How children are raised may matter for social well-being worldwide, with surveys across three culturally different countries linking supportive childhoods to adults’ trust and sense of belonging.
At home, a child seeking comfort depends on a caregiver’s response, while time for free play offers room to explore. A University of Nottingham-led study linked these experiences, along with a positive emotional atmosphere at home, to well-being years later. Positive childhood experiences were generally stronger predictors of adult well-being than the absence of negative ones, suggesting that avoiding harm captures only part of what matters.
Across the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan, adults’ reports of supportive childhood experiences were associated with better health, greater happiness and life satisfaction, and lower anxiety. The connections extended to how people felt about those around them, including their satisfaction with social relationships, sense of belonging in their neighborhoods, and trust in others. Published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, the findings were consistent across substantial cultural differences and remained statistically significant after accounting for demographic factors such as income and education.
The care infants may have evolved to expect
The researchers examined these childhood experiences through the “evolved nest,” a framework of parenting practices that human infants are theorized to have evolved to expect. These practices have previously been identified as critical for healthy development.
“We know that childhood experiences play a critical role in shaping well-being over the lifespan,” said study lead Dr. Eugene Malthouse, of the University of Nottingham’s School of Economics. “Our study highlights the value of looking at how we collectively raise children from an evolutionary perspective, since the environments in which we evolved as a species are very different to those in which many people live today.”
Positive childhood experiences were generally stronger predictors
Working with researchers from the University of Warwick and the University of Osaka, the Nottingham team examined responses from adults ages 18 to 34. Participants reported their childhood experiences of these practices and then answered questions about their current well-being. Many of those questions are routinely used by the UK’s Office for National Statistics in its assessments of well-being.
Participants’ childhood experiences could be grouped into positive and negative categories, allowing the researchers to distinguish between having supportive experiences and being spared harmful ones. Much previous research has emphasized avoiding negative experiences, while this study found a generally stronger predictive relationship with positive ones.
The adults were looking back on life at home, so the associations with their current well-being do not establish that those childhood experiences caused the outcomes. “Overall, our results highlight the importance of providing experiences that support the biological, psychological, and social needs of children,” said Malthouse. “They also demonstrate the value of the evolved nest as a framework for thinking about those experiences.”
Reference: “The Evolved Nest in Childhood: Relation to Adult Well-being and Social Capital Across Cultures” by Eugene Malthouse, Nobuyuki Hanaki and Gordon D. A. Brown, 30 September 2026, Journal of Happiness Studies.
DOI: 10.1007/s10902-026-01109-0
Funded by the European Research Council
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