Lifetime trauma, personality traits, and health: A pathway to midlife health status.

Abstract

Objective This study investigated whether lifetime experience of trauma is related to personality through instrumental and reactive trait processes, and whether lifetime trauma is a mechanism underlying the association between childhood conscientiousness and objectively assessed adult physical health. Method Participants (N = 831) were 442 women and 389 men from the Hawaii longitudinal study of personality and health. Teacher assessments of personality were obtained when the participants were in elementary school. Self-reported adult personality assessments, lifetime histories of trauma experience, and objectively assessed physiological dysregulation were obtained between ages 45–55. Results Women tended to report more high-betrayal trauma than men, whereas men reported more low-betrayal trauma than women. Women who were judged by their teachers to be less agreeable and less conscientious in childhood reported more lifetime trauma, suggesting instrumental trait processes. For both genders, neuroticism and openness/intellect/imagination in adulthood, but not in childhood, were associated with lifetime trauma, suggesting reactive trait processes. For both genders, trauma experience was correlated with dysregulation and with BMI. The indirect paths from childhood conscientiousness to adult dysregulation and BMI through total teen and adult trauma were significant for women, but not for men (indirect effect for women’s dysregulation = −.025, p = .040, 95% CI = −.048, −.001; indirect effect for women’s BMI = −.037, p = .009, 95% CI = −.067, −.008). Conclusion Teen and adult trauma experience appears to be a hitherto unidentified mechanism in women underlying the association between conscientiousness and health.

A New Twist on Old Questions: A Life Span Approach to the Trait Concept

“…The retrospective measurement of trauma is vulnerable to biased reporting (e.g., Hepp et al, ); therefore, we analyzed trauma reports residualized with respect to vulnerability, the facet of adult Neuroticism most highly correlated with trauma reporting in this sample. We found evidence for both instrumental and reactive processes in the Hawaii study (Hampson et al, ). Trauma experienced in adolescence and adulthood mediated the association between childhood Conscientiousness and objective health status at age 51.…”

Anxiety, Post-Traumatic Stress, and Burnout in Health Professionals during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Comparing Mental Health Professionals and Other Healthcare Workers

“…Regarding psychological outcomes, MHPs reported good overall mental health except for trait anxiety. In this context, previous research has shown that traumatic experiences can induce changes in trait variables [53], particularly in trait anxiety [54,55]. Thus, the high trait anxiety in our sample could be interpreted as an effect of the pandemic itself.…”

Eating for numbing: a community-based study of trauma exposure, emotion dysregulation, dissociation, body dissatisfaction and eating disorder symptoms

“… Gu et al (2013) conducted a national survey of law enforcement officers over six years and found that those who reported higher levels of psychological distress, likely related to exposure to traumatic events, were also heavier; when controlling for all potential confounders, this was true for women but not men. Hampson et al (2016) followed a community sample of children in Hawaii from childhood to adulthood and found that teen and adult trauma exposure was related to higher BMI and greater risk for obesity in adult women. In a longitudinal study of women nurses, Kubzansky et al (2014) found that women with at least four PTSD symptoms gained more weight than other women and were at increased risk for obesity.…”