Previous research has found that women tend to have higher CTQ scores compared to men, particularly in the sub-areas, emotional and sexual abuse of the CTQ (Garcia et al., 2016; Sher et al., 2015; Roy & Janal, 2006). Thus, as a control, for my fourth hypothesis, I predict that women in my dataset will also have higher CTQ scores than men on average. The fact that women on average have higher CTQ scores than men is significant because previous research has found that increased CTQ scores are correlated with decreased brain structures. This also suggests that there may be gender differences between the effects of increased CTQ scores. To date, there are mixed results in research of whether there are or aren’t sex differences between abuse and…show more content… Women are often more likely to develop psychological disorders like depression or post-traumatic stress disorder compared to men (Gwadz et al., 2007). Considering the relationship between CTQ scores and its negative impact on brain structure volume, and mental illness, a woman’s increased CTQ score could explain why they are more vulnerable to mental illness. Due to all of these possibilities and based on prior research, my fifth hypothesis is that women will have a spectrum shifted upward such that the healthy women’s spectrum will be generally closer to the diseased population compared to men. Few studies have looked at childhood trauma and potential gender differences in the cortico-structure volume. This can be beneficial as it will possibly provide practitioners with another tool to determine an individual’s likelihood of developing a mental illness. CTQ scores have also been correlated with other factors such as anxiety which is also a common condition of mental…show more content… It has also been shown that the earlier onset of social disorders compared to those without childhood trauma (Li et al., 2015; Huh et al., 2014). Those with social anxiety disorders often have been found with increased CTQ scores as well as increased STAI scores (Kanehisa et al., 2017; Kuo et al., 2011). Due to the prior research, I predict for my sixth hypothesis that those who have higher CTQ scores will have higher state-trait anxiety compared to lower scores. Those with higher state-trait scores are considered to be more anxious individuals and because research has found that anxiety symptoms are more prevalent in individuals with significant childhood trauma, there is no reason why I shouldn’t expect the same from this dataset (Li et al., 2014). However, the literature indicates that it is not all forms of abuse or neglect that predispose an individual to anxiety disorders. Emotional trauma appears to be the largest risk factor for anxiety such that increased amounts of emotional abuse and neglect have more of an effect on state and trait anxiety compared to other forms of trauma (Huh et al., 2014; Kuo et al.,
