The relationship between adverse childhood experiences and non-clinical personality traits: A meta-analytic synthesis

In this manuscript we present the results of a preregistered meta-analytic synthesis of the literature on the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and non-clinical personality traits. Our findings, based on data from 228 correlations, 32 unique samples and 48,125 individuals indicates that adverse childhood experiences are most strongly related to emotional stability and psychoticism with weaker but still meaningful relationship evident with conscientiousness. Specific types of adverse childhood experiences exhibited relationships of different strength with personality traits with emotional abuse and emotional neglect exhibiting the strongest relationships. We discuss the degree to which these findings are congruent with different theoretical frameworks including those focused on the manner in which personality develops as well as methodological factors. •We present a synthesis of the relationship between Adverse Childhood Experiences and personality.•Adverse Childhood Experiences exhibit relationships with Neuroticism and Psychoticism.•Adverse Childhood Experiences are only weakly related to other non-clinical personality traits.•Purely methodological explanations for relationships are unlikely.