HB II Middle Adulthood DB. Week 8

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274956840

Childhood Trauma and Personal Mastery: Their Influence on Emotional

Reactivity to Everyday Events in a Community Sample of Middle-Aged Adults

Article  in  PLoS ONE · May 2015

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121840

CITATIONS

13 READS

72

4 authors:

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Resilience in the face of adversity View project

Personal mastery and locus of control View project

Frank J Infurna

Arizona State University

57 PUBLICATIONS   768 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Crystal Rivers

Arizona State University

4 PUBLICATIONS   26 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

John W. Reich

Arizona State University

114 PUBLICATIONS   3,103 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Alex Zautra

Arizona State University

259 PUBLICATIONS   11,064 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Alex Zautra on 14 April 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Childhood Trauma and Personal Mastery: Their Influence on Emotional Reactivity to Everyday Events in a Community Sample of Middle-Aged Adults Frank J. Infurna*, Crystal T. Rivers, John Reich, Alex J. Zautra

Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America

* [email protected]

Abstract Childhood trauma is associated with premature declines in health in midlife and old age.

Pathways that have been implicated, but less studied include social-emotional regulation,

biological programming, and habitual patterns of thought and action. In this study we fo-

cused on childhood trauma’s influence via alterations in social-emotional regulation to ev-

eryday life events, a pathway that has been linked to subsequent health effects. Data from a

30-day daily diary of community residents who participated in a study of resilience in Midlife

(n = 191, Mage = 54, SD = 7.50, 54% women) was used to examine whether self-reports of childhood trauma were associated with daily well-being, as well as reported and emotional

reactivity to daily negative and positive events. Childhood trauma reports were associated

with reporting lower overall levels of and greater variability in daily well-being. Childhood

trauma was linked to greater reports of daily negative events, but not to positive events. Fo-

cusing on emotional reactivity to daily events, residents who reported higher levels of child-

hood trauma showed stronger decreases in well-being when experiencing negative events

and also stronger increases in well-being with positive events. For those reporting childhood

trauma, higher levels of mastery were associated with stronger decreases in well-being with

negative events and stronger increases in well-being with positive events, suggesting that

mastery increases sensitivity to daily negative and positive events. Our results suggest that

childhood trauma may lead to poorer health in midlife through disturbances in the patterns

of everyday life events and responses to those events. Further, our findings indicate that

mastery may have a different meaning for those who experienced childhood trauma. We

discuss social-emotional regulation as one pathway linking childhood trauma to health, and

psychosocial resources to consider when building resilience-promoting interventions for

mitigating the detrimental health effects of childhood trauma.

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 1 / 21

OPEN ACCESS

Citation: Infurna FJ, Rivers CT, Reich J, Zautra AJ (2015) Childhood Trauma and Personal Mastery: Their Influence on Emotional Reactivity to Everyday Events in a Community Sample of Middle-Aged Adults. PLoS ONE 10(4): e0121840. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0121840

Academic Editor: Daisuke Nishi, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, JAPAN

Received: July 28, 2014

Accepted: February 17, 2015

Published: April 7, 2015

Copyright: © 2015 Infurna et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: This work was funded by the National Institute on Aging R01 AG26006. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction Development is a lifelong process with experiences from childhood potentially having an im- pact on health and well-being throughout in midlife and beyond [1–3]. Childhood trauma characterized by abuse and family conflict is one of those early life experiences that not only has detrimental effects during childhood and adolescence, but can leave a “scar” well into mid- life and old age [4–5]. Recent empirical evidence suggests that childhood trauma is associated with less emotional support and more strain in social relationships in adult life [6], lower levels of well-being [7], and early onset of functional limitations, disease, and premature mortality [8–10].

There are several possible pathways linking childhood trauma to health in midlife, including social-emotional regulation, biological programming, and patterns of behavior [4, 11]. For ex- ample, chronic stress in childhood is associated with stronger pro-inflammatory cytokine re- sponse and resistance to anti-inflammatory properties of cortisol [12], which have long-term health consequences [13]. Similarly, chronic childhood stress is linked to unhealthy habits, such as smoking, alcohol dependency, and overeating [14, 15]. One likely pathway that has yet to be fully tested is whether childhood trauma alters day-to-day life experiences through daily well-being, and experience of and reactivity to daily negative and positive events. These compo- nents of daily life are considered a form of social-emotional regulation that has the potential to accumulate over the lifespan to shape the course of development [16–19]. As is accustomed in the daily diary literature, we define well-being as one’s level of negative and positive affect on days when no negative or positive daily event is reported [16, 19]. Social-emotional regulation is broadly defined as one’s ability to effectively manage their daily emotions in the response to specific stimuli [20]. We conceptualize social-emotional regulation in our study as changes in positive and negative affect in response to the stimulus provided by daily negative and positive events. There may be psychosocial resources that moderate one’s social-emotional regulation capacities; we examine whether mastery, a key resilience resource across the life-span, increases or decreases social-emotional regulation capacities for individuals who experienced high levels of childhood trauma. To evaluate associations between childhood trauma and social-emotional regulation, we used data from 30-day daily diaries of participants in midlife to examine (1) whether childhood trauma is associated with daily well-being, and reports of and reactivity to daily negative and positive events and (2) the role of mastery in moderating such associations.

Pathways Linking Childhood Trauma to Health Childhood trauma in the form of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, as well as childhood misfortune can have detrimental and long-lasting effects on development across the lifespan. For example, a meta-analysis by Wegman and Stetler [21] found that the effect size linking childhood abuse to negative physical health outcomes in adulthood was d = 0.42 (Confidence Interval = 0.39–0.45). Similarly, Caspi and colleagues [22–23] found that child maltreatment and traumatic events early in life were associated with lower well-being and greater psychologi- cal distress in young adulthood. Despite the substantial evidence linking childhood trauma to health in midlife and old age, much less empirical research has been done on examining specif- ic pathways that could underlie this relationship.

The ramifications of childhood trauma for development in midlife and old age are thought to be set in motion through biopsychosocial processes that unfold over time to increase risk for ill health. Miller and colleagues [4] reviewed evidence for several pathways, including biological programming, behavioral habits, social relationships, and social-emotional regulation (reports of and reactivity to stressors), as plausible mechanisms. We focus on exploring social-emotion- al regulation as one pathway through which childhood trauma can lead to differential health

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 2 / 21

outcomes because childhood trauma has the potential to affect the dynamics of daily life. Day- to-day living accumulates to affect development across the lifespan through various sets of ex- periences, interactions, and events. For example, Charles and colleagues [24] found that people who were more reactive to daily stressors (i.e., stronger decline in well-being) had an increased risk for mental health disorders over 10 years of time. One might describe these experiences as being comprised of multiple components, which we have captured through use of daily diaries completed by a mid-life sample. The diary data allows us to investigate levels of and variability in daily well-being, reports of both stressors and pleasant events, and emotional reactivity to daily negative and positive events. Well-being has many definitions in the literature, but a com- mon feature to most of those definitions is attention to both the presence of positive affective states and the relative absence of negative emotions [25–27]. Following in this vein we opera- tionalized well-being as according to one’s daily levels of and variability in negative and posi- tive affect, in addition to how negative and positive affect changes in response to daily negative and positive events. Below we set forth the assumptions upon which our investigation is based.

