Friendship Stress Buffering in Young People with Childhood Adversity

Around 60% of young people worldwide experience at least one form of childhood adversity, such as abuse, neglect, bullying, or poverty. These stressful experiences can have long-lasting effects and significantly increase the risk of mental health problems. To aid future intervention and prevention efforts, my doctoral research examined how childhood adversity contributes to mental health difficulties, and whether and how friendships can help protect against these effects.Using a combination of literature reviews, behavioral studies, and brain imaging research, my colleagues and I found that young people with more severe childhood adversity were at greater risk of social isolation, being harmed or harming others, and developing mental health problems. This was partly due to differences in how they process and perceive stress. In addition, we found that those with strong, high-quality friendships reported lower stress perceptions and fewer mental health difficulties.These findings matter for two key reasons. First, they detail how childhood adversity increases vulnerability to mental health problems. Second, they demonstrate that high-quality friendships play a critical protective role in mental health – and help explain how, by reducing stress perceptions. Hence, helping young people build and maintain supportive friendships could be an important way to promote mental health, especially for those who have faced childhood adversity.