The Influence Of Childhood Trauma Of Left-behind People On The Intimate Relationships:The Deep Well Effect Of Self-esteem And Attention Bias

Those who have been left behind refer to adults(over 18 years old)who have experienced long-term parent-child separation during childhood(before the age of 18)when both or one of their parents has been away from home for more than three months.Intimate relationships refer to the interpersonal emotional connection between lovers or spouses,and high-quality intimacy is one of the important elements of an individual’s adult quality of life.Individual’s early family functioning and caregiving status of caregivers have an important impact on their experience,cognition,and behavior in adult intimate relationships.This paper mainly focuses on the mediating role of negative childhood trauma affecting the quality of intimacy and self-esteem of the left-behind experiencers in the absence of family dysfunction and lack of role models,thus experiencing many negative life experiences,and even leading to childhood psychological trauma.The researchers designed three parts and used different methods to explore the mechanism of the influence of childhood trauma on the quality of intimate relationships in people who left behind..Study 1 used questionnaire survey to quantitatively analyze the impact of childhood trauma on intimacy and the mediating role of self-esteem in 671 questionnaires,including 165 people who had experience of intimate relationships.The results showed that the level of childhood trauma was significantly higher than that of non-left-behind experience,and the quality of intimate relationship was significantly lower than that of non-left-behind experience.The level of childhood trauma of left-behind experienced people can significantly negatively predict the level of self-esteem,and the level of self-esteem can significantly predict the quality of intimate relationships,and self-esteem can play a masking effect between the effects of childhood trauma on the quality of intimate relationships.Study 2 applied the modified point detection paradigm,recruited 54 effective experimental participants,and used 2(childhood trauma group: high/low childhood trauma group),× 2(vocabulary type: positive/negative interaction vocabulary)× 2(detection point location: consistent/inconsistent)mixed experimental design to explore the attention bias characteristics of intimate relationship interaction among left-behind experience of different childhood trauma levels and its influence on intimate relationship quality.The results showed that the attention bias of left-behind participants with different levels of childhood trauma had different attention biases for words related to intimate interactions,and the low group participants showed significant attention disengagement difficulties for both types of words,while the high group showed significant attention avoidance and attention disengagement facilitation for negative intimate interaction words.The attention disengagement index for negative interaction words can significantly negatively predict intimacy commitment.Study 3 used the interview method to collect relevant data on crisis events in the intimate relationships of 10 left-behind experiencers,and used qualitative analysis to encode the interview data at the third level,and further explored the relationship between childhood trauma and the quality of intimate relationships.The results showed that there were three pathways for the impact of childhood trauma on the quality of intimate relationships among left-behind experiencers,in which self-esteem,coping style,and self-compensation played indirect roles.Conclusions:1.Compared with non-left-behind experiencers,left-behind experienced people have higher levels of childhood trauma and lower quality of intimate relationships.2.The childhood trauma of the left-behind experiencers had a negative predictive effect on the level of self-esteem,and the level of self-esteem had a significant positive predictive effect on the quality of their intimate relationships,and self-esteem played a masking effect between the childhood trauma and the quality of intimate relationships of the left-behind experiencers.3.The level of childhood trauma will affect the attention bias of left-behind experience to intimate interaction words,and individuals with high childhood trauma have significant attention avoidance and attention disengagement difficulties in negative intimate interaction words,and individuals with low childhood trauma have significant attention disengagement difficulties in both types of intimate interaction words.4.The influence mechanism of childhood trauma level of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationships is not single and negative,and self-esteem and attention bias play different roles in it.