Different adverse childhood experiences and adolescents' altruism: The mediating role of life history strategy

Abstract Introduction The present study sought to investigate whether the relationship between childhood trauma, childhood socioeconomic (SES), and adolescents' altruism were mediated by their life history strategies and different adverse childhood experiences may function diversely on altruism, with two waves of data collected 6 months apart in a longitudinal design among Chinese adolescents. Methods A total of 658 adolescents ( M age = 13.51, SD = 0.73 at T1) were recruited and completed the online survey; their life history strategies were measured by the Mini‐K, the Delayed of Gratification Questionnaire (DOG), and the Chinese version of the Adolescent Risk‐Taking Questionnaire (ARQ‐RB) together, and their altruism was collected again after six months. Results After controlling for gender and their altruism at T1, the results showed that childhood trauma (i.e., emotional maltreatment, physical maltreatment), as well as low SES and fast life history strategy, were significantly negatively correlated with adolescents' altruism at T2. Importantly, life history strategy at T1 mediated the relationship between T1 emotional maltreatment, T1 low SES, and adolescents' altruism at T2. However, the effect of physical maltreatment on altruism was not mediated by life history strategy. Conclusions This study indicated that emotional maltreatment and low SES can affect adolescents' altruism by influencing the formation of adolescents' life history strategies. The findings revealed the different influences of adverse childhood experiences on adolescents' altruism, which supplied new empirical evidence for the life history theory and provided certain reference values for cultivating adolescents' altruism.