Childhood emotional abuse and adult mental health at the intersection of social relationship and education

Abstract

Background:

Previous research has established that childhood emotional abuse has long-term, negative consequences for adult mental health. Yet, less is known about the ways that social relationship and education intersect to shape the link between childhood emotional abuse and mental health in adulthood.

Aim:

The current study aims to examine whether perceived quality of social relationships moderates the association between childhood emotional abuse and adult mental health. Moreover, it assesses how the moderating effect of perceived quality of social relationship differs across levels of education.

Method:

The current study analyzes data from the 2012 Korean General Social Survey, a nationally representative sampling of Korean adults. It uses OLS regression models.

Results:

Childhood emotional abuse is positively associated with depression and psychological distress in adulthood. However, perceived quality of social relationships mitigates the positive association of childhood emotional abuse with depression and psychological distress. Further, this buffering effect of perceived quality of social relationships operates only for individuals with less than or equal to a high school education, but not for individuals with college education or more.

Conclusion:

The results lend support to the resource substitution thesis, suggesting that positive perceptions of social relationship act as a protective factor against childhood emotional abuse for individuals with lower levels of education.

Keywords

Mental health childhood adversity social relationship coping stratification

Childhood emotional abuse, defined as a child being made to feel “worthless, flawed, unloved, endangered, or only valuable in meeting someone else’s needs” (American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, 1995, p. 127), includes humiliation, belittlement, rejection, and threats of violence (Wright, 2007). Consistent with the stress process framework, childhood emotional abuse serves as a potent stressor that has long-term, adverse effects on mental health in adulthood. Indeed, previous scholarship has established that such early exposure is associated with negative mental health outcomes in adulthood, including higher levels of depression (Li et al., 2020; Martins et al., 2014; Powers et al., 2009), psychological distress (Lowell et al., 2014; Wright et al., 2009), and suicidality (Lee, 2015; Martins et al., 2014; Miller et al., 2017). Yet, the stress process model places great emphasis on the role of personal resources to buffer the harmful mental health effects of stressors (Pearlin & Bierman, 2013). For example, positive reappraisals—the process by which individuals reinterpret stressful events as more positive—reduce the negative association between childhood emotional abuse and mental health (Jung, 2021).

Rooted in the stress process model, this study moves the literature forward by examining the possibility that perceived quality of social relationship may moderate the association between childhood emotional abuse and adult mental health. Perceived quality of social relationship refers to the ways that individuals evaluate the quality of their intimate social relationships, and research shows that it may have positive implications for health and well-being (J.-W. Kim et al., 2020). Individuals who have healthy social relationships may feel that they are loved, esteemed, and cared for by others. This in turn may bolster self-esteem and sense of personal control, which occupy a central place in the stress process framework as personal resources (Aneshensel, 2015). These psychological resources may be particularly protective for individuals with a history of childhood emotional abuse because childhood emotional abuse tends to damage positive self-concept (Wright et al., 2009) and prevent the development of these resources (Berzenski, 2019; Ebbert et al., 2019; Fitzgerald & Esplin, 2022; Maneta et al., 2015; Powers et al., 2009). In addition, individuals who enjoy positive interactions with others may perceive that others will offer assistance needed to cope with childhood emotional abuse. This in turn may attenuate the stress appraisal response, helping the victims reappraise the event in a more positive light (Cohen & Wills, 1985). In this sense, perceived quality of social relationships is closely linked with social support; social support may therefore be important for victims of childhood emotional abuse because of the stress-buffering function that social support performs (Evans et al., 2013; Krause, 2005; Powers et al., 2009).

