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Child / Adolescent - Trauma / Maltreatment

Lessen the legacy of adverse childhood experiences through addressing cognitive mechanisms

(PS4-C54) Lessen the Legacy of Adverse Childhood Experiences Through Addressing Cognitive Mechanisms

Friday, November 17, 2023
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM PST
Location: Regency Ballroom, Level 7
The link between experiencing trauma during critical developmental periods and future negative outcomes, like problematic alcohol use, is well established. Felitti and colleagues first uncovered the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and future health and risk behaviors beginning in the 1990s, proposing that emotional and cognitive impairment due to the traumatic experience(s) may explain the increase in negative health outcomes and behaviors (Felitti et al., 1998). One possible transdiagnostic cognitive mechanism for these relationships is early maladaptive schemas (EMS). Specifically, schemas formed due to abusive and cold upbringings, such as those in the disconnection and rejection domain (Richardson, 2005) are thought to underlie risky behaviors. As such, EMS in this domain were tested as a possible mediator between ACE exposure and self-reported alcohol use measured via the AUDIT. EMS partially mediated the relationship between ACE exposure and AUDIT scores with an indirect effect of .14, 95%CI[.026,.278]. Furthermore, EMS and ACEs accounted for 5% of the variance in AUDIT scores among this sample of 527 college students. Alcohol use may be perceived as a path toward belongingness or an escape from rejection. If so, long-standing cognitive beliefs associated with ACEs may be helpful to target when addressing college students’ problematic alcohol use.