Table 1.
Overview of included studies
| First Author | Sample Description | Sample Size (N) | Age in Years (SD) | Sex (% Fem) | Covariates | Adversity Measure | Adversity Type | Social Cognition Measures | Social Cognition Domains Measured | Associations/Correlations | Design |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bérubé et al., (2020) | All mothers with children between the ages of 2–5 years. Participants were recruited from local community organisations that provide services to vulnerable families in Canada | 58 | Not Stated | 100% | No covariates included in correlation of interest | CTQ-SF (French Version)—28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 1994; Paquette et al., 2004) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Novel method similar to Facial Expression Megamix task (Young et al., 1997) | Emotion recognition—Correctly identifying emotions | CTQ total x Emotion recognition total: (r = −0.29, p = 0.03) | Retrospective |
| Chen et al., (2012) | PennTwins Cohort, a population-based sample of twins born in Pennsylvania, USA between 1959 and 1978. Sample is skewed towards younger unmarried female adults | 2752 |
Age range 20–55 |
58.5% | Age, SES, Gender and social desirability | CTQ–SF, 28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 1994) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score |
Social Information Processing-Attribution and Emotional Response Questionnaire (SIP-AEQ; Coccaro et al. 2009) Subscales: Hostile Attribution Biases (HAB), Negative Emotional Responses (NER) |
Social Information Processing (SIP) & Negative emotion perception bias |
HAB x: CTQ total (r = 0.18, p < 0.001), Physical abuse (r = 0.10, p < 0.001), Emotional abuse (r = 0.16, p < 0.001) NER x: CTQ total (r = 0.10, p < 0.001), Physical abuse (r = 0.02, p > 0.05), Emotional abuse (r = 0.13, p < 0.001) |
Retrospective |
| Dayton et al., (2016) | All pregnant women. The majority of participants were single, either Caucasian or African American and were recruited through fliers at public locations and agencies serving low income families | 120 | 26 (5.7) | 100% | None reported | CTQ −28-items (D. Bernstein & Fink, 1998) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | The Infant Facial Expressions of Emotion from Looking At Pictures (IFEEL) task—30 pictures (Emde et al.,1993) | Emotion recognition – Negative emotion perception bias |
IFEEL total x CTQ subdomains: EA: (r = 0.12, p > 0.05), PA: (r = −0.02, p > 0.05), SA: (r = 0.11, p > 0.05), EN: (r = 0.16, p > 0.05), PN: (r = 0.05, p > 0.05) |
Longitudinal design with ELA measured retrospectively |
| English et al., (2018) | All female undergraduate university students | 126 | 18.98 | 100% | None reported | CTQ-SF, 25 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2003) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Images obtained from the Cohn-Kanade Facial Expression database (Kanade, Cohn, & Tian, 2000). A total of 80 target images were presented to each participant identical to those used by Pollak et al. (2009) | Emotion recognition – Amount of information required to accurately identify emotion |
CTQ total (low cognitive load condition) x: ER total: (r = −0.06, p > 0.05), Fear: (r = −0.09, p > 0.05), Anger: (r = −0.05, p > 0.05) |
Retrospective |
| Hartling et al., (2019) | Recruited from general population in Germany, representing the middle range of SES and are of European descent | 170 | 43.2 (19.9) | 44% | Age, gender and IQ | CTQ (German version)—28 item questionnaire (Bernstein and Fink, 1998) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Novel facial emotion recognition, developed in alignment with ‘Face Puzzle Explicit’ task (Kliemann et al., 2013) | Facial emotion recognition—Percentage correctly identified | CTQ total x ER total: (β = −0.095, p = 0.181) | Retrospective |
| iRELATE Corley et al., (2024) | Recruited via advertisements in local and national media in Ireland | 177 | 36.19 (12.36) | 42% | None included in association of interest | CTQ—28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2003) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect and sexual abuse | Emotion Recognition Task—Short version from CANTAB (Robbins et al., 1994) | Emotion recognition |
