Potential contributing roles of early affiliative memories, social safeness and body appreciation to adolescents’ well-being

Interpersonal and body image-related factors have been associated with adolescents’ well-being. Since data on positive body image in adolescence and its relationship with well-being remain scarce, the present study explored the roles of early affiliative memories, social safeness, and body appreciation in adolescents’ well-being. Path analysis’ results showed that social safeness and body appreciation mediated the relationship between early affiliative memories and physical, psychological and school environment well-being. This suggests that not only early affiliative memories are important for adolescents’ well-being but also current feelings of social belonging and body appreciation. Future longitudinal studies should further confirm these results.

Maladaptive emotion regulation mediating the link between the recall of early affiliative memories and depressive symptomatology

The inability of recalling warm and safe memories with parents and close relatives has been often associated in literature with a negative and judgmental sense of self, and a higher proneness to experience feelings of inferiority, inadequacy, and defectiveness. Thus, intending to deal with self-judgment and inferiority, individuals may become submissive as a way of compensating one's negative emotional states with other's positive attention and desirability. However, both early negative affiliative memories and submissiveness are associated with higher vulnerability to psychopathology, namely depression. Using a sample of 338 young women, the present study intended to examine the association between early affiliative memories and depressive symptomatology, and the mediator roles of self-judgment and submissive attitudes and behaviours on this association, through a path analysis. The tested model provided an excellent fit to the data, accounting for 41% of the depressive symptomatology's variance. Results revealed a direct effect of early affiliative memories on depressive symptomatology; and also on self-judgement and submissiveness, explaining 28% and 23% of their variances, respectively. Moreover, part of these memories’ effect on depressive symptomatology was explained by self-judgment and submissiveness, which seems to suggest that submissiveness, although used to compensate feelings of inferiority and a judging attitude towards the self, may be a maladaptive strategy due to its positive association with depressive symptoms. This study's findings appear to emphasize the relevance of targeting submissiveness, especially in the context of a scarce recall of early affiliative experiences, when approaching women's depressive symptomatology on mental health promotion programs.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The Impact of Early Affiliative Memories on Psychological Health: The Mediator Role of External Shame and Cognitive Fusion

Early positive interactions have been positively associated with positive mental health outcomes. In contrast, the lack of these early affiliative experiences of warmth and safeness can have negative consequences on the individual's physical, emotional and social development.The current study tests a mediation model that examines the mediator effect of external shame and cognitive fusion on the association between early affiliative memories with attachment figures and with peers, and psychological quality of life. These analyses were conducted using a sample of 453 participants from the community.The final model explained 47% of psychological quality of life and presented excellent model fit indices. Results from path analysis showed that both early affiliative memories of warmth and safeness with peers and attachment figures present a significant impact on psychological quality of life through the indirect effect of external shame and cognitive fusion. In fact, although early affiliative memories with peers also presented a direct effect on psychological quality of life, the impact of early affiliative memories with attachment figures on this outcome was totally mediated through the mechanisms of external shame and cognitive fusion.These findings seem to provide an important contribution to the field of early affiliative memories of warmth and safeness with attachment figures and with peers by uncovering the mediating role of external shame and cognitive fusion. Furthermore, these data highlighted the relevance of developing intervention programs in the community, especially in a context of early adverse experiences, for the promotion of mental health well-being.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.