Defensiveness and Symptom Reporting

This investigation examined whether high levels of defensiveness were associated with lower levels of reporting symptoms of ill health. Participants completed questionnaires measuring defensiveness, trait anxiety (neuroticism), and health. Analyses revealed that overall high defensiveness was significantly associated with lower levels of symptom reporting, and that among individuals high in neuroticism (a trait normally associated with high levels of symptom reporting), those individuals also high in defensiveness reported significantly lower levels of symptoms. The results suggest that defensiveness may act as a buffer against the perception and reporting of the symptoms of illness.     

The symptom perception hypothesis revised: depression and anxiety play different roles in concurrent and retrospective physical symptom reporting

According to the classic symptom perception hypothesis (Costa & McCrae, 1987; Watson & Pennebaker, 1989), the global predisposition to frequently experience a variety of negative emotions-that is, neuroticism (N) or trait negative affectivity (NA)-is associated with inflated physical symptom reporting. We tested a revision of this hypothesis, which posits distinctive roles for depression and anxiety in the physical symptom experience. Three studies tested predictions from the revised symptom perception hypothesis: (a) that depressive affect should be related to inflated retrospective physical symptom reports and (b) that anxious affect should be related to inflated concurrent, or momentary, physical symptom reports. Study 1 assessed the relations among N/NA, depressive affect, and recall of physical symptoms experienced in the previous 3 weeks. Depressive affect was uniquely and positively associated with recalling more symptoms. When entered with depressive affect in multiple regression analyses, neuroticism was not associated with level of symptoms recalled. In Study 2, participants were randomly assigned to anxious, depressed, angry, happy, or neutral mood inductions and then reported about concurrent symptom experience. Participants in the anxious mood condition reported significantly more concurrent physical symptoms than did those in the other 4 conditions. In Study 3, anxious, depressed, or neutral mood was induced, followed by assessment of both concurrent and retrospective physical symptoms. Those assigned to the anxious mood induction reported more concurrent symptoms, while those in the depressed mood condition reported having experienced more symptoms in the past. These findings are consistent with the idea that encoding and retrieval processes, which are differentially associated with anxious versus depressed affect, influence different aspects of physical symptom reporting. The results have implications for self-diagnosis, medical treatment-seeking, and care, and potential insights about other complex social and interpersonal behaviors are discussed.     

Detecting Anxiety and Defensiveness from Visual and Auditory Cues

ABSTRACT Defensive individuals have been shown to differ from non-defensive individuals on a number of physiological and behavioral measures. We report two studies on observers' inferences of defensiveness, and the contribution of communication channels in the inference of defensiveness. Observers judged high and low state anxious segments of high and low trait anxious defensive and nondefensive individuals. Accurate assessments were made of (a) defensiveness, (b) state anxiety, and (c) trait anxiety: Individuals with higher levels of each variable were perceived as more anxious compared with the lower level. Effects for defensiveness and state anxiety were greater in audio-only segments, while effects for trait anxiety were greater in video-only segments. Inferences of defensiveness were greater at higher levels of state anxiety and trait anxiety. Low trait anxious defensive individuals were perceived as more anxious than the true low trait anxious. Results for defensiveness and trait anxiety were replicated in Study 2, and observers' perceptions of state anxiety matched individuals' self-reports: Defensive individuals with maximal differences between high and low state anxiety were seen as more anxious in high state anxiety, while defensive individuals with minimal differences between high and low state anxiety were regarded as less anxious in high state anxiety.     

Neuroticism,Side Effects,and Health Perceptions Among HIV-Infected Individuals on Antiretroviral Medications

Side effects from antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV disease can deter treatment, impact quality of life, and impede medication adherence. Individual differences in neuroticism may account for variations in the experience of side effects and perceptions of health status. Cross-sectional assessments were conducted with 258 participant’s with confirmed HIV infection and current ART regimen. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to evaluate a model of self-reported ART side effect frequency and severity and perceived health status, as related to neuroticism. Symptoms of neuroticism were associated with greater reports of ART side effects and poorer perceived health but unrelated to reported CD4 count and viral load, thus supporting the structural model. Individual differences in symptoms of neuroticism can explain variations in side effect reporting and consequential impairments in perceived health in the context of HIV treatment. Identification and intervention with individuals high in symptoms of neuroticism may be warranted to alleviate side effect-related concerns and maximize treatment benefit.     

Memory consistency for traumatic events in Dutch soldiers deployed to Iraq

Retrospective accounts of traumatic events are consistently associated with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This has often been interpreted as causal impact of such events on psychological functioning, but recent studies suggest that the causal direction is (partly) reversed: high levels of PTSD symptoms may be associated with amplified recollections of precipitating traumatic events. The aim of this prospective study was to index the consistency with which Dutch Army soldiers reported traumatic stressors and nontraumatic stressors on their deployment to Iraq, and to examine to what extent PTSD symptoms and pre-existing reporting biases, such as that arising from neuroticism, affect memory inconsistency. Retrospective accounts of stressors were highly variable over time. Individuals with higher levels of PTSD symptoms and neuroticism, lower levels of extraversion, and fewer prior missions, were more prone to increased reporting over time.     

