Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) increased posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) after exposure to later trauma, but some Chinese cultural factors such as filial piety can be perceived as a protector buffering the negative results of ACEs on early adulthood adaptation, in Chinese society. Thus, the study used a longitudinal design to investigate whether dual filial piety - reciprocal filial piety (RFP: affection/gratitude) and authoritarian filial piety (AFP: role obligation/hierarchy) - are protective factors against PTSS and facilitate posttraumatic growth (PTG) following trauma among Taiwanese young adults. Research with 246 participants aged 18-25 years old who reported experiencing at least one type of traumas, reported their history of ACEs, RFP, AFP, PTSS, and PTG at Time 1. One (Time 2) and 7 (Time 3) months later, 98 and 60 of the original respondents completed follow-up assessments. Results showed that ACEs significantly associated with higher PTSS, and both RFP and AFP significantly related to lower PTSS and higher PTG at Time 1 and Time2. Furthermore, RFP mediated the relationship between ACEs and PTSS such that individuals with higher RFP reported lower PTSS across time. These findings suggest that filial piety may serve as a protective factor against PTSS and facilitate PTG among traumatized Taiwanese individuals with a history of ACEs. The study implies that future research should explore the mechanisms underlying these relationships and consider how cultural factors may influence the role of filial piety in posttraumatic adjustment.

1. Introduction

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been utilized to reduce negative mood and stress and increase neurocognition (e.g. attention, memory, and cognitive flexibility) and well-being in clinical and nonclinical samples. Recently social cognitive function like empathy has been shown to improve after MBIs in a healthy population. Social cognitive function is defined as the ability to construct mental representations about oneself, others, and one’s relationships with others and to use those representations flexibly to guide social behaviours, including social perception (e.g., emotion recognition) and social understanding (e.g. theory of mind and mentalizing). Previous research found that meditators reported higher empathy, higher emotional recognition, and higher theory of mind. The present study thus aimed to investigate the effectiveness of MBIs on the improvement of social cognitive functions in Taiwanese college students.

2. Method

The present study recruited 29 mindfulness participants (23 female) and 26 control participants (19 female). A complete assessment including dispositional mindfulness, executive function, and social cognitive functions measured using emotion recognition accuracy, theory of mind, and mentalizing was performed before MBI (Time 1), and dispositional mindfulness, emotion recognition, and mentalizing were repeated after a 4-week MBI (Time 2).

3. Results

Before MBI (Time 1), there is no group difference in age, gender, dispositional mindfulness, executive function, theory of mind, and prosodic emotion recognition, but the mindfulness group had lower facial emotion recognition and lower mentalizing. After a 4-week MBI (Time 2), the analysis of the generalized estimating equation found that there were significant interactions of group and time on facial emotion recognition and mentalizing. After a 4-week MBI, the mentalizing correct scores were significantly improved in the mindfulness group, and the improvements of sad and fearful facial emotion recognition accuracy in the mindfulness group were greater than in the control group.

4. Discussion

Our study demonstrates an endeavor to employ mindfulness-based intervention to promote social cognitive function in college students. The results also suggest that, via influencing nonverbal emotion recognition and mentalizing, mindfulness practice can be a promising way for college students’ mental health advancement.