The study was grounded in the Research Domain Criteria, or RDoC, an approach developed by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health to investigate psychological functioning through interacting biological, behavioral, and social systems rather than through diagnostic categories alone. The researchers focused on two RDoC-informed areas. Religious beliefs and spirituality were treated as a construct related to the positive valence system, which involves motivation, reward, meaning, and the evaluation of future outcomes. Perceived social support was examined as part of the social processes system, which includes affiliation, attachment, and interpersonal communication. The researchers proposed that adversity might be associated with lower flourishing partly because it disrupts meaning-making and spiritual confidence, while strong social relationships might weaken the relationship between early adversity and later well-being.

Participants completed an online survey between November 2022 and January 2023. They were recruited from universities in the Midwest, Southeast, and South of the United States. The final sample was predominantly female and White: 339 participants identified as female and 136 as male, while 304 participants identified as White. Approximately 70.5 percent identified as heterosexual, and 29.5 percent identified as sexual minorities. The average age was 21.32 years. Although the sample was not designed to represent every emerging adult in the country, it offered a view of college students navigating a developmental stage marked by increasing independence, relationship changes, educational pressure, and decisions about work and identity.

Childhood adversity was measured using the World Health Organization’s Adverse Childhood Experiences International Questionnaire. The instrument assessed 10 categories of adversity occurring before age 18, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; household violence; mental health problems in the household; incarceration; substance use; and parental separation. Researchers combined the responses into a cumulative score ranging from zero to 10. The results revealed a striking concentration of adversity in the sample. Forty-four percent of participants met the commonly used threshold of four or more adverse childhood experience categories. Emotional neglect was reported by 95 percent of participants, while emotional abuse was reported by 59 percent, household violence by 60 percent, physical abuse by 46 percent, and sexual abuse by 31 percent.

Flourishing was measured with the eight-item Flourishing Scale, which includes statements such as “I lead a purposeful and meaningful life,” “My social relationships are supportive and rewarding,” and “I am optimistic about my future.” Participants rated their agreement on a seven-point scale, with higher total scores representing stronger well-being and functioning. Religious beliefs and spirituality were assessed with three measures addressing the importance of religious or spiritual beliefs and practice, the belief that God cares about personal problems, and the belief that God has plans for one’s life. Perceived social support was measured through questions about family, friends, and significant others. All three measures showed high internal consistency in this sample, although the researchers noted that a short spirituality scale cannot capture the full diversity of religious experience or spiritual struggle.

The first major finding involved religious beliefs and spirituality as a statistical mediator. Participants reporting more adverse childhood experiences tended to report lower levels of religious beliefs and spirituality. In turn, stronger religious or spiritual beliefs were associated with higher flourishing. The indirect association was statistically significant, with an estimated effect of –0.19 and a bootstrapped 95 percent confidence interval from –0.30 to –0.09. In technical terms, mediation does not prove that adversity directly destroys spirituality or that spirituality necessarily produces flourishing. Instead, the analysis indicates that differences in spirituality accounted for part of the statistical relationship between childhood adversity and flourishing after adjustment for age, sex, sexual identity, and racial or ethnic identity. The authors suggest that faith, sacred purpose, and meaning-making may help some students develop a coherent life narrative and maintain motivation while facing the demands of emerging adulthood.

The second major finding concerned social support. Overall, adverse childhood experiences were negatively associated with flourishing. However, the strength of that association depended on how much support participants believed they received from family, friends, or significant others. Among students with lower social support, each increase in adversity was associated with a substantial decline in flourishing, with a regression coefficient of –0.93. At moderate levels of support, the association remained significant, with a coefficient of –0.57. Among students with higher social support, the estimated association weakened to –0.21 and was no longer statistically significant because its confidence interval included zero. This pattern is consistent with a buffering effect: supportive relationships did not erase childhood adversity, but they appeared to reduce its observable connection with current well-being in this sample.

The researchers also tested whether social support strengthened the relationship between religious or spiritual beliefs and flourishing. It did not. The interaction between spirituality and social support was not statistically significant, with an estimated coefficient of –0.01 and a confidence interval extending from –0.02 to 0.00. This result contradicted the researchers’ third hypothesis. They had expected that spiritual beliefs might be especially beneficial when reinforced by strong interpersonal networks. Instead, the positive association between spirituality and flourishing appeared relatively consistent across different levels of perceived support. One possible explanation is that internal meaning and spiritual motivation may operate independently of external relationships. Another is that the broad measure of social support did not distinguish between general support and support from people who share a student’s religious or spiritual values.

