The meditor effect of personal sense of uniqueness in relationship between childhood trauma and subjective well-being: An investigation of structural equation modelling

Countless researches in literature have shown that the number of people who faced physical, sexual and/or emotional neglect or abuse in childhood, during which one needs care and protection, is high throughout the World; and that those aforementioned traumatic experiences cause many mental and cognitive problems in adulthood. While the effects of childhood traumatic experiences in adulthood are examined through various perspectives, the literature of positive psychology focuses on examining the relationship of traumata with happiness and well-being. Researches on that relationship state that life, which is shaped in one's mind as a project, is envisioned as past, present and future, and its emotional and cognitive evaluation is generated; as well as the fact that traumatic experiences disarrange the integrity of one's life project. Individuals come up with an estimation on their life satisfaction and well-being as a result of the aforementioned emotional and cognitive evaluation. Although the relationships between childhood traumata and indicators of subjective well-being i.e. ontological well-being and life satisfaction have been researched, the possible mediating variables in this relastionship have not been identified so far. Based upon the idea that individuals manifest negative changes (such as post-traumatic depreciation) subsequent to traumatic experiences, it was hypothesised that one of these changes might be on the sense of uniqueness; and thus personal sense of uniqueness would mediate in the relationship between trauma and subjective well-being. In order to test the hypothesis formed with the support of the literature, 242 participants (of whom 149 are female and 93 are male) have taken a battery of Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, Personal Sense of Uniqueness Scale, Ontological Well-Being Scale and the Life Satisfaction Scale. In the structural model obtained as a result of the research, it was found that the effect of childhood traumata on ontological well-being via the sense of uniqueness is statistically meaningful. Besides, it was also observed that not only the effect of childhood traumata on life satisfaction via both sense of uniqueness and ontological well-being; but also the effect of the sense of uniqueness on life satisfaction via ontological well-being is statistically meaningful.