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The global decline in the number of pollinators has elicited considerable public attention. To the general public, honeybees are considered to be the primary pollinators. Also, a decline in managed honeybee stocks is alarming and could lead to declining pollination services and reduced ecosystem biodiversity, although the Apis mellifera is the least likely pollinator species on the planet to be at risk of extinction. A less-than-complete understanding of honeybees and their ecology may hinder their conservation. Ascertaining the public's level of knowledge about, and perception of, a problem can help in solving it. This research focused mainly on honeybees because people are unlikely to be able to recognize the different species of Apoidea. Schools are ideal places for understanding the basic knowledge and attitudes regarding this insect. We aimed to understand the perception and knowledge of 12-14-year-old children towards honeybees as well as to verify the existence of a correlation between knowledge level and positive perception. Secondary school students can play a key role in the conservation of biodiversity as they are carriers of knowledge in families and will be future citizens. To this end, 231 students were given a 26-item questionnaire related to their perception and knowledge of honeybees. Results indicate that the students have a good understanding of the role that bees play in nature but do not have a completely clear idea of this insect's interactions with the environment. Results also show that the children feel a certain fear of honeybees, although they respect them. The average score of the ecological branch test exceeded the average score of the perceptual one, indicating that the subjects had a more positive education than perception.

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This study aims to investigate the weight of surface acting (a condition in which subjects must display an emotional state that does not correspond to their real feelings) in the relationship between the emotional load of nursing work and the perception of health, and to evaluate the moderating effect of age and length of service. A moderated mediation analysis was conducted on a sample of 359 Italian nurses. The results confirmed the mediation role of surface acting and showed that both age and seniority have moderating effects so that in conditions of high emotional load, older and more experienced nurses show higher levels of surface acting, and in conditions of high surface acting, younger and less experienced nurses show lower levels of perceived health. In conclusion, surface acting seems a stressor for younger nurses, not yet used to the weight of faking emotions, while the perceived emotional load seems a stressor for older and more experienced nurses. Each result highlights the importance of providing emotional regulation skills training and support to reduce the psychological impact of emotional demands on nurses.

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AIMS: This study aims to verify the association between nurses' perception of the meaningfulness of their work and their pleasure in working, and whether this relationship may change based on the level of deep acting performed to cope with emotional regulation demands and the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the healthcare work. METHODS: Nurses from both private and public Italian institutions (N = 239) completed an online questionnaire between June 2021 and January 2022. A moderated moderation model was tested through SPSS Process macro. The design is cross-sectional. RESULTS: The results show that the perception of meaningfulness of work is positively associated with pleasure in working, especially in conditions of high deep acting. This relationship is further moderated by the COVID-19 influence so that the association between meaningful work and pleasure in working is stronger in conditions of high COVID-19 influence and at higher levels of deep acting performed. CONCLUSION: Perceiving one's work as meaningful can be a job resource that protects nurses from the negative effects of emotional regulation demands and even from the stress of dealing with COVID-19. IMPACT: The study addresses the problem of nurses' emotional regulation demands at work and evaluates the protective role of meaningful work. The findings could be useful for planning prevention interventions (through training in adaptive emotional regulation strategies) or protection interventions (through the promotion of effective coping strategies and the stimulation of one's work engagement).

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The aim of the study was to verify whether the frequency of face-to-face interactions with the public at work can reveal differences in how people react to emotional regulation demands. In particular, we investigated the mediating role of surface acting (a strategy of dealing with emotional dissonance) in the relationship between two typical job stressors (workload and mental load) and two outcomes closely related to work-related well-being: employees' general health and the need for recovery. Prior studies investigating the detrimental effects of emotional dissonance mostly focused on service workers. However, in light of a survey conducted by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (2016) highlighting the growing psycho-social risk constituted by intense human interactions in the workplaces, even in unexpected categories of workers, we hypothesize that emotional demands may also be a concern for those who do not specifically interface with clients as part of their job duties. The results of the multi-group analysis of front-office (N = 734) and back-office (N = 436) Italian workers showed that surface acting fully mediates the relationship between workload and general health among back-office workers, while it only partially mediates this relationship among front-office workers. Furthermore, surface acting is positively associated with the need for recovery and negatively with general health, with higher values for back-office workers. The findings support the hypothesis that the emotional demands are not only a service worker issue and highlight the need to address emotional regulation strategies to enhance the quality of life in and outside the workplace for all employees.

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Although many studies have been conducted to evaluate the risk and protective factors on psychological health among academic staff, little attention has been paid to fixed-term researchers, the weakest figures in the academic context. By using the Job Demands-Resources model as theoretical framework, we investigated: (1) the role of some job demands (workload, mental load, and emotional dissonance) in predicting the need for recovery; (2) the role of some job resources (independence, career opportunities, and work-life balance) in predicting work engagement; and (3) the moderating role of the contract type (more or less precarious). We focused in particular on emotional dissonance (the discrepancy between emotions that need to be displayed and what is really felt), assuming its unique role in predicting fatigue. Results of structural equation modeling analysis generally supported our hypotheses and highlighted a so far undiscovered path between mental load and work engagement. Specifically, mental load leads to fatigue only indirectly through workload and emotional dissonance, while significantly predicting the absorption and the dedication of fixed-term Italian researchers. The latter relationship was also moderated by the contract type, so that mental load predicts dedication especially among researchers in the most precarious condition.

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