The study’s findings were accompanied by several important demographic patterns. Older participants within the 18-to-29 age range reported somewhat greater exposure to adverse childhood experiences and lower levels of flourishing and religious or spiritual belief. Female participants reported more adversity than male participants, while Black participants reported higher religious or spiritual beliefs than other groups in the analyses. Heterosexual-identifying participants reported lower adversity and higher religious or spiritual beliefs and flourishing than sexual minority participants. These patterns do not establish why the groups differed, and they may reflect social conditions, identity-related stress, sampling characteristics, or other unmeasured influences. They do, however, underscore that emerging adulthood is not a uniform experience and that protective resources may be shaped by culture, identity, community, and access to safety.

The authors argue that universities could use the results to expand trauma-informed support beyond symptom reduction. Voluntary and inclusive programs might include counseling that allows students to explore meaning, faith, values, or existential questions without promoting any particular religion. Mentoring, peer-support groups, student organizations, community service, and faculty relationships could help strengthen social connection. The researchers also point to well-being programs, positive psychotherapy, well-being therapy, and courses focused on relationships, self-awareness, and personal growth as possible components of a broader campus strategy. Such interventions would need to respect students who are religious, spiritual but not religious, uncertain, or nonreligious. The findings support offering pathways to meaning and connection, not assuming that one form of belief or support is appropriate for everyone.

The evidence should nevertheless be interpreted cautiously. The study was cross-sectional, meaning all key variables were measured at one time, so the data cannot establish that adverse experiences caused lower spirituality, that spirituality caused flourishing, or that social support caused resilience. Childhood experiences were reported retrospectively and may have been affected by memory and current emotional state. The participants were recruited from universities and were mostly White and female, limiting generalization to emerging adults who are working, in vocational training, taking gap years, or living in other regions and cultures. The study also examined positive religious and spiritual beliefs but not spiritual struggles, such as anger at God, doubts, religious conflict, or feeling abandoned by a higher power. Future longitudinal studies could track students over time, include broader populations, test specific interventions, and examine additional protective factors such as self-control, caring adults, peer relationships, neighborhood safety, cognitive flexibility, and emotion regulation. Even with these limitations, the research highlights a potentially important shift in trauma science: early adversity may increase risk, but flourishing is influenced by the meanings people construct and the relationships that surround them.

Subject of Research: Adverse childhood experiences, flourishing, religious beliefs and spirituality, perceived social support, emerging adult college students, and RDoC-informed psychological mechanisms.

Article Title: Adverse Childhood Experiences and Flourishing Among Emerging Adult College Students: Religious Beliefs/Spirituality and Social Support as Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)-Informed Mechanisms

Article References: Kim, J.-Y., Lee, J. M., Park, Y., Lee, H., & Lee, J. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Flourishing Among Emerging Adult College Students: Religious Beliefs/Spirituality and Social Support as Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)-Informed Mechanisms. Journal of Adult Development (2026).

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DOI: 10.1007/s10804-026-09560-2

Keywords: Adverse childhood experiences; flourishing; religious beliefs; spirituality; perceived social support; college students; emerging adulthood; resilience; Research Domain Criteria; positive valence system; social processes system.

The significance of this research cannot be overstated given recent statistics indicating a surge in mental health challenges within university settings worldwide. The academic environment, with its inherent pressures, social dynamics, and transitional life phases, creates a complex backdrop wherein emotional regulation skills become not just advantageous but essential. Traditional mental health approaches predominantly focus on symptomatic treatment or counseling; however, this study champions a proactive framework that foregrounds emotional intelligence as an instrumental preventive factor. This shift aligns with contemporary psychological paradigms emphasizing resilience and adaptive functioning.

Delving deeper into the methodology, the researchers employed a robust cross-sectional design involving a demographically diverse sample of undergraduate students from various disciplines and cultural backgrounds. Participants completed validated psychometric instruments assessing dimensions of emotional intelligence, including emotional awareness, emotional facilitation of thinking, emotional understanding, and emotional regulation. Concurrently, standardized mental health assessments measured levels of anxiety, depressive symptoms, stress, and overall psychological distress to establish correlational patterns and predictive validity.

What emerges from their analysis is a compelling mosaic illustrating that higher emotional intelligence correlates strongly with better mental health outcomes. Beyond mere correlation, sophisticated statistical models such as structural equation modeling revealed that emotional intelligence can reliably predict an individual’s mental health status, independent of other sociodemographic variables. This finding accentuates the intrinsic value of emotional competencies as protective factors capable of mitigating psychological distress and fostering emotional resilience in high-pressure academic contexts.

