Exploring Perceived Employability of University Students and Graduates

Employability represents a critical resource for new entrants in the labour market to deal with fragile employment prospects and have a psychologically sustainable transition to work. Although research has devoted remarkable attention to Employability in Higher Education, more empirical research is needed to investigate it. This dissertation aimed to deepen the understanding of Employability among Italian university students and graduates, focusing on Perceived Employability, considered a personal resource within the Conservation of Resources Theory. Three studies conducted with students and graduates who completed an online questionnaire investigated some underexplored aspects of Perceveid Employability. Study 1—a two-wave time-lagged study with 223 students—tested whether Support from Teaching staff and Career Engagement influence Perceived Employability. Study 2—a three-wave time-lagged study with 158 students and graduates— tests whether Job Interview Self-efficacy predicts Perceived Employability and whether Career Identity predicts this relationship. Studies 1 and 2 investigate Perceived Employability psychological outcomes, namely Confidence in Career future and Psychological Well-being. In both studies, a mediating role of Perceived Employability connecting its antecedents and consequences is posited. Study 3—a three-wave longitudinal study with 376 students and graduates—tested the reciprocal relationships between Perceived Employability and Psychological well-being. The data confirmed the expected relationships, providing a noteworthy theoretical contribution. Studies 1 and 2 expand the knowledge of Perceived Employability antecedents, stressing contextual and career self-management factors. Moreover, Perceived Employability also appears to have a positive psychological impact, confirming its benefits for new entrants. Study 3 shows that Perceived Employability and Psychological well-being influence each other over time, providing novel insights into Perceived Employability. At a practical level, the results inform actions to foster Perceived Employability in Higher Education, to help new entrants manage the transition to work and experience benefits at a psychological level, in coherence with the need for a psychologically sustainable transition.

Analysis of urban infrastructure for sustainable mobility through instrumented bicycles for students

In Europe almost 80% of the continent's population lives in cities. It is estimated that by 2030 most regions in Europe which contain major cities will have even more inhabitants on 35–60% more than now. This process generates a consequent elevate human pressure on the natural environment, especially around large urban agglomerations. Cities could be seen as an ecosystem, represented by the dominance of humans that re-distribute organisms and fluxes and represent the result of co-evolving human and natural systems, emerging from the interactions between humans, natural and infrastructures. Roads have a relevant role in building links between urban components, creating the basis on which it is founded the urban ecosystem itself. This thesis is focused on the research for a comprehensive model, framed in European urban health & wellbeing programme, aimed to evaluate the determinants of health in urban populations. Through bicycles, GPS and sensor kits, specially developed and produced by University of Bologna for this purpose, it has been possible to conduct on Bologna different direct observations that oriented the novelty of the research: the categorization of university students cyclists, connection among environmental data awareness and level of cycling, and an early identification of urban attributes able to impact on road air quality and level of cycling. The categorization of university students’ cyclist has been defined through GPS analysis and focused survey, that both permit to identify behavioural and technical variables and attitudes towards urban cycling. The statistic relationship between level of cycling, seen as number of bicycles passages per lane and pollutants level, has been investigated through an inverse regression model, defined and tested through SPSS software on the basis of the data harvest. The research project that represents a sort of dynamic mobility laboratory on two wheels, that permits to harvest and study detected parameters.

Scene di violenza, esperienze emotive e condotte aggressive

The aim of this research is to estimate the impact of violent film excerpts on university students (30 f, 30 m) in two different sequences, a “justified” violent scene followed by an “unjustified” one, or vice versa, as follows: 1) before-after sequences, using Aggressive behaviour I-R Questionnaire, Self Depression Scale and ASQ-IPAT Anxiety SCALE; 2) after every excerpt, using a self-report to evaluate the intensity and hedonic tone of emotions and the violence justification level. Emotion regulation processes (suppression, reappraisal, self-efficacy) were considered. In contrast with the “unjustified” violent scene, during the “justified” one, the justification level was higher; intensity and unpleasantness of negative emotions were lower. Anxiety (total and latent) and rumination diminished after both types of sequences. Rumination decreases less after the JV-UV sequence than after the UV-JV sequence. Self-efficacy in controlling negative emotions reduced rumination, whereas suppression reduced irritability. Reappraisal, self-efficacy in positive emotion expression and perceived emphatic selfefficacy did not have any effects.

L'attrazione sessuale: processi psichici e strumenti di indagine. L'adattamento italiano del Cuestionario de Atraccion sexual

The sexual attraction is a complex emotional event, with somatic modifications, that like all the emotions, belongs to the psychic dimension and that, too much simply, can be led back, from a explicative point of view, to biological and psychical causes. The sexual attraction represents a personal experience, that is difficult to record, but of which every adult is able to delineate a correspondence with own “lived”. In the within of biological sciences, many experimental studies were been conducted with the aim to know which chemistries substances and cerebral zones are involved in front of a stimulus assessed like sexually attractive. Contrarily, there are little researches conducted in psychological field, aimed to the understanding the psychical factors, often unconscious, tinged to the subjective processes of sexual attraction: the sexual attraction remains an unexplored psychological event and unprovided of adapted instruments of assessment. The present thesis is oriented in primis to examine the existing scientific literature, in order to provide an exhaustive picture of the sexual attraction and to analyze the instruments of survey available for the empirical assessment of it. Secondly, the thesis is oriented to introduce two studies: the first study is aimed to adapt the Cuestionario de Atracción Sexual - CAS (Fernández ET to, 2006a; 2006b; 2006c) to the Italian language; the second study is aimed to assess the attitudes towards the sexual attraction in a sample of university students, in order to establish if some differences or association with some psychological dimensions (attachment stiles and alexithymia) exist.