This study investigates how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and positive childhood experiences (PCEs) competitively shape adolescent executive function (EF) via the parallel mediating roles of positive and negative emotional states. To delineate these complex pathways, we evaluated standardized self-report data from a cohort of 874 adolescents. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) and rigorously accounting for demographic covariates such as age, gender, and parental education, we tested several mediation pathways. Our analyses revealed that both ACEs and PCEs exert robust direct effects on EF. Crucially, positive and negative emotions functioned as parallel, partial mediators linking these early experiences to cognitive outcomes. We found that ACEs compromise EF by amplifying negative affect and suppressing positive emotions; conversely, PCEs enhance EF by cultivating positive emotionality and attenuating negative affect. These results indicate that distinct emotional valences act as critical mechanistic bridges, competitively transmitting the distal impacts of early environmental exposures onto subsequent cognitive control. By elucidating the dual-pathway nature of early risk and protective factors, this research offers novel insights into developmental psychology, underscoring the critical need for targeted affective interventions to mitigate trauma-induced cognitive deficits and optimize adolescent cognitive trajectories.
Yin et al. (Thu,) studied this question.