Unstandardised regression coefficients ERT Total x physical neglect, B = 0.044, p = 0.057 |
Retrospective |
| iRELATE Rokita et al., (2021) | Recruited via advertisements in local and national media Ireland. All participants were Caucasian | 116 | 35.01 (11.72) | 44.8% | Age and years of education | CTQ—25 item questionnaire with rescaled cut‐off scores (Bernstein et al., 2003) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect and sexual abuse |
RMET (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), The Hinting Task (Corcoran, Mercer, & Frith, 1995), Emotion Recognition Task (ERT; Robbins et al., 1994) |
Theory of mind, Emotion recognition |
Unstandardised regression coefficients ERT total and neglect (B = − 3.34, t(113) = − 1.98, p = 0.049), Physical neglect and the recognition of disgust (B = − 1.28, t(113) = − 1.96, p = 0.052) |
Retrospective |
| Kopera et al., (2020) | People presenting to general practitioner (GP) for treatment of an infection, medical device or prophylactic examination | 172 | 39.65 (10.34) | 16.9% | None included in correlation of interest | CTQ-SF (Polish version)—28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 1994) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | RMET Polish version—36 different faces (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) | Theory of mind |
CTQ Emotional abuse/neglect x: RMET Negative (r = 0.001, p > 0.05), RMET Positive (r = −0.23, p < 0.05), RMET Neutral (r = −0.1, p > 0.05), |
Retrospective |
| Krammer et al., (2016) | All older adults from the Swiss-German part of Switzerland with a history of child labour or being in foster care | 116 | 77 (7.1) | 40.5% | None included in correlation of interest | CTQ (German version)—25 item questionnaire (Bernstein & Fink, 1998) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Social Acknowledgement Questionnaire (SAQ; Maercker & Müller, 2004), Disclosure of Trauma Questionnaire (DTQ; Müller & Maercker, 2006) |
Social Acknowledgement as a trauma victim, Disclosure of Trauma |
CTQ total x: Social Acknowledgement (r = −0.30, p = 0.001), Dysfunctional disclosure (r = 0.25, p < 0.008) |
Retrospective |
| Lee et al., (2019) | Recruited via online notices in three colleges in Daegu, Korea. All participants received financial payment for their participation | 201 | 23.67 (2.76) | 59.7% | None included in correlation of interest | CTQ-SF (Korean version) – 28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2003) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004) | Emotional awareness and emotional clarity |
CTQ total x: Lack of emotional awareness (r = 0.42, p < 0.001), Lack of emotional clarity (r = 0.28, p < 0.001) |
Retrospective |
| Liu et al., (2023) | Han Chinese population | 134 | Median age of 31 | 68.66% | Age, gender and education | CTQ-SF (Chinese version) – 28 item questionnaire (Bernstein & Fink, 1998; He et al., 2019) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score |
TAS-20 (Bagby et al., 1994), The Facial Emotion Recognition Test (Gong et al., 2011), The Interpersonal Reactivity Index–C (IRI; Davis, 1983) |
Alexithymia, Recognising facial emotions—percentage correctly identified |
CTQ total x: TAS-20 total (r = 0.21, p = 0.016), TAS subscale DIF (Difficulty identifying feelings; r = 0.219, p = 0.012), Recognizing neutral facial emotions (r = − 0.4, p < 0.001) |
Retrospective |
| Nweze et al., (2023) | Participants were recruited through the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) in England, United Kingdom | 2965 | All 24 years old | 62.1% | Multivariate regression model controlled the effects of shared variance between the 11 adversity measures | Novel self report questionnaire examining 11 subdomains of childhood adversity reported by parents of children between 0–8 years old | Physical abuse, sexual abuse, inconsistent caregiving, family instability, caregivers abuse, maternal psychopathology, maternal victimization, parental legal problems, parental separation/divorce, financial distress, neighbourhood stress | Emotion Recognition Task (Penton-Voak et al., 2012) | Emotion recognition – Percentage correctly identified |
