Adverse Childhood Experiences and Misophonia: The Empathy Link

A study of 369 adults diagnosed with misophonia has found a significant link between adverse childhood experiences and the severity of the condition, with emotional empathy acting as a key connecting factor.

Connecting Childhood, Empathy, and Sound Sensitivity

Misophonia is defined by intense negative emotional and physiological reactions to specific, often ordinary, sounds like chewing or breathing. While often grouped with hearing disorders, its roots appear to be complex. Researchers Sevgi Koroglu Gokbel and Gülgün Durat from Türkiye investigated a potential pathway: whether difficult early life experiences shape emotional sensitivity, which then influences misophonia.

Their hypothesis was based on known science. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can alter stress response systems and emotional development. Separately, some theories propose that misophonic reactions involve an over-activation of brain circuits related to emotion and salience, not just hearing. The team wanted to test if heightened emotional empathy—the capacity to feel and share others’ emotions—could be a bridge between early adversity and adult sound sensitivity.

How the Study Was Conducted

Between September and November 2025, the researchers conducted an online cross-sectional study with 369 adult participants who all met diagnostic criteria for misophonia. They used validated questionnaires to measure three key variables:

• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE): A scale assessing experiences of abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction before age 18.
• Emotional Empathy: The emotional empathy subscale of the Cognitive and Emotional Empathy Scale, which measures tendencies to feel and share others’ emotional states.
• Misophonia Severity: The Misophonia Scale, which evaluates the emotional, behavioral, and social impact of trigger sounds.

The team analyzed the relationships between these variables using structural equation modeling (SEM), a statistical method that tests direct and indirect pathways. They used a bootstrap method with 5,000 resamples to rigorously test the significance of any indirect (mediated) effects.

Emotional Empathy as a Critical Link

The analysis revealed clear, statistically significant connections. First, a higher number of adverse childhood experiences was directly associated with higher levels of emotional empathy in adulthood (β = 0.272, p = 0.001). Second, higher emotional empathy was strongly associated with greater misophonia severity.

The mediation analysis confirmed the central finding: emotional empathy played a partial mediating role in the relationship between ACEs and misophonia. This means that part of the effect of childhood adversity on sound sensitivity operates by increasing a person’s emotional empathy. The indirect effect through empathy accounted for approximately 25% of the total effect. The statistical model showed a good fit with the data (χ²/df = 1.588, RMSEA = 0.040, CFI = 0.945), supporting the proposed pathway.

This aligns with other research into the neural responses to sound in misophonia, which often point to heightened activity in emotional and salience networks.

Implications for Understanding and Treatment

“These findings suggest that developmental and emotional processes may be associated with misophonia,” write Gokbel and Durat. The study positions misophonia not merely as an auditory problem, but as a condition potentially influenced by an individual’s emotional history and processing style. For some, a childhood marked by adversity may lead to a heightened empathic sensitivity, which could later manifest as an intense, dysregulated reaction to specific auditory triggers that are perceived as emotionally or socially charged.

This has direct practical implications. A treatment approach focused solely on managing or desensitizing to the trigger sound—like certain forms of sound therapy—may address only part of the picture. The research points to potential benefits from integrating therapies that target the underlying emotional components.

These could include techniques for trauma processing, strategies to improve emotion regulation, and interventions designed to modulate empathic hypersensitivity. This broader view is supported by work in related areas, such as sound exposure therapy for PTSD, which acknowledges the deep entanglement of sound, memory, and emotion. Furthermore, the growing use of digital tools for hearing health could be adapted to include modules for tracking emotional states and triggers alongside sound exposure.

A More Holistic View of Sound Sensitivity

The study by Gokbel and Durat, available in Frontiers in Psychology (DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1771797), adds a important layer to our understanding of misophonia. By identifying emotional empathy as a mediator between childhood adversity and sound sensitivity, it provides a testable model for how life experiences can shape sensory and emotional health.

It reinforces the idea that patients with misophonia may benefit from a comprehensive assessment that includes psychological history, not just an audiological evaluation. Future research should explore whether interventions aimed at emotional regulation or trauma can reduce the severity of misophonic reactions, offering a more holistic path to management for those affected by this challenging condition.