First, childhood trauma may be associated with reporting lower overall levels of well-being and greater fluctuations from day-to-day (i.e., variability). Childhood trauma could alter indi- viduals’ strategies for regulating their desires and emotions that are essential for interpreting and experiencing their daily lives in context [28–29]. Second, childhood trauma may lead to poorer health via reporting more daily stressful events and fewer daily positive events. Daily events may be more likely to be appraised and perceived as stressful and high in severity, due to inconsistencies and growing up in an environment where behavior-event relationships were not developed due to a harsh childhood environment, e.g., contingency[30]. Childhood trauma could also result in being less engaged in goal-directed behaviors that are associated with daily positive events, resulting in deriving less benefit from these events in daily life. Third, child- hood trauma may prime individuals to be more sensitive to their daily events or context; this is conceptualized as one’s emotional reactivity and assessed via examining changes in well-being on days where daily negative and positive events are reported. In adolescence, childhood mal- treatment is associated with poor self-regulation deficits when encountering social stressors [31], suggesting that deficits are already present early in life and likely worsen into adulthood. Similarly, previous research in adulthood shows that early life adversity and poor parental relationship quality is associated with stronger increases in negative affect to daily stressors [32–34].

In sum, there are multiple social-emotional regulation pathways through which childhood trauma may play a role in creating self-regulation deficits. Accordingly, childhood trauma may lay the groundwork for such deficits extending into midlife and beyond. These sorts of out- comes indicate that such inadequate regulatory response to stress compromises resilience.

The experience of well-being. Early life adversity may lead to increased sensitivity to on- going stressors, but also differentially boost well-being through greater responsiveness to last- ing changes that have a positive valence. This concept has been referred to in the literature as differential susceptibility, which is broadly defined as individual differences in one’s response to both negative and positive social contexts [8, 35]. More specifically, not only does differential susceptibility refer to a heightened reactivity to adversity, “these same attributes that make an individual particularly sensitive to adversity may also make them more responsive to interven- tions designed to offset the effects of adversity” [8].

One way to assess differential susceptibility is by assessing individuals’ emotional reactivity to daily social stressors and positive interactions. Despite the difficulties experienced early in life, positive daily events may provide individuals the opportunity to be engaged in their daily life and pursue goal-directed behavior, resulting in the opportunity to flourish. Most of the lit- erature examining emotional reactivity in the context of childhood trauma has primarily

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 3 / 21

focused on daily stressors, whereas emotional reactivity to daily positive events has been rarely addressed [19]. Positive events, such as completing a fulfilling project at work or a social inter- action with family member or friend may boost well-being differentially with those who experi- enced childhood trauma because of being more sensitive to their context.

Mastery as a Key Resilience Factor for Confronting Childhood Trauma The evidence provided by prior research makes clear the potential for negative consequences arising from childhood trauma. However, there is a resilience perspective on childhood adver- sity that is instructive insofar as it gives voice to the potential for abused persons to recover, sustain their sense of purpose and even thrive [36]. Masten [37] described the need for re- searchers to examine more than the effects of deficits such as early abuse; rather, to investigate how “assets, risks, and protective factors. . . may influence each other over time.” Positive influ- ences include access to caring adults, cognitive skills, and personal mastery [37, 38]. In the present study, we focus on one of these personal assets as a protective factor for individuals who experienced childhood trauma: personal mastery.

Personal mastery. Mastery, or perceived control, has a long history in the literature of being associated with better cognitive, mental, and physical health across the lifespan [39–42] and being a resource for caregivers and patient populations to protect against declines as a function of chronic stressors [43–44]. For our purposes, mastery is considered a resource for individuals with childhood trauma to protect against reports of and emotional reactivity to daily negative events, and could also result in positive events being more uplifting (i.e., increase in well-being). Previous research in daily diary designs has shown that mastery is protective against declines in well-being as a function of daily stressors [45]. For example, Hay and Diehl [46] found that reporting higher levels of control on stressor days was associated with a less steep increase in negative affect [47]. Mastery likely serves this protective function through in- dividuals’ perceptions of higher control over the situation, using better coping or compensatory strategies, and turning to social network members to help reduce the negative effects of stress- ors. In contrast, much less is known regarding mastery in the context of daily positive events. Reporting more mastery may result in more uplifting or boosts in well-being with daily positive events because these events are often times engaged in or directed by the individual [19]. In- sights on the role of mastery in the context of daily positive events may be gained through con- sidering research on agency and self-efficacy. Bandura described self-efficacy, people’s beliefs about their ability to control events, as a mechanism of agency, which may be thought of as goal-directed determination and motivation [48]. In the context of childhood trauma, a greater sense of agency might be highly stabilizing, resulting in greater reactivity with positive events.

The view of oneself as the effective agent of one’s own life, once established and reinforced by lengthy and diverse experience, is carried forward into late life as a powerful influence on the current mastery of older adults [49]. However, in the context of childhood trauma, the role of mastery is less clear. We envision several scenarios regarding whether mastery will up- or down-regulate reports of and emotional reactivity to daily negative and positive events. Per- ceiving control over life can be potentially beneficial given early life adversity. For daily nega- tive events, following previous research [45, 47], we expect that higher levels of mastery would be protective against declines in well-being when confronted with a daily negative event [50]. However, adults with high mastery may expect to see their world as under their control and daily stressors can effectively disconfirm those expectations, possibly giving rise to distress. Fo- cusing on positive daily events, high mastery may result in stronger increases in well-being be- cause positive events are often sought after and perceived as under one’s own control [19]. The

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 4 / 21

person is an active agent rather than a passive recipient in the production of positive events [51–52] and this is amplified in the context of childhood trauma.

The Present Study Early life adversity in the form of childhood trauma can have a long-term impact on health in midlife and beyond; we focus on whether childhood trauma is associated with social-emotional regulation as one potential pathway underlying this association. To do so, we use data from a 30-day daily diary of participants in midlife that permits the opportunity to examine within- person change in daily well-being and tracking within-person change in well-being as a func- tion of daily negative and positive events.

Our first objective is to examine whether childhood trauma is associated with levels and var- iability of daily well-being, and reports of and emotional reactivity to daily negative and posi- tive events. We hypothesize that childhood trauma will be associated with reporting lower levels of, and greater variability in, daily well-being. Furthermore, childhood trauma will be linked to reporting more daily negative events and less engagement in daily positive events, but stronger emotional reactivity to both daily negative and positive events. Our second research question centers on the role of mastery moderating reports of and emotional reactivity to daily negative and positive events. We hypothesize that mastery will be protective against declines in well-being with daily stressors for people with high levels of childhood trauma and stronger in- creases in well-being as a function of daily positive events.

Method

Participants and Procedure We used data from the ASU Live Project, which is a large-scale study of mid-aged (aged 40–65) residents of the Phoenix metro area (N = 800) focusing on identifying individual, familial and community factors in resilience (Resilience Processes in Individuals and Communities: R01 AG26006). A total of 800 participants were recruited for the study, with a final number of 782 participating in the initial component of the study that involved self-report questionnaires. The study was multi-modal. Participants completed self-report questionnaires about early family life, personality, traumatic and stressful events, as well as qualitative interviews about partici- pants’ most stressful life experience. One-quarter of the sample (~200) participated in an addi- tional videotaped lab stressors component and one-quarter (~200) completed daily diaries covering a 30-day period. The laboratory stressor employed procedures for eliciting physiologi- cal and affective arousal [53]. Participants were given a stress-eliciting task that was videotaped and ratings of positive and negative affect were collected with the PANAS [27] at baseline and after each rest and task period. Saliva samples (for cortisol) were collected at baseline and fol- lowing each rest and stress period.

We use data from 191 participants who completed the 30-day daily diary and provided data on our variables of interest from the self-report questionnaires. On average, participants were 54 years of age (SD = 7.45, range 40–65), 54% were women, and 75% attended some college. The data used for the present study can be found in S1 Dataset.

