Personality, emotional experience, and efforts to control emotions

Three converging, multimethod studies examined personality and emotional processes. Study 1 (N = 321) examined links among sex, personality, and expectations for emotional events. In Study 2, participants (N = 468) described contents of emotionally evocative slides to a partner (either a friend or a stranger). Participants reported their emotional experience, efforts to control emotion, and the anticipated reactions of their partners. Structural modeling of self-report data and analyses of observational data indicated that Agreeableness and sex were significant predictors of emotional experience and of efforts to control emotion. Study 3 (N = 68) replicated and extended the two previous studies using psychophysiological methods to examine responses to positively and negatively charged emotional materials. Outcomes are discussed in terms of processes underlying the five-factor structural dimension of Agreeableness and links to emotional self-regulation.     

Getting from situations to emotions: appraisal and other routes

Comments on the original article by S. Siemer and R. Reisenzein regarding the process of emotion inference. When processing situational information, people can reach emotional conclusions without explicitly registering corresponding appraisals. Does this mean that appraisal cues must be guiding inference in less obvious ways? If one assumes that the emotional meaning of any situation depends on the protagonist's relation to what is happening, then emotion inference can never entirely bypass relational information. However, not all relational information is specifically appraisal-based. Further, actual emotion causation, like emotion inference, can involve explicit or implicit appraisals or even no appraisals at all. Indeed, humans do not first learn to associate emotions with situations by extracting appraisal information.     

The effect of others' influence, effort, and ability attributions on emotions in achievement and affiliative situations.

In this examination of how attributions and types of situation influence emotions, 46 American undergraduates completed a questionnaire consisting of 12 vignettes that varied according to content, outcome, and attribution. After reading each vignette, they indicated how they would feel in the situation described. In a second experiment, 27 Finnish undergraduates participated in an identical procedure. In both experiments, subjects felt more pride and happiness after they attributed a successful achievement to effort or ability rather than to others' influence. Attributions of affiliative success did not influence emotions. Subjects felt the most shame and guilt after they attributed achievement failure to lack of effort, and they felt the least negative emotions after they attributed affiliative failure to lack of effort.     

Personality, emotions and coping styles: predictive value for the evolution of cancer patients

This study had a twofold goal: to define differences in psychological aspects between cancer patients and a control group and to explore the predictive value of such aspects for the evolution of the disease two years later. Firstly, personality, anxiety, anger and depression were assessed in both groups. Results of t-analyses revealed significant group differences. In personality, cancer patients had higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness than the control group. In emotional variables, cancer patients had higher levels of anxiety and some aspects of anger, but there were no group differences in depression levels. Secondly, applying a quasi-prospective design, the predictive value of personality, emotions and coping styles for the evolution of cancer (favourable or unfavourable) was explored using generalized linear models and logistic regression. A four-predictor logistic model was fitted: Anger Expression-In, Resignation, Self-blame and Conscientiousness, indicating that the higher Anger Expression-in, Resignation, and Self-blame scores together with a lower Conscientiousness score, the more likely it is for patients' cancer to evolve unfavourably. These results indicate the crucial role of psychological aspects for the evolution of the disease and the need to include such aspects in the design of clinical interventions.     

Personality processes and problem behavior

This article introduces the special issue of Journal of Personality on personality and problem behavior. There is growing evidence that various dimensions of personality are associated with a broad range of problem behaviors such as drug and alcohol use, sexual risk-taking, interpersonal violence, and gambling. To date, research on personality and problem behavior has focused almost exclusively on documenting simple, direct associations between personality traits and problem behaviors. This article proposes an expanded research agenda, a second generation of research and theory on the role of personality in problem behavior. The agenda specifies two major classes of second-generation hypotheses. Moderator hypotheses concern the conditions under which the influence of personality on problem behavior is magnified, weakened, or eliminated. Mediator hypotheses concern the causal processes that underlie the influence of personality on problem behavior. Articles in the special issue, which are summarized in this introduction, exemplify the proposed second generation of research on personality and problem behavior.     

