Gianluca Gini
Biographic Data
| ID | 4460599 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gianluca Gini |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gianluca |
| FAMILY NAME | Gini |
| SIGNATURE | GINI G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Padua |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8251-7550 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 259 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
The Bidirectional Longitudinal Relations Between Problematic Social Media Use and Loneliness Among Adolescents: The Indirect Effect of Active Use
Objective Problematic social media use (PSMU) and loneliness among adolescents are closely linked, yet research findings remain inconsistent due to cross‐sectional and adult‐centered studies. Moreover, limited studies have explored how specific social media activities contribute to both PSMU and loneliness. This study examined the bidirectional relationship between PSMU and loneliness, focusing on the indirect effect of active social media use (s…
Adolescent social media use profiles: A longitudinal study of friendship quality and socio-motivational factors
Early adolescence is a crucial period for social and emotional development, with relationships with close friends shaping individual and social well-being. Today, these interactions occur both offline and online, requiring nuanced theoretical models to capture their complexities. Using a three-wave longitudinal, person-centered approach, this study aims to: (1) identify distinct social media use profiles based on specific online activities, (2) e…
Moral disengagement and defender self-efficacy and their associations with defending, unconcerned bystanding, and guilty bystanding in school bullying
The aim of the present study was to investigate whether moral disengagement and defender self-efficacy were related to defending, unconcerned bystanding, and guilty bystanding in school bullying among pre-adolescent students. In this study, 1168 pre-adolescent students from 74 upper elementary classrooms in 31 schools in Sweden completed a series of self-report scales. Through structural equation modeling, the study found that defending was posit…
Differences in perceived online communication and disclosing e‐motions among adolescents and young adults: The role of specific social media features and social anxiety
INTRODUCTION: Social media are widely used by adolescents and young adults as a mean to maintain interpersonal relationships. Recent studies have found that young individuals with high levels of social anxiety feel more confident in communicating online. However, little is known about the role of perceived social media characteristics that could minimize the distress they experienced in face-to-face interactions. In this study, we rely on the ten…
Peer victimization, internalizing problems, and satisfaction with friends: A two-wave analysis of individual and class-level associations in adolescence
Peer victimization has long been recognized as a significant issue among adolescents, with potentially harmful consequences for their psychological and social well-being. However, studies adopting a longitudinal, multilevel approach to explore the complexity of peer victimization dynamics are still lacking. This study aimed to test short-term longitudinal associations between peer victimization, internalizing problems, and satisfaction with frien…
Friendship quality in adolescence: The role of social media features, online social support and e-motions
Testing the reciprocal longitudinal association between pro-aggressive bystander behavior and diffusion of responsibility in Swedish upper elementary school students
The overall objective of this study was to investigate the longitudinal association between diffusion of responsibility and pro-aggressive bystander behavior across three time points in upper elementary education. This three-wave longitudinal study included 1905 Swedish students who completed a questionnaire in at least one of the three waves: the fourth ( M age = 10.56), fifth ( M age = 11.55), and/or sixth grades ( M age = 12.58). Both traditio…
Longitudinal associations of social-cognitive and moral correlates with defending in bullying
Longitudinal Links of Individual and Collective Morality with Adolescents’ Peer Aggression
Adolescents’ aggressive behavior has been often linked to biases in morality. However, limited knowledge is available regarding the relative strength of different moral correlates, both at the individual and class-level, in predicting different types of aggressive behavior over time. To address this gap, the present study tested the prospective associations of moral identity and moral disengagement with reactive and proactive aggression in a shor…
Socio-Cognitive Processes and Peer-Network Influences in Defending and Bystanding
Peers are critical to defending and bystanding during episodes of bullying. This study investigates the extent to which friends can shape defending and bystanding as well as social cognitions associated with these two behaviors (i.e., perceptions of self-efficacy and moral distress). The study sample consisted of n = 1354 early and middle adolescents (7th‒10th grade; 81.4% Italian; 51.3% boys) in northern Italy. Employing a longitudinal social ne…
Moral disengagement and verbal bullying in early adolescence: A three-year longitudinal study
Bystander behaviour in peer victimisation: Moral disengagement, defender self-efficacy and student-teacher relationship quality