Sampling and Recruitment. The parent study employed a purposive sampling strategy, also referred to as sampling for heterogeneity [54, 55], to recruit eight hundred participants from 40 census tracts across the metropolitan Phoenix area between the years 2007 and 2012. This method increased the external validity of research findings through representativeness of individuals, environment and measured outcomes. Census tracts were established through a factor analysis that yielded five dimensions that together explain 80% of the variance between census tracts. The five dimensions are: (1) social status (describing income, occupation, and

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 5 / 21

education); (2) the presence of school-aged children and multi-person households; (3) retire- ment communities; (4) residential construction growth between 1995 and 2000; and (5) Native American communities.

Potential participants were contacted in two ways: (1) through mailed recruitment letters printed in both English and Spanish, and (2) recruiters traveled to households approximately one week after letters were mailed to introduce themselves and the study, provide materials about the study, and request participation. Prior to participation, participants gave informed consent. Participants were compensated up to one hundred US dollars for participation in the main study (i.e., questionnaires, home visit, phone interview), and the 25% that was selected for the lab stressors and daily diaries were compensated up to an additional one hundred and forty US dollars. Inclusion criteria for recruitment were: (1) participant presently between the ages of 40 and 65 years, and (2) either English or Spanish speaking. Exclusionary criteria were: presence of physical, psychiatric or cognitive impairments during initial recruitment contact, as measured by the Mental Status Questionnaire [56]. No participants were excluded based on these criteria. Attempts were made to keep balance between genders. The study was approved by the Arizona State University Institutional Review Board. Prior to participation, participants gave written informed consent.

Daily diaries. The daily diaries collected provided accounts of participants’ daily life events near in time to the events, as they occurred. Participants were given PC tablets pre-load- ed with structured questions that related to the day’s most positive and negative events, and questions designed to gauge affect. They were instructed to complete the diary each evening for 30 consecutive days, 30 minutes prior to going to sleep.

Measures Childhood trauma. We used the childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ) to assess the de-

gree to which individuals experienced trauma in childhood [57]. The CTQ is a retrospective re- port that assesses the degree to which individuals experienced emotional, physical, and sexual abuse before the age of 18 (M = 1.68, SD = 0.86, range: 1–4.8; α = 0.92). Items were answered on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (never true) to 5 (very often true). Using the stem question, “when I was growing up” participants responded to 10 items. Sample items include “People in my family called me things like “stupid,” “lazy,” or “ugly;” “I believe that I was phys- ically abused,” and, “Someone molested me.” Although the CTQ is a retrospective report, it has been used in clinical populations for guidelines for determining whether people reported sig- nificant emotional, physical, and sexual abuse during childhood [58]. We created a mean score across the ten items that assessed emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, with higher scores re- flecting higher levels of childhood trauma. The CTQ was given in the self-report questionnaire prior to participants completing the 30-day diary.

Mastery. Mastery was assessed using the Pearlin Mastery Scale, α = .82 [43]. Items asked participants to rate the extent to which they believe their life is under their own control (“I can do just about anything I really set my mind to do”) using a 4-point Likert scale (1 = strongly agree to 4 = strongly disagree). Higher scores indicated more feelings of control over life cir- cumstances. Mastery was given in the self-report questionnaire prior to participants receiving instructions on completing the 30-day diary.

Daily diary: Negative and positive affect. Each day, participants completed the positive affect and negative affect scale, which totaled 32 items, PANAS [27]. The Negative Affect scale consisted of 16 items that assessed a general dimension of aversive affective states, such as feel- ing distressed, sluggish, hostile, and sad. The Positive Affect scale consisted of 16 items that as- sessed a general dimension of uplifting or positive affective states, such as feeling happy,

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 6 / 21

relaxed, cheerful, and calm. Respondents indicated how often they had felt this way during the past 24 hours on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (very slightly/not at all) to 5 (extremely). Con- sistent with the daily diary literature [16, 19], well-being is defined as levels of negative or posi- tive affect on days when no negative or positive event was reported and emotional reactivity is defined as changes in negative or positive affect on days when a negative or positive event was reported.

Daily diary: Negative and positive daily events. During completion of the daily diary each night on the Tablet, participants answered questions pertaining to daily negative and posi- tive events. The specific wording for daily negative events was, “Think of the most stressful event that occurred today, even if it may not have been too stressful. Which category was this event in?” The categories were spouse/partner, family, friends, work, finances, health, other, and no stressful event. For daily positive events, the specific wording was, “Think of the most positive event that occurred today, even if it may not have been too positive. Which category was this event in?” The categories were spouse/partner, family, friends, work, finances, health, other, and no positive event. From these items, we created two dichotomous variables, one for negative events and one for positive events, to indicate whether or not participants reported a negative or positive event during the course of the given day. If participants reported a negative or positive event occurring in the domains of spouse/partner, family, friends, work, finances, health, or other, then the negative or positive dichotomous variable was coded as a 1, with a 0 for days indicative of no negative or positive event.

Table 1 shows the breakdown of the frequency that each of the categories was reported dur- ing the course of the 30-day daily diary. We found that, on average, participants reported a neg- ative event on 60% of the diary days, and, on average, participants reported a positive event on 79% of the diary days. The most frequent negative events reported were in the work, family, and other domains. The most frequent positive events reported were in the family, friend, and spouse/partner domains.

Statistical Analysis Multilevel logistic regression model. The first set of analyses focused on the extent to

which childhood trauma was associated with differences in reports of a daily negative and posi- tive event. Ultimately, our interest was in determining whether childhood trauma increased or decreased one’s likelihood of experiencing a negative or positive event over the course of the day. To do so, we used a multilevel logistic regression model, such that the log odds of the prob- ability of reporting a negative or positive event was modeled as the outcome and childhood

Table 1. Frequency of negative and positive daily events.

Negative Events Positive Events

Event Domain Observations % Observations %

None 2,031 40 1,084 21

Spouse/partner 393 8 726 14

Family 541 11 1,138 22

Friend 198 4 806 16

Work 786 15 533 11

Finances 314 6 136 3

Health 374 7 200 4

Other 450 9 455 9

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.t001

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 7 / 21

trauma was included as a person-level predictor. Models were estimated using SAS PROC GLIMMIX[59].

Multilevel linear regression model. The first set of analyses focused on the extent to which childhood trauma was associated with differences in reports of a daily negative and posi- tive event. Ultimately, our interest was in determining whether childhood trauma increased or decreased one’s likelihood of experiencing a negative or positive event over the course of the day. To do so, we used a multilevel logistic regression model, such that the log odds of the prob- ability of reporting a negative or positive event was modeled as the outcome and childhood trauma was included as a person-level predictor. Models were estimated using SAS PROC GLIMMIX [59].

Multilevel linear regression model. In a second set of analyses, we estimated a multilevel linear regression model [60] to examine whether childhood trauma moderated emotional reac- tivity to daily negative and positive events. Models were specified as

WBti ¼ b0i þ b1i ðnegative eventtiÞ þ b2i ðpositive eventtiÞ þ e ti ð1Þ

where person i’s level of well-being (either negative affect or positive affect) at day t, WBti, is a function of an individual-specific intercept parameter that represents levels of negative affect or positive affect on days when no negative or positive event was reported, β0i; an individual- specific emotional reactivity slope parameter, β1i, that captures rates of change in the outcome on days when a negative event was reported; an individual-specific emotional responsiveness slope parameter, β2i, that captures rates of change in the outcome on days when a positive event was reported and residual error, eti.

