Childhood Maltreatment and Mental Health Implications for Adults in Midlife

This dissertation studies childhood maltreatment and its implications for mid-life adults’ mental and relational functioning through two distinct manuscripts, each taking a different focus on the topic. The first manuscript considers whether experiencing emotional and physical abuse during childhood creates vulnerability for midlife adults’ responses to daily interpersonal stressors (e.g., arguments). Specifically, it examines if reports of abuse by parents during childhood moderates the relationship of adults’ daily interpersonal stressor exposure and severity with daily negative affect. The second manuscript considers a possible relational pathway linking child maltreatment with adult mental health. Specifically, this analysis tests if the quality of adult’s romantic relationships mediates longitudinal associations of childhood maltreatment with depressive and socially anxiety symptoms, and it considers differences between men and women. Data from both studies are from the multifaceted Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) study. Results of the first study indicate that retrospective report of abuse by mothers was associated with a greater number of daily interpersonal stressors, more severe daily interpersonal stressors, and higher average negative affect. By contrast, report of abuse by fathers was associated only with greater average negative affect. Results from multilevel modeling yielded no evidence that experienced abuse during childhood, by either mother or father, moderated associations of daily interpersonal stressors or their severity with negative affect. In the second study, it was demonstrated that relationship quality was a potential mechanism linking child maltreatment to depressive and social anxious symptomology for both men and women. Further, gender differences were not found for either direct or indirect effects.