The Hidden Legacy
The Research
A 2025 systematic review published in BMC Psychology explored the impact of generational trauma on second-generation descendants. Drawing on 18 international studies, it examined the long-term effects of trauma experienced by parents, such as genocide, slavery, racism and forced displacement, and how those effects manifest in their children.
The findings were striking. Descendants of trauma survivors consistently showed elevated levels of anxiety, depression, emotional suppression, and difficulty regulating stress. These weren’t just psychological tendencies; the research uncovered biological changes too. For example, several studies showed altered cortisol levels; a hormone linked to the body’s stress response, suggesting that trauma can be inherited at a physiological level.
The review also noted behavioural patterns such as hypervigilance, difficulty trusting authority, and a strong sense of needing to “prove” one’s worth. These responses often develop as protective strategies in environments where safety, physical or psychological, is not guaranteed.
While most of the research focused on well-documented historic traumas (like the Holocaust or apartheid), the authors made clear that the same mechanisms apply to racialised communities living under ongoing systemic inequality, including racism, poverty, and health disparities.
The Context
This research has powerful implications beyond clinical or academic settings. It helps us understand that the behaviours we sometimes label as “difficult,” “guarded,” or “overly independent” can be the result of inherited trauma.
For communities that have experienced generational harm, whether through colonialism, racism, or healthcare and housing discrimination, trauma doesn’t reset with each new generation. Instead, it evolves. A grandparent’s forced silence under oppression becomes a parent’s emotional self-protection and a child’s workplace withdrawal. It’s not always visible, but it’s often there.
Someone may have never lived through the original trauma, but they’ve grown up in its shadow. And in places like the UK, where systems have often dismissed or devalued certain groups, that shadow can still be shaping outcomes, in hospitals, schools, and yes, boardrooms.
How is this relevant to the workplace?
Understanding generational trauma isn’t about making excuses or accepting low standards. It’s about developing the cultural capability to recognise when performance or behaviour might be shaped by deeper, inherited experiences, and responding with intention, not assumption.
Workplace cultures often reward people who align with dominant norms around confidence, directness, or emotional openness. But these aren’t universal traits; they’re culturally constructed, and not equally comfortable or accessible to everyone. Trauma-informed inclusion means creating space for different ways of showing up, while still holding clarity around performance and expectations.
It requires adaptability. Inclusive leaders don’t lower the bar, they adjust how they support people to reach it. They know the difference between someone struggling due to lack of effort, and someone navigating inherited survival patterns in systems not designed for them.
This means asking better questions. Not “What’s wrong with this person?” but “What might they be navigating?” It means designing support and feedback systems that account for the impact of inequality across time, not just in the present moment.
Generational trauma is a structural issue with personal consequences. Workplaces can either ignore that and reinforce harm, or respond with empathy, flexibility, and action. Inclusion isn’t passive; it’s a skillset. And it starts with seeing people in context, not just in role.
