Friendship Buffering and Autobiographical Memory Specificity in Young People with Childhood Adversity

Background: Young people with childhood adversity (CA) tend to show altered autobiographical memory processing, such as reduced access to details of specific positive events, which may represent a potential mechanism through which CA increases mental health risk. Although friendship support is known to improve mental health outcomes in this population, the mechanisms underlying this protective relationship remain largely unknown. Objective: This study aimed to investigate associations between perceived friendship support, valence-specific autobiographical memory recall, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms in young people with CA.Participants and Setting: The study included 100 young people (aged 18-24 years) with low to moderate levels of CA, recruited from the general population across the Netherlands. Methods: Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted to examine relationships between friendship support, positive and negative autobiographical memory specificity, perceived stress, and depressive symptoms. Results: Friendship support was not linked to positive or negative autobiographical memory specificity. However, it was associated with lower perceived stress (β = -0.44, p < .001) and fewer depressive symptoms (β = -0.21, p = .041). Autobiographical memory specificity showed no relationship with perceived stress or depressive symptoms. Furthermore, more severe CA (β = 0.21, p = .002) and higher perceived stress (β = 0.56, p < .001) were both associated with more depressive symptoms. Conclusions: These findings point towards a model where friendship support exerts its protective mental health effects possibly through reducing perceived stress in young people with CA, rather than through influencing the specificity of positive or negative autobiographical memories.