Left Hemispheric Lateral Preference and High Neuroticism Predict Disinhibition in Two Go/No‐Go Experiments

Although disinhibition is widely implicated in impulse‐control‐related psychopathologies, debate remains regarding the underlying approach and avoidance processes of this construct. In two studies, we simultaneously tested three competing models in which varying levels of extraversion, neuroticism, and hemispheric lateral preference are associated with disinhibition. In both studies (Study 1, N = 92; Study 2, N = 124), undergraduate students were randomly allocated to one of two versions of the go/no‐go task: one where participants were primed through reward to make more “go” responses and another where no such priming occurred. Neuroticism, extraversion, and hemispheric lateral preference measures were also collected. Across both studies, disinhibition was greatest in individuals who reported both a left hemispheric lateral preference and high neuroticism. This pattern was only found for those who were primed through reward to make more “go” responses. There was no association with extraversion. Contrary to previous research, our results suggest that left hemispheric asymmetry and neuroticism and not extraversion drive disinhibited approach, following the establishment of a prepotent approach response set. This has salient implications for the theoretical understanding of disinhibited behavior, as well as for the study of continued maladaptive approach behavior.     

Love, work, and changes in extraversion and neuroticism over time

The present study examined individual differences in change in extraversion, neuroticism, and work and relationship satisfaction. Of particular interest were the correlations between changes. Data were from the Victorian Quality of Life Panel Study (B. Headey & A. Wearing, 1989, 1992), in which an overall 1,130 individuals participated (ages 16 to 70). Respondents were assessed every 2 years from 1981 to 1989. Four major findings emerged. (a) There were significant individual differences in changes in extraversion and neuroticism. (b) Change was not limited to young adulthood. (c) Development was systematic in that increased work and relationship satisfaction was associated with decreases in neuroticism and increases in extraversion over time; on average, the magnitude of the relation between changes in work and relationship satisfaction and traits was .40. (d) Cross-lagged models indicated traits had a greater influence on role satisfaction; however, marginal support emerged for work satisfaction leading to increased extraversion. Implications of correlated change are discussed.     

Personality and Creativity: The Dual Pathway to Creativity Model and a Research Agenda

To better understand the relation between personality traits and creativity, we invoke the Dual‐Pathway to Creativity model (DPCM) that identifies two pathways to creative outcomes: (1) flexible processing of information (cognitive flexibility) and (2) persistent probing, and systematically and incrementally combining elements and possibilities (cognitive persistence). DPCM further proposes that dispositional or situational variables may influence creativity through either their effects on flexibility or persistence. Here, we propose the idea that approach‐related traits (e.g., openness to experience, extraversion, positive affectivity, and power‐motivation) may lead to greater creativity because they link to enhanced cognitive flexibility, whereas avoidance‐related traits (e.g., negative affectivity and neuroticism) under the right circumstances may lead to greater creativity because they link to enhanced cognitive persistence. Empirical support for this proposition is discussed, and a research agenda for future work on personality and creativity is set.     

Reaction to punishment, reflectivity, and passive avoidance learning in extraverts

Passive avoidance learning occupies a central role in accounts of disinhibited behavior, ranging from psychopaths' persistent criminality (Hare 1970) to extraverts' gregariousness (Gray, 1972). To explore the mechanism underlying passive avoidance deficits, we assessed the relation of extraversion, neuroticism, and response latency after punishment to passive avoidance learning by using two successive go/no go discrimination tasks. The tasks were designed to examine two aspects of subjects' reactions to punishment: response speed on trials immediately following punishment (Experiment 1) and time to terminate punishment feedback between successive trials (i.e., reflectivity; Experiment 2). Consistent with previous findings, the results of Experiment 1 showed that extraverts commit more passive avoidance errors than introverts do (Newman, Widom, & Nathan, 1985) and fail to pause following punished errors (Nichols & Newman, 1986). In Experiment 2, only neurotic extraverts displayed this pattern of performance differences. In both experiments, longer pausing following punishment predicted better learning from punishment for both introverts and extraverts. These results suggest that, in the presence of salient cues for reward, extraverts' characteristic reaction to punishment interferes with processing punished errors and may contribute to their more general propensity for impulsive, nonreflective action.     

