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Childhood Trauma and Self-Control: The Mediating Role of Depletion Sensitivity

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Abstract

Previous research demonstrated that childhood trauma was associated with self-control deficit from adolescence to adulthood. However, the underlying mechanism was not well understood. The present study aimed to examine the mediating effect of depletion sensitivity on the association between childhood trauma and self-control. This study recruited a sample of 1415 college students from a large university in China. Participants completed three self-reported scales measuring their traumatic experiences during childhood (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire), their sensitivity to depletion (Depletion Sensitivity Scale), and self-control capacity (Self-Control Scale). The results showed that childhood trauma was positively correlated depletion sensitivity and negatively correlated with self-control, and the link between depletion sensitivity and self-control was also significant. The structural equation model demonstrated that childhood trauma had significantly indirect effects on self-control capacity via depletion sensitivity, which accounted for 50.1% of the total effect and indicated a partial mediation. The present findings suggest that one probable pathway that childhood trauma might affect self-control is through heightened depletion sensitivity.

Highlights

  • 1415 Chinese college students completed self-reported scales measuring childhood trauma, depletion sensitivity, and self-control.

  • Depletion sensitivity partially mediated the detrimental effect of childhood trauma on self-control.

  • The overall percentage of childhood traumatic experience was 55.4% among the university student sample.

  • Male participants reported significantly higher levels of physical abuse and physical neglect than female participants.

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Funding

National Natural Science Foundation of China (31800928), Guangdong Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science (GD18XXL04), Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2018A0303130044).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Zhuo Zhang, Junhua Dang

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, School of Public Health, Southern Medical University (Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Tropical Disease Research), Shatai South Road, Guangzhou, China

    Zhuo Zhang, Jiayi Li, Yongtong He, Sicheng Huang, You Wang & Xueling Yang

  2. Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China

    Zhuo Zhang

  3. Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Junhua Dang

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, 253 Middle Industrial Avenue, Guangzhou, China

    You Wang & Xueling Yang

Authors
  1. Zhuo Zhang
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  2. Junhua Dang
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  3. Jiayi Li
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  4. Yongtong He
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  5. Sicheng Huang
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  6. You Wang
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  7. Xueling Yang
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Correspondence to You Wang or Xueling Yang.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. IRB approval was received from the Ethics Committee of Southern Medical University.

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Informed consent and assent were obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Zhang, Z., Dang, J., Li, J. et al. Childhood Trauma and Self-Control: The Mediating Role of Depletion Sensitivity. J Child Fam Stud 30, 1599–1606 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-01958-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-021-01958-8

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