The implications of these results invite a rethinking of university mental health strategies. Embedding emotional intelligence training into curricula and student support programs may not only enhance students’ academic performance but also buffer them against mental health adversities. Such interventions could include workshops on emotional awareness, regulation techniques, empathy development, and stress management, all tailored to be culturally sensitive and developmentally appropriate. This integrative approach could significantly transform campus mental health outcomes by addressing root emotional skills rather than only managing symptoms.

Moreover, the authors highlight the neurobiological underpinnings that may explain the relationship between emotional intelligence and mental health. Emotional intelligence is increasingly understood as engaging specific brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex and amygdala, which are pivotal in emotional processing and regulation. Dysregulation in these neural circuits often corresponds with psychiatric conditions. Strengthening emotional intelligence may therefore equate to enhanced neural connectivity and adaptive emotional functioning, offering a neurocognitive pathway for therapeutic interventions beyond traditional talk therapies or pharmacology.

From a broader psychosocial perspective, cultivating emotional intelligence may have ripple effects beyond individual mental health. Improved emotional competencies are linked to better interpersonal relationships, increased social support, and more effective conflict resolution—factors that collectively contribute to a nurturing environment conducive to mental well-being. For university communities, this could mean fostering cultures of empathy, inclusion, and psychological safety, which research suggests are critical for sustaining student engagement and success.

Importantly, the study also discerns differential impacts of specific emotional intelligence components. For instance, emotional regulation emerged as a particularly potent predictor of lower stress and depressive symptomatology, indicating that how students manage their emotions under duress could be a decisive factor in mental health normalization. Emotional awareness and understanding, while equally vital, showed nuanced profiles suggesting that awareness alone without corresponding regulatory strategies might be insufficient to mitigate distress, thus underscoring the multifaceted nature of emotional intelligence.

The researchers responsibly address potential limitations, including the cross-sectional design that precludes definitive causal inferences and reliance on self-report measures that could introduce bias. They advocate for longitudinal studies to unravel the temporal dynamics between emotional intelligence development and mental health trajectories. Additionally, exploring intervention efficacy in experimental designs would validate whether enhancing emotional intelligence can directly improve mental health outcomes, an essential step toward translational application.

Beyond academia, this study resonates with emerging societal trends prioritizing emotional literacy as foundational for personal and professional success. In an increasingly complex and interconnected world, the ability to navigate one’s own emotions and those of others is recognized as a vital skillset, relevant not only to mental health but also leadership, teamwork, and global citizenship. Thus, findings presented by Acebes-Sánchez and colleagues contribute to a growing corpus advocating for the systemic incorporation of emotional intelligence education at all stages of life.

The urgency of this research is amplified by current global challenges—ranging from the lingering psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic to rising economic uncertainties—that disproportionately affect young adults’ mental health. The study’s vision aligns with public health priorities by offering scalable, non-stigmatizing avenues to bolster psychological resilience through emotional intelligence enhancement. This approach could form a complementary pillar alongside clinical interventions, expanding the arsenal of tools available to universities and policymakers striving to safeguard student welfare.

In summary, this pioneering work not only delineates emotional intelligence as a powerful predictor of mental health among undergraduates but also paves the way for innovative, evidence-based strategies directed at emotional skill development as a preventative and therapeutic resource. It invites stakeholders across educational, clinical, and policy domains to reconsider how emotional competencies are prioritized and nurtured within young adult populations, heralding a paradigm shift towards more holistic mental health frameworks.

As the conversation about mental health continues to gain momentum globally, studies like this underscore the importance of multidimensional constructs such as emotional intelligence in shaping psychological outcomes. They challenge entrenched paradigms that isolate cognition from emotion, bridging the gap with integrative perspectives that reflect the complexity of human experience. For students navigating the myriad demands of academic life, this research offers hope and actionable insight aimed at fostering not only academic success but enduring mental well-being.

The findings and recommendations of Acebes-Sánchez, García-Naveira, Conners, and the research team represent a clarion call for universities, mental health professionals, and researchers to collaborate in embedding emotional intelligence enhancement into the fabric of student development. Achieving this vision promises to transform how mental health challenges are addressed in higher education, potentially reducing the incidence and severity of psychological disorders and cultivating a generation equipped with the emotional tools to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

Subject of Research: Emotional intelligence as a predictive factor for mental health outcomes in undergraduate students.

Article Title: Emotional intelligence as a predictor of mental health in undergraduate students.

Article References:
Acebes-Sánchez, J., García-Naveira, A., Conners, R.T. et al. Emotional intelligence as a predictor of mental health in undergraduate students. BMC Psychol 13, 1130 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03241-7

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