Positive Childhood Experiences Associate with Adult Flourishing Amidst Adversity: A Cross Sectional Survey Study with a National Sample of Young Adults

Zhiyuan Yu, Lin Wang (), Wenyi Chen, Juan Zhang and Amie F. Bettencourt
Additional contact information
Zhiyuan Yu: School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Lin Wang: School of Nursing, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China
Wenyi Chen: School of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Juan Zhang: International Peace Maternity and Children Hospital of China Welfare Institution, Departments of Nursing, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200025, China
Amie F. Bettencourt: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 22, 1-16

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of PCEs among young adults in Mainland China and the extent to which the cumulative number of PCEs moderates the associations between ACEs and flourishing in adulthood. Between August and November 2020, we used convenience and snowball sampling to recruit 9468 young adults, ages 18–35, enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs at universities in Mainland China to participate in a survey, which included measures on flourishing, exposure to ACEs and PCEs, and demographic characteristics. Approximately 92% of participants reported experiencing seven to nine PCEs, with harmonious family relationships (96.9%), feeling supported by friends (96.8%) and being treated fairly at school (96.3%) being the most common PCEs reported. Results of the multiple regression indicated that the cumulative number of PCEs statistically significantly moderated the relation between the cumulative number of ACEs and flourishing (interaction term b = −0.060 [−0.071, −0.049], p < 0.001, adjusted R 2 = 0.183); as the number of ACEs increased up through eight ACEs, decreases in flourishing were smaller among those with higher numbers of PCEs. PCEs are common among young adults from Mainland China and serve a potential buffering effect against exposure to ACEs.

Keywords: adverse childhood experiences; flourishing; positive childhood experiences; surveys; well-being; young adults (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/22/14956/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/22/14956/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:22:p:14956-:d:971644

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().