The Continuity of Adversity: Negative Emotionality Links Early Life Adversity With Adult Stressful Life Events

Abstract

Adversity that exhibits continuity across the life course has long-term detrimental effects on physical and mental health. Using 920 participants from the Dunedin Study, we tested the following hypotheses: (a) Children (ages 3–15) who experienced adversity would also tend to experience adversity in adulthood (ages 32–45), and (2) interim personality traits in young adulthood (ages 18–26) would help account for this longitudinal association. Children who experienced more adversity tended to also experience more stressful life events as adults, β = 0.11, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.04, 0.18], p = .002. Negative emotionality—particularly its subfacet alienation, characterized by mistrust of others—helped explain this childhood-to-midlife association (indirect effect: β = 0.06, 95% CI = [0.04, 0.09], p < .001). Results were robust to adjustment for sex, socioeconomic origins, childhood IQ, preschool temperament, and other young-adult personality traits. Prevention of early life adversity and treatment of young-adult negative emotionality may reduce vulnerability to later life stress and thereby promote the health of aging adults.