The Mediating Role of Childhood Experiences in the Relationship Between University Students' Attachment Styles and Social Atom Structures

Abstract

Childhood experiences, encompassing both positive and negative aspects, constitute an important relational context associated with individuals' later relational and social functioning. Nevertheless, how specific sub-dimensions of retrospectively recalled childhood experiences are cognitively and emotionally organized through attachment orientations and the structural organization of the social atom remains insufficiently explored. This study examines the interpretive mediating role of attachment-informed childhood experiences in the association between attachment style and social atoms among university students. Data were collected from 401 university students (212 female, 189 male) using the Three-Dimensional Attachment Styles Scale, the Childhood Experiences Scale, and the Social Atom Scale. Data were analyzed using Pearson and Spearman correlation analyses, followed by single mediation analyses with bootstrapping procedures to estimate 95% confidence intervals for indirect associations. The findings revealed that childhood experiences, particularly the sub-dimensions of Worthlessness, Subjugating, and Threatening, were indirectly associated with the relationship between attachment styles (Avoidant, Anxious-Ambivalent, Secure) and social atom structures. The results suggested that childhood experiences function not as objective developmental antecedents but as attachment-related interpretive memories that are indirectly associated with the relationship between attachment styles and the structural organization of the social atom, highlighting how early relational experiences as retrospectively reconstructed through attachment-based internal working models are associated with adult social relational configurations in young adulthood.