The impact of early life trauma on adult negative emotional states: mediating roles of emotion regulation, coping styles, and personality traits in a Portuguese cohort

Early life trauma (ELT) increases risk for adverse mental health outcomes, but the mechanisms linking ELT to adult negative emotional states (NEs) remain unclear. This study examined whether emotion regulation (ER), coping styles, and personality traits mediate this association. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 936 Portuguese adults who completed self-report measures of ELT, ER, coping, personality, and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Structural equation modeling and bootstrap mediation analyses (5,000 resamples) were performed. Participants with ELT reported higher depression, anxiety, and stress, greater expressive suppression, brooding rumination, emotional and avoidant coping, and higher neuroticism, alongside lower cognitive reappraisal, rational coping, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. The structural model showed adequate fit. Brooding rumination, emotional coping, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness significantly mediated the association between ELT and NEs, with brooding, emotional coping, and neuroticism showing the strongest effects. The cross-sectional design prevents causal conclusions. Retrospective self-report measures may introduce recall bias and shared method variance. Generalizability may be limited by sample composition. ER strategies, coping styles, and personality traits are relevant mechanisms linking ELT to adult emotional distress. Maladaptive regulation processes and neuroticism may represent important intervention targets. Longitudinal studies are needed to clarify causal pathways.
Open access funding provided by FCT|FCCN (b-on). C. G. C. was supported by a doctoral scholarship from FCT (https://doi.org /10.54499/2022.14063.BD). This work was also partially at the Psy chology Research Centre (CIPsi; PSI/01662), School of Psychology, University of Minho, and was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT; UID/01662/2025) through the Portuguese State Budget. The Centre is registered under the DOI: https:// doi.org/10.54499/UID/01662/2025.