. 2025 Jul 1;15:20983. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-03343-7

Table 2.

Random effects meta-analysis of association between childhood factors and orientation to promote good in adulthood (N = 202,898).

					Estimated proportion of effects by threshold
Childhood factors	Category	β	95% CI	SE	< −0.10	> 0.10	Heterogeneity (τ)	I^{^2}	Global p-value
Relationship with mother	(Ref: Very bad/somewhat bad)								0.010*
Relationship with mother	Very good/somewhat good	0.13	(0.04,0.21)	0.04	0.05	0.64	0.13	52.9	0.010*
Relationship with father	(Ref: Very bad/somewhat bad)								< 0.001**
Relationship with father	Very good/somewhat good	0.09	(0.03,0.15)	0.03	0.00	0.32	0.07	35.7	< 0.001**
Parent marital status	(Ref: Parents married)								< 0.001**
	Divorced	0.01	(−0.06,0.09)	0.04	0.18	0.27	0.12	52.8
	Single, never married	−0.06	(−0.20,0.09)	0.08	0.41	0.32	0.30	85.7
	One or both parents had died	0.01	(−0.10,0.13)	0.06	0.27	0.27	0.22	63.4
Financial status of family when growing up	(Ref: Got by)								< 0.001**
	Lived comfortably	0.13	(0.06,0.21)	0.04	0.05	0.59	0.17	87.7
	Found it difficult	0.02	(−0.03,0.06)	0.02	0.00	0.14	0.06	32.5
	Found it very difficult	−0.04	(−0.15,0.07)	0.06	0.23	0.18	0.19	58.0
Experienced abuse	(Ref: No)								< 0.001**
Experienced abuse	Yes	−0.10	(−0.17,−0.03)	0.04	0.48	0.05	0.13	64.9	< 0.001**
Felt like an outsider in the family	(Ref: No)								0.068
Felt like an outsider in the family	Yes	−0.11	(−0.15,−0.06)	0.02	0.64	0.00	0.02	2.4	0.068
Self-rated health when growing up	(Ref: Good)								< 0.001**
	Excellent	0.44	(0.27,0.61)	0.09	0.00	0.86	0.40	95.7
	Very good	0.22	(0.13,0.30)	0.04	0.00	0.68	0.18	83.9
	Fair	−0.10	(−0.22,0.01)	0.06	0.55	0.18	0.23	80.5
	Poor	−0.05	(−0.19,0.09)	0.07	0.36	0.27	0.21	47.6
Immigration status	(Ref: Born in this country)								< 0.001**
Immigration status	Born in another country	−0.05	(−0.22,0.11)	0.09	0.55	0.32	0.32	84.4	< 0.001**
Frequency of religious service attendance (age 12)	(Ref: Never)								< 0.001**
	At least 1/week	0.30	(0.21,0.39)	0.05	0.00	0.86	0.17	70.7
	1–3/month	0.19	(0.09,0.29)	0.05	0.05	0.64	0.19	75.2
	< 1/month	0.07	(−0.01,0.14)	0.04	0.14	0.41	0.13	66.3
Year of birth	(Ref: 1998–2005; age 18–24)								< 0.001**
	1993–1998; age 25–29	0.12	(0.04,0.20)	0.04	0.09	0.64	0.14	61.0
	1983–1993; age 30–39	0.14	(0.06,0.23)	0.04	0.09	0.59	0.17	74.9
	1973–1983; age 40–49	0.21	(0.09,0.33)	0.06	0.14	0.64	0.26	85.9
	1963–1973; age 50–59	0.25	(0.11,0.39)	0.07	0.14	0.73	0.31	87.9
	1953–1963; age 60–69	0.24	(0.04,0.44)	0.10	0.27	0.68	0.46	92.8
	1943–1953; age 70–79	0.31	(0.07,0.56)	0.12	0.23	0.73	0.53	91.8
	1943 or earlier; age 80 +	0.26	(−0.05,0.58)	0.16	0.32	0.55	0.66	88.8
Gender	(Ref: Male)								< 0.001**
	Female	0.07	(0.03,0.11)	0.02	0.00	0.27	0.07	61.9
	Other	−0.03	(−0.43,0.37)	0.20	0.44	0.33	0.75	83.5

Note. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.0045 (Bonferroni corrected threshold). CI, confidence interval; SE, standard error. τ is the standard deviation of the distribution of the estimates across countries/territories, an indicator of cross-national heterogeneity. I² is an estimate of the variability in estimates due to heterogeneity across countries/territories vs. sampling variability. Global p-value corresponds to a test of the null hypothesis that there is not an association between the predictor and promoting good in any of the 22 countries.