Personality and sexually deviant behavior

The present research expands on the relationship between subclinical paraphilia and Big Five and Dark Triad personality traits in an online sample of 585 adults. In this sample, sexually deviant courtship behaviors such as exhibitionism and voyeurism were related to high levels of narcissism while transvestism related to greater openness to experience. Further, there were gender differences in the relationship between sadomasochism and personality with sadomasochism reflecting greater openness in men and Machiavellianism in women. These findings suggest that deviant sexual behaviors represent both a degree of antisocial personality functioning and a degree of personal openness that depends on the specific behavior being examined and that more research is needed in this area.     

Young children's knowledge about the influence of thoughts on emotions in rule situations

Four‐year‐olds, 5‐year‐olds, and adults (N = 48) listened to stories featuring characters that experienced one of four types of thoughts after deciding to transgress or comply with a rule: thoughts about desires, rules, future negative outcomes, or future punishment. Participants predicted and explained the characters’ emotions. Results showed that young children, as with adults, predicted positive emotions for willpower and negative emotions for transgression at low rates for the think‐desire trials, and at high rates for the think‐rule and think‐future trials. They also modified their emotion explanations in line with the focus of characters’ thoughts. These data provide unprecedented evidence that young children can reason flexibly about emotions in rule situations when provided explicit, salient information about people's thoughts.     

Prediction of goal-directed behavior: attitude, subjective behavioral competence and emotions]

Ajzen's (1985) theory of planned behavior explaining and predicting goal-directed behavior is extended by an emotional component. The extended theory of planned behavior is tested experimentally. N = 64 subjects play with two video games (a speed- and a problem-oriented game) under an achievement-motivational orientation. One half of the subjects plays both games in an easy version, the other half in a difficult version. The verbal emotional reactions to playing video games are grouped factor-analytically into an "activity emotion" and a "security emotion". Subjects playing video games in the difficult condition feel significantly more insecure, and perceive their behavioral control as significantly lower than subjects playing in the easy condition. Tests of the extended theory of planned behavior lead to significant squared multiple correlations for the dependent variables within the range of R2 = .20 to .58. The activity emotion accounts predominantly for a significant part of the variance of the attitude and the security emotion accounts for a significant part of the variance of the perceived behavioral control. No predictive power was found for the intention to play the games successfully.     

The interplay of emotions,elaboration, and ambivalence on attitude–behavior consistency

Previous research on the relationship between attitudinal ambivalence and behavioral prediction mainly focused on the cognitive perspective. This paper introduces the simultaneous roles played by emotions (positive or negative) and elaboration. We find that both emotions and elaboration could moderate the effect of attitudinal ambivalence on attitude–behavior consistency. Furthermore, positive and negative emotions have different psychological mechanisms: positive emotions influence attitude–behavior consistency directly; negative emotions influence attitude–behavior consistency indirectly through elaboration. This article also discusses the theory contribution, marketing implication, and avenues for future research. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality correlates of assertive behavior

The present research studied the relationships between assertive behavior and two personality variables: extroversion and need for approval (nApp). Assertive behavior was measured in two role-play situations: an authority situation and an equal situation. It was found that extroverts behaved more assertively than introverts. nApp was negatively related to assertive behavior for females, while for males no correlation was found between nApp and assertive behavior in the authority situation and a positive correlation was found in the equal situation. It was concluded that extroversion and nApp are contributing factors in assertive behavior and that nApp moderates assertiveness differentially for males and females.     

Perceiving outgroup members as unresponsive: implications for approach-related emotions, intentions, and behavior

In 2 studies, the authors investigated the determinants of anger and approach-related intentions and behavior toward outgroup members in interracial interactions. In Study 1, White and Black participants who were led to believe that their interracial interaction partner was not open to an upcoming interaction reported heightened anger and approach-related intentions concerning the interaction, including viewing their partner as hostile, intending to ask sensitive race-relevant questions during the interaction, and planning to blame the partner if the interaction went poorly. Results of Study 2 showed that White participants who received negative feedback about their Black partner's openness to interracial interactions behaved in a hostile manner toward their interaction partner. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the quality of interracial interactions.     

Relationship between emotions and muscle tension in oro-alimentary behavior

The relationship between muscular tension in the right and left masseter and orbicularis oris and different forms of hostility measured through the Gottschalk test was examined for 24 female subjects. For the muscles of the right half of the body a direct relation was noted with overt outward hostility, while on the left half of the body only the tension of the masseter was related directly to ambivalent hostility. Our hypothesis about a link between modulation of aggressive behaviors and muscles involved in functions such as chewing and biting was confirmed.