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Self-Evaluation: Self-Enhancement and Self-Verification03:00

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Social psychologists have documented that feeling good about ourselves and maintaining positive self-esteem is a powerful motivator of human behavior (Tavris & Aronson, 2008). In the United States, members of the predominant culture typically think very highly of themselves and view themselves as good people who are above average on many desirable traits (Ehrlinger, Gilovich, & Ross, 2005). Often, our behavior, attitudes, and beliefs are affected when we experience a threat to our...

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Improving the adverse childhood experiences study scale.

David Finkelhor1, Anne Shattuck, Heather Turner

  • 1Crimes Against Children Research Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA. david.finkelhor@unh.edu

JAMA Pediatrics
|February 14, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Expanding the list of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) beyond the original ACE Study scale significantly improved its correlation with mental health symptoms in youth. This broader assessment offers a more comprehensive understanding of childhood adversity and its impact.

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Area of Science:

  • Child and Adolescent Psychology
  • Mental Health Research
  • Public Health

Background:

  • The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study scale is a foundational tool for understanding the impact of early life adversity.
  • Existing scales may not capture the full spectrum of experiences contributing to mental health issues in youth.
  • There is a need to refine and expand measures of childhood adversity to better predict mental health outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To evaluate and enhance the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study scale.
  • To investigate the correlation between a broader range of childhood adversities and mental health symptoms in adolescents.
  • To identify specific adversities that have a stronger association with psychological distress.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized a nationally representative sample of 2030 children and adolescents aged 10-17 years.
  • Conducted telephone interviews to gather data on lifetime adversities and current distress symptoms.
  • Employed statistical analysis to assess the predictive power of different adversity measures on mental health.

Main Results:

  • The original ACE scale items showed a significant association with mental health symptoms (R² = 0.21).
  • Expanding the scale to include peer rejection, victimization, community violence, school performance, and socioeconomic status substantially improved the predictive power (R² = 0.34).
  • Specific additions to the ACE scale demonstrated a stronger correlation with adolescent mental health symptoms.

Conclusions:

  • The current understanding of harmful childhood adversities is incomplete due to their complex interrelations.
  • The refined and expanded measure of adversity offers improved predictive validity for mental health symptoms.
  • Findings support the initiation of interventional studies to explore prevention and remediation strategies for adverse childhood experiences to improve long-term outcomes.