Emotion Recognition total x: Physical abuse (r = 0.02, p > 0.05), Sexual abuse (r = −0.06, p < 0.01), Inconsistent caregiving (r = 0.07, p < 0.001), Family instability (r = 0.01, p > 0.05), Caregivers abuse (r = 0.01, p > 0.05), Maternal psychopathology (r = 0.00, p > 0.05), Maternal victimization (r = −0.02, p > 0.05), Parental legal problems (r = −0.03, p > 0.05), Parental separation/divorce (r = 0.02, p > 0.05), Financial distress (r = −0.03, p > 0.05), Neighbourhood stress (r = 0.00, p > 0.05) |
Longitudinal design with ELA measured retrospectively |
| Seitz et al., (2022) | Healthy volunteers recruited via advertisements in Germany | 35 | 29.34 (9.69) | 80% | None included in correlation of interest | CTQ (German version)—28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2003; Klinitzke et al., 2012) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Multiple-choice version of the Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognitionn (MASC; Dziobek et al., 2006) | Theory of mind |
MASC total x: CTQ total (r = −0.12, p > 0.05) |
Retrospective |
| Terock et al., (2020) |
Large general population sample comprising of Caucasians residing in Pomerania, north-eastern Germany (Study of Health in Pomerania; SHIP) |
SHIP‐LEGENDE 1916 SHIP-TREND 3658 |
SHIP‐LEGENDE 55 (13.7) SHIP-TREND 51 (15.2) |
SHIP‐LEGENDE 53% SHIP-TREND 51% |
Age, sex, education, lifetime diagnosis of MDD | CTQ (German version)—34 item questionnaire (Bernstein & Fink, 1998; Wingenfeld et al., 2010) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Toronto Alexithymia Scale 20 (TAS-20; Bach et al., 1996, Bagby et al., 1994) | Alexithymia |
Unstandardised regression coefficients TAS-20 x: SHIP-LEGENDE Neglect (B = 2.88, p < 0.001), SHIP-TREND Neglect (B = 3.21, p < 0.001) |
Retrospective |
| TestMyBrain Germine et al., (2015) | Recruited online at TestMyBrain.org, predominantly individuals from the United States (US) |
RMET 2242 QSFDT 1504 |
RMET 32.7 (13.3) QSFDT 33.5 (13.7) |
RMET 66% QSFDT 69% |
No covariates included in reported outcomes |
TestMyBrain Childhood Experiences Questionnaire 25 Item questionnaire adapted from the Conflicts Tactic Scale, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Scale |
Parental maltreatment, parental maladjustment, neglect, sexual abuse/institutional care |
RMET (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), Queen Square Face Discrimination Test (Garrido et al., 2009; Germine & Hooker, 2011) |
Theory of Mind, Emotion recognition – Identifying the correct emotion |
RMET total x Parental Maltreatment: (β = −0.061, p = 0.004), Parental Maladjustment: (β = −0.076, p = 0.000), Neglect: (β = −0.019, p = 0.362), Sexual Abuse/Institutionalisation: (β = −0.045, p = 0.031) QSFDT Test (Emotion Identification) x Parental Maltreatment: (β = −0.048, p = 0.049), Parental Maladjustment: (β = 0.011, p = 0.670), Neglect: (β = 0.005, p = 0.832), Sexual Abuse/Institutionalisation: (β = −0.037, p = 0.127) |
Retrospective |
| TestMyBrain Peterson et al., (2022) | Native English speakers only recruited online | 2200 |
Young adults 41.8% aged 18–25 |
66.3% | Sex (Male/Female), age (Years), ethnicity (Hispanic, White, Black, Other), educational attainment, parents educational attainment, relative SES |
TestMyBrain Childhood Experiences Questionnaire 25 Item questionnaire adapted from the Conflicts Tactic Scale, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Scale |
Childhood maltreatment and interpersonal loss | REMT—36 pictures (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) | Theory of mind |
RMET x: Any trauma (β = −0.34 [−0.84, 0.17], p = 0.189), Maltreatment (β = −0.21 [−0.66, 0.25], p = 0.369), Interpersonal loss (β = −0.25 [−0.61, 0.10], p = 0.170), Physical abuse (β = −0.06 [−0.42, 0.30], p = 0.740), Sexual abuse (β = −0.31 [−0.75, 0.14], p = 0.175) |
Retrospective |
| Turner et al., (2022) | Recruited through social media and Facebook advertisements | 197 | 37.5 (13.7) | 57% | None included in correlation of interest | CTQ-SF—28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2013) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Computerised Director Task (Dumontheil et al., 2010) | Theory of Mind |
Unstandardised beta regression coefficients CTQ total x TOM Performance (β = −0.0028, p = 0.0022) |
Retrospective |