Following standard multilevel modeling procedures [60], individual-specific intercepts and slopes (βs from the Level 1 model given in Eq 1) were modeled as the Level 2 model where be- tween-person differences were estimated (i.e., variance parameters) and are assume to be nor- mally distributed, correlated with each other, and uncorrelated with the residual errors, eti. The expanded model that included childhood trauma, mastery, and socio-demographics took the form

b0i ¼ g00 þ g01ðchildhood traumaiÞ þ g02ðmasteryiÞ

þ g03ðchildhood traumai x masteryiÞ þ g04ðageiÞ þ g05ðgenderiÞ

þ g06ðeducationiÞ þ u0i b1i ¼ g10 þ g11ðchildhood traumaiÞ þ g12ðmasteryiÞ

þ g13ðchildhood traumai x masteryiÞ b2i ¼ g20 þ g21ðchildhood traumaiÞ þ g22ðmasteryiÞ

þ g23ðchildhood traumai x masteryiÞ

ð2Þ

All models were estimated using SAS PROC MIXED [61], with incomplete data accommo- dated under missing at random assumptions at the within- and between-person levels [62].

Results In a first step, we used the data from the 30-day daily diaries to create two aggregate measures of both negative affect and positive affect, namely a mean and standard deviation. The mean score represents one’s overall levels of negative affect and positive affect and the standard devi- ation score represents one’s fluctuations in negative affect and positive affect over the course of the 30-days. Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics for the variables included in the present

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 8 / 21

study. The correlations from Table 2 suggest that reporting more childhood trauma was associ- ated with overall higher levels of negative affect (r = .16, p <. 05) and lower levels of positive af- fect (r = −.21, p <. 05), in addition to greater variability in both negative affect (r = .21, p <. 05) and positive affect (r = .23, p <. 05). We also examined the association between childhood trau- ma and daily mean in negative and positive affect and variability in negative and positive affect using regression models. In the regression models, daily mean and variability in negative affect and positive affect were regressed on childhood trauma. We found substantively similar find- ings in that higher levels of childhood trauma were associated with higher negative affect, lower positive affect, and more variability in negative affect and positive affect. It is also worth noting the correlation between childhood trauma and mastery, r = −.24, p <. 05, suggesting that higher levels of childhood trauma is associated with reporting lower levels of mastery in midlife.

To examine the data further, we created two groups, low and high levels of childhood trau- ma, based on a median split of the CTQ and examined whether there were significant differ- ences in the study variables of interest. Table 3 shows that individuals who reported high levels of childhood trauma, on average, were more likely to report lower levels of mastery, more nega- tive affect, less positive affect, and more variability in both negative and positive affect, but the two groups did not differ based on age, gender, and education. These preliminary results sug- gest that childhood trauma is associated reporting lower overall levels of and more fluctuations in well-being from day-to-day.

Linking Childhood Trauma to Daily Negative and Positive Events Reports of daily negative and positive events. Table 4 shows our results from a series of

analyses examining whether childhood trauma was associated with the likelihood of experienc- ing negative and positive events each day. Focusing on daily negative events, we found that childhood trauma was associated with an increased likelihood of reporting a negative daily event (Odds Ratio = 1.43, 95% confidence interval: 1.06, 1.94). This suggests that each one unit increase in childhood trauma is associated with a 43% increased likelihood of reporting a daily negative event on a given day. To examine this finding further, we divided our sample into two groups, people with higher levels of childhood trauma (+1 SD; n = 30) versus lower levels of childhood trauma (–1 SD; n = 64) and examined whether they differed in the percent of days where a daily negative event was reported. In comparing the two groups, we found that the high childhood trauma group, on average, experienced daily negative events on 66% of the

Table 2. Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations among the constructs included in the study.

Construct M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Childhood trauma 1.68 0.86 –

2. Mastery 3.17 0.65 –.24* –

3. Age 53.48 7.45 –.04 –.04 –

4. Gender 0.54 0.50 .12 .004 –.07 –

5. Education 0.75 0.43 –.03 .09 .19* .05 –

6. Mean negative affect 1.26 0.35 .16* –.24* –.02 –.11 .07 –

7. Mean positive affect 3.13 0.80 –.21* .23* .21* –.10 .05 –.21* –

8. SD negative affect 0.25 0.18 .21* –.22* –.09 .01 .08 .72* –.19* –

9. SD positive affect 0.50 0.23 .23* .05 –.08 .12 –.01 .10 –.20* .35* –

N = 191.

*p <.05.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.t002

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 9 / 21

diary days, whereas the lower childhood trauma group, on average, experienced negative events on 50% of the diary days. The inclusion of mastery and socio-demographics rendered the effect of childhood trauma no longer significant. Predictors that were associated with an increased likelihood of a daily negative event were lower mastery and more years of education. Focusing on daily positive events, childhood trauma was not associated with engagement in daily posi- tive events (Odds Ratio = 0.78, 95% confidence interval: 0.53, 1.18). Attaining more years of ed- ucation was associated with increased likelihood of engaging in daily positive events.

Emotional reactivity to daily negative and positive events. Table 5 shows results from our multilevel linear regression model that examined whether childhood trauma moderated emotional reactivity to daily negative and positive events. First, we found that within-person daily negative events resulted in increases in negative affect (γ10 = 0.17, p <. 05) and decreases in positive affect (γ10 = −0.15, p <. 05) and that presence of a positive event was associated with decreases in negative affect (γ20 = −0.07, p <. 05) and increases in positive affect (γ20 = 0.38, p <. 05). Childhood trauma was a significant predictor of the within-person daily negative event effect, such that reporting higher levels of childhood trauma was associated with stronger increases in negative affect (γ11 = 0.03, p <. 05) and stronger declines in positive affect (γ11 = −0.07, p <. 05) on negative event days. Similarly, childhood trauma was a significant predictor of the within-person daily positive event effect, such that reporting more childhood trauma was associated with stronger increases in positive affect (γ21 = 0.11, p <. 05).

2 In follow-up analyses, we examined whether emotional reactivity to stressful events differed by the source of type of event (spouse/partner, family, friends, work, finances, health, and other). For daily neg- ative events, more childhood trauma was associated with stronger declines in well-being for negative events centered on friends and health. For daily positive events, more childhood trau- ma was associated with stronger increases in well-being for positive events centered on spouse/ partner, family, friends, work, and other.

Fig 1 graphically illustrates the moderating effect of childhood trauma on within-person daily negative events. Compared to participants with lower levels of childhood trauma, partici- pants who experienced more childhood trauma were more likely to report more negative affect and less positive affect on non-event days (left part of A and B in Fig 1). We see that stronger

Table 3. Examining differences on key study variables based on low versus high levels of childhood trauma.

Low Childhood Trauma (N = 124) High Childhood Trauma (N = 67)

M (SD) M (SD)

Measures

Childhood Trauma 1.19 (0.20) a 2.57 (0.87) b Mastery 3.29 (0.58) a 2.95 (0.71) b Age 54.02 (7.54) a 52.48 (7.25) a Gender 0.50 (0.50) a 0.62 (0.49) a Education 0.76 (0.43) a 0.75 (0.44) a Mean negative affect 1.22 (0.33) a 1.33 (0.38) b Mean positive affect 3.25 (0.81) a 2.92 (0.75) b SD negative affect 0.23 (0.18) a 0.29 (0.17) b SD positive affect 0.46 (0.21) a 0.56 (0.24) b

N = 191. Median split was done on childhood trauma questionnaire. Subscripts that differ between columns are statistically significant at p <.05.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.t003

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 10 / 21

changes or steeper slopes in negative and positive affect as a function of daily negative events is indicative of people with childhood trauma being more emotionally reactive to daily negative events.

Fig 2 graphically illustrates the moderating effect of childhood trauma on within-person daily positive events. On days that a daily positive event was reported, people reporting higher levels of childhood trauma were more likely to show a stronger increase or boost in positive af- fect, suggesting that childhood trauma is associated with being more emotionally responsive to daily positive events.

In a subsequent model, we included mastery and socio-demographics to examine whether mastery up- or down-regulated emotional reactivity to daily negative and positive events. Table 6 shows results from these analyses. We found that in the context of high childhood trau- ma, mastery increased one’s emotional reactivity to daily negative (negative affect: γ13 = 0.04, p <. 05; positive affect: γ13 = −0.003, p >. 05) and positive (negative affect: γ23 = −0.04, p <. 05;

Table 4. Examining whether childhood trauma is associated with reporting a daily negative and positive event.

