How Childhood Maltreatment Shape Attitudes Toward Happiness: The Role of PTSD Symptoms and Self-Compassion

Childhood maltreatment has emerged as a global concern. While researchers have begun investigating the capacity of adults with childhood maltreatment experiences to pursue happiness (e.g., fear of happiness), the mechanisms and boundary conditions of this relationship remain inadequately understood in the Chinese context. Involving 77,926 participants from 63 universities in Jilin Province, China, this study employed a moderated mediation model to examine the direct and indirect (via PTSD symptoms) associations between childhood maltreatment and fear of happiness, while assessing the moderating role of self-compassion and gender differences through multi-group analyses. Results showed that PTSD symptoms mediated the link between childhood maltreatment and fear of happiness ( b = 0.183, SE = 0.004, 95% CI [0.176, 0.190]). Self-compassion moderated this indirect association, which was weaker at high versus low self-compassion levels (b low = 0.149 vs b high = 0.096). Multi-group comparisons further revealed that the indirect association was significantly stronger in females than males at low self-compassion; however, this gender difference disappeared at high self-compassion. The results suggest that childhood maltreatment is both directly and indirectly associated with fear of happiness via PTSD symptoms, and that self-compassion not only protects against this negative pathway but also acts as an equalizer that reduces gender-based vulnerability. Fostering selfcompassion may counteract the negative correlates of childhood maltreatment, enabling individuals to pursue happiness more courageously. These findings underscore the importance of integrating self-compassion into trauma-informed interventions, particularly for female survivors who exhibit heightened vulnerability when self-compassion is low, while also supporting its universal applicability across genders in promoting post-traumatic psychological resilience.