Abstract
BackgroundNeuroticism is a personality component frequently found in anxious and depressive psychiatric disorders. The influence of neuroticism on negative emotions could be due to its action on stimuli related to fear and sadness, but this remains debated. Our goal was thus to better understand the impact of neuroticism through verbal and physiological assessment in response to stimuli inducing fear and sadness as compared to another negative emotion (disgust).MethodsFifteen low neurotic and 18 high neurotic subjects were assessed on an emotional attending task by using film excerpts inducing fear, disgust, and sadness. We recorded skin conductance response (SCR) and corrugator muscle activity (frowning) as indices of emotional expression.ResultsSCR was larger in high neurotic subjects than in low neurotics for fear relative to sadness and disgust. Moreover, corrugator activity and SCR were larger in high than in low neurotic subjects when fear was induced.ConclusionAfter decades of evidence that individuals higher in neuroticism experience more intense emotional reactions to even minor stressors, our results indicate that they show greater SCR and expressive reactivity specifically to stimuli evoking fear rather than to those inducing sadness or disgust. Fear processing seems mainly under the influence of neuroticism. This modulation of autonomic activity by neurotics in response to threat/fear may explain their increased vulnerability to anxious psychopathologies such as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder).
Highlights
When a person feels an emotion, bodily changes are observed in the activity of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and brain structures as well as facial expressions [1]
Regarding the cut-off of pathology for each questionnaire, high neurotics were in the range of mild depression (6.761.2, mean6SD) on Beck Depression inventory (BDI), while they scored in the range of severe anxiety (51.461.2, mean6SD) on STAI scale
Added to decades of research evidencing that individuals higher in neuroticism experience more intense emotional reactions to even minor stressors than other individuals [6], our results reveal that high neurotic individuals show greater expressive and skin conductance response (SCR) reactivity to fearful stimuli
Summary
When a person feels an emotion, bodily changes are observed in the activity of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and brain structures as well as facial expressions [1]. The list of components needed to define a particular emotion has been broadened to include interindividual factors of variability such as personality traits. These traits seem to influence and condition the way we experience and respond to emotions [3]. Most accepted models of personality include the dimension of neuroticism [4] The characteristics of this measurable trait include a tendency to be worried and anxious [5] and are related to the experience of negative affect [6,7,8,9]. Our goal was to better understand the impact of neuroticism through verbal and physiological assessment in response to stimuli inducing fear and sadness as compared to another negative emotion (disgust)
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