Personality,life events and the course of anxiety and depression

Using data from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety, we examined among 1322 participants with a DSM‐IV diagnosis of depression or anxiety: (i) whether positive and negative life events influence 1‐year course of anxiety and depressive symptoms; (ii) whether personality traits (neuroticism and extraversion) predict symptom course and moderate the impact of life events on symptom course; and (iii) whether life events mediate relationships of neuroticism and extraversion with symptom course. Negative life events were predictive of both anxiety and depressive symptoms, while positive life events predicted the course of depressive symptoms only. Personality traits had significant predictive and moderating effects on symptom course, though these effects were rather small. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Adaptive and Maladaptive Perfectionism,Adult Attachment,and Big Five Personality Traits

The author examined the role of anxiety and avoidance dimensions of attachment and Big Five personality traits in adaptive and maladaptive dimensions of perfectionism among 604 (377 male, 227 female) Turkish university students. The results of 2 separate multiple regression analyses yielded that adaptive perfectionism was significantly predicted by conscientiousness, openness, and extraversion. Maladaptive perfectionism was significantly predicted by the neuroticism, anxiety, and avoidance dimensions of attachment. The authors discuss the implications, limitations, and future directions for research.     

APPLICANT PERSONALITY, ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, AND ORGANIZATION ATTRACTION

This study examined the dispositional basis of job seekers' organizational culture preferences and how these preferences interact with recruiting organizations' cultures in their relation to organization attraction. Data were collected from 182 business, engineering, and industrial relations students who were seeking positions at the time of the study. Results obtained from multiple sources suggested that the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness) generally were related to hypothesized dimensions of culture preferences. Results also suggested that both objective person-organization fit (congruence between applicant culture preferences and recruiting organization's reputed culture) and subjective fit (applicant's direct perception of fit) were related to organization attraction. Further, subjective fit mediated the relationship between objective fit and organization attraction.     

Comparison of EPI and psychoticism scales with measures of the five-factor model of personality

The need for a comprehensive model of personality traits acceptable to the entire community of personality researches has often been acknowledged. In this article, two such models are compared. Eysenck scales measuring neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism and lie are correlated with self-report and peer-rating measures of the five-factor model—neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness—in a sample of adult men and women. Findings suggest that: (1) neuroticism and extraversion factors from the two systems match well; (2) sociability and impulsivity are distinguishable traits, but both fall within the broad domain of extraversion; (3) the EPI L scale measures aspects of several substantive traits rather than a response bias; (4) openness to experience is not well-represented in the Eysenck system; and (5) psychoticism corresponds most closely to the low poles of agreeableness and conscientiousness.     

Five‐Factor Model of Personality and Job Satisfaction: The Importance of Agreeableness in a Tight and Collectivistic Asian Society

Results from predominantly US‐based research have shown that personality can partly explain job satisfaction. As the issue of globalisation grows in importance for organisations, I researched in this study whether meta‐analytic findings on the relationships between job satisfaction and the Big Five personality traits extraversion, conscientiousness, and neuroticism would hold in a tight and collectivistic Asian society. Additionally, I expected that in a tight and collectivistic society the personality trait agreeableness would have a strong positive relationship with job satisfaction. Study participants were 354 employees from organisations in Singapore. Results confirmed that extraversion, conscientiousness, non‐neuroticism (emotional stability), and also agreeableness were related to job satisfaction. The study advises scholars and practitioners that even in a tight and collectivistic Asian society—despite situations that demand abiding by norms and fulfilling obligations—job satisfaction is related to stable personality traits.     

