How good and bad childhood experiences shape dark personality traits

Experiencing difficult events in childhood, such as abuse or neglect, has been linked to a higher likelihood of developing undesirable personality traits later in life, including tendencies toward harming others. However, new research published in the Journal of Research in Personality suggests that positive childhood experiences, like having supportive caregivers and feeling connected at school, can lessen the impact of these negative experiences on certain harmful traits. Specifically, positive experiences appear to offer some protection against developing psychopathic and sadistic traits, but this protective effect is limited when a person has faced a great deal of adversity in their early years.

The authors behind the new study sought to learn more about the “Dark Tetrad,” a group of four personality traits that often lead to negative social outcomes. These traits include psychopathy, which involves callousness and disregard for others, narcissism, which includes an inflated sense of self-worth, Machiavellianism, which focuses on strategic manipulation and emotional detachment, and sadism, which involves taking pleasure in others’ suffering. Researchers became interested in studying these traits together because they share features such as callousness, exploitation, and a disregard for empathy, even though each trait also has unique characteristics.

The motivation for this study came from observations that adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, neglect, or family dysfunction, often predict the development of problematic personality features. At the same time, relatively little was known about how positive childhood experiences might lessen the impact of these stressful events.

“There is a large body of evidence showing that experiencing adversity (things like a lack of food, unstable housing, not enough/too much parental love/investment, physical/emotional abuse, and neglect) can result in a host of negative outcomes in adulthood,” said study author Jacob Dye, senior research fellow at the George Institute for Global Health.

“One well documented impact of childhood adversity is an increase in the prevalence of personality deviance such as psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sadism. However, recent research suggests that positive childhood experiences may ameliorate these and other negative adult outcomes of childhood adversity, acting as a sort of protective factor. Given the well-established relationship between childhood adversity and personality deviance we were interested to see what role positive childhood experiences play in moderating that relationship.”

To carry out their study, the researchers collected data from 931 adults of various ages and genders who lived in several different countries, including Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Participants were asked to complete several questionnaires online. One questionnaire measured experiences of childhood adversity, including forms of abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction. Another asked participants about good experiences in childhood, such as being supported by a stable family or having at least one close friend.

Additional questionnaires measured psychopathy, sadism, narcissism, and Machiavellianism in adulthood. The researchers used statistical techniques that allowed them to examine the link between early life adversity and these traits, while also considering the role of positive childhood experiences and controlling for demographic factors like age and gender.

The findings showed that when participants reported more adversity in childhood, they tended to have higher scores on measures of psychopathy, sadism, and narcissism. Negative events like family violence or severe neglect may fuel the development of harmful or callous behaviors later on. Meanwhile, a larger number of positive experiences in early life was connected to lower levels of psychopathy, sadism, and Machiavellianism, but was associated with higher levels of narcissism. This detail may reflect a part of narcissism that includes strong self-esteem and a sense of specialness, which can sometimes be encouraged by a supportive environment.

“Childhood adversity was predictive of developing grandiose narcissistic traits in adulthood,” Dye told PsyPost. “However, similar to some previous studies we also found that experiencing a high level of positive experiences in childhood was predictive of having higher narcissistic traits. Children who experience too much adversity or too much positive attention have an increased risk of developing adult personality styles that are associated with narcissism. Interestingly, adverse and positive childhood experiences did not interact to change levels of adult narcissistic traits, appearing to act as independent predictors.”

But the key discovery was that positive early experiences appeared to reduce the impact of childhood adversity on psychopathy and sadism only when the adversity was moderate or low. In other words, a supportive upbringing did act as a buffer for individuals who did not suffer extremely high adversity, lowering the chance they would develop traits linked to being callous or destructive. But for those who had severe and frequent adversity, positive experiences did not lessen these traits. That means that in very harsh childhood conditions, the beneficial effect of support or warmth might not be enough to offset the intensity of the negative events.

“Although childhood adversity is an important predictor of undesirable adult personality outcomes, in some cases, having many positive experiences can reduce the impact of that adversity,” Dye explained. “In the case of psychopathic traits and sadistic traits (traits associated with being more likely to harm others) when people experienced multiple and/or frequent childhood adversity they were higher in these traits regardless of their positive childhood experiences.

“However, when people experienced less adversity, a greater amount of positive childhood experience resulted in a lower level of psychopathic and sadistic traits. This suggests that positive childhood experiences can have a protective influence reducing the likelihood of developing traits that make people more callous, harmful, and antisocial.”

One limitation of this study is that it relied on self-reported childhood events, and memories may be shaped by an individual’s current mental state. Since people high in psychopathy or other dark traits may recall their early years differently than others, it could influence the strength of the connections found.

Future research could follow individuals over time to investigate whether negative or positive childhood events predict these dark personality traits more directly. It might also be beneficial to include outside reports or standardized clinical assessments, since that could confirm how severe or supportive a person’s childhood really was.

“As with most research in this area, we need to be careful to remember that we are asking adults to recount their childhood experiences,” Dye noted. “We know that memories are biased in a number of ways and that people’s individual differences in psychology will impact the memories they form and recall. We also need to be careful interpreting the self-reported personality traits of individuals who have grown-up in societies where these traits (narcissism for example) are socially stigmatised. Put simply, there is a real social pressure to hide these traits from those around you.”

The overarching aim of this research is to build a clearer picture of how childhood shapes adult well-being, particularly in the context of traits that can lead to negative behaviors or relationships. This line of work can inform programs that promote early support, strengthen family bonds, and reduce childhood adversity wherever possible.

“It is important to understand how people’s childhood experiences, both good and bad, impact their ability to become healthy, functional adults,” Dye said. “These childhood experiences appear to have lifelong impacts and so it is in all of our best interests to improve the childhoods of everyone and in turn improve their health and wellbeing throughout life.”

The study, “Adverse and positive childhood experiences and their associations with dark personality traits,” was authored by George Van Doorn, Jacob Dye, and Robert Teese.