Childhood maltreatment, emotion regulation difficulties, and life history strategy: an integrated person-centered and network perspective.

Background

Childhood adversity and emotion regulation difficulties frequently co-occur and jointly predict life history strategy, yet how these constructs are organized at the individual level remains unclear.

Methods

A cross-sectional sample of 1,548 Chinese undergraduates completed the Childhood Adversity Questionnaire (8 dimensions), the Adolescent Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (3 dimensions), and the Mini-K. Latent profile analysis (LPA) used all 11 subscale indicators simultaneously. Between-profile differences in life history orientation were tested via the BCH method, and within-profile psychological networks were compared using the Network Comparison Test.

Results

LPA identified two profiles: High Adversity-Low Emotion Regulation (n = 764, 49.4%) and Low Adversity-High Emotion Regulation (n = 784, 50.6%), differing primarily in overall co-occurring severity. The high-adversity profile showed significantly faster life history orientation (β = 0.41, p < .001). Despite comparable global network density (NCT: p = .89), the two profiles differed in internal structure: Emotion Control (EM3) was most central in the high-adversity network with the strongest links to fast life history orientation; Emotion Recognition (EM1) was most central in the low-adversity network.

Conclusions

Adversity and emotion regulation difficulties cluster within individuals in a pattern consistent with attachment theory and predict faster life history orientation. Beyond mean-level differences, the two profiles showed distinct internal associative structures-a finding only recoverable through the combined person-centered and network approach employed here.