Childhood Personality, Betrayal Trauma, and Leukocyte Telomere Length in Adulthood: A Lifespan Perspective on Conscientiousness and Betrayal Traumas as Predictors of a Biomarker of Cellular Aging

Abstract

Conscientiousness is associated with longevity. As such, identifying the biological pathways linking personality to mortality is important. This study employs longitudinal data spanning >40 years to test prospective associations with Leukocyte Telomere Length (LTL), a potential marker of cellular aging. Because telomeres shorten over time, and are sensitive to oxidative stress, shorter LTL may reflect cumulative damage associated with negative health behaviors and past stressful events. We investigated childhood conscientiousness as a protective factor, expecting an association with longer LTL in adulthood, possibly reflecting slower LTL shortening. Potential lifespan pathways involving childhood trauma, smoking behaviors, and Body Mass Index (BMI) were explored. Childhood conscientiousness showed a small raw association with LTL (r = .08, p = .04), although this effect did not persist when controlling for age and sex. Despite this lack of a direct effect on LTL, we detected an indirect effect operating jointly through BMI and smoking. Higher rates of childhood betrayal trauma were associated with shorter LTL. Contrary to our hypothesis that conscientiousness would buffer this effect, we found evidence for an interaction with childhood betrayal traumas where the association between childhood betrayal traumas and LTL was larger for those higher on conscientiousness in childhood.

Keywords: Childhood traumatic experiences; brief betrayal-trauma survey; childhood conscientiousness; leukocyte telomere length; personality health hypothesis; personality-health mechanisms.

figure 1

Path model showing BMI and Smoking as multiple mediators linking childhood conscientiousness and LTL assessed in adulthood. Indirect effects and bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals for each mediator and the total indirect effect were estimated using bootstrapped resampling in Mplus.

figure 2

Interaction between child conscientiousness and betrayal traumas predicting LTL in adulthood. Effects were estimated using path modeling in Mplus using maximum likelihood estimation. The association between leukocyte telomere length (LTL) and childhood betrayal traumas is shown at two levels of childhood conscientiousness. These effects were estimated by re-centering childhood conscientiousness at 1 standard deviation above and 1 standard deviation below the mean. Control variables include age, sex, parental home ownership, paternal age at birth, adult conscientiousness, and cultural identity. Leukocyte telomere length is relative LTL, measured as a ratio of telomere DNA copy number to a single gene copy number (T/S), and LTL scores are standardized factor scores.