The aim of this study was to examine how different bystander roles in peer victimisation situations relate to moral disengagement, defender self-efficacy, and student-teacher relationship quality. Self-reported survey data were collected from 333 middle and junior high school students (10-15 years of age) from four schools in Sweden. Random intercept model analyses of factor scores revealed that, when witnessing peer victimisation, students high …
Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement and Their Associations With Indirect Bullying, Direct Bullying, and Pro-Aggressive Bystander Behavior
This study examined the links between seven specific mechanisms of moral disengagement and indirect bullying, direct bullying, and pro-aggressive bystander behavior. In addition, the moderating role of gender on these associations was examined. Participants were 317 Swedish students in Grades 4 to 8 ([Formula: see text], SD = 1.35; 62% girls). Multivariate multiple regression analyses showed that indirect bullying was predicted by gender and vict…
Associations between individual and collective efficacy beliefs and students' bystander behavior
This study examined whether defending and passive bystanding during peer victimization episodes were associated with individual‐ and classroom‐level efficacy to stop peer victimization. Self‐report survey data were analyzed from 1,467 Swedish fourth‐grade students (mean age = 10.55) from 100 classrooms in 63 schools. Multilevel analyses revealed that, when witnessing peer victimization, students more often defended victims if they were high in de…
Associations of Traditional and Peer Cyber-Victimization With Adolescents’ Internet Use: A Latent Profile Analysis
Significant overlap exists between traditional victimization and peer cyber-victimization. Yet, they can also be somewhat differentiated. Adopting person-centered approaches, studies showed that multiple classes of peer victimization are distinguishable. In particular, this study analyzed the differences in Internet use, Internet motives and behavior and ethical media use of adolescents who are victimized only (or mainly) online (i.e., “cyber-vic…
The associations between problematic Facebook use, psychological distress and well-being among adolescents and young adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis
A comprehensive meta-analysis on Problematic Facebook Use
Does peer victimization predict low self-esteem, or does low self-esteem predict peer victimization? Meta-analyses on longitudinal studies
Victim prevalence in bullying and its association with teacher–student and student–student relationships and class moral disengagement: A class-level path analysis
The aim of the present study was to test whether teacher–student relationship (TSR) quality and student–student relationship (SSR) quality at class level and class moral disengagement (CMD), considered together in a single model, were related to class prevalence of victims (CPV) of bullying. A sample of 899 Swedish children was recruited from 43 elementary school classes. The participants filled out a questionnaire. Because the focus of the prese…
A meta‐analysis of the differential relations of traditional and cyber‐victimization with internalizing problems
This meta-analysis examined the associations between cyber-victimization and internalizing problems controlling for the occurrence of traditional victimization. Twenty independent samples with a total of 90,877 participants were included. Results confirmed the significant intercorrelation between traditional and cyber-victimization (r = .43). They both have medium-to-large bivariate correlations with internalizing problems. Traditional victimizat…
The Role of Individual and Collective Moral Disengagement in Peer Aggression and Bystanding: A Multilevel Analysis
Moral disengagement among children and youth: A meta‐analytic review of links to aggressive behavior
A growing body of research has demonstrated consistent links between Bandura's theory of moral disengagement and aggressive behavior in adults. The present meta-analysis was conducted to summarize the existing literature on the relation between moral disengagement and different types of aggressive behavior among school-age children and adolescents. Twenty-seven independent samples with a total of 17,776 participants (aged 8-18 years) were include…
Peer Influences on Moral Disengagement in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
Friendship selection and influence in bullying and defending: Effects of moral disengagement
The current study examined the development of bullying and defending over a 1-year period as related to friends' influence and individual and friends' moral disengagement (i.e., self-justification mechanisms that allow one to avoid moral self-censure of transgressive actions) in children and young adolescents. Via longitudinal social network analysis (RSiena), it was tested whether similarity between friends in bullying and defending developed ov…
Bullied Children and Psychosomatic Problems: A Meta-analysis
Does empathy predict adolescents' bullying and defending behavior
Through structural equation modeling, this study tested a path of relations in which different levels of empathic responsiveness were posited to be differently associated to bullying and defending behavior. Three hundred and eighteen Italian adolescents (142 girls and 176 boys; mean age = 13.2 years) completed the Davis's Interpersonal Reactivity Index [Davis, 1983] for empathy and the Participant role scales [Salmivalli et al., 1996] for bullyin…
Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: What's wrong
