Beyond Adversity: Definitions, Retrospective Assessment, and Experimental Manipulation of Positive Early-Life Experiences

A wealth of research in neuroscience and developmental psychology has documented the lasting detrimental effects of adverse early-life experiences on health and psychological well-being. To investigate these effects, researchers have developed self- and informant-report questionnaires, interview-based instruments, and experimental paradigms designed to assess exposure to early adversity, model its consequences under controlled laboratory conditions, and investigate the neurobiological mechanisms involved. In contrast, the role of positive early-life experiences in biobehavioral trajectories and adaptive functioning has received comparatively less empirical and theoretical attention. The existing work has largely conceptualized positive experiences in terms of their protective or buffering effects in the context of adversity, and/or their promotive role and independent contribution to physical and psychological well-being. Against this background, this narrative review comprehensively synthesizes (i) current definitions of positive early-life experiences, (ii) tools for their retrospective assessment, and (iii) experimental approaches aimed at manipulating and promoting such experiences in humans. Furthermore, this review advances time-sensitive and individual-centered attention for the study of positive early-life experiences, in which health- and well-being-promoting interventions are informed by an expanding understanding of normative human neuroplasticity as a heterosynchronous process and by dynamic, interdependent interactions operating across individual, family, and societal levels.