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 report

SUBMITTER: Hampson SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4925290 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature