Child abuse and resilience influence belief in a just world: A moderated mediation model.
Article Highlights* We integrated moderation and mediation in a structural equation model to examine the relationships among child abuse, belief in a just world, resilience, and socioeconomic status.
. Child abuse and neglect decreased belief in a just world among children in China.
* Resilience partially mediated the relationship between child abuse and belief in a just world.
* Socioeconomic status positively moderated the relationship between resilience and belief in a just world.
According to the just world hypothesis, belief in a just world (BJW) refers to people's fundamental need to believe in a world in which individuals get what they deserve and deserve what they receive (Lerner & Miller, 1978). As an interindividually varying disposition, BJW has important adaptive functions (Dalbert & Donat, 2015). Many studies have supported the positive impact of BJW on various aspects of life, including prosocial behavior (De Caroli & Sagone, 2014), subjective well-being (Lee & Kawachi, 2019), academic achievement (Peter et al., 2011), mental health, and overall quality of life (Jian et al., 2021).
Previous research has shown that some factors may significantly affect BJW, such as psychological, societal, or cultural factors (Dalbert & Donat, 2015). However, little attention has been given to how personal experiences (e.g., child abuse or neglect by parents) may influence BJW. Greene et al. (2020) found that there is a strong relationship between child maltreatment and negative parenting styles, which hinder children's BJW. Additionally, experiences of abuse have been found to negatively predict adolescents' BJW (Zhang et al., 2022). Despite these findings, the comprehensive understanding of how child abuse affects a child's current BJW remains limited. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between child abuse and BJW, as well as the potential mediating effect of resilience and the moderating role of family socioeconomic status.
Child Abuse and Belief in a Just World
Child maltreatment includes all types of abuse and neglect experienced by a child under the age of 18 years, inflicted by a parent, caregiver, or another person in a custodial role (e.g., clergy, coach, teacher), which results in harm, has the potential to cause harm, or poses a threat of harm to a child (Greene et al., 2020; Runyan et al., 2002). There are several types of abuse, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect (Bernstein et al., 2003).
Existing research has found that child maltreatment significantly and negatively predicts BJW during adulthood (Zhang et al., 2022). Being abused or neglected negatively affects children's beliefs that the world is fair (Ney et al., 1986). Evidence from neuroscience research shows that early deprivation or abuse may result in neurobiological abnormalities that, in turn, influence cognition patterns about self and the world (Everaerd et al., 2016). Thus, we formulated the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Child abuse will negatively influence belief in a just world.
Resilience as a Mediator
Resilience is defined as people's capacity for successful adaptation in the face of adversity (Masten, 2007). Resilience theory highlights the protective processes that increase individuals' well-being and protect against risks (Masten, 2007). Low resilience may increase individuals' susceptibility to stress and, in turn, lead to lower cognitive function, such as easily perceiving danger (Perry, 2022) or injustice (Trost et al., 2017). In this case, those who have fewer psychological resources and weaker adaptation skills may perceive more unfairness.
In addition, previous studies have shown stress from child abuse and neglect plays a role in the development of resilience (Chen et al., 2021; Herman, 2015). Abused children often exhibit a range of psychological, emotional, and behavioral issues, such as low self-esteem, panic, stress, and engagement in risky or aggressive behavior (Runyan et al., 2002; Zeanah & Humphreys, 2018). Contrary to the belief that early trauma impairs psychological functioning, a growing body of evidence indicates that human beings are remarkably adaptable (e.g., Woods-Jaeger et al., 2018). Frankenhuis and de Weerth (2013) demonstrated that people with histories of abuse have an uncanny ability to detect threats in their lives. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: The relationship between child abuse and belief in a just world will be mediated by resilience.
The Moderating Effect of Family Socioeconomic Status
Within the perspective of family capital theory (Hoffman et al., 2006), family socioeconomic status (SES) refers to a family members' access to financial capital (material resources), human capital (nonmaterial resources, e.g., education), and social capital (resources obtained through interpersonal networks or guanxi). According to Hafer and Rubel (2015), BJW may be a product of both the situation (e.g., family socioeconomic status) and the person (e.g., personal resilience). For abused children experiencing a decrease in BJW due to low resilience, the association could be related to their family-level support (Afifi & MacMillan, 2011), such as economic resources (Fontaine et al., 2019).