Neuroticism and extraversion are associated with amygdala resting-state functional connectivity

The personality traits neuroticism and extraversion are differentially related to socioemotional functioning and susceptibility to affective disorders. However, the neurobiology underlying this differential relationship is still poorly understood. This discrepancy could perhaps best be studied by adopting a brain connectivity approach. Whereas the amygdala has repeatedly been linked to neuroticism and extraversion, no study has yet focused on the intrinsic functional architecture of amygdala-centered networks in relation to both traits. To this end, seed-based correlation analysis was employed to reveal amygdala resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and its associations with neuroticism and extraversion in 50 healthy participants. Higher neuroticism scores were associated with increased amygdala RSFC with the precuneus, and decreased amygdala RSFC with the temporal poles, insula, and superior temporal gyrus (p < .05, cluster corrected). Conversely, higher extraversion scores were associated with increased amygdala RSFC with the putamen, temporal pole, insula, and several regions of the occipital cortex (p < .05, cluster corrected). The shifts in amygdala RSFC associated with neuroticism may relate to the less-adaptive perception and processing of self-relevant and socioemotional information that is frequently seen in neurotic individuals, whereas the amygdala RSFC pattern associated with extraversion may relate to the heightened reward sensitivity and enhanced socioemotional functioning in extraverts. We hypothesize that the variability in amygdala RSFC observed in the present study could potentially link neuroticism and extraversion to the neurobiology underlying increased susceptibility or resilience to affective disorders.     

Personality and lexical decision times for evaluative words

We studied personality influences on accessibility of pleasant and unpleasant stimuli in a sample of 129 students. Self‐reports and reports by knowledgeable informants on extraversion, neuroticism, approach temperament and avoidance temperament were combined with a go/no‐go lexical decision task that included pleasant, unpleasant and neutral words, and two response modes, manual and vocal. The data were analysed using multilevel modelling. Extraversion and approach temperament predicted faster identification of pleasant words than of neutral and of unpleasant words. Vocal responses took longer than manual responses, but mode of response did not interact with the valence of the words. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Predicting adult involvement in crime: Personality measures are significant,socio-economic measures are not

Comprehensive research into criminal careers along with the growing consensus around the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits have re-established personality measures as important predictors of criminal activity. A number of studies of specialist groups have concluded that agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and extraversion are linked to crime. Data were drawn from the National Child Development Study. Experiencing a criminal justice sanction in mid-adulthood was regressed on FFM traits, Agreeableness, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, Intellect and Emotional Stability (Neuroticism), as well as socio-economic variables linked by criminologists to crime. Results indicated that significant predictors in this representative sample of 7205 adults, were four of the five personality traits (but not Intellect), gender, experience of school problems, but none of the socio-economic measures. This is consistent with the evidence that social class has only a minor role in predicting criminality, contrary to previous assumptions.     

Relations among Personality Characteristics,Environmental Events,Coping Behavior and Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction

This study extended current positive psychological research by examining the mediating role of coping behavior in the relations between environmental and intrapersonal variables as predictors of adolescent global life satisfaction, based on Evans’ (Soc Indic Res 33:47–88, 1994) proposed model. Specifically, we assessed the relations between personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism) and environmental experiences (stressful life events) predicting early adolescents’ global life satisfaction as mediated by approach and avoidance coping behaviors using a sample of 529 students from one middle school in the southeastern United States. The results supported portions of Evans’ model. Statistically significant relations were found for a number of individual pathways between personality and environmental variables (i.e., predictors) and coping variables (i.e., mediators) as well as between approach coping (i.e., one mediator) and life satisfaction (i.e., outcome). Additionally, a small but statistically significant pathway was found between extraversion and life satisfaction when mediated by approach coping. Results suggest that personality, environmental stressors and coping behaviors may play a role in the development of life satisfaction among early adolescents.     

High Self-Deceivers Internalize Self-Presentation of Extraversion Through Biased Evaluation of Their Performance1

This study examined whether high self-deceivers form their overly positive perception of their traits through overestimating their performance of self-presentation where they need to impress others as being extraverted/introverted, exhibiting more internalization of self-presentation (IOSP) of the trait. Participants were instructed to give either an extraverted or introverted impression through an oral (Study 1, N = 39) or written (Study 2, N = 62) self-presentation. Participants reported dispositional self-deception, self-presentation efficacy, and extraversion before and after self-presentation. Independent raters provided other-reported extraversion by examining the self-presentation. Across the two studies, two-way mixed ANOVA revealed that predicted change in extraversion occurred only for participants who made extraverted self-presentation. With the change in extraversion as an index of IOSP, mediation analyses revealed indirect effects of dispositional self-deception on IOSP via self-presentation efficacy but not other-reported extraversion. These results suggested that (a) people only internalize socially desirable traits like extraversion but not introversion, (b) writing to others is sufficient to cause IOSP, and (c) high self-deceivers internalize extraverted self-presentation not through actual performance but its subjective evaluation.     

