Self reported negative experiences and dissociation

Subjects reported on how often 22 different bad things had happened to themselves and also completed a measure of dissociative experiences. The two sexes did not differ in their scores on either of the two measures. Four items on the bad things measure had to do with sexual abuse by family and by non-family members and with physical abuse by family and by non-family members. The correlation between negative experiences and dissociation was approx. 0.40 for the subjects of each sex, and remained at the same level when the scores on the four abuse items were excluded. These results suggest that dissociation is linked with a general tendency to recall and report negative experiences rather than solely with having experienced major traumatic events. Claims of having experienced traumatic events and dissociation may share a common underlying basis in neuroticism.