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 were 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. Multilevel 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 versus negative daily events and in cumulative versus adversity-specific associations as well as their theoretical and methodological implications.