Children from high-SES families tend to have access to more material and social resources (Fingerman et al., 2015), resulting in potentially higher levels of resilience compared to those from low-SES families. Individuals with low SES exhibit prolonged, high-effort coping behavior to deal with cognitive and emotional stress (James, 1994). Drawing from resilience theory, which focuses on the interaction of multiple systems in a child's life and the role of developmental timing on the manifestation of resilience (Fontaine et al., 2019), this study examined the likelihood that a maltreated child may have low levels of BJW in relation to low SES. That is, the moderating mechanism of how SES interacts with resilience in influencing BJW requires further empirical evidence. Thus, we proposed the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 3: Socioeconomic status will moderate the relationship between resilience and belief in a just world, such that abused children with a high socioeconomic status will exhibit a stronger relationship between resilience and belief in a just world than will children with a low socioeconomic status.
Overview of the Current Study
Although there is a growing body of literature on the relationship between child abuse and its consequences in emerging adults, little is known about the effect of child abuse on BJW during the early years of a child's life. This study examined the relationship between child abuse and BJW, taking into consideration the mediating role of resilience and the moderating role of SES.
Method
Participants and Procedure
Participants were randomly recruited from three primary schools in Nanjing and Yangzhou, Jiangsu Province, China. The final sample consisted of 541 primary children, comprising 270 girls (49.90%) and 271 boys (50.10%). Their mean age was 12 years (SD = 1.00, range = 9-14).
This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee at Nanjing Xiaozhuang University. The informed consent process took place before the paper--pencil survey. Children were told that this survey was voluntary and anonymous.
Measures
Childhood Trauma Questionnaire
The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2003) consists of 28 items, of which 25 are clinical items and three are validity checks. The 25 clinical items are divided across five dimensions. Sample items are "I didn't have enough to eat" (physical neglect), "I felt loved" (emotional neglect; reverse scored), "Someone molested me" (sexual abuse), "I believe that I was physically abused" (physical abuse), and "I felt that someone in my family hated me" (emotional abuse). Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Higher scores indicate higher levels of child abuse experiences during the last 6 months. In this study Cronbach's alpha for the total scale was .87, indicating the measure was reliable. In addition, the confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good model fit, [chi square]/df = 2.57, comparative fit index (CFI) =.83, Tucker--Lewis index (TLI) = .81, normed fit index (NFI) = .75, root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .05, standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) = .06.
Resilience Scale
The Resilience Scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003) includes 25 items. Sample items are "I am confident that I can achieve my goals" and "I can adapt to change." Items are rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Higher scores indicate having stronger resilience. In this study Cronbach's alpha was .72, indicating the measure was reliable. The confirmatory factor analysis showed a good model fit, [chi square]/df= 2.93, CFI = .91, TLI = .90, NFI = .87, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .05.
Belief in a Just World Scale
The Belief in a Just World Scale (Dalbert, 1999) has 13 items spread across two dimensions: personal (seven items) and general (six items). Sample items include "I believe that, by and large, I deserve what happens to me" (personal BJW) and "I believe that, by and large, people get what they deserve" (general BJW). Items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). In our study Cronbach's alpha was .93, indicating the measure was reliable. The confirmatory factor analysis indicated a good model fit, [chi square]/df= 3.45, CFI = .95, TLI = .94, NFI = .93, RMSEA = .07, SRMR = .04.
Family Socioeconomic Status
We assessed family socioeconomic status using Wang and Geng's (2019) version of the International Socio-Economic Index, which was originally proposed by Ganzeboom (1992). This index comprises household income, parents' educational level, and occupational status. We recoded occupation into an ordinal variable using the international standard certification of occupations, as did Ganzeboom and Treiman (1996). Through factor analysis we obtained a principal factor with characteristic roots greater than 1, explaining 56% of the variance; the factor loading matrix presents the coefficient of principal factor 1. The final formula was SES = (0.81 * z father occupation + 0.66 * z father education + 0.76 * z mother occupation + 0.75 * z mother education + 0.75 * z family annual income) / 0.56. A high SES score means the child's family has a high SES level. In this study Cronbach's alpha was .73, indicating the scale was reliable.
Results
Common Method Bias
We used Harman's single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003) to check for common method bias. Results showed that there were 14 factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, and the first factor explained 18.38% of the variance, indicating common method bias was not a significant concern.
Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Analysis
Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis results obtained using SPSS 26.0 are shown in Table 1. There were high correlations between the main variables.