Negative Events Positive Events

OR [95% CI] OR [95% CI] OR [95% CI] OR [95% CI]

Fixed effects

Childhood trauma 1.43* [1.06, 1.94] 1.20 [0.89, 1.62] 0.78 [0.53, 1.18] 0.70 [0.46, 1.07]

Mastery 0.37* [0.25, 0.55] 0.74 [0.41, 1.31]

Childhood trauma x mastery 1.13 [0.77, 1.66] 1.01 [0.59, 1.74]

Age 0.97 [0.94, 1.00] 1.02 [0.97, 1.07]

Gender 0.90 [0.56, 1.47] 1.35 [0.67, 2.75]

Education 2.59* [1.45, 4.61] 3.23* [1.41, 7.41]

*p <.05.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.t004

Table 5. Examining emotional reactivity in negative affect and positive affect as a function of daily negative and positive events.

Negative Affect Positive Affect

Estimate (SE) Estimate (SE)

Fixed effects

Intercept (no negative or positive event), γ00 1.27* (0.03) 2.93* (0.06)

Childhood Trauma, γ01 0.06 (0.03) –0.22* (0.07)

Negative Event, γ10 0.17* (0.01) –0.15* (0.02)

Negative Event x Childhood Trauma, γ11 0.03* (0.01) –0.07* (0.02)

Positive Event, γ20 –0.07* (0.01) 0.38* (0.02)

Positive Event x Childhood Trauma, γ21 0.001 (0.01) 0.11* (0.02)

Random effects

Intercept 0.11* (0.01) 0.58* (0.06)

Residual 0.09* (0.002) 0.28* (0.01)

Intraclass correlction (ICC): Positive affect = .672; Negative affect = .568.

*p <.05.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.t005

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 11 / 21

positive affect: γ23 = 0.12, p <. 05) events. Reporting more mastery in the context of high child- hood trauma was associated with stronger increases in negative affect on days where a negative event was reported and stronger increases in positive affect on days when a positive event was

Fig 1. Illustrating the moderating effect of childhood trauma on within-person daily negative events. Compared to participants with lower levels of childhood trauma, participants with higher levels of childhood trauma were more likely to report more negative affect and less positive affect on non-event days (left part of A and B in Fig 1). Stronger changes or steeper slopes in negative and positive affect as a function of daily negative events is indicative of people with higher levels of childhood trauma being more emotionally reactive to daily negative events.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.g001

Fig 2. Illustrating the moderating effect of childhood trauma on within-person daily positive events. On days where a positive event was not reported, participants with higher levels of childhood trauma reported higher negative affect and lower positive affect (left part of A and B in Fig 2). People with higher levels of childhood trauma were more likely to show a stronger increase or boost in positive affect on days when a positive event was reported.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.g002

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 12 / 21

reported. Fig 3 graphically illustrates the three-way interaction among within-person daily neg- ative and positive events and between-person childhood trauma and mastery. Part A of Fig 3 shows that high childhood trauma and high mastery is associated with stronger decreases in positive affect on days when confronted with a negative event (dotted line, circle end points). Part B of Fig 3 shows that high childhood trauma and high mastery is associated with stronger increases in positive affect on days when confronted with a positive event (dotted line, circle end points). Our findings suggest that for people who experienced childhood trauma, mastery increases one’s sensitivity to their daily event context.

Discussion The objective of this study was to examine social-emotional regulation as one potential path- way linking childhood trauma to poorer health in midlife and beyond. We were able to test multiple components of social-emotional regulation using data from a 30-day daily diary of participants in midlife. We found that childhood trauma was associated with poorer overall levels of and greater fluctuations in daily well-being. Participants who reported higher levels of childhood trauma were more likely to also report stressors each day but their rate of reporting daily positive events did not differ. Furthermore, individuals with higher levels of childhood trauma were more emotionally reactive to daily negative and positive events, evidenced by stronger declines in well-being as a function of negative events and stronger increases in well- being with positive events (e.g., increased sensitivity to context, indicative of differential sus- ceptibility). Lastly, mastery was not protective against decreases in well-being following

Table 6. Examining emotional reactivity in negative affect and positive affect as a function of daily negative and positive events: The role of mastery.

Negative Affect Positive Affect

Estimate (SE) Estimate (SE)

Fixed effects

Intercept (no negative or positive event), γ00 1.27* (0.03) 2.92* (0.06)

Childhood trauma, γ01 0.05 (0.03) –0.20* (0.07)

Age, γ02 –0.001 (0.003) 0.02* (0.01)

Gender, γ03 –0.09 (0.05) –0.11 (0.11)

Education, γ04 0.07 (0.06) –0.06 (0.13)

Mastery, γ05 –0.15* (0.04) 0.25* (0.09)

Childhood trauma x mastery, γ06 0.01 (0.04) –0.11 (0.09)

Negative event, γ10 0.18* (0.01) –0.16* (0.02)

Negative event x childhood trauma, γ11 0.04* (0.01) –0.10* (0.02)

Negative event x mastery, γ12 0.01 (0.02) –0.03 (0.03)

Negative event x childhood trauma x mastery, γ13 0.04* (0.02) –0.003 (0.03)

Positive event, γ20 –0.08* (0.01) 0.41* (0.03)

Positive event x childhood trauma, γ21 –0.001 (0.01) 0.15* (0.03)

Positive event x mastery, γ22 0.08* (0.02) 0.01 (0.04)

Positive event x childhood trauma x mastery, γ23 –0.04* (0.02) 0.12* (0.03)

Random effects

Intercept 0.11* (0.01) 0.52* (0.06)

Residual 0.09* (0.002) 0.29* (0.01)

Intraclass correlction (ICC): Positive affect = .672; Negative affect = .568.

*p <.05.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.t006

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 13 / 21

negative events, but actually also increased one’s emotional reactivity to negative and positive events for people with childhood trauma. Our findings demonstrate how early life experiences still affect daily life in midlife and beyond. Furthermore, our results point to childhood trauma likely leading to poorer health in midlife through disturbances in the patterns of everyday life events and responses to those events.

Pathways Linking Childhood Trauma to Health Childhood trauma was associated with lower overall levels of and higher variability in daily well-being, which are both important constructs to take into consideration. How daily well- being is experienced likely operates through our daily behaviors and health practices that have subsequent effects on physiological processes that underlie the health effects of levels and vari- ability in well-being [63]. For example, Ong and colleagues [64] found that sleep disturbance was associated with higher daily variability in positive affect in a mid-life sample, even though stable elevations in positive affect were associated with better sleep quality. Less consistency in daily well-being has also been tied to inflammatory markers associated with ill health [65].

A second component from the daily diaries ascertaining whether those reporting childhood trauma were also more likely to report daily negative and positive events; there was an associa- tion with stressful events but not positive experiences. The findings pertaining to average num- ber of days reporting a daily stressor when contrasting high versus low levels of childhood trauma are startling. Our results indicate that over the course of 30 days, those reporting high

Fig 3. Illustrating the three-way interaction among within-person daily negative and positive events and between-person childhood trauma and mastery. Part A of Fig 3 shows that higher levels of childhood trauma and mastery is associated with stronger decreases in positive affect on days when confronted with a negative event (dotted line, circle end points). Part B of Fig 3 shows that higher levels of childhood trauma and mastery is associated with stronger increases in positive affect on days when confronted with a positive event (dotted line, circle end points). High mastery is represented by circle end points and black lines, whereas low mastery is represented by square end points and gray lines.