| Vaskinn et al., (2021) | Healthy controls randomly selected from the official population registries in Oslo, Norway | 70 | 29.4 (7.7) | 40% | None stated | CTQ—28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2003) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect, sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition (MASC) Norwegian version (Dziobek et al., 2006) | Theory of Mind |
MASC total x: CTQ total: (rs = −0.072,p = 0.562) PA: (rs = 0.118, p = 0.334), SA: (rs = 0.088, p = 0.471), EA: (rs = 0.041, p = 0.739), EN: (rs = −0.084, p = 0.495), PN: (rs = 0.000, p = 0.9999) |
Retrospective |
| Young & Widom, (2014) | Abused/neglected children from juvenile and adult criminal arrest records in Midwestern metropolitan area of the USA | 547 | 47.1 (3.45) | 57.8% | Age, Sex, Race and SES | ELA was measured through examination of criminal and court records | Physical abuse, physical neglect, sexual abuse and neglect | International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2005) | Emotion recognition – Correctly identifying emotional valence |
Overall picture recognition accuracy x: Abuse/neglect: (β = −0.11, p < 0.01, SE = 0.04, n = 547), Physical abuse: (β = −0.08, p > 0.05, SE = 0.06, n = 294), Sexual abuse: (β = −0.11, p > 0.05, SE = 0.06, n = 301) |
Retrospective. ELA was measured through examination of criminal and court records |
| Zhao & Wu, (2022) | Healthy adults recruited through online advertising from six Chinese universities | 173 | 22.5 (2.2) | 55% | Age, sex, education, marital status, recent stressful life events, depression and anxiety levels, personality, cognitive reappraisal and expression inhibition strategy | CTQ—28 item questionnaire (Bernstein et al., 2003) | Physical abuse, physical neglect, emotional abuse, emotional neglect and sexual abuse and aggregate childhood trauma score | International Affective Picture System (IAPS; lang et al., 2008) adapted for a Chinese population (Liu et al., 2009) | Emotion perception – Identifying emotional dominance valence and arousal |
CTQ total x IAPS Emotion Score: (r = 0.595, p < 0.001), Positive Valence: (β = 0.497, p < 0.001), Negative Valence: (β = −0.590, p < 0.001), Positive Dominance: (β = 0.424, p < 0.001), Negative Dominance: (β = −0.541, p < 0.001), Neutral Arousal: (β = −0.434, p < 0.001) |
Retrospective |
Sample: CHR Clinically High Risk of neuropsychiatric diagnosis, CHR-NT Clinically High Risk of neuropsychiatric diagnosis- Not Transitioned to a neuropsychiatric diagnosis, SHIP Study of Health in Pomerania, SHIP-LEGENDE Study of Health in Pomerania-Life Events and Gene–Environment Interaction in Depression, SHIP-TREND Study of Health in Pomerania, TREND cohort study. Covariates: IQ Intelligence Quotient, MDD Major Depressive Disorder, SES Socioeconomic status. Adversity Measure: ACE Adverse Childhood Experience, CECA-Q Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse questionnaire, CTQ Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, CTQ-SF Childhood Trauma Questionnaire—Short Form, ELA Early Life Adversity. Social Cognition Measures: CANTAB Cambridge Automated Neuropsychological Test Battery, DERS Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, DFAR Degraded Facial Affect Recognition task, DTQ Disclosure of Trauma Questionnaire, ERT Emotion Recognition Task, HAB Hostile Attribution Biases (Subscale of SIP-AEQ), IAPS International Affective Picture System, IFEEL The Infant Facial Expressions of Emotion from Looking At Pictures, IRI Interpersonal Reactivity Index, MASC Movie for the Assessment of Social Cognition, NER Negative Emotional Responses (Subscale of SIP-AEQ), QSFDT Test Queen Square Face Discrimination Test, RMET Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task, SAQ Social Acknowledgement Questionnaire, SIP-AEQ Social Information Processing-Attribution and Emotional Response Questionnaire, TAS-20 The Toronto Alexithymia Scale. Social Cognition Domains Measured: SIP Social Information Processing. Associations/Correlations: ER Emotion Recognition, EA Emotional Abuse, EN Emotional Neglect, PA Physical Abuse, PN Physical Neglect, SA Sexual Abuse, B Unstandardised Regression Coefficient, β Beta Regression Coefficient, p P value, r Correlation Coefficient, rs Spearman’s Rho, SD Standard Deviation