Moderated Mediation Test
We built a structural equation model using Amos 23.0 to test the hypotheses. First, we conducted mediation modeling by applying a bootstrapping procedure, which involved drawing 5,000 bootstrapped resamples and computing 95% confidence intervals (CIs). BJW was modeled as the dependent variable, child abuse served as the independent variable, resilience served as the mediator, and gender and age were covariates. This model showed a good fit to the empirical data, [chi square]/df= 3.57, CFI = .94, TLI = .93, NFI = .92, RMSEA = .07, SRMR = .05. The results are shown in Figure 1.
Next, we calculated the total, direct, and indirect effects to find out whether resilience was an underlying mechanism in the child abuse--BJW association. Results showed the 95% CIs for each path excluded zero, which affirmed the mediating role of resilience between child abuse and BJW. The direct effect of child abuse on BJW was -0.45, p < .001, 95% CI [-0.58, -0.33], and the total effect was -0.63, p< .001, 95% CI [-0.70, -0.55]. The mediating effect was -0.19, [beta] = -.17,p< .001, 95% CI [-0.25, -0.10].
Finally, we built a moderated mediation model by incorporating the interaction term of SES and resilience into the mediation process. This structural model had a good fit to the empirical data, [chi square]/df= 4.23, CFI = .95, TLI = .93, NFI = .93, RMSEA = .08, SRMR = .07. As shown in Figure 2, the interaction term of SES and resilience had a significant influence on BJW, [beta] = .20, p < .001, 95% CI [0.17, 0.44], supporting Hypothesis 3. SES positively moderated the relationship between resilience and BJW.
To further test the moderating role of SES in the relationship between resilience and BJW, we conducted a simple slope test. As shown in Figure 3, at lower levels of SES, resilience had a significant influence on BJW, B simple = 0.11, SE = 0.06, p<.05. At high levels of SES, the impact of resilience on BJW was also significant, B simple = 0.50, SE = 0.06, p < .001. That is, abused children with a higher SES were more resilient in terms of BJW compared to those with a lower SES.
Discussion
We investigated the direct effect of child abuse on BJW. Consistent with previous research (Everaerd et al., 2016; Ney et al., 1986; Zhang et al., 2022), our findings revealed that child abuse significantly and negatively affects BJW. Higher experience of child abuse is predictive of lower levels of BJW. Thus, to promote BJW, families or parents may consider building close parent-children relationships, while communities could help create harmonious atmospheres and environments to decrease the risk of child abuse.
The Mediating Role of Resilience
Our findings provide empirical support for the mediating role of resilience in the relationship between child abuse or child neglect and its negative outcomes for children, particularly in shaping their BJW. This mediation mechanism aligns with prior work by Zeanah and Humphreys (2018), who suggested that children who experience abuse often have more internalizing or externalizing disorders, which are associated with a perceived sense of vulnerability and dysfunction that influences their interpretations of the world.
Abuse and neglect can reduce a child's psychological resilience. Trauma theory (Herman, 2015) suggests traumatic experiences induce a feeling of vulnerability and loss of control of one's life, prohibiting the ability to adjust and integrate the traumatic experiences into one's personal life. As resilience is a critical indicator of positive adjustment, childhood neglect and abuse caused by negative parenting styles or disadvantaged situations, such as traumatic experiences, could dampen resilience (Chen et al., 2021). Further, low resilience in children may hinder healthy BJW. Perry (2022) reported that resilience influences people's susceptibility to stress, which may cause more cognitive impairment and negative attitudes about world justice. Therefore, resilience-based interventions need to be strengthened to enhance resilience, improve children's healthy BJW to stop them from being affected by abusive experiences, and thus increase psychological well-being.
The Moderating Effect of Socioeconomic Status
This study found that family SES positively moderates the effect of resilience on BJW. Abused children with higher SES have more resilience to affect BJW compared to those with lower SES. Consistent with the work of Fingerman et al. (2015), people who believe themselves to be at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy typically score higher on personal psychological resources and prosociality consequences.
This moderated mediation effect supported the SES amplifier effect, enhancing the positive influence of resilience on BJW (Fontaine et al., 2019). Compared to individuals with lower SES, children with higher SES have a greater likelihood of achieving their life goals and attributing positive outcomes to their own efforts, which can lead to an increase sense of resilience and foster beliefs that they deserve their successes, and that the world is fair (Afifi & MacMillan, 2011; Fontaine et al., 2019). Therefore, considering higher SES is generally considered as a protective factor for a child's resilience development and its positive effect on BJW, our results indicate educators and social workers should pay attention to interventions mitigating the abuse of children, especially those from lower SES families.
