Youth’ Susceptibility to Addictive Behaviors: The Effects of the ‘DIPENDE!” Intervention on Impulsivity and Self-Control in Early- and Mid-Adolescents

Abstract This study aims to develop and evaluate an intervention on impulsivity and self-control among early and mid-adolescents. We aimed at reducing impulsivity and enhancing self-control by hypothesizing that early adolescents would exhibit a greater reduction in impulsivity and larger increases in self-control compared to mid-adolescents. We also aimed at testing the hypotheses controlling results by gender. 312 middle school students and 508 high school students were randomly assigned to the Experimental Group and the Control Group. The intervention was developed by integrating different models (e.g., dual-system model; the framework about metacognition, self-control and impulse regulation; metacognitive model of addictive behaviors; conceptual change model). By applying Linear Mixed Models, findings indicated a significant reduction in impulsivity and a marginally significant increase of self-control among middle school students. Within high school students, a small decrement in impulsivity as simple effect was obtained. Future perspectives are proposed.