Life Skills Scales (PSES_PE/NE: Empathic Self-efficacy Scale; PSES_PS: Problem-solving Self-efficacy Scale) and the Resiliency Attitudes and Skills Profile (Italian-RASP) composed of five factors (sense of humour, competence, adaptability, engagement, and control). Results demonstrated that the factors of resilience were strongly (adaptability and engagement) and moderately (sense of humour and competence) related to perceived self-efficacy in the analysed domains; consequently, adolescents who perceived themselves as highly efficient in empathy and in problem-solving were more resilient than those who perceived themselves as lowly efficient in the same domains. Future research should investigate these relations in other life skills expressed by children and adults.

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This study analyzed the relationships between the inclination to help the others and prosocial moral reasoning (PMR) in a sample of 548 Italian adolescents and young adults. We used the Italian version of Prosocial Tendencies Measure to evaluate the tendencies to adopt prosocial behaviors in different conditions (public, anonymous, and helping behavior in emotionally critical and dire situations) and the two Italian versions of Prosocial Reasoning Objective Measure (respectively for adolescents and adults) in order to assess the general level (composite PMR) and the five typologies of PMR (hedonistic, needs oriented, approval oriented, stereotypical, and internalized prosocial moral reasoning). Results showed that girls scored higher than boys in helping behaviors in emotionally critical and dire situations, while boys scored higher than girls in public behaviors; furthermore, young adults expressed higher levels than adolescents in anonymous behaviors while adolescents scored higher than young adults in public behaviors. In relation to prosocial moral reasoning, girls expressed higher scores than boys in composite PMR and, specifically, in internalized and hedonistic PMR, while boys showed higher levels than girls in stereotypical, needs oriented, and approval oriented PMR. Moreover, young adults reached higher levels than adolescents in composite PMR, especially in internalized and hedonistic PMR; additionally, adolescents obtained higher levels than young adults in stereotypical, needs oriented, and approval oriented PMR. Significant relationships between prosocial behavior and PMR were found: the inclination to use helping behaviors in emotionally critical and dire situations was related positively to levels of composite PMR, especially to internalized PMR, but negatively to approval oriented PMR; public behaviors were related positively to approval and needs oriented PMR, but negatively to composite PMR and, specifically to internalized PMR. Future research will analyze the effects of these dimensions on other psychological constructs such as moral disengagement and value orientations in educational context.

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Abstract.Creativity was defined as “the centerpiece of an education that prepares a generation of change agents for doing good” (Sheridan-Rabideau, 2010). In the theoretical framework of the action research model (see Lewin, 1951) this study was aimed to propose a training to enhance creativity in children. According to the William’s model (1966, 1994), creativity is made by the following factors: fluency, flexibility, originality,elaboration and the ability to produce creative titles . Purpose: to explore the effects of a specific training on improvement of creativity factors. Training consisted of three steps (1 hour every one) in which the children, respectively, a) imagined to see objects looking in a Kaleidoscope and wrote a story with imagined objects; b) proposed ways to enhance a simple toy and to make it funny (see Torrance, 1989); c) found similarities between couples of objects. Sample: 36 Italian children (16 boys and 20 girls) aged between 7 and 8 years old, attending second classes of a primary school in Misterbianco (Italy). Participants were divided between experimental group (attending training) and control group (no training). Measures: The Italian version of Test of Divergent Thinking (TCT: Williams, 1994). We used protocol A to analyze levels of creativity before the training and protocol B (perfectly comparable with protocol A) to evaluate creativity after training. Results: Children reached levels of creativity similar to those obtained by children of the same age in our context (De Caroli, 2009). After training, children of the experimental group improved in flexibility (t= -2,872, p=.01), originality (t= -3,831, p=.001), elaboration (t= -6,096, p<.001), and in titles production(t= -3,573, p=.002). No significant changes emerged in the Fluidity. Future research could deepen the effects of this training in children of different ages.Keywords: enhance creativity, primary school, Test of Divergent Thinking.