Background: One of the most important effective environmental factors in shaping personality disorders is childhood abuse experiences. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between childhood abuse experiences with dark triad traits of personality among university students.

Materials and Methods: This descriptive- analytical study was a correlational study. The statistical population included all university students in Islamic Azad university of Urmia branch in year 2015. Totally, 400 students were selected through randomly cluster sampling method. All of them completed the questionnaires of childhood abuse experiences and dark triad traits of personality. Data were analyzed by using the SPSS-19 software and by Pearson’s correlation and multivariate regression method.

Results: Physical abuse had a negative significant relationship with narcissism (r=-0.099) and had a positive significant relationship with psychopathy (r=0.248) and Machiavellism (r=0.189). Emotional abuse had a positive significant relationship with narcissism (r=0.089), psychopathy (r=0.164) and Machiavellism (r=0.245). Sexual abuse had a negative significant relationship with narcissism (r=-0.108). Neglect abuse had a positive significant relationship with narcissism (r=0.157) and had a negative significant relationship with psychopathy (r=-0.208) and Machiavellism (r=-0.171). Also, childhood abuse experiences significantly predicted 7.6 percent of variance of narcissism, 7 percent of variance of psychopathy and 6.7 percent of variance of Machiavellism (p≤0.05).

Conclusion: According to findings of this research, counselors and therapists must consider the symptoms of these variables and design appropriate programs based on them to prevent shaping dark triad traits of personality.