It is well known that negative experiences in childhood can increase the risk of developing mental health problems, but this sad fact alone does not explain every individual who subsequently develops forms of psychological distress.
In a recent study, researchers sought to explore how people’s life stories influence the development of psychopathology – the abnormal thoughts and behaviors that often underlie mental disorders.
As we might expect, the results of the research were mixed: negative childhood experiences may indeed manifest as anxiety or other mental disorders later in life, but the absence of such experiences is no guarantee that you will be free from subsequent psychological problems, scientists say.
“This research shows that mental health conditions are not just determined by early life events,” explains evolutionary psychologist Bianca Kahl, from the University of South Australia.
“A child who is brought up in a happy home can still grow up and have a mental disorder.”
This may seem like an obvious result, but it is important research that helps break the stigma that mental health problems only happen to some people.
In the study, Kahl and other researchers interviewed 343 participants through an online questionnaire, asking them about their family and upbringing, along with several questions investigating the nature of their developmental trajectory, mental health, general well-being and the nature of your relationships and attachments today.
“The study specifically aimed to explore whether life history traits were associated with a general factor in psychopathology or whether they could also predict groups of specific symptoms”, explain the authors in their article.
In this context, life history traits are part of what is called life history theory – a framework for analyzing how different types of life strategies can influence the patterns and experiences that people go through over time.
In a very simplified sense, life history strategies can be characterized as fast or slow, with fast often meaning decision-making and impulsive and present-oriented behavior, in contrast to slow traits, which reflect more decision-making deliberative and future-oriented and behavioral.
What Kahl and his team wanted to analyze was whether fast or slow life strategies were predictive of a general ‘factor p’, representing a general risk or likelihood of developing psychopathology and related mental disorders, which in the past were related to history strategies fast life.
“Our goal was to answer the research question: how did the different symptoms of psychopathology map out in the fast-slow life story continuum?” researchers write.
“Our hypothesis is that childhood attachment would moderate the association between the environment early in life and the symptoms of psychopathology, with those who had greater parental support perceived potentially dampened by the effect of childhood environmental harshness and, in turn, reporting less symptoms of psychopathology. “
In the study, the team found that faster life history traits were associated with general psychopathology, but the results showed that some symptoms of psychopathology were in fact associated with slow life history traits.
“Poor perceived parental support and lower socioeconomic status were associated with higher rates of general psychopathology, for women and men, respectively,” explains the team.
“These findings are complementary to previous work that demonstrates an association between experienced adversity and the p factor.”
Outside of this general association, however, psychopathological symptoms were somewhat divided, with results showing interpersonal sensitivity and depression were more likely for those with a faster life history strategy, while somatization and anxiety were greater for people with a slower life story strategy.
In terms of whether a happy childhood (specifically, perceived parental support) acted as a kind of buffer against psychopathology, the researchers found that their hypothesis was not supported by the data – suggesting that the relationship is more complex and highlighting a direction for future research. , so that we can find out what’s really going on here.
“We suspect that it is our expectations about our environments and our ability to adapt to scenarios in which our expectations are not being met, which may be influencing our anguish experiences,” says Kahl.
“If, as children, we learn how to adapt to change and learn how to deal with things when things don’t go our way, we may be in a better position to respond to stress and other risk factors for mental health problems.”
The results are reported in Current Psychology.