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840.g003

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 14 / 21

levels of childhood trauma (+1 SD) averaged one or more negative events on 20 days compared with an average of 15 days for those reporting low levels of childhood trauma (–1 SD). In ex- trapolating these numbers to over the course of a year, this results in 60 more days, on average, with daily negative events than those with little or no abuse in their childhoods. Evidence from other studies suggests that these small stressors can have cumulative effects on health and men- tal health in midlife and beyond [16–17, 19].

Emotional reactivity to daily negative events. Our findings that childhood trauma was associated with greater emotional reactivity to daily negative events is consistent with previous research on adolescents [31–33]. These vulnerabilities to daily life stressors have been linked to long-term consequences in a number of recent studies [24, 64, 66, 67] and may be driven by underlying physiology. For example, several underlying physiological changes that occur as a result of reactivity to daily negative events include activation of the sympathetic and parasym- pathetic nervous system [68]. These physiological pathways were not testable in our dataset, but should be explored in future research [69]. In sum, childhood trauma may lead to daily life being, on average, more stressful and unpleasant and over years and decades, this likely accu- mulates to shape the course of health in midlife and beyond.

Emotional reactivity to daily positive events. Childhood trauma was associated with greater increases in well-being on days that notable positive events occurred. This finding, cou- pled with showing that childhood trauma was associated with emotional reactivity to daily neg- ative events, points to the possibility that childhood trauma makes individuals more sensitive to their daily context, otherwise known as differential susceptibility. Broadly speaking, differen- tial susceptibility is defined as contexts through which individuals suffer with negative events and flourish with positive events [35, 70–71]. Childhood adversity may differentially boost well-being through greater responsiveness to lasting changes that have a positive valence. Early life adversity can lead to higher levels of inflammation (13), but positive emotions can offset in- creases in inflammation and improve immune functioning [72]. It is important to note that greater responsivity to positive events does not mean that those with greater childhood adversi- ty had occasions when they were happier than those without those past experiences. As Fig 2 shows they approach but do not surpass levels of well-being of those without childhood trau- ma. Greater sensitivity, though, does suggest that this population would respond to interven- tions designed to help them attain more positive social experiences.

Mastery as a Key Resilience Factor for Confronting Childhood Trauma Before discussing the moderating role of mastery in the context of emotional reactivity to daily negative and positive events for those with childhood trauma, we note that childhood trauma and mastery were moderately correlated, r = −.24, suggesting that childhood trauma is associat- ed with reporting lower levels of mastery. There is limited research in the childhood anteced- ents of mastery and this finding suggests that childhood trauma sets individuals on a developmental course of lower levels of mastery.

Our findings on the effects of mastery did not fully match our hypotheses. Mastery was as- sociated with a stronger increase in well-being on days when a positive event was reported. However, mastery was not always protective against declines in well-being, and even in fact ex- acerbated emotional reactivity to negative events in some cases. For people with high levels of childhood trauma, reporting more mastery beliefs were associated with greater decreases in well-being with daily negative events. Our findings suggest that mastery, rather being a positive personality feature across the board, increases one’s sensitivity to both good and bad events in everyday life.

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 15 / 21

There are several plausible reasons for this finding. First, mastery beliefs likely constitute something different for people with high levels of childhood trauma. Individuals who experi- enced childhood trauma and report more mastery may have John Henryism, a term coined by James and colleagues as signifying someone who believes they can do all and need no help, when in fact with difficult stressors this is less adaptive [73]. Similarly, those reporting high lev- els of mastery may be low on other important resources for managing stressors such as per- ceived social support. Therefore, these individuals may be too self-sufficient and fearful of relying on others. Second, daily stressors are typically events, experiences, and interactions that are largely uncontrollable [74] and this could be compounded for people with childhood trau- ma and high in mastery. Being high on mastery may result in viewing the world in general as having control over life circumstances, but when encountered with uncontrollable daily events, this clashes with one’s expectations, resulting in stronger declines in well-being as a function of daily stressors.

Resilience-Promoting Interventions Our findings that higher levels of childhood trauma are associated with increased sensitivity to daily context (i.e., differential susceptibility) may result in people being more sensitive or re- sponsive to interventions. There are various routes researchers can take to intervene for better health in midlife and beyond for people with high levels of childhood trauma. First, researchers can focus on increasing levels of mastery. The focus of interventions targeting mastery could be controllability and uncontrollability of daily life events, particularly, negative events. People need to acknowledge that certain daily events, whether they be negative or positive, may not be controllable. For example, Zautra and colleagues in a 25-day daily intervention focused on in- creasing mastery beliefs through daily phone calls, with messages that focused on identifying positive and negative experiences that were under their control, and encouraging participants to take action to improve their daily lives [75]. They found that, although mastery beliefs re- mained relatively stable over the course of the intervention, the intervention resulted in signifi- cant improvements in mental health [75].

Second, social relationship interventions have broad-based applicability and could help peo- ple with childhood trauma reduce the toxic effects of stress on health and overall functioning [76–77]. Social Intelligence concepts have been embedded within the social and behavioral sci- ences literature for some time [78], and in current writings, these concepts refers to a keen awareness of the value of sustainable social connections, the ability to take another’s perspec- tive, and the capacity to engage fully in satisfying relationships [79–80]. Focusing on the plas- ticity of social relationships through social intelligence training has the potential to benefit people with high levels of childhood trauma through modifying key social cognitions regarding social engagement, and enhance efficacy expectations regarding performance in social situa- tions [81]. The approach extends beyond cognitive models and behavioral principals to include attention to evidence of barriers to social-emotional development from adverse experiences in childhood and adult life [76].

Limitations and Conclusion We note several limitations. First, our measure of childhood trauma was a retrospective self-re- port and people do not always report their childhood experiences, reliably. Prior studies have used the CTQ in clinical populations to obtain reliable accounts of emotional, sexual, or physi- cal abuse in childhood [58]. The CTQ measure complements research from previous studies that have focused on childhood misfortune [3]. Second, our sample was drawn from the Phoe- nix metropolitan area, and though it may be fairly representative of middle-aged residents in

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 16 / 21

the southwestern United States, its representativeness of midlife in other regions is unknown. Future research is needed on examine the extent to which similar associations are found in other samples of people in midlife, as well as those in young adulthood and old age. It may be that emotional reactivity to stressors is strongest for those individuals who are in young adult- hood and experienced childhood trauma, as compared to people in older ages. Third, it is likely that daily well-being, and reports of and reactivity to daily negative and positive events have physiological consequences for subsequent effects on health. This is in line with research show- ing that stressors are associated physiological effects [68, 82–83] and future research is war- ranted that focuses on sympathetic and parasympathetic systems to determine how the physiological changes mediate the effects of stress to eventual health declines.

Early life adversity in the form of childhood trauma has the potential to shape the course of development in midlife and beyond. We explored the extent to which daily social-emotional regulation links childhood trauma to premature declines in health, with a 30-day daily diary that allowed for probing multiple components of social-emotional regulation, such as daily level and variability in well-being, as well as experience of and reactivity to daily negative and positive events. Our findings suggest that one potential pathway linking childhood trauma to poorer overall health in midlife and beyond is through disturbances in the patterns of everyday events and responses to those events. We urge future inquiry examining specific mechanisms underlying these relationships.

Supporting Information S1 Dataset. Dataset for analyses reported in this manuscript. (ZIP)

Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: FJI CTR JR AJZ. Performed the experiments: CTR JR AJZ. Analyzed the data: FJI. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: FJI CTR JR AJZ. Wrote the paper: FJI CTR JR AJZ.

References 1. Baltes PB (1987) Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: On the dynamics be-

tween growth and decline. Developmental Psychology, 23, 611–626.

2. O’Rand AM, Hamil-Luker J (2005) Processes of cumulative adversity: Childhood disadvantage and in- creased risk of heart attack across the life course. Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 60B, 117–124.