Adding to the moderating scenarios described earlier, this study examines the potential education-based contingencies in these associations. Drawing upon insights from resource substitution thesis (Ross & Mirowsky, 2010), this study predicts that the stress-buffering potency of perceived quality of social relationships would be stronger for those with lower levels of education. The thesis holds that when resources can substitute for one another, the more there is of one resource, the less meaningful another will be. Conversely, the absence of one makes the presence of another more important. Applied in the context of the study, given that highly educated individuals tend to have a wide range of resources to cushion the harmful mental health consequences of childhood emotional abuse (Schieman & Plickert, 2008; Turiano et al., 2017), social relationship quality may perform less of a stress-buffering role. By contrast, as lowly educated individuals tend to suffer from a scarcity of other resources, they may depend more heavily upon high-quality social relationships to deal with childhood emotional abuse (Schöllgen et al., 2011). Therefore, perceived quality of social relationships may provide greater mental health benefits for those with lower levels of education. Taken together, the foregoing discussions provide a cogent basis for the following study hypotheses:

H1: Perceived quality of social relationships may mitigate the negative association between childhood emotional abuse and adult mental health.

H2: The extent to which perceived quality of social relationships mitigates the negative association between childhood emotional abuse and adult mental health may be stronger for individuals with lower levels of education compared to their highly educated counterparts.

Data and method

Study participants

In order to address the hypotheses, this study analyzes data from the 2012 Korean General Social Survey (KGSS hereafter). It is a nationally representative survey of 1,396 Korean adults aged 18 and older. The KGSS is a face-to-face interview survey conducted once per year by the Survey Research Center at Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea. It is modeled after the General Social Survey (GSS) in the United States such that the multi-stage area proportional probability sampling method, interview protocols, and data-processing procedures used for the KGSS are in line with those used for the GSS. After using listwise deletion to deal with missing data (N = 25), the final analytical sample consists of 1,371 cases with complete data for all study variables. In terms of ethics approval, it is not necessary because we analyze the secondary data that are stored in the public domain (e.g., ICPSR) and completely anonymized. In addition, as the data do not contain any personal information, seeking consent from participants is not meaningful and possible. For more details about sampling and data collection, see S. Kim et al. (2013).

Measures

Dependent variable

The dependent variables for the study are depression and psychological distress. Depression is measured by nine items inquiring about major depressive symptoms in the previous two weeks. These nine items derive from the standardized Korean version of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) (Han et al., 2008). They include (1) “trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much,” (2) “feeling tired or having little energy,” (3) “poor appetite or overeating,” (4) “little interest or pleasure in doing things,” (5) “feeling down, depressed, or hopeless,” (6) “feeling that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down,” (7) “trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television,” (8) “moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed, or the opposite, being fidgety or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual,” and (9) “thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself.” Respondents rate each symptom on a four-point scale, including 1 = “not at all,” 2 = “several days,” 3 = “more than half the days,” and 4 = “nearly every day.” The average score of the nine symptoms is used as the dependent variable, and a higher score indicates more severe depressive symptoms. The Cronbach’s alpha for this index is 0.83.

Psychological distress is measured using two items about psychological symptoms in the previous two weeks. These two items include (1) “little interest or pleasure in doing things” and (2) “feeling down, depressed, or hopeless.” The response categories for each symptom include 1 = “not at all,” 2 = “several days,” 3 = “more than half the days,” and 4 = “nearly every day.” The average score of the two symptoms is used as the dependent variable (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.66). A higher value represents greater psychological distress.

Independent variable

The independent variables in the study include childhood emotional abuse, perceived quality of social relationships, and education. Childhood emotional abuse is measured based on the Korean version of the Early Trauma Inventory Self Report—Short Form (ETISR-SF) (Jeon et al., 2012). Five items assess emotional abuse that occurred by age 18: (1) “often put down or ridiculed,” (2) “often ignored,” (3) “often told that one is no good,” (4) “treated in an uncaring way most of the time,” and (5) “parents failed to understand needs.” Response options include 1 = “yes” and 0 = “no.” In line with the literature (Lee & Song, 2017), this study uses the total numbers of emotionally abusive experiences as an independent variable.

