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The worldwide outbreak of COVID-19, the ensuing pandemic, and the related containment measures pose considerable challenges to psychological resilience and well-being. Researchers are now forced to look for resources to cope with negative experiences linked to this health emergency. According to the salutogenic approach proposed by Antonovsky, the sense of coherence (SOC) is a major source of resilience. Thus, this study aimed at assessing the role of SOC in moderating the link between illness experiences (in terms of knowing persons diagnosed with COVID-19 and fear of contracting COVID-19) and psychological well-being. 2,784 participants, taken from a large sample of the Italian population (65.4% females) and aged between 18 and 85 years, filled in an anonymous online survey during the 3rd week of the lockdown. Findings supported the moderating role of SOC in shaping the link between illness experiences and psychological well-being. Specifically, participants who knew at least one person diagnosed with COVID-19 showed lower levels of psychological well-being at low levels of SOC. The negative relation between participants' fear of contracting COVID-19 and psychological well-being was stronger for those who showed higher levels of SOC. This study discusses the implications of these results for interventions aimed at reducing the pandemic's detrimental effects and promoting resilience.

Activity participation provides a unique context for adolescents and emerging adults to explore interests, talents, and skills and for identity work to occur. Research has found consistent gender differences in the types of activities in which males and females participate. The current study drew on Eudaimonistic identity theory to examine the subjective identity‐related experiences of personal expressiveness, flow experiences, and goal‐directed behaviour [Waterman, 1984; Waterman, 2004. Finding someone to be: Studies on the role of intrinsic motivation in identity formation. Identity, 4, 209–228] within a special type of activity, self‐defining activities, or those activities that participants identify as being important to who they are as a person. This study also tested for gender and country differences in a sample of 572 adolescents and emerging adults from the United States, Italy, and Chile. Findings indicate gender and country differences in the types of self‐defining activities for males and females, but no gender differences in the reported identity‐related experiences within those activities. This finding held across the three countries. Results from Multivariate Analyses of Variance also indicate that identity‐related experiences differ significantly across seven broad activity classes. Findings are discussed in the context of the growing literature on adolescent activity involvement and time use, gender, and their relations to identity exploration.

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Parenting stress has a crucial influence on the parent-child relationship, the functioning of the family, and the development of children. Few studies have examined parenting stress in adoptive families during early parenthood, and fewer still have considered this issue in association with the quality of both couple and social relationships. The current study was intended to investigate predictors of parenting stress in a community sample of 56 adoptive parents from Italy, for a total of 112 participants. Our goals were to: 1) evaluate parenting stress among adoptive parents during the first postadoption year, and 2) identify whether and to what extent parenting stress can be predicted by certain characteristics of the child (gender, age at adoption, years of institutionalisation, presence/absence of disease on arrival, emotional and behavioural difficulties), of parents' individual well-being (e.g., the presence of depressive symptoms), of relationships within the couple (sexual satisfaction, tenderness between partners, quarrelling) and with the social context (real and potential social support). In the analyses parents' gender effect and intercorrelations between the partners were taken into account. Results of multiple regression analysis and relative weight analysis highlighted the great importance of children's age at adoption and their emotional and behavioural difficulties in predicting both mothers' and fathers' stress, but also the contribution of the couple relationship quality as a protective factor that could reduce the level of parenting stress.

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Transracial adoptees represent a specific group of immigrants who experience unique immigration processes that bring them face-to-face with two cultural backgrounds: that of their heritage culture on one hand and that of their national culture on the other hand. However, there is a scarcity of studies focused on the way these processes unfold within adoptive families. This study was aimed at exploring how transracial adoptees cope with the construction of their ethnic identity. Administering a self-report questionnaire to 127 transracial adoptees and their mothers, for a total of 254 participants, we first investigated the association between mothers' cultural socialisation (enculturation and preparation for bias strategies) and adoptees' ethnic identity (i.e. ethnic identity exploration and ethnic identity affirmation dimensions). We then investigated whether ethnic identity affects self-esteem by testing the hypothesis that national identity moderates the relationship between ethnic identity and self-esteem. Results revealed that mothers' enculturation (but not their preparation for bias) supported adoptees' ethnic identity exploration, which in turn was positively associated with ethnic identity affirmation. Moreover, we confirmed the moderation effect: ethnic identity affirmation enhanced the level of self-esteem, but only for those adoptees who perceived a higher degree of national identity affirmation.