Research on the impact of childhood experiences on adulthood personality

School of Media, Kede College of Capital Normal University, Daxing District, Beijing, 102602, China

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Abstract

This study focuses on the interactions between family backgrounds, childhood experiences, and childrearing practices within the bidirectional correlation between childhood experiences and adulthood personality traits. Based on a cross-sectional questionnaire survey involving 145 adults aged from 18 to 60 (49 males, 96 females), it adopts the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-Short Form (CTQ-SF) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Adult Form, EPQ) to assess the effects of positive and adverse childhood experiences on adulthood personality traits (e.g., self-esteem, social competence, and emotional instability). The findings show that positive childhood experiences significantly enhance self-esteem (β=0.56，p<0.05) and social competence (β=0.35，p<0.05) in adulthood, whereas adverse childhood experiences substantially increase the risk for emotional instability (OR = 3.41, 95% CI [1.89, 5.73]). Also, childhood neglect has a greater impact on emotional stability in adult females (β=-0.47) than in males (β=-0.9 ， p<0.01). According to the statistics, the influences and adaptive mechanisms of childhood experiences on childhood personality exhibit significant gender differences. Therefore, the research proposes an integrated family-school-community intervention model, expecting to mitigate the negative effects of adverse childhood experiences as early as possible via early screening, resilience training, and other measures.