Following the literature (J.-W. Kim et al., 2020), perceived quality of social relationships is measured with a seven-item index with each item ranging from 1 = “strongly agree” to 5 = “strongly disagree.” The seven items include: (1) “I enjoy intimate conversations with my family or friends,” (2) “I think that I trust my friends and they also trust me,” (3) “I find it difficult and troublesome to maintain intimate relationships with other people,” (4) “I sometimes feel lonely since I don’t have any intimate friend to whom I can tell my problems,” (5) “There are not many people who listen to my problems when I really need it,” (6) “It looks like most people have more friends than I have,” and (7) “I have not experienced any intimate and trustful relationships with other people.” The first two items are reverse-coded, and higher values represent a better quality of social relationships (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.80).

Education is measured based on an item asking, “What is the highest level of school you have attended?” Response options include “no formal education,” “elementary school,” “junior high school,” “high school,” “junior college (2- or 3-year course),” “college (4-year course),” “graduate school (Masters),” “graduate school (PhD),” and “Others.” Consistent with the previous literature (DeAngelis & Ellison, 2018), we collapsed education into a meaningful binary variable with “high school or less” coded “0” and “some college or more” coded “1.” Using this dichotomy may be useful for this study for two reasons. First, it can facilitate parsimonious presentation and interpretation of complex three-way interaction effects. Second, by comparing those without any higher education and with some higher education, it helps us more accurately identify education-contingent buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationships. Third, by dichotomizing education, the current analyses have sufficient cases in lower and higher education groups, which in turn may reduce the risks associated with small cell sizes in three-way interaction terms.

Covariates

This study controls for several variables that previous studies found to be related to focal measures in the study (Lee & Song, 2017; McLanahan & Adams, 1987; Mirowsky & Ross, 2003). These variables include gender (1 = “female,” 0 = “male”), age (in years), marital status (“married,” “divorced/separated,” “widowed,” and “never married” where “married” serve as a reference group), monthly household income (from 0 = “no income” to 21 = “more than 10,000,000 Korean Won”), employment status (1 = “employed” and 0 = “not employed”), and number of children. Apart from demographic controls, this study adjusts for quantity of social relationships in order to better identify the net effects of perceived quality of social relationships. It controls for (1) number of family members and relatives that respondents interact with in a typical day and (2) numbers of people other than family members and relatives that respondents interact with in a typical day. The response options for these two measures include 1 = “zero person” to 8 = “more than 100 persons.”

Results

Table 1 provides descriptive statistics on all study variables for the sample as a whole, as well as for comparing those with less than or equal to a high school education and those with some college education or more. As is often observed in most community samples, average levels of depressive symptoms and psychological distress are relatively low, roughly 1.51 and 1.57 respectively on a scale of 1 to 4. Moving to independent variables, the average of emotionally abusive events in childhood is 0.71, which is also low. Sample average score for perceived quality of social relationships is 3.62 on a 1 to 5 scale. Those with some college education or more comprise about 37% of the sample. In terms of control measures, the average respondent is approximately 50 years old, and a majority of respondents are female (56%), married (60%), and employed (55%). The average respondent reports a household income of approximately between 3,000,000 and 3,490,000 Korean Won per month. Regarding differences between highly educated and low educated individuals, low educated individuals are more likely than their highly educated counterparts to be older, female, married, poorer, have more children but have less daily social contact with people other than family and relatives. More importantly, they report higher levels of depression, but lower levels of childhood emotional abuse and perceived quality of social relationships than their highly educated counterparts.

Table 1.

Summary statistics for study variables.

Variables	Total sample (N = 1,371)			High school or less (N = 859)		Some college or more (N = 512)		Test of differences^a
Variables	Mean	SD	Range	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Test of differences^a
Dependent variable
Depression	1.51	0.52	1–4	1.55	0.54	1.46	0.48	**
Psychological distress	1.57	0.73	1–4	1.59	0.75	1.55	0.68
Independent variables
Childhood emotional abuse	0.71	1.25	0–5	0.62	1.17	0.87	1.34	***
Perceived quality of social relationships	3.62	0.69	1–5	3.55	0.72	3.75	0.61	***
Some college education or more	0.37	–	0, 1	—	—	—	—	—
Covariates
Age	50.28	18.04	18–95	57.75	15.59	37.73	14.61	***
Female	0.56	—	0, 1	0.62	—	0.46	—	***
Married	0.60	—	0, 1	0.64	—	0.53	—	***
Divorced	0.05	—	0, 1	0.06	—	0.03	—	**
Widowed	0.14	—	0, 1	0.22	—	0.02	—	***
Never married	0.21	—	0, 1	0.08	—	0.42	—	***
Monthly household income	7.15	5.24	0–21	5.59	4.66	9.76	5.09	***
Employed	0.55	—	0, 1	0.53	—	0.57	—
Number of children	2.02	1.65	0–9	2.60	1.63	1.06	1.15	***
Number of daily social contact (family/relative)	2.36	0.94	1–7	2.34	0.97	2.38	0.89
Number of daily social contact (other than family/relative)	3.17	1.39	1–8	3.04	1.36	3.39	1.41	***

Note: Standard deviations of binary variables are not presented.

For continuous measures, two-tailed t tests of differences between individuals with less than or equal to a high school education and individuals with some college education or more are presented, while chi-square tests are presented for categorical measures.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 2 presents the results of multivariate regression analyses in which depression is the dependent variable. Model 1 includes focal measures and covariates. It shows that childhood emotional abuse is positively associated with depression in adulthood (b = .09; p < .001). In addition, perceived quality of social relationships is negatively associated with depression (b = −.20; p < .001). Model 2 adds to the interactions between childhood emotional abuse and perceived quality of social relationships to evaluate whether perceived quality of social relationships modify the link between childhood emotional abuse and depression. It reveals that the interaction term has a significant and negative coefficient (b = −.04; p < .05). This finding indicates that the positive association between childhood emotional abuse and depression in adulthood is attenuated among individuals who report higher levels of quality of social relationships. Thus, H1 receives empirical support.

Table 2.

OLS parameter estimates from the regression of depression on childhood emotional abuse, perceived quality of social relationships, education, and interactions (N = 1,371).

Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Independent variables
Childhood emotional abuse (A)	.09 (0.01)***	.08 (0.01)***	.05 (0.02)***
Perceived quality of social relationships (B)	−.20 (0.02)***	−.19 (0.02)***	−.21 (0.02)***
Some college education or more (C)	−.03 (0.03)	−.03 (0.03)	−.03 (0.03)
Interactions
A × B		−.04 (0.01)*	−.06 (0.02)**
A × C			.06 (0.02)*
B × C			.03 (0.04)
A × B × C			.06 (0.03)*
Covariates
Female	.09 (0.03)**	.09 (0.03)**	.09 (0.03)**
Age	.00 (0.00)	.00 (0.00)	.00 (0.00)
Divorced^a	.10 (0.06)	.09 (0.06)	.09 (0.06)
Widowed^a	.06 (0.04)	.06 (0.04)	.06 (0.04)
Never married^a	.12 (0.05)*	.12 (0.05)*	.11 (0.05)*
Monthly household income	−.00 (0.00)	−.00 (0.00)	−.00 (0.00)
Employed	.03 (0.03)	.03 (0.03)	.02 (0.03)
Number of children	.01 (0.01)	.01 (0.01)	.01 (0.01)
Number of daily social contact (family/relative)	−.01 (0.01)	−.01 (0.01)	−.01 (0.01)
Number of daily social contact (other than family/relative)	−.02 (0.01)*	−.02 (0.01)*	−.02 (0.01)*
Constant	2.10 (0.11)***	1.44 (0.09)***	1.45 (0.10)***
Adjusted R-squared	.15	.16	.16

Note. Unstandardized coefficients are shown with standard errors in parentheses.

Compared with married.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < 001.