Vigilance for threat: effects of anxiety and defensiveness

Eysenck’s (1997) theory that attentional biases for threat vary as an interactive function of trait anxiety and defensiveness was tested using a visual probe task. Two stimulus exposure conditions were used to explore a secondary issue concerning attentional allocation over time. Results indicated that, among high trait anxious participants, only those with low levels of defensiveness showed vigilance for threatening faces presented for 500 ms. They also showed an attentional preference for neutral faces, relative to happy faces, irrespective of exposure condition. This pattern was reversed in high trait anxious participants with high levels of defensiveness, who showed an attentional bias towards happy faces (relative to neutral faces) under both exposure conditions. The findings are discussed in relation to their implications for (a) the significance of measures of defensiveness for the conceptualization of high trait anxious individuals, and (b) the status of anxiety-related biases at different stages of information processing.     

Self-reported emotional disturbance and its relation to electrodermal reactivity,defensiveness and trait anxiety

The discordance between an electrodermal and a subjective measure of disturbance was studied in 36 males. Electrodermal responses to emotionally loaded questions were recorded and subjects were requested to rate on visual analogue scales how disturbing they found the questions. The subjects were divided into three groups according to their ‘accuracy’ of self-perception and it was hypothesised that those who reported low subjective disturbance but reacted relatively strongly electrodermally (‘repressors’), would have a high defensiveness score but low trait anxiety. Conversely, subjects who amplify their disturbance (‘sensitisers’) were expected to have a low defensiveness score and high trait anxiety. The hypotheses were confirmed suggesting that both under and over reporting of subjective disturbance are related to defensiveness and trait anxiety. Another finding was that ‘sensitisers’ were significantly younger than ‘repressors’.     

Working Memory Capacity in High Trait-anxious and Repressor Groups

The verbal reasoning performance of high-anxious (high trait anxiety, low defensiveness), defensive high-anxious (high trait anxiety, high defensiveness), repressor (low trait anxiety, high defensiveness), and low-anxious (low trait anxiety, low defensiveness) groups was examined under high and low memory load conditions. As predicted by the processing efficiency theory (Eysenck & Calvo, 1992), the slowing of reasoning speed with the high memory load was disproportionately great for the high-anxious and defensive high-anxious groups. The effects of high memory load on reasoning speed were the same for the low-anxious and repressor groups, suggesting that both groups had equivalently low levels of worrying (and other anxiety related) task-irrelevant thoughts. Theoretical implications of these, and other findings, for the understanding of repressors were discussed.     

Personality change influences mortality in older men

Previous studies have indicated that high neuroticism is associated with early mortality. However, recent work suggests that people's level of neuroticism changes over long periods of time. We hypothesized that such changes in trait neuroticism affect mortality risk. Growth-curve parameters (levels and slopes) that quantified the trajectories of neuroticism change over 12 years were used to predict 18-year risk of mortality among 1,663 aging men. Proportional hazards models were used to estimate mortality risk from level and slope parameters, controlling for objective and subjective health, depression, and age. Although a parallel analysis of extraversion showed no significant effects, level and slope of neuroticism interacted in their effect on mortality. Men who had both a high average level of neuroticism and an increasing level of neuroticism over time had much lower survival than men without that combination. These findings suggest that it is not just the level of personality traits, but their direction of change, that is related to mortality.     

Assessment of irrational health beliefs: relation to health practices and medical regimen adherence.

The purpose of the present research was to provide initial validation of the 20-item Irrational Health Belief Scale (IHBS). Study 1 included 392 undergraduate psychology students. Results from Study 1 suggested that the IHBS total score is internally consistent and stable over an 18-month time period. Greater health-related cognitive distortion (higher IHBS scores) was associated with weaker internal health locus of control beliefs, lower positive affectivity, stronger chance health locus of control beliefs, and greater negative affectivity. Most important, greater cognitive distortion was uniquely and significantly associated with a less positive pattern of health practices. Study 2 involved 107 individuals with Type I diabetes mellitus. Results indicated that higher IHBS scores were significantly associated with both objective (hemoglobin HbA1) and self-reported diabetic regimen adherence independent of trait neuroticism and conscientiousness.     

