What is the reported correlation between childhood abuse and psychological disorders?

• A. 0.9
• B. 0.5
• C. 0.09
• D. 0.0

Answer: (C)

A strong but simple idea here is that early trauma does increase risk for mental health problems, but the link is not large. A correlation coefficient shows how two things tend to move together; a value around 0.1 is a weak positive relationship—when abuse occurs, the chance of a disorder tends to rise a bit, but most of the variation in psychological outcomes comes from many other factors such as genetics, environment, and coping resources. In numbers, an r of about 0.09 means only about 1% of the variance in psychological disorders is explained by childhood abuse, highlighting that the relationship is real but modest. The much larger values would imply a far stronger link, while zero would imply no association at all, which isn’t what the literature generally shows.