3. Schafer MH, Ferraro KF (2012) Childhood misfortune as a threat to successful aging: Avoiding disease. The Gerontologist, 52, 111–120. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnr071 PMID: 21746836

4. Miller GE, Chen E, Parker KJ (2011) Psychological stress in childhood and susceptibility to the chronic diseases of aging: moving toward a model of behavioral and biological mechanisms. Psychological Bul- letin, 137(6), 959. doi: 10.1037/a0024768 PMID: 21787044

5. Repetti RL, Taylor SE, Seeman TE (2002) Risky families: Family social environments and the mental and physical health of offspring. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 330–366. PMID: 11931522

6. Schafer MH, Morton PM, Ferraro KF (in press) Child maltreatment and adult health in a national sam- ple: Heterogeneous relational contexts, divergent effects. Child Abuse & Neglect.

7. Whitelock CF, Lamb ME, Rentfrow PJ (2013) Overcoming Trauma Psychological and Demographic Characteristics of Child Sexual Abuse Survivors in Adulthood. Clinical Psychological Science, 1, 351– 362.

8. Division of Behavioral and Social Research, National Institute on Aging (2013) Network On Reversibili- ty: Mid-Life Reversibility Of Early Established Biobehavioral Risk Factors: Workshop Summary (Be- thesda, Maryland, February 26–27, 2013). Retrieved from http://www.nia.nih.gov/about/events/2013/ network-reversibility-mid-life-reversibility-early-established-biobehavioral-risk

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 17 / 21

9. Power C, Kuh D, Morton S (2013) From developmental origins of adult disease to life course research on adult disease and aging: insights from birth cohort studies. Annual review of public health, 34, 7–28. doi: 10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031912-114423 PMID: 23514315

10. Ferraro KF, Shippee TP (2009) Aging and cumulative inequality: How does inequality get under the skin? The Gerontologist, 49(3), 333–343. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnp034 PMID: 19377044

11. Hostinar CE, Gunnar MR (2013) The Developmental Effects of Early Life Stress An Overview of Current Theoretical Frameworks. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(5), 400–406. PMID: 25419054

12. Miller GE, Chen E, Fok A, Walker H, Lim A, Nicholls EP, et al. (2009) Low early-life social class leaves a biological residue manifest by decreased glucocorticoid and increased proinflammatory signaling. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 106, 14716–14721. doi: 10.1073/pnas. 0902971106 PMID: 19617551

13. Fagundes CP, Glaser R, Kiecolt-Glaser (2013) Stressful early life experiences and immune dysregula- tion across the lifespan. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 27, 8–12. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2012.06.014 PMID: 22771426

14. Felitti VJ, Anda RF, Nordenberg D, Williamson DF, Spitz AM, Edwards V, et al. (1998) Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Ad- verse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14, 245–258.

15. Power C, Graham H, Due P, Hallqvist J, Joung I, Kuh D, et al. (2005) The contribution of childhood and adult socioeconomic position to adult obesity and smoking behaviour: An international comparison. In- ternational Journal of Epidemiology, 34, 335–344.

16. Almeida DM, Piazza JR, Stawski RS, Klein LC (2010) The Speedometer of Life: Stress, Health and Aging. The Handbooks of Psychology and Aging, 191–206.

17. Bolger N, Davis A, Rafaeli E (2003) Diary methods: Capturing life as it is lived. Annual Review of Psy- chology, 54, 579–616. PMID: 12499517

18. Carstensen LL, Turan B, Scheibe S, Ram N, Ersner-Hershfield H, Samanez-Larkin GR, et al. (2011) Emotional experience improves with age: evidence based on over 10 years of experience sampling. Psychology and Aging, 26(1), 21–33. doi: 10.1037/a0021285 PMID: 20973600

19. Zautra AJ, Afflect GG, Tennen H, Reich JW, Davis MC (2005) Dynamic approaches to emotions and stress in everyday life: Bolger and Zuckerman reloaded with positive as well as negative affects. Jour- nal of Personality, 73, 1–28.

20. Gross JJ (1998) The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2, 271–299.

21. Wegman HL, Stetler C (2009) A meta-analytic review of the effects of childhood abuse on medical out- comes in adulthood. Psychosomatic Medicine, 71, 805–812. doi: 10.1097/PSY.0b013e3181bb2b46 PMID: 19779142

22. Caspi A, McClay J, Moffitt TE, Mill J, Martin J, Craig IW, et al. (2002) Role of genotype in the cycle of vi- olence in maltreated children. Science, 297, 851–854. PMID: 12161658

23. Caspi A, Sugden K, Moffitt TE, Taylor A, Craig IW, Harrington H, et al. (2003) Influence of life stress on depression: moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301, 386. PMID: 12869766

24. Charles ST, Piazza JR, Mogle J, Sliwinski MJ, Almeida DM (2013) The wear and tear of daily stressors on mental health. Psychological Science, 24, 733–741. doi: 10.1177/0956797612462222 PMID: 23531486

25. Bradburn NM (1969) The structure of psychological well-being. Chicago: Aldine.

26. Ryff CD (1989) Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well- being. Journal of personality and social psychology, 57(6), 1069.

27. Watson D, Clark LA, Tellegen A (1988) Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063. PMID: 3397865

28. Cassidy J, Shaver PR (2008) Handbook of attachment: Theory, research and clinical applications ( 2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press.

29. Luecken LJ, Lemery KS (2004) Early caregiving and physiological stress responses. Clinical Psycholo- gy Review, 24, 171–191. PMID: 15081515

30. Skinner EA (1995) Perceived control, motivation, & coping (Vol. 8). Sage Publications.

31. Shields A, Cicchetti D (1998) Reactive aggression among maltreated children: the contributions of at- tention and emotion deregulation. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 27, 381–395. PMID: 9866075

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 18 / 21

32. Cloitre M, Miranda R, Stovall-McClough KC, Han H (2005) Beyond PTSD: Emotion regulation and inter- personal problems as predictors of functional impairment in survivors of childhood abuse. Behavior Therapy, 36, 119–124.

33. Glaser J-P, van Os J, Portegijs PJM, Myin-Germeys I (2006) Childhood trauma and emotional reactivity to daily life stress in adult frequent attenders of general practitioners. Journal of Psychosomatic Re- search, 61, 229–236. PMID: 16880026

34. Mallers MH, Charles ST, Neupert SD, Almeida DM (2010) Perceptions of childhood relationships with mother and father: Daily emotional and stressor experiences in adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 46, 1651–1661. doi: 10.1037/a0021020 PMID: 20873925

35. Pluess M, Belsky J (2013) Vantage sensitivity: Individual differences in response to positive experi- ences. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 901–916. doi: 10.1037/a0030196 PMID: 23025924

36. Rivers C, Zautra AJ, Davis M. (in press) Resilience. To appear in Howard Friedman (Ed.) The Encyclo- pedia of Mental Health 2nd Edition. Oxford: Elsevier.

37. Masten AS (2001) Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56 (3), 227. PMID: 11315249

38. Luthar SS, Cicchetti D, Becker B (2000) The Construct of Resilience: A Critical Evaluation and Guide- lines for Future Work. Child Development, 71(3), 543–562. PMID: 10953923

39. Bandura A (1997) Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: Freeman, 1997.

40. Infurna FJ, Ram N, Gerstorf D (2013) Level and change in perceived control predict 19-year mortality: Findings from the Americans' Changing Lives Study. Developmental Psychology, 49, 1833–1847. doi: 10.1037/a0031041 PMID: 23276128

41. Lachman ME (2006) Perceived control over aging-related declines: Adaptive beliefs and behaviors. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15, 282–286.