Two different models have been proposed that describe the bully alternatively as a child lacking in social skills [Crick and Dodge, 1994], or as a cold manipulative individual, who leads gangs to achieve personal goals [Sutton et al., 1999a]. The present study examined the performance of 204 8–11‐year‐olds in a set of stories that assessed understanding of cognitions and emotions, in relation to their Participant Role in bullying. Moreover, child…
Why Do Bystanders of Bullying Help or Not? A Multidimensional Model
The authors employed Latanè and Darley’s model about bystanders’ behavior to explain children’s active defending and passive bystanding behavior in school bullying. The three central steps of the model were operationalized by measuring provictim attitudes, personal responsibility for intervention, and coping strategies. Moreover, the role of perceived expectations from parents and peers was investigated. A total of 759 children and 995 early adol…
The Role of Masculinity in Children’s Bullying
Peer Influences on Moral Disengagement in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
Friendship selection and influence in bullying and defending: Effects of moral disengagement
The current study examined the development of bullying and defending over a 1-year period as related to friends' influence and individual and friends' moral disengagement (i.e., self-justification mechanisms that allow one to avoid moral self-censure of transgressive actions) in children and young adolescents. Via longitudinal social network analysis (RSiena), it was tested whether similarity between friends in bullying and defending developed ov…
Individual and Class Moral Disengagement in Bullying Among Elementary School Children
A cross‐sectional study from a sample of 663 elementary school children assessed the four sets of moral disengagement mechanisms conceptualized by Bandura (i.e., cognitive restructuring, minimizing one's agentive role, disregarding/distorting the consequences, blaming/dehumanizing the victim) at both the individual and the class level. Additionally, an analysis of the relations of these mechanisms to pro‐bullying behavior was conducted. Multileve…
Main and Moderated Effects of Moral Cognition and Status on Bullying and Defending
This study analyzed the relations of two dimensions of moral cognition (i.e., acceptance of moral transgression and moral disengagement) and two forms of status in the peer group (i.e., social preference and perceived popularity) with bullying and defending among 235 primary‐school children and 305 middle‐school early adolescents. Social status was tested as a moderator of the associations between moral cognition and bullying and defending. Parti…
A meta‐analysis of the differential relations of traditional and cyber‐victimization with internalizing problems
This meta-analysis examined the associations between cyber-victimization and internalizing problems controlling for the occurrence of traditional victimization. Twenty independent samples with a total of 90,877 participants were included. Results confirmed the significant intercorrelation between traditional and cyber-victimization (r = .43). They both have medium-to-large bivariate correlations with internalizing problems. Traditional victimizat…
Victim prevalence in bullying and its association with teacher–student and student–student relationships and class moral disengagement: A class-level path analysis
The aim of the present study was to test whether teacher–student relationship (TSR) quality and student–student relationship (SSR) quality at class level and class moral disengagement (CMD), considered together in a single model, were related to class prevalence of victims (CPV) of bullying. A sample of 899 Swedish children was recruited from 43 elementary school classes. The participants filled out a questionnaire. Because the focus of the prese…
Bystanders' Reactions to Bullying: A Cross‐cultural Analysis of Personal Correlates Among Italian and Singaporean Students
This study examined the role of attitudes against bullying and perceived peer pressure for intervention in explaining defending the victim and passive bystanding behavior in bullying. Participants were 1031 school‐age children from two culturally diverse settings, namely Italy and Singapore, which are similar on several dimensions (e.g., quality of life, child welfare) but dramatically differ on other aspects, such as individualism—collectivism o…
Longitudinal Links of Individual and Collective Morality with Adolescents’ Peer Aggression
Adolescents’ aggressive behavior has been often linked to biases in morality. However, limited knowledge is available regarding the relative strength of different moral correlates, both at the individual and class-level, in predicting different types of aggressive behavior over time. To address this gap, the present study tested the prospective associations of moral identity and moral disengagement with reactive and proactive aggression in a shor…
Bystander behaviour in peer victimisation: Moral disengagement, defender self-efficacy and student-teacher relationship quality
The aim of this study was to examine how different bystander roles in peer victimisation situations relate to moral disengagement, defender self-efficacy, and student-teacher relationship quality. Self-reported survey data were collected from 333 middle and junior high school students (10-15 years of age) from four schools in Sweden. Random intercept model analyses of factor scores revealed that, when witnessing peer victimisation, students high …
