Early life adversity is associated with mental health and life histories through short-term mindsets
Farkas, B. C.; Jacquet, P. O.; Wyart, V.
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Early life adversity is associated with increased risk for psychopathology and shifts in life history (LH) strategies, but the psychological mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear. Drawing on evolutionary-developmental theory, we examined whether short-term mindsets mediate associations between dimensions of childhood adversity and mental health and LH-related outcomes. In a UK-representative sample of 877 adults, we assessed threat, deprivation, and unpredictability, alongside internalizing and externalizing symptoms, borderline features, and a latent factor capturing reproductive versus somatic maintenance effort. Structural equation models showed that adversity predicted poorer mental health and faster LH strategies. Short-term mindsets, indexed by lower future orientation and higher affective impulsivity, mediated effects of adversity, particularly unpredictability. Further decomposition of unpredictability into short-timescale and long-timescale forms revealed dissociable effects, with short-timescale unpredictability primarily linked to psychopathology and long-timescale unpredictability to reproductive-oriented LH strategies.
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