42. Rodin J (1986) Aging and health: Effects of the sense of control. Science, 233, 1271–1276. PMID: 3749877

43. Pearlin LI, Schooler C (1978) The structure of coping. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 19, 2–21.

44. Taylor SE (1983) Adjustment to threatening events: A theory of cognitive adaptation. American Psy- chologist, 38, 1161–1173.

45. Neupert SD, Almeida DM, Charles ST (2007) Age differences in reactivity to daily stressors: The role of personal control. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 62B, P216–P225.

46. Hay EL, Diehl M (2010) Reactivity to daily stressors in adulthood: The importance of stressor type in characterizing risk factors. Psychology and Aging, 25, 118–131. doi: 10.1037/a0018747 PMID: 20230133

47. Diehl M, Hay EL (2010) Risk and resilience factors in coping with daily stress in adulthood: The role of age, self-concept incoherence, and personal control. Developmental Psychology, 46, 1132–1146. doi: 10.1037/a0019937 PMID: 20822228

48. Bandura A (1989). Human agency in social cognitive theory. American Psychologist, 44(9), 1175– 1184. PMID: 2782727

49. Pearlin LI, Nguyen KB, Schieman S, Milkie MA (2007) The life-course origins of mastery among older people. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 48, 164–179. PMID: 17583272

50. Porter CA, Long PJ (1999) Locus of control and adjustment in female adult survivors of childhood sexu- al abuse. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 8, 3–25.

51. Reich JW, Zautra AJ (1981) Life events and personal causation: Some relationships with satisfaction and distress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 1082–1112.

52. Reich JW, Zautra AJ (1984) Daily event causation: An approach to elderly life quality. Journal of Com- munity Psychology, 12, 312–319.

53. Davis MC, Matthews KA, McGrath CE (2000) Hostile attitudes predict elevated vascular resistance dur- ing interpersonal stress in men and women. Psychosomatic Medicine, 62, 17–25. PMID: 10705907

54. Blackertz L (1998). The value and practicality of deliberate sampling for heteogeneity: A critical multip- list perspective. American Journal of Evaluation, 19, 307–324.

55. Cook TD, Campbell DT, Day A (1979) Quasi-experimentation: Design & analysis issues for field set- tings (pp. 19–21). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

56. Kahn RL, Miller NE (1978) Assessment of altered brain function in the aged. In The clinical psychology of aging (pp. 43–69). Springer US.

57. Bernstein DP, Stein JA, Newcomb MD, Walker E, Pogge D, Ahluvalia T, et al. (2003) Development and validation of a brief screening version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Child Abuse & Neglect, 27(2), 169–190.

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 19 / 21

58. Thombs BD, Bernstein DP, Ziegelstein RC, Scher CD, Forde DR, Walker EA, et al. (2006) An evalua- tion of screening questions for childhood abuse in 2 community samples: Implications for clinical prac- tice. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166, 2020–2026. PMID: 17030837

59. Littell RC (2006) SAS for mixed models. SAS institute.

60. Singer JD, Willett JB (2003) Applied longitudinal data analysis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

61. Littell RC, Miliken GA, Steoup WW, Wolfinger RD, Schabenberger O (2006) SAS for mixed models ( 2nd ed.). Cary, NC: SAS Institute.

62. Little RJA, Rubin DB (1987) Statistical analysis with missing data. New York, NY: Wiley.

63. Pressman SD, Cohen S (2005) Does positive affect influence health? Psychological bulletin, 131(6), 925. PMID: 16351329

64. Ong AD, Exner-Cortens D, Riffin C, Steptoe A, Zautra A, Almeida DM (2013) Linking stable and dynam- ic features of positive affect to sleep. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 46, 52–61. doi: 10.1007/s12160- 013-9484-8 PMID: 23483378

65. Steptoe A, Demakakos P, de Oliveira C, Wardle J (2012) Distinctive biological correlates of positive psychological well-being in older men and women. Psychosomatic Medicine, 74, 501–508. doi: 10. 1097/PSY.0b013e31824f82c8 PMID: 22511728

66. Piazza JR, Charles ST, Sliwinski MJ, Mogle J, Almeida DM (2013) Affective reactivity to daily stressors and long-term risk of reporting a chronic physical health condition. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 45, 110–120. doi: 10.1007/s12160-012-9423-0 PMID: 23080393

67. Mroczek DK, Stawski RS, Turiano NA, Chan W, Almeida DM, Neupert SD, et al. (in press) Emotional reactivity and mortality: Longitudinal findings from the VA Normative Aging Study. Journals of Gerontol- ogy, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences.

68. Miller GE, Chen E, Zhou ES (2007) If it goes up, must it come down? Chronic stress and the hypotha- lamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis in humans. Psychological Bulletin, 133, 25–45. PMID: 17201569

69. Raposa EB, Bower JE, Hammen CL, Najman JM, Brennan PA (in press) A developmental pathway from early life stress to inflammation: The role of negative health behaviors. Psychological Science.

70. Boyce WT, Ellis BJ (2005) Biological sensitivity to context: I. An evolutionary-developmental theory of the origins and functions of stress reactivity. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 271–301. PMID: 16761546

71. van IJzendoorn MH, Belsky J, Bakermans-Kranenburg MJ (2012) Serotonin transporter genotype 5HTTLPR as a marker of differential susceptibility? A meta-analysis of child and adolescent gene-by- environment studies. Translational Psychiatry, 2, e147. doi: 10.1038/tp.2012.73 PMID: 22872162

72. Kok BE, Coffey KA, Cohn MA, Catalino LI, Vacharkulksemsuk T, Algoe SB, et al. (2013) How positive emotions build physical health perceived positive social connections account for the upward spiral be- tween positive emotions and vagal tone. Psychological science, 24(7), 1123–1132. doi: 10.1177/ 0956797612470827 PMID: 23649562

73. James S, Hartnett S, Kalsbeek W (1983) John Henryism and blood pressure differences among black men. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 6, 259–278. PMID: 6663614

74. Strand EB, Reich JW, Zautra AJ (2007) Control and causation as factors in the affective value of posi- tive events. Cognitive Therapy Research, 31, 503–519.

75. Zautra AJ, Davis ME, Reich JW, Sturgeon JA, Arewasikporn A, Tennen H (2012) Phone-based Inter- ventions with Automated Mindfulness and Mastery Messages Improve the Daily Functioning for De- pressed Middle-Aged Community Residents. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 22, 206–228.

76. Zautra AJ (2013) Resilience is social, after all. In Kent M, Davis M.C., & Reich J.W. (Eds.). Handbook of Resilience Approaches to Stress & Trauma (pp.185–196). New York: Rutledge.

77. Zautra AJ, Infurna FJ, Zautra E (in press) The humanization of social relations: Nourishment for resil- ience. In A. Ong, & C. E. Löckenhoff (Eds.). New developments in emotional aging. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

78. Thorndike EL (1920) Intelligence and its use. Harper's Magazine, 140, 227–235.

79. Goleman D (2006) Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Random House Digital, Inc.

80. Lieberman MD (2013) Social: Why are brains are wired to connect. New York: Crown.

81. Masi CM, Chen H, Hawkley LC, Cacioppo JT (2011) A Meta-Analysis of Interventions to Reduce Loneli- ness. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 15(3), 219–266.

82. Dickerson SS, Kemeny ME (2004) Acute stressors and cortisol responses: a theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research. Psychological bulletin, 130(3), 355–391. PMID: 15122924

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 20 / 21

83. Piazza JR, Almeida DM, Dmitrieva NO, Klein LC (2010) Frontiers in the use of biomarkers of health in research on stress and aging. The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and So- cial Sciences, 65(5), 513–525.

Childhood Trauma, Daily Events, Well-Being, and Mastery

PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121840 April 7, 2015 21 / 21

View publication statsView publication stats