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The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Personality Traits Structure in Adulthood

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The Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Personality Traits Structure in Adulthood The relationship between childhood trauma and personality traits structure in adulthood Doctoral thesis at the Medical University of Vienna for obtaining the academic degree Doctor of Medical Science Submitted by MSc. Naim Telaku Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Priv.-Doz. Dr. Dietmar Winkler Universitätsklinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie Währinger Gürtel 18-20 1090 Wien Vienna August 2018 Childhood trauma and personality … 2 Contents Contents ................................................................................................................................. 2 Declaration ............................................................................................................................. 5 Contents of tables and figures ................................................................................................ 6 Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................. 7 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 8 Abstract...................................................................................................................................... 9 Abstract in German ...................................................................................................................10 1. CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................11 1.1. General Introduction ...................................................................................................11 1.2. What this study is about ..............................................................................................12 1.3. Theoretical Background ..............................................................................................15 1.3.1. Personality Definition ...........................................................................................15 1.3.2. History of Personality Research ...........................................................................16 1.3.3. The Lexical Perspective .......................................................................................19 1.4. The Five Factor Model of Personality (McCrae et al., 1997) ........................................20 1.5. The 1998-99 War in Kosovo and the psychological consequences of it ......................23 1.6. Psychology of Trauma ................................................................................................23 1.6.1. Psychological and psychiatric disorders as a reaction to trauma ..........................25 1.6.2. PTSD as a reaction to Trauma ................................................................................26 1.6.3. Studies that link PTSD and Depression with war trauma .....................................28 1.6.4. Personality and Trauma .......................................................................................30 1.7. Early childhood trauma, brain development and the effect of age of traumatization on personality development ........................................................................................................32 1.8. The current study ........................................................................................................34 1.8.1. Aims of the study .................................................................................................35 1.9. Hypothesis ..................................................................................................................36 Childhood trauma and personality … 3 2. CHAPTER TWO: RESULTS ..........................................................................................37 2.1. Descriptive statistics of the main variables ......................................................................37 2.1.1. Neuroticism .............................................................................................................38 2.1.2. Extraversion .............................................................................................................38 2.1.3. Openness to experience ..........................................................................................39 2.1.4. Agreeableness .........................................................................................................39 2.1.5. Conscientiousness ...................................................................................................39 2.2. Depression .....................................................................................................................40 2.3. Trauma exposure and PTSD ......................................................................................41 2.4. Correlations between variables ...................................................................................42 2.5. Correlations within the variables measuring trauma ....................................................44 2.6. Age correlations ..........................................................................................................45 2.7. Personality correlations ...............................................................................................45 2.7.1. Neuroticism facets correlations ............................................................................45 2.7.2. Correlations of other personality facets ................................................................46 2.8. Linear regression analysis ..........................................................................................47 2.9. Summary of the results ...............................................................................................48 3. CHAPTER THREE: DISCUSSION .................................................................................49 3.1. Reiteration of hypothesis and General discussion of the findings ................................49 3.2. General discussion of the results ................................................................................50 3.2.1. Trauma exposure and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ...........................................50 3.3. Correlation of age with the dependent variables .........................................................52 3.4. Trauma exposure and depression ...............................................................................52 3.5. Personality findings .....................................................................................................54 3.5.1. Trauma and personality ...........................................................................................55 3.6. Theoretical explanations of the findings from a neuroscientific perspective .................57 Childhood trauma and personality … 4 3.6.1. The Rothbart (2006) conceptualization of temperament and personality continuity 60 3.7. Experienced Trauma and Personality disorders ..........................................................61 3.8. General implications of the study ................................................................................61 3.8.1. Clinical implications of the study ..............................................................................62 3.8.2. Limitations ...............................................................................................................62 3.8.3. Future prospects .....................................................................................................63 3.9. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................63 4. CHAPTER FOUR: MATERIALS and METHODS ............................................................64 4.1. Sample selection and sample size ..............................................................................64 4.2. Inclusion criteria and compensation ............................................................................64 4.3. Procedure ...................................................................................................................64 4.4. Instruments .................................................................................................................65 4.4.1. NEO PI-R (Costa et al., 1992) ..............................................................................65 4.4.2. Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI II, 1996) .........................................................68 4.4.3. Harvard Trauma Questionnaire (HTQ, Mollica et al., 2000) ..................................68 4.5. Data processing ..........................................................................................................70 REFERENCES .........................................................................................................................71 CV Naim Telaku ...................................................................................................................86 Letter of ethical approval ...........................................................................................................87 Childhood trauma and personality … 5 Declaration This research project was developed at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Medical University of Vienna. The data have been collected at the Department of Psychology at the University of Pristina. Hereby, the staff of the aforementioned department has given a considerable contribution in the process of data collection. The author herby confirms that planning of the
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