Model 3 includes a three-way interaction term representing childhood emotional abuse, perceived quality of social relationships, and education. The coefficient for this three-way interaction term is significant and positive (b = .06; p < .05), indicating that perceived quality of social relationships moderates the association between childhood emotional abuse and depression differently for individuals with some college education or more and individuals with less than or equal to a high school education. In order to have a better understanding of these contingent patterns, Panels A and B of Figure 1 depict the childhood emotional abuse and perceived quality of social relationships interactions, respectively, at high versus low education. As is shown in Figure 1, perceived quality of social relationships buffers the positive association between childhood emotional abuse and depression among individuals with less than or equal to a high school education. By contrast, however, perceived quality of social relationships does not exhibit a stress-buffering effect for individuals with some college education or more. In additional analyses not presented here, we stratified the data by levels of education, and reran the two-way interactions. These analyses confirmed the pattern, as the coefficient for the two-way interaction term between childhood emotional abuse and perceived quality of social relationships is significant and negative (b = −.06; p < .01) among individuals with less than or equal to a high school education. By contrast, that coefficient is not significant (b = −.01; p > .10) among individuals with some college education or more. Collectively, these observations lend support to H2.

Figure 1.

The association between childhood emotional abuse and depression by levels of education.

Table 3 shows the results of multivariate regression analyses in which psychological distress serves as the outcome measure. Model 1 includes focal variables as well as covariates. It demonstrates that childhood emotional abuse is positively associated with psychological distress in adulthood (b = .11; p < .001). Moreover, perceived quality of social relationships is negatively associated with psychological distress (b = −.29; p < .001). Model 2 includes the interaction term between childhood emotional abuse and perceived quality of social relationships. It shows that the coefficient for the interaction term is significant and negative (b = −.04; p < .05), indicating that the positive association between childhood emotional abuse and psychological distress in adulthood is weakened among individuals who report higher levels of quality of social relationships. This finding offers further support to H1.

Table 3.

OLS parameter estimates from the regression of psychological distress on childhood emotional abuse, perceived quality of social relationships, education, and interactions (N = 1,371).

Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Independent variables
Childhood emotional abuse (A)	.11 (0.02)***	.10 (0.02)***	.06 (0.02)**
Perceived quality of social relationships (B)	−.29 (0.03)***	−.29 (0.03)***	−.33 (0.03)***
Some college education or more (C)	.02 (0.05)	.01 (0.05)	.02 (0.05)
Interactions
A × B		−.04 (0.02)*	−.10 (0.03)***
A × C			.09 (0.03)**
B × C			.11 (0.06)
A × B × C			.10 (0.04)*
Covariates
Female	.14 (0.04)***	.14 (0.04)***	.14 (0.04)***
Age	.00 (0.00)	.00 (0.00)	.00 (0.00)
Divorced^a	.05 (0.09)	.04 (0.09)	.04 (0.09)
Widowed^a	−.00 (0.06)	−.00 (0.06)	−.00 (0.06)
Never married^a	.17 (0.07)*	.17 (0.07)*	.16 (0.07)*
Monthly household income	−.00 (0.00)	−.00 (0.00)	−.01 (0.00)
Employed	.05 (0.04)	.05 (0.04)	.05 (0.04)
Number of children	.01 (0.02)	.01 (0.02)	.01 (0.02)
Number of daily social contact (family/relative)	−.02 (0.02)	−.02 (0.02)	−.02 (0.02)
Number of daily social contact (other than family/relative)	−.02 (0.01)	−.02 (0.01)	−.02 (0.01)
Constant	2.52 (0.16)***	1.53 (0.13)***	1.53 (0.13)***
Adjusted R-squared	.14	.14	.15

Note. Unstandardized coefficients are shown with standard errors in parentheses.

Compared with married.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Model 3 adds to a three-way interaction term representing childhood emotional abuse, perceived quality of social relationships, and education. The three-way interaction term has a significant and positive coefficient (b = .10; p < .05), suggesting that perceived quality of social relationships moderates the association between childhood emotional abuse and psychological distress differently for individuals with some college education or more and individuals with less than or equal to a high school education. Panels A and B of Figure 2 graphically illustrates these contingent relationships. As Figure 2 shows, perceived quality of social relationships buffers the positive association between childhood emotional abuse and psychological distress among individuals with less than or equal to a high school education. By contrast, however, perceived quality of social relationships does not provide a stress-buffering effect for individuals with some college education or more. In supplemental analyses not shown here, we stratified the data by levels of education, and reran the two-way interactions. These analyses confirmed the pattern, as the coefficient for the two-way interaction term between childhood emotional abuse and perceived quality of social relationships is significant and negative (b = −.10; p < .001) among individuals with less than or equal to a high school education. By contrast, that coefficient is not significant (b = .01; p > .10) among individuals with some college education or more. Taken together, H2 garners additional empirical support.

