Students’ burnout has been widely investigated in recent decades, mainly showing a higher risk for female students across academic levels. To our knowledge, few studies have investigated whether employed students experience higher academic burnout risks. In this regard, previous findings have shown mixed results. The current study investigated the differences in burnout experience based on students’ gender and worker status. We expected to find differences among study groups in their burnout levels. The participants were 494 Italian university students (49.6% female students; 49.4% working students) who completed the short version of the Burnout Assessment Tool Core dimensions (BAT-C). Firstly, we investigated the BAT-C measurement invariance across gender and worker status subgroups. Secondly, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed significant gender differences in burnout levels. Specifically, female students showed higher levels of exhaustion, cognitive impairment, and emotional impairment than male students. Nevertheless, no interactive effects between gender and worker status were observed in the current sample. To sum up, gender is a key factor for understanding several BAT symptoms, and it should be considered by academic staff interested in preventing burnout at university and its dropout consequences.

Background: Global climate change is recognized as a major and irreversible challenge for humanity, requiring people’s responsible and sustainable behaviors toward the environment. So far, the literature has widely investigated the role of cognitive determinants of ecological outcomes (e.g., pro-environmental behaviors and climate change perception), while less attention has been devoted to emotional processes, such as trait emotional intelligence (TEI). The current double study investigates whether TEI is directly and indirectly associated with climate change perception (CCP, Study 1) and pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs, Study 2) among young adults. Furthermore, the mediating role of connectedness to nature (CN), both as cognitive and emotional factors, was also analyzed. We hypothesized that CN (i.e., cognitive mediator) would positively mediate the relationship between TEI and CCP (H1), and Love and Care for Nature (LCN, i.e., emotional mediator) would positively mediate the relationship between TEI and PEBs (H2). Methods: The study involved 342 young adults (F = 60.7%; age 19–40; M_age=22.99; SD = 2.66) in Study 1 and 365 young adults (F = 71.2%; age 17–35; M_age=22.2; SD = 3.98) in Study 2. Data were collected through an online tool shared by the snowball method. We administered the following self-reports: Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire- Short Form (TEIQue- SF), Global Climate Change (GCC), and Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) (Study 1); Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire- Short Form (TEIQue-SF), General Environmental Behaviors Scale (GEB), and Love and Care for Nature (LCN) (Study 2). Results: Findings from Study 1 showed that higher TEI levels enhance CN (i.e., cognitive mediator), positively influencing CCP (estimate = 0.14; 95% CI = 0.07 to 0.23). Findings from Study 2 showed that higher TEI levels are associated with higher LCN levels (i.e., emotional mediator), influencing people’s engagement in PEBs (estimate = 0.7; 95% CI = 0.03 to 0.11). Conclusion: It is crucial to design environmental education programs that promote greater emotional intelligence ability and encourage individuals’ involvement in ecological outcomes.

Research has widely recognized the role of personal norms, connection to nature, and different forms of identity as important factors that promote individuals' environmental actions, as well as the role of moral disengagement to diminish these. However, less attention has been given to one's moral identity as a key driver for proenvironmental behavior. Extending current literature, we therefore explored if moral identity could promote proenvironmental behavior. Participants in our study (N = 359) completed a series of questionnaires. Correlational analyses, path analysis, mediation analysis, and moderation analysis, where relevant, were used in testing four possible models. Only the model in which moral identity and connection to nature predicted proenvironmental behavior directly, and indirectly through the effect of personal norms and moral disengagement, showed good fit indices. Our findings highlight the multifaceted nature of proenvironmental engagement, in which a sense of moral obligation to act sustainably could facilitate behavior stemming from moral identity and the feeling of being connected to nature.