Childhood maltreatment must lead to hate? The relation between childhood maltreatment and social mindfulness among college students: the roles of self-compassion, shyness and hostile attribution bias.

Abstract

Background: Childhood maltreatment represents a significant distal risk factor for the social adaptation and development of children and adolescents. However, the impact of childhood maltreatment on individuals' social mindfulness-an emerging form of "effortless" prosocial behavior-remains largely unexplored.

Objective: To address the gap in understanding the relationship between childhood maltreatment and social mindfulness, To address the gap in understanding the relationship between childhood maltreatment and social mindfulness, we conducted a cross-sectional study to clarify their association and explore potential influencing factors.

Methods: In this study, 611 undergraduates were surveyed to complete a series of questionnaires including Childhood Maltreatment questionnaire-28 item Short Form(CTQ-SF), 17-item Social Mindfulness Self-report Scale(SMSRS), Shyness Scale, Chinese Version of Word Sentence Association Paradigm for Hostility Scale(CV-WSAP-Hostility), Chinese Version of Self-Compassion Scale(CV-SCS). And a moderated mediation model was constructed based on the data results.

Results: Childhood maltreatment negatively predicts social mindfulness and exerts its influence through self-compassion as a mediator. Additionally, shyness and hostile attribution bias (HAB) were found to have significant independent and interactive moderating effects. Specifically, the negative impact of childhood maltreatment on self-compassion and social mindfulness diminished as levels of both shyness and HAB increased.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the design of intervention programs for individuals with childhood maltreatment should fully consider the "dual-edged sword" effects of their shy personality traits and HAB and the potential for iatrogenic effects.