Exploring the influence of socio-emotional variables on internalizing symptoms and academic results in primary school children

This dissertation has set the goal of studying how constructs such as trait emotional intelligence and social intelligence can be used as declinations of the socio-emotional development of children and how they can be protective for internalizing symptoms and clinical situations of anxiety and depression. The studies included in Section A investigated how socio-emotional factors can predict clinical discomfort within the school context and better academic performance. Specifically, Chapter 2 proposed a systematic review with a meta-analysis of studies that includes trait emotional intelligence in primary school children In Chapter 3, the social intelligence construct was included together with trait emotional intelligence exploring their associations with academic achievements and their ability to discriminate between children with clinical or not clinical levels of scholastic anxiety and depression. Chapter 4 has further extended our understanding of the associations between these variables by also evaluating evolutionary trajectories over time taking into account how the COVID-19 pandemic may have affected the direction of these trajectories. Section B has focused on the unconscious elements reflected in drawing as a projective tool of knowledge with children. Specifically, Chapter 5 presented " the drawn stories technique" as a projective method, exploring the differences in the contents of the drawings evaluated through an ad hoc evaluation grid, between children with clinical and non-clinical levels of anxiety and depression. Section C introduced the teacher’s perspective by investigating the role of the teacher as an observer of the emotional functioning of children belonging to their class group. In particular, Chapter 6 highlighted the significant differences between teachers' assessments and the self-reported scores of children in terms of emotional intelligence and anxiety. Finally, this thesis emphasizes the importance of adopting a multidimensional, and multi-method perspective to study the socio- emotional development of primary school children designing interventions to promote this development.