Adverse Childhood Experiences, School Bullying Retrospection, and the Impact on Resilience in Adulthood

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been repeatedly shown to profoundly impact individual resilience in adulthood. ACEs and bullying experiences are linked with school disengagement, depression, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse. Moreover, ACEs are associated with lower life expectancy, increased risk of heart disease, and cancer. Experiencing bullying victimization had been shown to lead to lower educational attainment, unemployment, reduced income, and poorer general health and cognitive functioning in early to midlife. Yet, there remains a gap in understanding how ACEs and bullying interact to influence resilience in adulthood. This cross-sectional study aims to explore the compounded effects of ACEs and bullying on resilience scores. The study surveyed 255 Amazon MTurk workers selected by CloudResearch under 40 years old from the United States, assessing ACEs, bullying, and resilience. Surprisingly, mild to moderate experiences of past bullying were positively linked to resilience scores, counter to expectations. However, ACEs showed no direct relationship with resilience scores. These findings prompt further investigation, considering potential sample biases from using an MTurk population, and highlight implications for future research and practice.