Seek Balance: Deviation from Balance Mediates Trauma Exposure and Quality of Life

Abstract

This research assessed direct and mediated relations between lifetime trauma exposure and physical and mental health, with deviation from a balanced time perspective (individuals’ perception of the past, present, and future time frames) as a potential mediator. Participants were 238 undergraduates who completed online assessments of trauma exposure, quality of life, and time perspectives. Mediation analyses revealed that a greater number of traumas indirectly influenced quality of life by way of deviation from a balanced time perspective. Discussion underscores the importance of balance in time perspectives, particularly when adjusting to adverse life events.

Keywords:

• Trauma
• quality of life
• time perspectives
• mediation

Disclosure statement

The authors have no financial interest or benefit that has arisen from the direct applications of this research.

Data availability statement

The dataset generated and analyzed during the current study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 Pearson correlations assessed relations between trauma exposure and the time perspective domains. Results indicated that more trauma exposure was related to a more “past-negative” perspective (r = .31, p = .000), a less “past-positive” perspective (r = −.13, p = .044), and a less “future-focused” perspective (r = −.15, p = .023). Trauma exposure was not related to the “present-fatalistic” or “present-hedonistic” perspectives.

2 Analogous sets of mediation analyses were conducted to test mediation using the original formula to calculate DBTP (Stolarski et al., 2011; Zhang et al., 2013); results were virtually the same as those using the newly devised DBTP-r formula (Jankowski et al., 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Patricia L. Tomich

Patricia L. Tomich, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Kent State University. Her primary research interests center on studying how individuals adjust to traumatic life experiences; future research endeavors are expected to be largely devoted to understanding factors related to the antecedents and consequences of traumatic life events.

Isabella S. DeMalio

Isabella S. DeMalio, A.A., earned her Associate of Arts degree with honors from Kent State University. She is currently working to earn her Bachelor of Science degree, plans to continue on to graduate school, and to eventually establish a career as a researcher and academician.

Alexandra Tolich

Alexandra Tolich, B.S., earned her Bachelor of Science degree with honors from Kent State University. At the time that this research was conducted, she was an undergraduate psychology student. Her future plans include continuing on to graduate school in Neuropsychology and establishing a career in this field.