Chapters authored
I Teach You to Quarrel - Empathy and Mediation: Tools for Preventing Bullying By Rosalba Morese, Matteo Defedele and Juri Nervo
Bullying is a very common, complex and important public health problem among school students. Dovigo describes the school as a place where the conflict can emerge among relational dynamics and involve students, teachers and families. Through the description of an Italian pilot project “Mediamente Bullo,” this chapter examines two tools for preventing bullying: empathy, the ability to share and understand emotional states of others, and mediation, useful to cope interpersonal conflicts. Using the mediation tool, students can learn that many forms of conflicts, including violence, can be solved by identifying the causes, discussing them and practicing nonviolent methods and behaviors. This process helps students to become more aware of positive aspects during the conflict and the power that they have in making important and positive choices. In addition, using the empathy tool, they can better understand the experience of social exclusion. In fact, several studies show that children with higher levels of empathy show less aggressive and more prosocial behaviors and they are more able to regulate their emotions. The goal of this chapter is to provide a contribution about integrated application of two important tools, mediation and empathy, in bullying among school-aged youth for future directions and intervention efforts.
Part of the book: Socialization
Vulnerability and Social Exclusion: Risk in Adolescence and Old Age By Rosalba Morese, Sara Palermo, Matteo Defedele, Juri Nervo and Alberto Borraccino
Vulnerability can be defined as the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. In this chapter, it is defined as a possible ability of an individual or a group to face, manage, and anticipate a possible problem. This concept of vulnerability is associated with that of risk factor for social isolation, and therefore to situations that can also lead to illness and lack of mental and physical health. It can have its roots in poverty, in social exclusion, in ethnicity, in disability or simply in disease or specific developmental phases in life. All these aspects reflect very important vulnerability factors among biological, psychological, social, and behavioral variables. To date, no one has highlighted together two critical moments in life in which this brain area undergoes important variations: adolescence, in which its development occurs, and old age, in which this area goes into cognitive decline with the relative loss of many higher cognitive functions. This knowledge can help to better understand the forms of exclusion due to vulnerability in order to develop new forms of social inclusion.
Part of the book: The New Forms of Social Exclusion
Levodopa-Induced Dyskinesias and Dyskinesias-Reduced-Self-Awareness in Parkinson’s Disease: A Neurocognitive Approach By Sara Palermo, Rosalba Morese, Carlo Alberto Artusi, Mario Stanziano and Alberto Romagnolo
Levodopa-induced dyskinesias are one of the most common disabling motor complications in advanced Parkinson’s disease. The subjective perception of motor impairment is a clinical phenomenon that needs to be adequately analyzed. Indeed, the determination of patient dyskinesias-reduced-self-awareness (DRSA) and of its relationship to daily dysfunction is an important aspect of the debate on the gold standard for treatment. As the association with executive dysfunction is a matter of debate and we hypothesize it plays an important role in DRSA, we analyzed metacognitive abilities related to action monitoring and other factors, such as response-inhibition and “Theory of Mind,” which represent a novel explanation of the phenomenon. Moreover, we investigated whether and how a dysfunction in action monitoring related to the cingulo-frontal-ventral striatal circuit would be associated with DRSA using an event-related Go-NoGo fMRI experiment. Our findings suggest the presence of executive dysfunctions in DRSA pathogenesis, with a key leading role played by the cingulo-frontal network as part of a functionally impaired response-inhibition network.
Part of the book: Parkinson's Disease and Beyond
Social Withdrawal and Mental Health: An Interdisciplinary Approach By Rosalba Morese, Sara Palermo, Carlotta Torello and Francesca Sechi
Social isolation may be considered as a risk factor for health. It may contribute to the development of a mental health disease. In this chapter, social withdrawal is defined as voluntary isolation prolonged in time that involves the cessation of any form of social relationship and contact with people and the outside. Clinical psychology, psycho-educational interventions, and social neuroscience research tries to understand what happens when social isolation is experienced. Therefore an interdisciplinary perspective can help to better understand this phenomenon. The deepening of these aspects can help to create new forms of theoretical perspective and of a clinical and psycho-educational intervention to better arrange for this new type of maladaptive condition.
Part of the book: Social Isolation
Social Inclusion and Exclusion: How Evolution Changes Our Relational and Social Brain By Chiara Fante, Sara Palermo, Vincenzo Auriemma and Morese Rosalba
Belonging to social groups is an important need for human beings and social exclusion has a significant psychological impact on individual wellbeing. Social neuroscience has clarified the similarity of the neuronal substrate between physical pain and social pain during the experience of social exclusion. Pain is the oldest signal that something is wrong for our brain, and the anticipation of pain motivates a move away from perceived dangerous or noxious stimuli. The Evolutionary Theory of Motivation (ETM) considered group affiliation as an adaptive goal that supports the individual\'s adaptation to the environment; however, invalidating experiences may induce avoidance of its pursuit. In this perspective, social exclusion could thus be considered as the result of failures at one or more levels of the human motivational systems. This chapter attempts to understand the neuroscience findings on social exclusion in this theoretical framework.
Part of the book: Evolutionary Psychology Meets Social Neuroscience
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