CAN TEACHERS AFFECT YOUTHS’ EXTERNALIZING BEHAVIORS? SHORT-TIME ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN PERSONALITY, TEACHERS’ CHARACTERISTICS, AND PROBLEMATIC BEHAVIORS THROUGH SELF-REGULATORY SELF-EFFICACY IN ITALY

Externalizing tendencies are crucial during adolescence because they normatively increase, and they could jeopardize over time [1]. Personal factors, such as impulsivity, and contextual factors, such as the classroom climate and the role of teachers, can influence these tendencies [2, 3]. Youths’ impulsivity increases the risk for deviant and delinquent behaviors, while a positive classroom climate and committed teachers represent a protective factor [4, 5]. Youths’ perceptions of their own abilities significantly affect these relations, by fostering their sense of being capable to regulate their behaviors and reactions toward transgressive activities and against peer pressure to behave in maladaptive ways [6, 2]. Thus, we focused on the role of teachers in protecting youths from aggressive and rule-breaking behaviors in a short-time period. We considered individual and contextual characteristics (i.e., impulsivity and teachers’ commitment) as predictors of aggressive and rule-breaking behaviors, and the mediating role of youths’ self-regulatory self-efficacy, focusing on the protective role of teachers, beyond individual vulnerabilities. Two-hundred-and-seven youths (38% girls; Mage=15) were considered in two-time points (W1, and W2 after two months). The partial-constrained multigroup-by-gender mediation model showed that, controlling for youths’ age and, class enrolled, and the stability of the outcomes, high impulsivity, directly and indirectly, predicted higher rule-breaking in boys. Beyond the effects of impulsivity, higher teachers’ involvement negatively predicted aggression in both genders and indirectly predicted rule-breaking and aggression in boys by improving their self-regulatory self-efficacy. These results evidenced that, beyond the association between impulsivity and externalizing behaviors, teachers’ commitment to promoting a positive class climate is a key protective factor, especially for boys that are normatively more vulnerable to behavioral difficulties. If teachers care about their students, they can significantly increase their self-regulatory self-efficacy beliefs, that in turn could protect them from aggressive and rule-breaking behaviors.