Motivational capacities after prolonged interpersonal childhood trauma in institutional settings in a sample of Austrian adult survivors

A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the aversive impact of prolonged interpersonal childhood trauma, but data on possible associations with motivational concepts (self-efficacy, self-esteem and locus of control) in adult survivors is scarce. The purpose of this study is to investigate specific coherences between childhood abuse and adult life events with (a) motivational concepts (MC), (b) the emotion regulation strategy “goal-directed behavior” and (c) the possible mediation of emotion regulation (ER) on motivational concepts. We use data from a cross-sectional survey in Vienna (VIA-S) obtained from 220 adult survivors of prolonged interpersonal childhood trauma. In addition, we assess the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Life Events Checklist for DSM-5, the subscale “Goals” (Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Questionnaire), the Short Scale for Measuring General Self-Efficacy Beliefs, the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Scale, and an extended version of the Internal-External Control Beliefs-4 Scale. An estimated multi-group path-model, divided by gender, was also conducted with the measures indicated above. Our results show that prolonged interpersonal childhood trauma directly relates to reduced self-efficacy, self-esteem, and difficulties in ER. Concurrently, ER serves as a mediator for all MC. No gender differences were observed. Associations with adult life events were only found regarding self-efficacy. This study supports the notion that prolonged interpersonal childhood trauma in institutional settings impacts ER, which further mediates MC. Despite several study limitations (e.g. lack of a control group) the presented findings underline the importance of broadening the perception of trauma sequelae as well as integrating inhibited ER strategies and MC.