A Network Analysis of Childhood Psychological Abuse and Overgeneralized Autobiographical Memory in Vocational High School Students

Background: Overgeneralized autobiographical memory (OGM) has been linked to adolescent psychological difficulties. The CaR-FA-X model proposes that capture and rumination, functional avoidance, and impaired executive control contribute to OGM, and childhood psychological abuse may be embedded in these same processes. Methods: A total of 1364 vocational high school students completed measures of childhood psychological abuse, OGM, ruminative responses, experiential avoidance, cognitive avoidance, and executive-function difficulties. A 20-node Gaussian graphical model was estimated using a nonparanormal transformation and EBICglasso. Strength, Expected Influence (EI), Bridge Expected Influence (BEI), node predictability, bootstrap stability, node redundancy, sensitivity analyses, OGM-specific connectivity, and exploratory gender differences were examined. Results: The primary network retained 98 of 190 possible edges. Symptom Rumination showed the highest EI (1.33), followed by Intimidation (1.15), Avoidance of Threatening Stimuli (1.12), and Contextual Elaboration (1.10). Experiential Avoidance had the highest BEI (0.69), followed by Symptom Rumination (0.43) and Working Memory Difficulties (0.40); however, Experiential Avoidance constituted a singleton community, making its EI and BEI identical by construction. A complementary OGM-specific analysis showed greater direct connectivity with the OGM community for Working Memory Difficulties (0.065) and Symptom Rumination (0.058) than for Experiential Avoidance (0.009). Mean node predictability was R2 = 0.68 (range = 0.22–0.84), and Strength, EI, and BEI each showed a CS coefficient of 0.75. Five potentially redundant pairs formed three components, and the resulting 15-node sensitivity network closely reproduced the primary findings. Gender network structure and global strength did not differ significantly in the primary NPN analysis (p = 0.166 and p = 0.314, respectively), and no edge survived FDR correction. A modest global-strength difference emerged only in the Spearman sensitivity analysis (p = 0.044). Conclusions: Rumination, experiential avoidance, and working memory difficulties occupied prominent but distinguishable positions in the broader network. The findings are broadly compatible with CaR-FA-X but do not establish causal pathways, and the OGM-specific analysis cautions against interpreting general bridge centrality as direct connectivity with autobiographical memory.