Figure 2.

The association between childhood emotional abuse and psychological distress by levels of education.

Discussion

Is childhood emotional abuse associated with poor mental health in adulthood? If so, does perceived quality of social relationship moderate the association? Moreover, does the moderating effect of perceived quality of social relationship differ by levels of education? Using data from the 2012 Korean General Social Survey, the analyses show that childhood emotional abuse is positively associated with depression and psychological distress. However, perceived quality of social relationship mitigates the positive associations of childhood emotional abuse with depression and psychological distress. Further, these buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationship operate only for individuals with less than or equal to a high school education, but not for individuals with college education or more. Hence, there is evidence that positive perceptions of social relationship function as a protective factor against childhood emotional abuse, albeit only for individuals with lower levels of education.

Several contributions emerge from the findings in the study. This study shows that perceived quality of social relationships provides a buffer for individuals who experienced childhood emotional abuse. Theoretically, this observation aligns with the stress process framework (Pearlin & Bierman, 2013), suggesting that perceived quality of social relationships might be a critical resource to deal with childhood emotional abuse. Practically, it underscores the importance of strengthening positive perceptions of social relationships when working with adult victims of childhood emotional abuse. In addition, this study differs from other extant studies in that it uses data from a nationally representative survey. There does exist a number of studies that identify perceived quality of social relationships as a resource that protects individuals from the deleterious effects of childhood abuse (Collishaw et al., 2007; Evans et al., 2013; Powers et al., 2009). For example, an analysis of a clinical sample from Atlanta demonstrates that perceived friend social support buffered against depression among female adult participants who had experienced childhood emotional abuse and neglect (Powers et al., 2009). However, as most of the previous works analyze data from a small, non-representative sample of adults, it is not clear how the results can be generalized to entire populations. This study confronts this limitation by employing data from a large nationwide survey, which in turn may lend greater credence to the findings.

In addition, drawing from the stratification literature (Koltai & Schieman, 2015; Krause, 2019), this study documents that the moderating role of perceived quality of social relationships differs across levels of education. Specifically, it shows that the stress-buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationships primarily operate among individuals with lower levels of education. This finding dovetails with the resource substitution thesis, contending that the effect of one resource is greater for those who do not have alternative resources (Ross & Mirowsky, 2010). Individuals with fewer years of formal education may not have access to resources that may help them blunt the psychological costs of childhood emotional abuse. For example, research has shown that education contributes to the development of one’s sense of personal control (Schieman & Plickert, 2008), and that this sense of control is an important psychological resource that buffers the long-term, harmful effects of childhood abuse (Turiano et al., 2017). Viewed in this way, the buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationship might be greater for individuals with lower levels of education because they lack an alternative resource (e.g., sense of personal control) to deal with childhood emotional abuse.

The findings in the study also suggest that the buffering potency of perceived quality of social relationship does not apply to the well-educated. Why might this be the case? One potential explanation involves the notion of “stress of higher status” (Schieman & Koltai, 2017). Individuals with more years of education are likely to have greater access to higher status occupations (Schieman & Plickert, 2008). Although individuals in higher-status occupations may enjoy benefits associated with high-status work (e.g., job authority), they have more responsibilities and demands in the workplace. Hence, they may be highly exposed to job stressors that might cause distress. For example, research shows that the well-educated report higher levels of job pressure (Schieman, 2013). Moreover, job authority is positively associated with some chronic stressors in the work role such as interpersonal conflict at work (Schieman & Reid, 2009). Elevated exposure to these stressors, in turn, may suppress the beneficial, stress-buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationship among the well-educated. While this line of explanation is speculative, it merits closer scrutiny in future investigations. Taken together, by bringing education into the picture, this study offers new insights into how social resource intersects with education to shape the link between childhood emotional abuse and adult mental health.

