Emotional Reactivity to Daily Positive and Negative Events in Adulthood: The Role of Adverse Childhood Experiences

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have lasting impact on everyday emotional

experiences in adulthood, with extant evidence linking ACEs to elevated emotional reactivity.

However, findings are typically based on reactivity to negative daily events (i.e., stressors)

and its moderation by cumulative ACEs (where individual adversities are summed into a total

score), which overlooks adversity-specific associations and reactivity to other types of daily

events. We therefore examine cumulative and individual ACEs as moderators of emotional

reactivity to positive and negative daily events. Data was drawn from the National Study of

Daily Experiences 2 (NSDE-II), collected 2004-2009, whereupon middle-aged and older

adults (N= 1,994; Mage= 58.61; range: 35–86; 57% female) reported daily events and affect on

eight consecutive evenings. Multi-level models were used to estimate the moderating role of

ACEs for within-person associations between positive/negative events and affect. We found

that cumulative ACEs and a number of individual adversities (specifically those characterized

by abuse but not by neglect or household challenge/dysfunction) were associated with

emotional reactivity to positive and negative daily events. That is, cumulative and abuse-

based ACEs were associated with increased negative affect and/or decreased positive affect

on days with a negative event and on days with a positive event. Our findings add to literature

on the long-lasting and pervasive influence of early life experiences on everyday emotional

experiences in adulthood. We discuss differences in reactivity to positive vs negative daily

events and in cumulative vs adversity-specific associations as well as their theoretical and

methodological implications.