Childhood maltreatment must lead to hate? The Relation between Childhood Maltreatment and Social Mindfulness among College Students: The roles of Self-compassion, Shyness and Hostile attribution bias

Xiaoyi Wang ¹ Guanglan Yang ² Weijie Meng ^1*

• ¹ Ludong University, Yantai, China
• ² Shandong Technology and Business University, Yantai, Shandong Province, China

In order to explore the effect and the mental mechanism of childhood maltreatment on social mindfulness, 611 undergraduates were surveyed to complete a series of questionnaires including Childhood Maltreatment questionnaire-28 item Short Form(CTQ-SF), 17-item Social Mindfulness Self-report Scale(SMSRS), Shyness Scale, Chinese Version of Word Sentence Association Paradigm for Hostility Scale(CV-WSAP-Hostility), Chinese Version of Self-Compassion Scale(CV-SCS). The results indicated that childhood maltreatment negatively predicts social mindfulness and exerts its influence through self-compassion as a mediator. Additionally, shyness and hostile attribution bias (HAB) were found to have significant independent and interactive moderating effects. Specifically, the negative impact of childhood maltreatment on self-compassion and social mindfulness diminished as levels of both shyness and HAB increased. However, this buffering effect exhibited a dual-edged nature, suggesting that professionals must consider boundary conditions and the potential for iatrogenic effects when designing trauma-informed interventions.