Four experiments on the relation between Eysenck's psychoticism dimension and the Pavlovian concept of nervous system mobility

Abstract

Four studies are described in which a “transformation” method of measuring the Pavlovian concept of nervous system mobility was correlated with the four scales of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, the Psychoticism scale from the unpublished Psychoticism Extraversion Neuroticism inventory, and several measures of divergent thinking ability. Strong negative correlations (as high as −.79) were obtained between auditory transformation measures and questionnaire measures of psychoticism for male, but not for female, subjects. Results failed to support previous studies in which mobility was positively correlated with extraversion and divergent thinking. Several anomalous aspects of the results are considered, and findings are discussed in the framework of recent studies on the psychoticism dimension of personality.