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The Long Shadow of Childhood Trauma: Associations with Self-Esteem in Emerging Adults

Poster Session C - Sunday, March 8, 2026, 5:00 – 7:00 pm PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballroom

Aram Akbari¹ (), Ella Seely², Dara Olopade³, Jasmine Clark⁴, Helan Ali⁵, Jasper Walsh Belliveau⁶, Alex Bertsekas⁷, Vincent Flegeance⁸, Michael Oliver, PhD⁹; ¹Belmont University, 1

Exposure to traumatic experiences is linked to disruptions in the normal trajectory of emotional development and processing, often contributing to lower self-esteem. Experiences such as abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction during early developmental years, can foster the internalization of negative self-beliefs persisting into adulthood. Previous research has demonstrated an inverse association between childhood trauma and adult self-esteem; however, few studies have examined whether these early traumatic exposures also influence how the brain processes future self-referential content. The present study investigates behavioral and cortical correlates of the relationship between childhood trauma and self-esteem. We hypothesized that individuals reporting greater childhood trauma, indicated by higher scores on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), would demonstrate lower self-esteem, enhanced cortical responsiveness to negative self-referential words, and reduced cortical responsiveness positive self-referential words. To test these hypotheses, 41 participants completed a computerized self-esteem task while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. Participants viewed phrases beginning with “I am” followed by a positive or negative adjective and were asked to press a button indicating whether they agreed with the phrase. Next, participants completed the CTQ to assess exposure to distressing childhood experiences. Results revealed a significant inverse association between childhood trauma and self-esteem, but only in those who reported experiences of sexual abuse. Moreover, experiences of physical abuse were associated with faster cortical responses to self-referential adjectives. These findings suggest that distinct forms of childhood trauma may differentially shape self-referential processing, with sexual abuse influencing self-conceptual content, and physical abuse affecting the speed and automaticity of emotional processing.

Topic Area: EMOTION & SOCIAL: Self perception