Attachment and Mindfulness as Mediators in the Relationship Between Childhood Adversity and Personality Outcomes

Examining the complex relations between childhood adversity, mindfulness, attachment, and various personality outcomes: A Bayesian structural equation modeling approach.

“…It was suggested that personality may be more predictive of attachment versus behavior (Roters, 2019), which may explain our null findings with fearful attachment. Overall, we replicated the importance of attachment style in the relationship between childhood abuse/neglect and both borderline and psychopathic traits (Roters, 2019; Roters & Book, 2023a). Importantly, our use of multivariate models was unique in the literature.…”

“…Importantly, people with disordered personalities tend to have insecure attachment styles (Brennan & Shaver, 1998;Crawford et al, 2007;Meyer et al, 2001;Nakash et al, 2021;Smith et al, 2020) specifically avoidant attachment style is correlated with psychopathic traits (Gacono & Meloy, 1991;Gacono et al, 1992;Gambin et al, 2018;Meyer et al, 2001;Schimmenti et al, 2014), fearful is associated with psychopathic traits (Schimmenti et al, 2014), and anxious is associated with borderline traits (Carol & Davies, 1995;Levy, 2005;Nakash et al, 2021;Patrick, et al, 1994;Smith et al, 2020). It would seem from previous research that the relationship between childhood abuse and neglect and disordered personality traits may be indirect through insecure attachment (see Figure 1; Cohen et al, 2017;Roters, 2019;Roters & Book, 2023a).…”

“…While there is some previous research examining attachment style, this relationship has not been evaluated in a multivariate model to our knowledge. We expect to find that the relationship between childhood abuse and neglect and borderline traits will be indirect through anxious attachment (Cohen et al, 2017; Roters, 2019; Roters & Book, 2023a). As well, the relationship between abuse and neglect and interpersonal manipulation and callous affect will be indirect through avoidant attachment (Cohen et al, 2017; Roters, 2019).…”

“…Insecure attachment comprises three different categories, namely avoidant, fearful, and anxious attachment. There is a well-established relationship between childhood abuse and neglect and insecure attachment (Cook et al, 2005; Le et al, 2021; Roters, 2019; Roters & Book, 2023a; Yang & Perkins, 2021). In avoidant attachment, the individual sees no value in being close with others and views others negatively, however, sees themselves in a positive light (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991).…”

Using the HEXACO to explain the structure of borderline and psychopathic personality traits

“…The difference in predictive utility for psychopathic compared to the other problematic personality traits could be due to several factors. For example, child abuse is moderately correlated with both borderline and antisocial traits (Factor 2 of psychopathy) but only weakly associated with Factor 1 traits (Roters, 2019). It may be that psychopathic traits are less dependent on environmental factors than borderline traits.…”