From state neuroticism to momentary task performance: A person × situation approach

The goal of this article was to investigate the mechanisms through which personality relates to task performance. We argue that perceptions of work pressure and task complexity trigger momentary levels of neuroticism (i.e., state neuroticism) and that these momentary levels of neuroticism predict momentary task performance. Moreover, we hypothesized that the relationship between momentary job demands and state neuroticism is moderated by trait neuroticism. To test this model, we conducted an event reconstruction study and a day reconstruction study. The results revealed that trait neuroticism indeed moderated the momentary job demands–state neuroticism relationship, and in three out of four cases state neuroticism was found to mediate the relationship between momentary job demands and momentary task performance. From a practical point-of-view our results suggest that employees’ task performance can be improved by enhancing the way in which individuals perceive job demands. This strategy would be particularly helpful for individuals for whom the momentary job demands–state neuroticism relationship is the strongest (i.e., employees high in trait neuroticism).     

You May Worry,But Can You Recognize Threats When You See Them?; Neuroticism,Threat Identifications,and Negative Affect

The present studies sought to investigate the hedonic consequences of threat-identification skills at low and high levels of neuroticism. Such skills were assessed in terms of both speed (Study 1) and accuracy (Study 2) of identifying threatening objects in cognitive tasks. As predicted, threat-identification skills interacted with trait neuroticism in predicting subjective experiences. Specifically, individuals high in neuroticism experienced lower levels of negative affect during their everyday lives if they were also skilled in identifying threats in the cognitive tasks (Studies 1-2). Such skills did not matter at low levels of neuroticism. This interactive pattern was also replicated in the context of life domain satisfaction (Study 2). The results support the view that avoidance motivation encompasses multiple component processes, including some that are cognitive in nature, and specifically extends self-regulatory views of neuroticism. Of most importance, our data indicate that threat-identification skills can be hedonically beneficial, rather than costly, at high levels of neuroticism.     

Development of personality and the remission and onset of personality pathology

The current study used the Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders data set (Lenzenweger, 1999) to examine the development of personality traits in the context of the remission and onset of personality disorder (PD) symptoms. Despite high levels of stability, past research on the development of basic personality traits has also found a mean trend toward increased maturity and that individuals vary in their trajectories of trait development. Research on PD change has shown a similar pattern. We employed individual growth curve modeling to examine the relationship between personality trait development and PD symptom course. We found that both are indeed related and that remission in PD symptoms is associated with patterns of trait development associated with more rapid maturity. In contrast, deviating from the mean of trait development either through no change (i.e., stagnation) or change in the opposite direction (i.e., regression) was associated with developing PD symptoms over the course of the study.     

Moody and thin-skinned? The interplay of neuroticism and momentary affect in older romantic couples

Neuroticism is associated with heightened reactivity to social stressors. However, little is known about the micro-processes through which neuroticism shapes – and is shaped by – affective experiences in close relationships. We examine the extent to which momentary affect is coupled with one’s relationship partner, whether the strength of this coupling differs depending on levels of neuroticism, and whether this coupling and partner’s overall level of positive or negative affect prospectively contribute to differential (rank-order) changes in neuroticism. Older couples (N = 82, aged 67–93 years) rated their momentary affect six times per day for one week and provided ratings of trait neuroticism at baseline and 18 months later. Multilevel models revealed that among individuals high in neuroticism, individual positive affect was more closely coupled with partner positive affect compared with individuals low in neuroticism. Moreover, neuroticism decreased over time in those participants who showed a higher degree of coupling with partner positive affect and also had a partner with higher overall positive affect. In contrast, neuroticism increased in individuals whose partner had lower overall positive affect. Similar effects were not observed for negative affect. Our findings highlight how relationship partners contribute to daily affective experiences and longer-term changes in neuroticism.     

Personality and health habits

Abstract

Four hundred and fifty-five males and 523 females from a community sample participated in a study on the relationship between seven health practices (sleeping; breakfasting; snacking; being at good weight; smoking; alcohol consumption and physical activity) and seven personality factors (Neuroticism; Social Inadequacy; Rigidity; Hostility; Self-sufficiency; Dominance and Self-esteem).

It was found that the seven health habits did not constitute a homogeneous operationalization of a construct “positive lifestyle.” The intercorrelations between the different health practices were typically low. The results of MANOVAs and subsequent ANOVAs revealed small, but statistically significant differences between subjects reporting positive and those reporting poor health habits. The failure to find significant interactions with sex indicated that the results for males and females were generally similar. Neuroticism and hostility discriminated best between the groups with poor or good health behaviors. This held for sleeping, exercising, breakfasting daily and smoking. In addition, sporting people scored lower on social inadequacy and higher on self-esteem. Further, individuals who do not have a daily breakfast were more self-sufficient. Snacking individuals were generally less rigid and less dominant, but more hostile. In conclusion, most negative health habits were found to be associated with personality attributes which are intimately related to symptom reporting (neuroticism, hostility). Given the generally weak associations, it is concluded that, in order to obtain a more complete picture of the individual's psychosocial risk profile, lifestyle data should be collected together with information on the person's stress and his or her coping qualities.     

