People who experienced adversity in childhood are more likely to help strangers but less likely to support close family members, while trust in others in adulthood is primarily shaped by positive early experiences, according to a study by researchers from the University of Warsaw.
The study, conducted by the university’s Trauma Research Laboratory at the Faculty of Psychology, analysed data from a representative sample of 2,200 people in Poland to examine how childhood experiences influence prosocial behaviour.
Researchers assessed adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including violence, neglect, alcoholism in the family and poverty, as well as positive childhood experiences (PCEs), such as supportive relationships, school connections and personal development.
Participants took part in a behavioural experiment known as the “dictator game”, in which they distributed 10 coins among five groups: close family, extended family, a friend, an acquaintance and a stranger.
The results showed that individuals with adverse childhood experiences allocated the highest amounts to strangers, while giving less to close relatives compared with other participants. No similar pattern was observed among those with fewer positive experiences or those who experienced trauma only in adulthood.
‘Network analysis revealed that individuals who had negative childhood experiences declared a greater willingness to help complete strangers, while also being +anti-altruistic+ towards their parents and siblings’, said Marcin Rzeszutek in an interview with the Polish Press Agency.
The findings were published in Child Abuse & Neglect. ‘The history of ACEs may preclude prosocial intentions in the closest family domains, in which an ACE survivor has been brought up, but parallelly may stimulate altruistic tendencies associated with distant strangers’, the researchers wrote.
The research builds on earlier work by Iwona Nowakowska of the Maria Grzegorzewska University, who studied prosocial intentions in Poland.
According to the researchers, helping strangers may function as a coping mechanism for people with traumatic childhoods, reflecting the concept of “altruism born from suffering”.
Rzeszutek said such individuals may channel negative emotions away from family relationships while seeking meaning through helping others.
‘These individuals have a lot of negative emotions toward their family, so they are reluctant to help their loved ones’, he said.
‘Psychotherapists would say it is a way to help themselves, their inner wounded child. So, the person wants to somehow repair this terrible world they have in their head’, he added.
The study also found that generalised trust in others is more strongly linked to positive childhood experiences than to adversity.
Supportive adults outside the family, good relationships with neighbours and caring teachers were identified as key factors in building trust later in life.
The findings may help explain persistently low levels of social trust in Poland. According to CBOS, only 24% of Poles said in a 2024 survey that most people can be trusted.
‘Our study makes a significant contribution to research on adversity and resilience in childhood, focusing on the complex and +counterintuitive+ connections between negative and positive childhood experiences and important aspects of adult adaptive functioning’, Rzeszutek said.
Ludwika Tomala (PAP)
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