Effects of punishment on response latency in extraverts.

Abstract

Previous findings indicate that in comparison to introverts, extraverts are prone to form responses that are resistant to interruption by punishment. Because the tendency to stop and reflect following punishment may be crucial for subsequent learning, the present study was designed to examine differences between introverts' and extraverts' reactions to punishment using response latency on the trial following punishment as the dependent variable. Sixty-six extraverted and 66 introverted male undergraduates performed a pattern-matching task in which they received noncontingent 50% success and 50% failure feedback under three incentive conditions including reward only, punishment only, or both. As predicted, a significant interaction was found in the both condition, reflecting the tendency of extraverts to respond more quickly and introverts more slowly following punishment feedback than following reward feedback. No significant effects were found in the other two conditions; however, a tendency was noted for extraverts to respond more quickly overall when only reward was given. A second experiment using reward-only and punishment-only feedback replicated this finding and yielded a significant interaction of Group X Condition. The results indicate that in contrast to introverts, extraverts are activated by the availability of reward and, paradoxically, that punishment may facilitate rather than interrupt extraverts' reward seeking behavior.