Implications
Our findings from this study have important implications. First, the findings extend the development of a more integrative model of BJW, which shows how child abuse and neglect influence BJW. The negative impact of abuse experiences on children's BJW indicates that strategies that reduce child abuse or neglect risk should be enhanced at the individual, family, and community levels (Afifi & MacMillan, 2011). Second, resilience mediated the relationship between child abuse and BJW, indicating that there is a strong necessity for multiple forms of social support to increase abused children's resilience. For instance, Su et al. (2019) demonstrated that government and relevant education agencies should provide adequate social support resources and help disadvantaged children to foster a positive self-identity to mitigate the adverse effects of abuse and neglect, and strengthen their prosocial tendencies. Finally, we found that SES positively moderated the relationship between resilience and BJW, which suggests that educators and policymakers could provide adaptation-based approaches to uncover the skills and abilities of abused children, especially those from low SES families, to increase their resilience and BJW development.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
The current study is not without limitations. First, our data collection relied on self-reported questionnaires. Future research could consider employing a mixed-method approach, such as longitudinal experimental research or implicit association tests, to further validate the structural equation model and improve the accuracy of results. Second, the limited sample was exclusively derived from Jiangsu Province in Mainland China. In further studies, participants from different cultures and regions with multiple socioeconomic characteristics should be considered. Expanding the scope of the sample will enhance the robustness, generalizability, and applicability of the study's conclusions.
Conclusion
This study contributes to the fields of justice consciousness and education in several ways. It sheds light on the psychosocial mechanisms of how child abuse and neglect affect BJW. By building structural equation models, we found that resilience partially mediated the relationship between child abuse and BJW. Moreover, our study identified a positive moderating effect of family SES on the relationship between resilience and BJW. Compared to those from lower SES families, abused children with higher SES may be more resilient, helping them to develop a stronger BJW.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation of Ministry of Education (22YJC880068) and the Online and Offline Blended Teaching Project "Research Methods for Early Childhood Education" in Nanjing Xiaozhuang University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, preparation of the manuscript, or decision whether to publish.
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Yanmei Tang (1), Ting Liu (2), Yuhan Wang (1), Jizhou Zhang (3) (
(1) The School of Early-Childhood Education, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, People's Republic of China
(2) Department of Social Statistics, The University of Manchester, United Kingdom
(3) The School of Teacher Education, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, People's Republic of China
How to cite: Tang, Y., Liu, T., Wang, Y., & Zhang, J. (2024). Child abuse and resilience influence belief in a just world: A moderated mediation model. Social Behavior and Personality: An international journal, 52(5), e13125
CORRESPONDENCE Yanmei Tang, The School of Early-Childhood Education, Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, 3601 Hongjing Ave., Jiangning District, Nanjing, 211171, People's Republic of China. Email: tangyanmei1912@163.com
https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.13125
Table 1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of Study Variables
M SD 1 2
1. General belief in a just world 30.58 5.62 --
2. Personal belief in a just world 35.51 6.80 .75 (**) --
3. Emotional abuse 6.43 2.36 -35 (**) -.34 (**)
4. Physical abuse 5.93 2.12 -.21 (**) -.23 (**)
5. Sexual abuse 5.42 1.38 -.09 (*) -.04
6. Emotional neglect 9.30 3.68 -.29 (**) -.33 (**)
7. Physical neglect 6.98 2.53 -1.7 (**) -.21 (**)
8. Resilience 96.82 17.60 .41 (**) .47 (**)
9. Socioeconomic status 0.00 1.00 .01 .05
3 4 5
1. General belief in a just world
2. Personal belief in a just world
3. Emotional abuse --
4. Physical abuse .47 (**) --
5. Sexual abuse .13 (**) .08 --
6. Emotional neglect .35 (**) .30 (**) .01
7. Physical neglect .29 (**) .26 (**) .15 (**)
8. Resilience -.31 (**) -.14 (**) -.13 (**)
9. Socioeconomic status -.04 .01 .01
6 7 8 9
1. General belief in a just world
2. Personal belief in a just world
3. Emotional abuse
4. Physical abuse
5. Sexual abuse
6. Emotional neglect --
7. Physical neglect .45 (**) --
8. Resilience -.40 (**) -.26 (**) --
9. Socioeconomic status -.14 (**) -.12 (**) .17 (**) --
Note. N= 541.
(*) p< .05. (**) p< .01.
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| Author: | Tang, Yanmei; Liu, Ting; Wang, Yuhan; Zhang, Jizhou |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal |
| Article Type: | Report |
| Geographic Code: | 9CHIN |
| Date: | May 1, 2024 |
| Words: | 4344 |
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