Socio-Cognitive Processes and Peer-Network Influences in Defending and Bystanding
Peers are critical to defending and bystanding during episodes of bullying. This study investigates the extent to which friends can shape defending and bystanding as well as social cognitions associated with these two behaviors (i.e., perceptions of self-efficacy and moral distress). The study sample consisted of n = 1354 early and middle adolescents (7th‒10th grade; 81.4% Italian; 51.3% boys) in northern Italy. Employing a longitudinal social ne…
Violent behavior and unfairness in school: Multilevel analysis of Italian schools
This study examines the role of school unfairness in predicting violent behavior among Italian early adolescents. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the relations between individual (demographics, psychosocial and relational characteristics, and perception of procedural and relational school unfairness), and class characteristics (mean school unfairness and socioeconomic status) and students' violent behavior. Data were analyzed usi…
‘To define means to say what you know about things’: The development of definitional skills as metalinguistic acquisition
Some authors have suggested that definitional skills include metalinguistic components (Watson, 1985; Snow, 1990; McGhee-Bidlack, 1991). The present study therefore empirically investigated relations between the ability to define words and level of metalinguistic awareness in 280 Italian children (with ages ranging from 5 to 11 years) and in two groups of 40 adults each (with low and high educational levels, respectively). We used a definitional …
The Role of Masculinity in Children’s Bullying
Social cognition and moral cognition in bullying: What's wrong
Two different models have been proposed that describe the bully alternatively as a child lacking in social skills [Crick and Dodge, 1994], or as a cold manipulative individual, who leads gangs to achieve personal goals [Sutton et al., 1999a]. The present study examined the performance of 204 8–11‐year‐olds in a set of stories that assessed understanding of cognitions and emotions, in relation to their Participant Role in bullying. Moreover, child…
Does empathy predict adolescents' bullying and defending behavior
Through structural equation modeling, this study tested a path of relations in which different levels of empathic responsiveness were posited to be differently associated to bullying and defending behavior. Three hundred and eighteen Italian adolescents (142 girls and 176 boys; mean age = 13.2 years) completed the Davis's Interpersonal Reactivity Index [Davis, 1983] for empathy and the Participant role scales [Salmivalli et al., 1996] for bullyin…
Determinants of adolescents’ active defending and passive bystanding behavior in bullying
The literature on participant roles in bullying lacks empirical studies that seek to explain what differentiates defenders from outsiders (or passive bystanders). The present study tested a conceptual model in which two personal characteristics of early adolescent students (empathy and perceived social self‐efficacy) were considered as possible determinants of their participant behavior in bullying episodes. A total of 294 Italian early adolescen…
Associations among Overt and Relational Victimization and Adolescents’ Satisfaction with Friends: The Moderating Role of the Need for Affective Relationships with Friends
Association Between Bullying and Psychosomatic Problems: A Meta-analysis
CONTEXT. In the last few years, there has been an increasing amount of research showing the concurrent and long-term consequences of bullying and being bullied by peers. OBJECTIVE. We performed a meta-analysis to quantify the association between involvement in bullying and psychosomatic complaints in the school-aged population. METHODS. We searched online databases (Embase, Medline, PsychInfo, Scopus) up to March 2008, bibliographies of existing …
Active Defending and Passive Bystanding Behavior in Bullying: The Role of Personal Characteristics and Perceived Peer Pressure
Different Forms of Bullying and Their Association to Smoking and Drinking Behavior in Italian Adolescents
BACKGROUND: Using data from the 2006 Health Behavior in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey, the prevalence of 6 forms of bullying (physical, verbal, relational, sexual, cyber, and racist), and the role of smoking and drinking in bullying was examined among Italian adolescents for this study. METHODS: The sample was composed of 2667 Italian middle and secondary school students (49.9% girls) randomly selected. The revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questi…
Violent behavior and unfairness in school: Multilevel analysis of Italian schools
This study examines the role of school unfairness in predicting violent behavior among Italian early adolescents. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the relations between individual (demographics, psychosocial and relational characteristics, and perception of procedural and relational school unfairness), and class characteristics (mean school unfairness and socioeconomic status) and students' violent behavior. Data were analyzed usi…
The Role of Individual Correlates and Class Norms in Defending and Passive Bystanding Behavior in Bullying: A Multilevel Analysis
This study investigates possible individual and class correlates of defending and passive bystanding behavior in bullying, in a sample of 1,825 Italian primary school (mean age = 10 years 1 month) and middle school (mean age = 13 years 2 months) students. The findings of a series of multilevel regression models show that both individual (e.g., provictim attitudes and perceived peer pressure for intervention) and class characteristics (e.g., class…