Moreover, the results in the study have some implications for stress process theory. The theory holds that the effects of stress on mental health are weakened for individuals who have access to personal resources. The findings in the study support this theoretical argument by showing that perceived quality of social relationships is a critical resource that reduces the negative impact of childhood emotional abuse. More importantly, this study advances stress process research by examining three-way interactions involving stress, resource, and social status. Researchers working within the stress process model tended to assume that the stress-buffering effects of personal resources may be similar across social groups (DeAngelis & Ellison, 2018). Thus, they primarily focused on conventional two-way interactions between stress and resources. However, a growing body of work challenges this trend by illuminating how certain social groups benefit more from resources than others (Jung 2018; Koltai & Schieman, 2015; Krause, 2005). This study augments this strand of inquiry by revealing education-contingent buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationships.

Like other studies, this study is not without limitations that can offer some avenues for future research. First, this study evaluates only two outcomes (i.e., depression and psychological distress). Therefore, more research is needed to examine whether similar education-contingent buffering effects emerge with other mental health outcomes such as anxiety, anger, or happiness. Second, this study does not assess the intervening variables linking childhood emotional abuse, perceived quality of social relationships, and adult mental health. It theorizes that social relationship quality may provide a buffering effect by cultivating self-esteem and perceived control, but we were unable to empirically evaluate these linkages due to data limitations. Hence, future research may benefit from identifying the specific ways that perceived quality of social relationships confers stress-related benefits. Third, although this study documents that education serves as a critical contingency in the ways that social relationship quality buffers the impact of childhood emotional abuse, it is possible that these contingent relationships may be observed with respect to other indicators of stratification, such as gender, race, age, or marital status. Thus, future work might expand the investigation of potential differences in the stress-buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationships to these indicators of stratification.

Finally, as this study was conducted only in the context of South Korea, it is not clear whether the findings about the education-contingent buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationship are generalizable to other contexts. It is plausible that studies in other countries may come to opposite conclusions due to myriad of sociocultural factors. That is, the stress-buffering potency of perceived quality of social relationship might be stronger among the well-educated. This scenario fits with the resource multiplication thesis arguing that “advantaged groups gain most from the resources they have, so that their resources multiply to reinforce their advantage” (Ross & Mirowsky, 2010, p. 3). People from more advantaged backgrounds (e.g., higher levels of education) may already be equipped with an array of personal resources to effectively deal with childhood emotional abuse. Having healthy social relationships may further reinforce these resources in a way that education and perceived quality of social relationship multiply to help counteract the deleterious effects of childhood emotional abuse. Future research may consider examining this possibility in other social contexts, which will provide cross-cultural insights into how education-contingent buffering effects of perceived quality of social relationship differ across countries.

Conclusion

It is well-established that childhood emotional abuse has long-term, negative consequences for mental health in adulthood. Thus, it would be important to examine the conditions that may reduce the noxious effects of childhood emotional abuse. This study considers how perceived quality of social relationships buffers the deleterious association between childhood emotional abuse and adult mental health, and how this buffering effect of perceived quality of social relationships vary by levels of education. It demonstrates that perceived quality of social relationships provides a buffer against the adverse mental health consequences of childhood emotional abuse, especially among individuals with low levels of education. Theoretically, these findings dovetail with the resource substitution thesis, indicating that people with lower socioeconomic status obtain greater benefits from social resources (Gallo et al., 2005; Schöllgen et al., 2011). Practically, they suggest that targeting those with lower levels of education might be a more effective way to maximize the benefits of having positive interactions with others. In sum, this study helps to enhance our knowledge about the impact of social resource and its relevance for individuals’ stress and mental health outcomes, and its differential implications for mental health across indicators of social status determined by education.

Footnotes

Author contributions

J. H. Jung framed the research, conducted the analyses, and wrote the paper. J. Soo helped write the paper, reviewed, and improved it.

Conflict of interest

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Jong Hyun Jung

Data availability statement

The current study uses data from the 2012 Korean General Social Survey. This dataset can be obtained in the following website:

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