A new study published in Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy has found that resilience plays a key role in moderating the link between childhood trauma and psychopathic traits in adulthood. While past trauma was generally associated with higher levels of psychopathy, individuals who were more resilient showed significantly fewer psychopathic traits than those with lower resilience. These findings suggest that fostering resilience could be a promising direction for prevention and intervention efforts.
Psychopathy is a personality pattern marked by traits like manipulation, callousness, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior. People with high levels of these traits often struggle to form healthy relationships and may pose risks to others or society. Although psychopathy has long been considered largely genetic or biologically determined, researchers have increasingly turned attention toward environmental influences such as childhood trauma.
Previous studies have shown that abuse, neglect, or other early adversities are linked to psychopathy later in life, although the strength of the relationship varies. But most research has focused on the direct association between trauma and psychopathy, without examining whether certain factors might weaken or strengthen that link. The new study aimed to address this gap by testing whether resilience—a person’s ability to recover from stress and adapt to hardship—can lessen the connection between early trauma and adult psychopathic traits.
“The lion’s share of research on psychopathology, especially on the most severe forms, focuses on risk factors while relatively less attention tends to be paid to protective factors,” said study author Carlo Garofalo of the University of Perugia.
To investigate this, the researchers recruited 521 adults from the Netherlands, with an average age of 35 years. Participants came from a variety of backgrounds and were recruited by psychology students who were instructed to ensure diversity across age, gender, and education. All participants completed a set of standardized questionnaires that assessed their childhood experiences, current resilience, and levels of psychopathic traits.
Childhood trauma was measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, which includes questions about emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as emotional and physical neglect. Resilience was assessed with the 10-item Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale, which evaluates characteristics like adaptability, persistence, and self-efficacy. Psychopathic traits were measured using two widely accepted frameworks: Hare’s four-factor model, which breaks psychopathy down into interpersonal, affective, lifestyle, and antisocial dimensions; and the triarchic model, which includes boldness, meanness, and disinhibition.
The researchers found that higher levels of childhood trauma were associated with more severe psychopathic traits, particularly in areas such as callousness, poor emotional control, and antisocial behavior. However, when resilience was taken into account, the strength of these associations changed significantly. For people with low levels of resilience, childhood trauma was strongly linked to psychopathic traits. In contrast, among those with high resilience, the link between trauma and psychopathy was much weaker or even non-existent.
For example, traits like meanness and disinhibition were significantly more likely to emerge in individuals who had experienced trauma and scored low on resilience. Meanness refers to traits like aggressiveness and lack of empathy, while disinhibition involves impulsivity and poor self-regulation. However, when participants scored high on resilience, trauma was no longer a strong predictor of these traits.
Interestingly, the study also examined boldness—a trait marked by social dominance, emotional stability, and fearlessness—which has been the subject of debate within psychopathy research. While boldness is often seen as adaptive in some settings, such as leadership or high-risk occupations, it is still considered part of the broader psychopathy spectrum. The researchers found that boldness was generally associated with higher resilience, suggesting it may reflect a more adaptive form of functioning.
However, the relationship between trauma and boldness was more complex. At high levels of resilience, individuals who had experienced trauma reported lower levels of boldness, suggesting that even this seemingly adaptive trait may not develop in response to adversity in resilient individuals.
These results offer support for the idea that psychopathic traits are not fixed outcomes of early trauma. Instead, how people respond to traumatic experiences may depend on their personal resources, such as resilience. This finding has both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, it helps explain why some individuals develop severe personality disturbances following adversity while others do not. Practically, it points toward resilience-building as a potential strategy for reducing the risk of psychopathy in people exposed to trauma.
The study’s findings also highlight the value of examining different dimensions of psychopathy separately. While traits like interpersonal manipulation or affective coldness were influenced by trauma and resilience, boldness showed a distinct pattern. This supports the view that psychopathy is a complex and multidimensional construct, with different traits developing in response to different risk factors.
“Experiencing child maltreatment does represent an important risk factor for developing psychopathology and maladaptive behavior, including the type of behavior that puts individuals at odds with other people and society,” Garofalo told PsyPost. “Yet, there are individual characteristics that make some individual more resilient than others and can buffer the detrimental effects of child maltreatment.”
But the study has some limitations. It relied on self-report data, including retrospective accounts of childhood experiences, which can be subject to memory bias. The study was also cross-sectional, meaning it cannot establish cause and effect. Additionally, the sample was drawn from the general Dutch population, which may limit the generalizability of the results to clinical or forensic populations where psychopathy and trauma are more severe. Future research could explore how resilience can be strengthened and whether these findings extend to populations with higher levels of trauma or psychopathy.
The study, “Childhood trauma and psychopathy: The moderating role of resilience,” was authored by Carlo Garofalo, Elisa Delvecchio, Stefan Bogaerts, Martin Sellbom, and Claudia Mazzeschi.