Aging and negative affect: the rise and fall and rise of anxiety and depression symptoms

The relationship between aging and negative affect is dynamic and complex. Although prior studies have often cited lower prevalence rates of anxiety and mood disorders among older individuals, these studies may miss the dynamic relationship between symptoms and aging. To evaluate a nonlinear model of the relationship between aging and negative affect, the author examined measures of neuroticism, anxiety, and depression symptoms in a cross-sectional, community sample (N = 335), ages 18 to 93. Results indicated a curvilinear relationship, with mean symptom levels increasing during early adulthood (until the mid-30s) and then showing a small decline until older adulthood (the mid-70s), when symptoms again increase with age.     

Physical health 25 years later: the predictive ability of neuroticism

OBJECTIVE: Neuroticism, a personality trait related to distress and emotional stability, is often correlated with physical symptoms and disease presence. Theorists have posited that chronic emotional instability creates physiological changes detrimental to health, yet most findings are based on cross-sectional analyses. The objective of the current study was to examine neuroticism assessed in 1973 and the likelihood of reporting physical conditions 25 years later. DESIGN: Participants included 21676 adult twins (n = 8143 intact twin pairs) ranging from 15 to 47 years old in 1973 who were assessed again between 1998 and 2002. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Thirteen physical conditions, including chronic fatigue syndrome, ulcers, and coronary heart disease, were selected based on their prior theoretical and empirical links to personality traits. RESULTS: Results indicate that the likelihood of having a physical condition is related to higher levels of prior neuroticism, with some associations attenuated when controlling for familial similarity. CONCLUSION: Familial influences are most pronounced for conditions most related to systemic pain, suggesting genetic pathways between neuroticism and these pain experiences.     

Neurotic contentment: a self-regulation view of neuroticism-linked distress

The present hypotheses were guided by four premises, which were systematically examined in six studies involving 409 undergraduate participants. The first premise, established by prior work, is that trait neuroticism is closely associated with avoidance-related goals. The second premise, however, is that neuroticism may be uncorrelated with cognitive tendencies to recognize threats as they occur, and subsequently to down-regulate them. In support of this point, all six studies found that neuroticism was unrelated to post-error behavioral adjustments in choice reaction time. The third premise is that post-error reactivity would nonetheless predict individual differences in threat-recognition (Studies 1 and 2) and its apparent mitigation (Study 3), independently of trait neuroticism. These predictions were supported. The fourth premise is that individual differences in neuroticism and error-reactivity would interact with each other in predicting everyday experiences of distress. In support of such predictions, Studies 4-6 found that higher levels of error-reactivity were associated with less negative affect at high levels of neuroticism, but more negative affect at low levels of neuroticism. The findings are interpreted in terms of trait-cognition self-regulation principles.     

Negativity bias in false memory: moderation by neuroticism after a delay

The negativity bias is the tendency for individuals to give greater weight, and often exhibit more rapid and extreme responses, to negative than positive information. Using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott illusory memory paradigm, the current study sought to examine how the negativity bias might affect both correct recognition for negative and positive words and false recognition for associated critical lures, as well as how trait neuroticism might moderate these effects. In two experiments, participants studied lists of words composed of semantic associates of an unpresented word (the critical lure). Half of the lists were comprised of positive words and half were comprised of negative words. As expected, individuals remembered negative list words better than positive list words, consistent with a negativity bias in correct recognition. When tested immediately (Experiment 1), individuals also exhibited greater false memory for negative versus positive critical lures. When tested after a 24-hr delay (Experiment 2), individuals higher in neuroticism maintained greater false memory for negative versus positive critical lures, but those lower in neuroticism showed no difference in false memory between negative and positive critical lures. Possible mechanisms and implications for mental health disorders are discussed.     

Subchance perception: Anxious, non-defensive individuals identify subliminally-presented positive words at below-chance levels

People who chronically experience anxiety are biased towards subliminally-presented negative information. Recent research has shown that they may also avoid subliminally-presented positive information. However, these findings are equivocal due to the limitations of previous paradigms and measures. This paper reports two experiments demonstrating that highly anxious, non-defensive individuals exhibit subchance perception when attempting to identify subliminally-presented positive words; that is, they identify such words with accuracy rates that are below chance (guessing). Participants attempted to identify masked positively and negatively valenced words that had been presented briefly (6.4 ms) in a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm. In Experiment 1, persons high in trait anxiety and low in defensiveness identified positive words at below-chance levels and negative words at above-chance levels. No other participant-group’s performance differed from chance. In Experiment 2, persons high in trait anxiety and low in defensiveness again exhibited subchance perception of positive words when responding quickly. This represents the clearest evidence to date that anxious, non-defensive individuals systematically avoid subliminally-presented positive information.