Showing papers by "Claudia Venuleo published in 2020"

The Meaning of Living in the Time of COVID-19. A Large Sample Narrative Inquiry

Abstract: The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a sudden, disruptive event that has strained international and local response capacity and distressed local populations. Different studies have focused on potential psychological distress resulting from the rupture of consolidated habits and routines related to the lockdown measures. Nevertheless, the subjective experience of individuals and the variations in the way of interpreting the lockdown measures remain substantially unexplored. Within the frame of Semiotic Cultural Psychosocial Theory, the study pursued two main goals: first, to explore the symbolic universes (SUs) through which Italian people represented the pandemic crisis and its meaning in their life; and second, to examine how the interpretation of the crisis varies over societal segments with different sociodemographic characteristics and specific life challenges. An online survey was available during the Italian lockdown. Respondents were asked to write a passage about the meaning of living in the time of COVID-19. A total of 1,393 questionnaires (mean = 35.47; standard deviation = 14.92; women: 64.8%; North Italy: 33%; Center Italy: 27%; South Italy: 40%) were collected. The Automated Method for Content Analysis procedure was applied to the collected texts to detect the factorial dimensions underpinning (dis)similarities in the respondents' discourses. Such factors were interpreted as the markers of latent dimensions of meanings defining the SUs active in the sample. A set of χ2 analysis allowed exploring the association between SUs and respondents' characteristics. Four SUs were identified, labeled "Reconsider social priorities," "Reconsider personal priorities," "Live with emergency," and "Surviving a war," characterized by the pertinentization of two extremely basic issues: what the pandemic consists of (health emergency versus turning point) and its extent and impact (daily life vs. world scenario). Significant associations were found between SUs and all the respondents' characteristics considered (sex, age, job status, job situation during lockdown, and place of living). The findings will be discussed in light of the role of the media and institutional scenario and psychosocial conditions in mediating the representation of the pandemic and in favoring or constraining the availability of symbolic resources underpinning people's capability to address the crisis.

Fear, affective semiosis, and management of the pandemic crisis: Covid-19 as semiotic vaccine?

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic represents an extraordinary challenge to clinicians, health care institutions and policymakers. The paper outlines a psychoanalytically grounded semiotic-cultural psychological interpretation of such a scenario. First, we underline how the actual emotional reaction (mainly of fear) of our society is a marker of how the mind functions in conditions of affective activation related to heightened uncertainty: it produces global, homogenizing and generalizing embodied interpretations of reality, at the cost of more fine-grained and differentiated analytical thought. Such a process, called affective semiosis, represents an adaptive response to the emergency in the short-term. Second, we argue that this adaptive value provided by affective semiosis will be reduced when we have to deal with the process of managing the transition to the post-crisis and the governance of the medium and long-term impact of the crisis. Third, we suggest that, in order to manage the pandemic crisis on a longer temporal frame, affective semiosis has to be integrated with less generalized and more domain-specific ways of interpreting reality. To this end, semiotic capital (i.e., culturally-mediated symbolic resources) should be promoted in order to enable people to interiorize the supra-individual and collective dimension of life. Accordingly, COVID-19 is proposed as a semiotic vaccine, a disruption in our everyday life routines which has the potential of opening the way to a semiotic re-appropriation of the collective dimensions of our experience.

Facing Life Problems Through the Internet. The Link Between Psychosocial Malaise and Problematic Internet Use in an Adolescent Sample.

