Abstract We test whether adverse childhood experiences – exposure to parental maltreatment and its indirect effect on health – are associated with age 30 personality traits. We use rich longitudinal data from a large, representative cohort of young US Americans and exploit the differences across siblings to control for the confounding influences of shared environmental and genetic factors. We find that maltreatment experiences are significantly and robustly associated with neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, but not with agreeableness and extraversion. High levels of neuroticism are linked to sexual abuse and neglect; low levels of conscientiousness and openness to experience are linked to parental neglect. The estimated associations are significantly reduced in magnitude when controlling for physical or mental health, suggesting that adolescent health could be one important pathway via which maltreatment affects adulthood personality. Maltreatment experiences, in combination with their health effects, explain a significant fraction of the relationship between adulthood conscientiousness and earnings or human capital. Our findings provide a possible explanation for why personality traits are important predictors of adulthood labor market outcomes.

中文翻译：

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成年人格的起源：不良童年经历的作用

摘要 我们测试了不良的童年经历——父母虐待的暴露及其对健康的间接影响——是否与 30 岁的人格特征相关。我们使用来自美国年轻美国人的大型代表性队列的丰富纵向数据，并利用兄弟姐妹之间的差异来控制共享环境和遗传因素的混杂影响。我们发现，虐待经历与神经质、尽责性和对经历的开放性显着且密切相关，但与宜人性和外向性无关。高度的神经质与性虐待和忽视有关；责任心和对经验的开放程度低与父母的忽视有关。当控制身体或心理健康时，估计的关联在幅度上显着降低，表明青少年健康可能是虐待影响成年人格的重要途径。虐待经历及其对健康的影响，在很大程度上解释了成年后的责任心与收入或人力资本之间的关系。我们的研究结果为为什么人格特质是成年劳动力市场结果的重要预测因素提供了可能的解释。