Bystanders' Reactions to Bullying: A Cross‐cultural Analysis of Personal Correlates Among Italian and Singaporean Students
This study examined the role of attitudes against bullying and perceived peer pressure for intervention in explaining defending the victim and passive bystanding behavior in bullying. Participants were 1031 school‐age children from two culturally diverse settings, namely Italy and Singapore, which are similar on several dimensions (e.g., quality of life, child welfare) but dramatically differ on other aspects, such as individualism—collectivism o…
Why Do Bystanders of Bullying Help or Not? A Multidimensional Model
The authors employed Latanè and Darley’s model about bystanders’ behavior to explain children’s active defending and passive bystanding behavior in school bullying. The three central steps of the model were operationalized by measuring provictim attitudes, personal responsibility for intervention, and coping strategies. Moreover, the role of perceived expectations from parents and peers was investigated. A total of 759 children and 995 early adol…
Individual and Class Moral Disengagement in Bullying Among Elementary School Children
A cross‐sectional study from a sample of 663 elementary school children assessed the four sets of moral disengagement mechanisms conceptualized by Bandura (i.e., cognitive restructuring, minimizing one's agentive role, disregarding/distorting the consequences, blaming/dehumanizing the victim) at both the individual and the class level. Additionally, an analysis of the relations of these mechanisms to pro‐bullying behavior was conducted. Multileve…
Main and Moderated Effects of Moral Cognition and Status on Bullying and Defending
This study analyzed the relations of two dimensions of moral cognition (i.e., acceptance of moral transgression and moral disengagement) and two forms of status in the peer group (i.e., social preference and perceived popularity) with bullying and defending among 235 primary‐school children and 305 middle‐school early adolescents. Social status was tested as a moderator of the associations between moral cognition and bullying and defending. Parti…
Bullied Children and Psychosomatic Problems: A Meta-analysis
Moral disengagement among children and youth: A meta‐analytic review of links to aggressive behavior
A growing body of research has demonstrated consistent links between Bandura's theory of moral disengagement and aggressive behavior in adults. The present meta-analysis was conducted to summarize the existing literature on the relation between moral disengagement and different types of aggressive behavior among school-age children and adolescents. Twenty-seven independent samples with a total of 17,776 participants (aged 8-18 years) were include…
Peer Influences on Moral Disengagement in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence
Friendship selection and influence in bullying and defending: Effects of moral disengagement
The current study examined the development of bullying and defending over a 1-year period as related to friends' influence and individual and friends' moral disengagement (i.e., self-justification mechanisms that allow one to avoid moral self-censure of transgressive actions) in children and young adolescents. Via longitudinal social network analysis (RSiena), it was tested whether similarity between friends in bullying and defending developed ov…
The Role of Individual and Collective Moral Disengagement in Peer Aggression and Bystanding: A Multilevel Analysis
The associations between problematic Facebook use, psychological distress and well-being among adolescents and young adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis
A comprehensive meta-analysis on Problematic Facebook Use
Does peer victimization predict low self-esteem, or does low self-esteem predict peer victimization? Meta-analyses on longitudinal studies
Victim prevalence in bullying and its association with teacher–student and student–student relationships and class moral disengagement: A class-level path analysis
The aim of the present study was to test whether teacher–student relationship (TSR) quality and student–student relationship (SSR) quality at class level and class moral disengagement (CMD), considered together in a single model, were related to class prevalence of victims (CPV) of bullying. A sample of 899 Swedish children was recruited from 43 elementary school classes. The participants filled out a questionnaire. Because the focus of the prese…
A meta‐analysis of the differential relations of traditional and cyber‐victimization with internalizing problems
This meta-analysis examined the associations between cyber-victimization and internalizing problems controlling for the occurrence of traditional victimization. Twenty independent samples with a total of 90,877 participants were included. Results confirmed the significant intercorrelation between traditional and cyber-victimization (r = .43). They both have medium-to-large bivariate correlations with internalizing problems. Traditional victimizat…
Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression (34 works) · Psychology (34 works) · Developmental psychology (33 works) · Social Psychology (31 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (18 works) · Clinical Psychology (17 works) · Poison control (17 works) · Social Psychology (15 works) · Moral disengagement (14 works) · Peer group (12 works)