Abstract: Scholars have highlighted the role of negative affect as key correlates of Problematic Internet Use (PIU). According to the assumption that Internet-related behaviours can be seen as mechanisms to cope with everyday life (Kardefelt-Winther, 2017), the present study aims to explore the relation between PIU and psychosocial malaise, expecting that adolescents with high levels of social anxiety, negative emotions, and loneliness are more likely to be associated to the problem group of Internet users. Measures of PIU (GPIUS–2), social anxiety (IAS), negative affectivity (PANAS), and loneliness (ILS) were detected in a sample of 766 students attending Year 9–11 (13–19 years old; 47% females) of public high schools in the territory of Lecce (Apulia–Italy). A sub-group of problematic Internet users was identified ( n = 185) and a control group was selected ( n = 187). A logistic regression was applied to estimate the effect of psychosocial variables on the differentiation between problematic and control Internet users. Results of the present cross-sectional study show that a higher level of social anxiety, negative emotions, and loneliness increases the probability of belonging to the group of problematic Internet users. No significant differences between males and females were found in GPIU levels. The findings show that, for a better understanding of PIU onset and maintenance among adolescents, it is important, to take into account the life problems which may lead young people to overindulge in Internet use. Resume Les scientifiques ont mis en lumiere le role de l’affect negatif comme correlat significatif de la dependance. Partant de l’hypothese que les comportements dans Internet peuvent etre vus comme des mecanismes d’adaptation a la vie quotidienne (Kardefelt-Winther, 2017), notre etude visait a explorer la relation entre la cyberdependance et le malaise psychosocial. On s’attendait a ce que les adolescents affichant un degre eleve d’anxiete sociale, d’emotions negatives et de solitude fassent partie du groupe d’internautes a probleme. Des indicateurs de la cyberdependance (GPIUS-2), de l’anxiete sociale (IAS), de l’affect negatif (PANAS) et de la solitude (ILS) ont ete releves dans un echantillon de 766 eleves de la 9e a la 11e annee (13 a 19 ans; 47 % de filles) choisi dans des ecoles secondaires publiques du territoire de Lecce (Apulia, Italie). Un sous-groupe d’internautes cyberdependants a ete defini ( n =185) et un groupe controle selectionne ( n =187). Un modele de regression logistique a ete applique en vue d’estimer l’effet des variables psychosociales sur la differenciation entre joueurs cyberdependants et joueurs du groupe controle. Les resultats de l’etude transversale montrent qu’un degre plus eleve d’anxiete sociale, d’emotions negatives et de solitude augmentait la probabilite d’appartenir au groupe d’internautes cyberdependants. Aucune difference notable n’a ete constatee entre les hommes et les femmes quant au degre de cyberdependance. Les resultats indiquent qu’une comprehension plus fine du developpement de la cyberdependance et de sa persistance chez les adolescents devra tenir compte des problemes vecus dans leur vie personnelle qui les inciteraient a un usage excessif d’Internet.

A psychoanalytic and culturalist understanding of gambling

Abstract: In the mainstream approach, gambling is regarded as the expression of illness, related to individual deficits, and the gambler is viewed as an individual free from social and cultural influences. On the other hand, anthropological and cross-cultural studies show that cultural variations exist in the meaning of gambling, its course and outcome. In this paper, a psychoanalytic and culturalist interpretation of gambling is outlined, asserting the unity of mind and context. The g ambling dynamic is framed as the marker of the mind’s affective way of making sense of experience. The various ways the dynamic is manifested, the individual and social implications are seen as strictly intertwined with the social-cultural context where sensemaking develops. The clinical implications of this perspective will be underlined with regard to the way the request of help is approached, the role of the therapist in the clinical setting and the wider socio-cultural environment in generating or limiting new semiotic opportunities for the individuals and their behaviour.

Internet use and well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak: Examining the role of gender, age, motives for using the internet and relational resources in an Italian adult sample.

Abstract: The COVID-19 outbreak introduced self-isolation and social distancing as measures to reduce the spreading of the pandemic. As a consequence, internet usage has increased globally. The current study aims to show whether internet worked as a resource for well-being or as an amplifier of psychological distress and problematic internet use (PIU), considering the role of gender, age, motives for using the internet and online/offline relational resources. Five hundred and seventy-three adult participants (M: 40.28; SD: 16.43; 64% women) completed a form on sociodemographic characteristics and Internet use, and completed standardized measures on loneliness, online social support, well-being and PIU. A principal component analysis was computed to identify the main motives Internet use; ANOVA and Pearson’s r correlations were computed to examine (dis)similarities in motivational components with respect to gender, agegroup and psychosocial measures. A multivariate multiple regression analysis was performed to assess the contribution of the hypothesized predictors on overall well-being and PIU.Three principal motives for Internet use were detected: leisure and social interaction, knowledge, learning/working. Significant differences were found among them with respect to gender and age group and online/offline relational resources. Differences were found in the likelihood of PIU and well-being related to all the variables considered, with the exception of online social support for PIU and gender and age for well-being. These findings call for further research aimed to disentangle the correlates of PIU in a time of physical distancing, as well as for innovative efforts tailored to blunt the impacts of social isolation and bolster social connectivity.