title: Association between childhood maltreatment and normal adult personality traits: exploration of an understudied field.
abstract: We assessed normal personality traits and childhood trauma in approximately 1170 subjects from a general population-based community sample. In bivariate analyses emotional abuse was most pervasively related to personality, showing significant detrimental associations with neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. Neuroticism was significantly related to emotional abuse and neglect, physical abuse and neglect, and sexual abuse. Emotional abuse was related to neuroticism in men more profoundly than in women (β = 0.095). Adjusting for the covariance between childhood maltreatment variables, neuroticism was mainly related to emotional abuse (β = 0.193), extraversion to emotional neglect (β = -0.259), openness to emotional abuse (β = 0.175), conscientiousness to emotional abuse (β = -0.110), and agreeableness to emotional neglect (β = -0.153). The proportion of variance explained was highest in neuroticism (5.6%) and lowest in openness (1.9%) and conscientiousness (1.8%). These findings help to understand the complex association between childhood maltreatment and both normal and pathological personality.
authors.forename: Michael P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Hengartner
authors.forename: Lisa J
authors.initials: LJ
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rodgers
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Müller
authors.forename: Wulf
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Rössler
authors.forename: Vladeta
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Ajdacic-Gross
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D054523:Adult Survivors of Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D000075384:Neuroticism; D010551:Personality; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013557:Switzerland / Q000453:epidemiology