Lifetime stressor exposure, executive functioning, and internalizing symptoms during emerging adulthood

Internalizing symptoms such as depression and anxiety rise dramatically during emerging adulthood. Although both childhood and adulthood adversity are associated with internalizing symptoms during this period, the underlying transdiagnostic processes connecting adversity to internalizing symptoms are unclear. To investigate this, we examined how childhood and adulthood adversity are related to internalizing symptoms during emerging adulthood via individual differences in executive functioning. In a cross-sectional study of 203 participants aged 18-24 years (M_age=20.36, SD_age=1.73, 66.01% women/transwomen, 28.08% White-European/North American), lifetime stressor exposure was indexed using the Stress and Adversity Inventory, internalizing symptoms were measured using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, and executive functioning was measured as a latent factor indicated by multiple performance-based measures. Analyses were conducted using regression and path analyses. In separate models, both childhood and adulthood adversity exposure predicted greater internalizing symptoms, but when entered as competing predictors in the same model, only adulthood adversity continued to predict psychopathology. No evidence for an indirect association involving executive functioning was detected, although higher childhood adversity was associated with better executive functioning. These results highlight differential associations between adversity timing, internalizing symptoms, and executive functioning during emerging adulthood, with minimal evidence of executive functioning as an indirect path linking adversity to internalizing symptoms.