The interaction of extraversion and neuroticism in orienting response habituation.

Abstract

ABSTRACTTwenty different consonant trigrams were presented individually to 38 observers in a standard OR habituation paradigm while the GSRs and BSRs were recorded. The observers were later categorized according to extraversion and neuroticism (anxiety) scores. All observers evidenced habituation in varying degrees to these dissimilar stimuli; however, the stable observers responded to more of the stimuli than did the neurotics. This basic neuroticism effect was modified by the extraversion factor as shown by response magnitudes: stable introverts and neurotic extraverts habituated differently than did the stable extraverts and neurotic introverts. This significant extraversion × neuroticism interaction was also present, in the same form, in the BSR data: stable introverts and neurotic extraverts had declining BSR values, while with stable extraverts and neurotic introverts, the BSRs increased (i.e., they became less attentive).