Experienceing difficult childhood events, such as abuse or neglect, is associated with the increased likelihood of developing unwanted personality traits later in life, including tendencies to hurt others. However, new research is published in Journal of Research in Personality Positive childhood experiences, such as feeling supportive caregivers and school connections, suggest that the effects of these negative experiences on certain harmful traits can be reduced. Specifically, positive experiences appear to provide some degree of protection against the development of psychotics and sadistic traits, but this protective effect is limited to when a person faces great adversity in the early days.
The authors behind the new research tried to learn more about Dark Tetrad, a group of four personality traits that often lead to negative social outcomes. These traits include mental disorders, including ruthlessness and neglect towards others, a bulging sense of self-worth, Machiavellianism, focusing on strategic manipulation and emotional separation, and narcissism, including sadism, which involves pleasure in the suffering of others. Researchers were interested in studying these characteristics together. Because, despite their unique traits, they share characteristics such as ruthlessness, exploitation, and neglect of empathy.
The motivation for this study came from the observation that adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, neglect, or family dysfunction, often predict the development of problematic personality traits. At the same time, relatively little was known about how childhood experiences reduce the effects of these stressful events.
“There is great evidence that you experience adversity (such as food shortages, unstable housing, ample/parent love/investment, physical/emotional abuse, and neglect),” says Jacob Dye, a senior researcher at the George Institute for the George Institute, who has evidence that it can have many negative consequences in adulthood.
“The well-documented impact of childhood adversity is the increased prevalence of personality deviations, such as mental disorders, narcissism, Machiavellianism, sadism, etc. However, recent studies suggest that positive childhood experiences can make these and other negative adult adult outcomes work as a kind of protective factor. Given the established relationship between childhood adversity and personality deviations, we wanted to know what role positive childhood experiences play in moderate that relationship.”
To conduct the study, the researchers collected data from 931 adults and genders of various ages who lived in several different countries, including Australia, the US and the UK. Participants were asked to complete several surveys online. One questionnaire measured experiences of childhood adversity, including forms of abuse, neglect, or family dysfunction. Another asked participants about their good childhood experiences, including being supported by a stable family or having at least one best friend.
Additional surveys measured mental disorders, sadism, narcissism, and Machiavellianism in adulthood. Researchers also used statistical methods that could examine the link between childhood adversity and these characteristics, and also examined the role of positive childhood experiences and control for demographic factors such as age and gender.
The findings showed that when participants reported more adversity in childhood, they tend to score higher on measures of mental disorders, sadism, and narcissism. Negative events such as domestic violence or serious neglect can later promote the development of harmful or ruthless behavior. On the other hand, many positive experiences in childhood were associated with lower levels of mental disorders, sadism, and Machiavelianism, but with higher levels of narcissism. This detail may reflect some of the narcissism, including strong self-esteem and a special feeling.
“Childhood adversity predicted the development of grand narcissistic traits in adulthood,” Dai told Psypost. “However, similar to previous studies, we also found that experiencing high levels of positive experiences in childhood predicts that they have higher narcissistic traits. Children with too much adversity or positive attention are at a higher risk of developing adult personality styles associated with narcissism. Interestingly, adverse and positive childhood experiences did not interact to alter the level of adult narcissistic traits.
However, an important finding was that positive early experiences appeared to reduce the effects of childhood adversity on mental disorders and sadism only when adversity was moderate or low. In other words, supportive development served as a buffer for individuals who did not suffer from very high adversity, reducing the likelihood of developing traits associated with being merciless or destructive. However, for those suffering from severe and frequent adversity, positive experiences did not alleviate these characteristics. This means that in very harsh childhood conditions, the beneficial effects of support and warmth may not be sufficient to offset the intensity of negative events.
“Childhood adversity is an important predictor of unwanted adult personality outcomes, but in some cases having a lot of positive experiences can reduce the effects of that adversity,” explained Dai. “For psychotic and sadistic traits (characters that are likely to harm others), when people experienced multiple and/or frequent childhood adversities, they were more highly in these traits regardless of positive childhood experiences.
“However, when people experienced less adversity, more positive childhood experiences resulted in lower levels of psychotic and sadistic traits. This suggests that positive childhood experiences can have protective effects to reduce the likelihood of making people more cold, harmful and antisocial.”
One limitation of this study is that it depends on self-reported childhood events, and memory may be shaped by an individual’s current mental state. People with mental disorders and other dark traits may remember a different childhood than others, and may affect the strength of the connections discovered.
Future research can follow individuals over time to investigate whether negative or positive childhood events more directly predict these dark personality traits. It may also be beneficial to include external reports and standardized clinical assessments. Because it can confirm how serious or supportive a person’s childhood is.
“Like most research in this field, we need to remember that we ask adults to share their childhood experiences,” Dai pointed out. “We know that memories are biased in many ways, and that personal differences between people in psychology influence the memories they form and remember. We also need to carefully interpret the self-reported personality traits of individuals who have grown in a society where these traits (e.g. narcissism) are socially condemned. Simply put, there is real social pressure to hide these traits from the people around you.”
The comprehensive aim of this study is to provide a clearer picture of how childhood shapes adult well-being, especially in the context of traits that can lead to negative behaviors and relationships. This series of tasks can inform programs that promote support as early as possible, strengthen family ties and reduce childhood adversity.
“It’s important to understand how people’s childhood experiences affect their ability to become healthy and functional adults, both good and evil,” Dai said. “Because these childhood experiences appear to have a lifelong impact, improving the childhood of everyone and improving health and well-being throughout our lives is all in our greatest interests.”
the study, “Their association between unfavourable and positive childhood experiences and dark personality traitswritten by George Van Dawn, Jacob Dye and Robert Tees.
