A survey of 2,519 people in Germany found that participants who reported a traumatic event had higher average credulity scores than those who reported no trauma. Higher credulity was also associated with more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and more disturbances in self-organization (DSO), an additional symptom domain assessed in relation to complex PTSD.
The findings describe patterns in the data rather than proving that trauma causes changes in trust, mistrust or credulity. The survey was conducted from December 2020 to March 2021 and analyzed in 2026.
Credulity scores were higher among trauma groups
Credulity was measured with a 12-item German version of the Epistemic Trust, Mistrust and Credulity Questionnaire. Scores ranged from 4 to 28. Average scores were between 12.1 and 12.7 among the trauma groups, compared with 10.5 among participants who reported no trauma.
Both childhood and adult trauma groups had higher scores than the no-trauma group. The effect size was d = 0.31 for childhood trauma and d = 0.43 for adult trauma. Relational and non-relational trauma groups had nearly identical average scores: 12.6 and 12.5, respectively.
Participants who identified sexual violence as their most distressing event had an average credulity score of 15.4. However, only 34 people named sexual violence, making this subgroup much smaller than the wider trauma groups.
Links with PTSD and self-organization symptoms
Credulity showed a small indirect association between reporting trauma and PTSD symptom severity, with a standardized coefficient of β = 0.04. A similar indirect association appeared for DSO symptoms, with β = 0.05.
By comparison, indirect links through trust and mistrust were essentially zero for both outcomes. The researchers expected childhood trauma and trauma occurring within close relationships to have stronger effects on trust than adult or non-relational trauma. Those preregistered predictions were not supported.
PTSD and DSO were measured as continuous symptom scores rather than as diagnoses. The results therefore do not establish how many participants had PTSD or complex PTSD.
Exploratory findings point to a narrower pattern
Additional exploratory analyses produced a different pattern for relational trauma that occurred at age 18 or younger. Compared with non-relational trauma at the same age, childhood relational trauma was associated with lower epistemic trust and higher credulity. The standardized coefficients were β = −0.61 for trust and β = 0.54 for credulity.
In these exploratory models, childhood relational trauma was indirectly associated with more PTSD and DSO symptoms through higher credulity. The DSO association also involved lower trust. The researchers described these findings as preliminary and requiring replication. Relational trauma in adulthood did not show the same exploratory links.
Combined exploratory models accounted for 27% rather than 12% of the variation in PTSD symptoms, and 43% rather than 17% of the variation in DSO symptoms, compared with simpler models. These figures describe how much variation the models explained; they do not demonstrate a causal pathway.
What the survey can—and cannot—show
The survey used a representative, randomly sampled German population sample of people aged 16 to 96. The average age was 50, and 52.5% of participants were women. Of the 2,519 participants, 1,281 named a single most distressing event, 465 reported no trauma and the remainder provided unclear information.
Among those naming an event, 106 identified an event from age 18 or younger and 987 identified an event from adulthood. Participants reported only their single most distressing trauma, so people with both childhood and adult trauma were counted once. This limits direct comparisons based on timing.
Because the data came from a one-time survey, they cannot show whether trauma changed trust or credulity, whether credulity contributed to later symptoms, or whether other factors influenced both. The mediation analysis is consistent with an indirect pathway, but it is not proof of causation.
The survey was conducted in Germany during the COVID-19 pandemic and did not include data on race or ethnicity. The researchers also noted that clinical groups might show stronger patterns. In addition, brief free-text descriptions did not always provide detail about the severity or context of reported events.
The findings raise questions about whether credulity may affect vulnerability to manipulation or the ability to benefit from supportive relationships, including therapy. Those possibilities were suggested by the researchers and were not established by this survey.
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