From Vulnerability to Duplicity: Examining the Connection Between Childhood Adversity and Deception

Deception research has traditionally evaluated how individual differences like personality traits and demographics correlate with lying. However, the establishment of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) as an individual difference that also links to deception remains underexplored. To this end, the present study (N = 784 students) investigated the relationship between ACEs and deception in adulthood. Results indicated that individuals with more (versus less) adverse childhood experiences, particularly those involving maltreatment and victimization, reported more white and big lies, independent of aversive personality traits like narcissism and Machiavellianism. Together, these findings support the dispositional honesty hypothesis, indicating that foundational childhood experience and events can shape or signal deceptive behavior. Generally, the study contributes to our underexamined knowledge base of the developmental antecedents of lying, emphasizing the role that adversity plays during childhood to influence deceptive behavior beyond commonly studied personality traits.

Background & Context

Deception research has long focused on situational factors and personality traits as predictors of lying behavior, yet a critical developmental factor has remained surprisingly unexplored: adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). While individual differences like personality traits and demographics have traditionally been examined, the establishment of adverse childhood experiences as an individual difference linked to deception remained underexplored.

This 2025 study by David Markowitz fills that gap by investigating whether early-life trauma and adversity shape adult deceptive tendencies. The research builds on dispositional honesty hypothesis—the idea that relatively stable individual characteristics predict who lies—and extends it to developmental antecedents. The study seeks to expand the dispositional honesty hypothesis by identifying how largely unexamined individual differences, like adverse childhood experiences, relate to deceptive behavior.

The theoretical foundation draws from social learning theory and developmental psychopathology, which suggest that childhood maltreatment and victimization may teach children deceptive strategies as coping mechanisms. Understanding this connection has profound implications for both deception science and trauma-informed approaches to dishonest behavior.

Research Design & Methodology

The study surveyed N = 784 students who completed measures of adverse childhood experiences and self-reported deception in adulthood. The research employed a correlational survey design with validated psychometric instruments to assess the relationship between childhood adversity and current lying behavior.

Key measurement instruments included:

• ACEs assessment: The 10-item ACEs scale, which loads onto two factors: child maltreatment and peer victimization, and household challenges, with the two-factor solution accounting for 43.7% of the variance
• Deception measures: Participants self-reported how often they lied in a typical day and how often they believed others lie in a typical day, distinguishing between white lies and big lies
• Dark Triad traits: A 27-item questionnaire measured narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy using 5-point Likert scales, with subscales showing acceptable reliability (Machiavellianism α = 0.72; narcissism α = 0.67; psychopathy α = 0.73)

The analytic approach controlled for aversive personality traits to isolate the unique contribution of childhood adversity to deceptive behavior. This allowed the researcher to determine whether ACEs predicted lying independent of commonly studied individual differences.

Results & Key Findings

Individuals with more adverse childhood experiences, particularly those involving maltreatment and victimization, reported more daily white and big lies, independent of aversive personality traits like narcissism and Machiavellianism. This represents the study's primary discovery: childhood adversity predicts adult deception even after accounting for Dark Triad traits.

Specific findings included:

• Childhood maltreatment and victimization showed stronger associations with lying than household challenges
• Effect sizes were small but systematic, consistent with other studies on individual differences and deception
• The relationship held for both white lies (minor social deceptions) and big lies (serious falsehoods)
• Higher adverse childhood experiences correlated with more frequent self-reported lying in everyday interactions (r = 0.25, p < 0.01)

Importantly, the ACEs-deception relationship emerged above and beyond the well-established links between Dark Triad personality traits and lying. This suggests that developmental trauma contributes unique variance to understanding who lies frequently.

Discussion & Significance

These findings support the dispositional honesty hypothesis, indicating that foundational childhood experiences and events can shape or signal deceptive behavior. The research makes a compelling case that the roots of deceptive tendencies may extend back to early-life adversity, not just innate personality characteristics.

The study extends the dispositional honesty hypothesis by identifying ACEs as a previously underexplored individual difference, adding nuance to the person-situation debate in deception research and suggesting that early life experiences may inform or shape downstream dishonesty. This theoretical contribution is significant because it bridges developmental psychology and deception science in a novel way.

The differential impact of maltreatment versus household dysfunction is particularly noteworthy. While it remains unclear why childhood maltreatment and victimization associated with lying more so than household challenges, some clinical research suggests experiences with neglect and abuse may specifically teach children that deception is necessary for self-protection or survival.

The study contributes to the underexamined knowledge base of the developmental antecedents of lying, emphasizing the role that adversity plays during childhood to influence deceptive behavior beyond commonly studied personality traits. This opens new avenues for understanding the etiology of habitual dishonesty.

Limitations & Considerations

The results are not direct cause and effect, and longitudinal research that tracks participants over time—perhaps a multi-decade study tracking infants through adulthood in terms of their childhood experiences and deception—might be informative. The cross-sectional design cannot establish whether ACEs causally produce deceptive tendencies or whether third variables explain the association.

Effect sizes are notably small but systematic, within the range of those in deception research more broadly, and they add to existing understanding of how certain individual differences are associated with deception at a broad theoretical level. While statistically significant, the practical magnitude of the relationship is modest.

The study evaluated self-reported lie production, which may not reflect general lying behavior across contexts, and the sample was limited to students, raising concerns for generalizability of the findings. College students may differ from broader populations in both ACEs prevalence and deception patterns.

Practical Applications

Interventions that address underlying adverse childhood experiences may be more effective in promoting honesty than those focused on immediate behavior change; in educational settings, schools might implement supportive interventions that address root causes of deceptive behavior rather than applying punitive measures, particularly for students with negative or at-risk home experiences.

This research emphasizes the far-reaching consequences of adverse childhood experiences beyond common outcomes like mental health issues and substance abuse, as these consequences also include interpersonal behaviors like deception and lying, underscoring the critical importance of understanding deeply-rooted antecedents of deception. For polygraph examiners, this suggests that understanding an examinee's developmental history may provide important context for interpreting behavioral and physiological responses during testing. Trauma-informed approaches to credibility assessment may be warranted when working with individuals who have experienced significant childhood adversity.