Who benefits from emotional expression? An examination of personality differences among gynaecological cancer patients participating in a randomized controlled emotional disclosure intervention trial

The present study examined the role of neuroticism and extraversion in the effects of written emotional disclosure in patients diagnosed with gynaecological cancer. It was hypothesized that high levels of neuroticism would be associated with an increase in distress after emotional disclosure as mediated by heightened negative affect and avoidance post-disclosure. Conversely, we expected high extraversion to be associated with decreased distress as mediated by heightened positive moods and a decrease in avoidance. Eighty-eight participants were randomly assigned to participate in an expressive writing task versus a control writing task. Distress and avoidance were assessed at baseline and 6 months post-writing. Negative and positive mood were assessed immediately following writing. Multiple regression confirmed that neuroticism but not extraversion moderates the effects of emotional disclosure on distress, however no significant mediating relationships were found.     

情绪调节在特质与情绪间中介效应模型的年龄差异

研究采用EPQ、ERQ及PANAS收集了青年、中年及老年三个年龄组共870份有效数据, 分析了认知重评和表情抑制在外倾和神经质与正负情绪之间中介效应及发展模型差异。主要结果：(1)外倾−正情绪, 神经质−负情绪之间存在高相关。(2)与青年组和老年组比, 中年组的神经质与负情绪的相关最弱。(3)三个年龄组的认知重评在神经质与负情绪之间都存在显著的中介效应, 中介效应值在中年组为最强。(4) 表情抑制在外倾与正负情绪之间显著的中介效应仅出现在中年组。研究分析, 认知重评和表情抑制是减弱特质−情绪之间密切度的有效调节机制。     

Personality,Leisure Experiences and Happiness

This study explored the relationships among personality, leisure involvement, leisure satisfaction and happiness in a representative sample of Chinese university students (n = 423). We found that (1) extraversion significantly correlated with almost all kinds of leisure involvement, but neuroticism did not correlate with leisure activities at all; (2) extraversion significantly positively correlated with leisure satisfaction while neuroticism significantly negatively correlated with leisure satisfaction; and (3) while extraversion and neuroticism were significant predictors of happiness, leisure satisfaction had its incremental effects after those of personality traits and other domain satisfaction were controlled. Implications of these findings for developing a Chinese psychology of leisure were discussed.     

Reproductive behavior and personality traits of the Five Factor Model

We examined associations between Five Factor Model personality traits and various outcomes of reproductive behavior in a sample of 15 729 women and men from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) and Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) survey. Personality and reproductive history was self‐reported in adulthood (mean age: 53 years). High extraversion, high openness to experience, and low neuroticism were associated with larger number of children in both sexes, while high agreeableness and low conscientiousness correlated with larger offspring number in women only. These associations were independent of marital status. There were also more specific associations between personality and timing of childbearing. The findings demonstrate that personality traits of the Five Factor Model are systematically associated with multiple reproductive outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effects of chronological age on the relationship of intelligence and academic achievement with extraversion and neuroticism.

This study examines the possibility that the relationships of intelligence and academic achievement with both extraversion and neuroticism may vary with chronological age. A sample of 741 students in the 15-19 age group worked through a battery of four tests, two of which were tests of intelligence and two tests of achievement in chemistry. The nature of the relationships between performance on these tests and measures of extraversion, neuroticism and chronological age were then expressed as multiple regression equations. The results whoed a consistently different pattern of significant relationships for both extraversion and neuroticism with the achievement tests on the one hand and with the intelligence tests on the other. Only the performance on the two achievement tests depended upon an interaction between extraversion and chronological age. There were no such interactions involving neuroticism and chronological age.