Background
Early life adversities (ELAs) including experiences such as abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction are strongly linked to psychopathology; yet, the developmental pathways connecting ELA to externalizing and internalizing psychopathology remain unclear. While most research has focused on threat and negative affect, positive emotions may represent a critical but understudied mechanism linking ELA to mental health outcomes.
Methods
Using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, we examined positive affect trajectories across six timepoints spanning childhood through adolescence (ages 9–10 to 12–13). We employed person-centered trajectory-based clustering to identify distinct patterns in positive affect – independent of ELA exposure – followed by multinomial logistic regression to examine associations between cumulative ELA exposure and trajectory membership. Mediation analyses tested whether positive affect trajectories explained links between ELA and psychopathology outcomes.
Results
Four distinct positive affect trajectories emerged: High-Stable, Declining, Persistently Low, and Volatile (N = 7,457). Higher ELA scores significantly predicted membership in all non-high-stable trajectories, with the strongest association existing for the Persistently Low group (β = .321, p < .001). Mediation analyses revealed that Persistently Low trajectory group membership significantly mediated the relationship between ELA and internalizing problems (indirect effect = 0.030, 95% CI [0.012, 0.056], p = .007), but not externalizing problems (N = 3,927).
Conclusions
This study demonstrates that ELA shapes positive affect development through distinct, heterogeneous pathways rather than uniform effects, with persistently low positive affect representing a specific mechanism linking early adversity to later depression and anxiety. Findings suggest that targeting positive emotional experiences may be a promising intervention strategy for youth exposed to ELA.