Despite several empirical studies on the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic that have highlighted its detrimental effect on individuals’ mental health, the identification of psychological factors that may moderate its impact on individuals’ behavior and well-being remains partly unexplored. The present study was conceived to examine the mediation role of regulatory emotional self-efficacy in the relationship between positivity and anxiety, depression, and perceived self-efficacy in complying with the containment measures to contrast the COVID-19 spread. Furthermore, the moderation role of age was tested. A sample of 1258 participants (64.2% women; M_age = 42.09, SD = 13.62) enrolled from the Italian general population answered an online survey aimed at investigating the role of individual differences in facing the COVID-19 pandemic. We opted for a snowball recruiting procedure to find participants. The online survey was disseminated through email invitation and using social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Instagram). A multi-group path analysis model was performed using Mplus 8.4 to explore the hypothesized relations among variables. The following criteria were employed to evaluate the goodness of fit: χ² likelihood ratio statistic, CFI and TLI > 0.95, RMSEA < 0.06 and SRMR < 0.08. The findings corroborated the protective role of both positivity and regulatory emotional self-efficacy in reducing individuals’ anxiety and depressive symptoms, as well as in fostering individuals’ capabilities in complying with the containment measures imposed by the government to reduce the risk of illness and to contain the spread of the virus COVID-19. Specifically, regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs partially mediated the relations between positivity and anxiety and depressive symptoms and fully mediated the effect of positivity on perceived self-efficacy beliefs in complying with the containment measures. These paths were equal across ages. The results of the present study appear relevant to implementing psychological interventions aimed to reduce the deleterious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health through the promotion of individuals’ optimistic orientation and emotion regulation.

Introduction: Recent research highlight increasing at-risk online sexual activities and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic among young adults. Specifically, sexting refers to exchanging sexually suggestive messages, photos, and videos through technological devices, and it can be placed on a continuum from safer to riskier behavior. This study aims to improve our knowledge about sexting behaviors in Italian and Colombian young adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: A survey online was filled in by all recruited participants through a snowball sampling procedure (from December 2019 to June 2021) both in Italy and Colombia, resulting in a total of 2931 participants (2051 from Italy and 880 from Colombia) aged 18 to 35 years old (M_age = 23.85;SD_age = 3.63; 67.6% girls).Results: Italian youth were more engaged in risky sexting than Colombian participants, while Colombians indicated being more engaged in non-consensual sexting than Italians. Sexual minority people reported more sharing their own sexts, higher levels of sexting under pressure, and 3.2 times more risky sexting than exclusively heterosexual counterparts. During the pandemic period, participants sent their own sexts 1.5 times more and were less involved in non-consensual sexting than in the pre-pandemic era.Conclusions: The present research could help understand better the cultural dynamics underlying the differences in sexting behaviors, suggesting the relevance of investigating how sexting behaviors and online at-risk activities have changed since the pandemic started.Policy Implications: Results provide implications for educational and prevention programs to improve young people's awareness of sexting behaviors.

Future orientation is a core human feature shaping people’s behavior and development. It is associated with mental health and well-being, especially under stressful situations. With increasing emphasis on the impact of several collective stressful events (e.g., terrorist attacks, wars, pandemics, natural disasters, climate change, and economic crisis) on people’s mental health, research has focused on individual future orientation over the last two decades. However, literature on the relationship between collective stressful events and individual future orientation is limited and inconclusive. The present study aimed to conduct a systematic review to (1) analyze the relationship between collective stressful events and individual future orientation and to (2) synthesize the evidence for factors that may impact this association (i.e., the type of event, the study design, and the operationalization of the future orientation’s construct). Following PRISMA guidelines, a systematic review was conducted on Scopus, Web of Science, Psycinfo and Pubmed databases up to October 2024; 1,551 articles were identified and 17 were selected. Most analyses (n = 17, 70.83%) found a negative relationship between the collective stressful events and individual future orientation, while a small percentage (n = 6, 25%) found no significant relationship. Notably, the only analysis that specifically examined the relationship between climate change and a generalized pattern of future time perspective found a positive relationship. Furthermore, the study design and the operationalization of the future orientation construct appear to affect the relationship between collective stressful events and individual future orientation.