The relationship between certain personality factors and measures of cortical arousal

Abstract

Sixty-three undergraduate students were tested on 35 objective personality tests, carefully selected to mark four well-known personality dimensions, two of which have been hypothesized earlier to relate to individual differences in habitual cortical activation. Each student (S) took a special EEG examination. The personality scores were factor analyzed and estimated factor loadings of both resting and non-resting EEG measures (per-cent-time alpha, alpha frequency, alpha amplitude, length of continuous alpha phases) were determined for these factors. Two of the four personality factors (U.I. (T) 16: Assertiveness; U.I. (T) 22: Cortical Alertness) yielded consistent EEG correlations. The former chiefly related to frontal arousal, the latter to occipital. Both this and a first factoring of EEG measures per se are interpreted as contradictory to a unifactorial concept of psycho-physiological activation. Differences between resting and non-resting EEG measures in terms of personality factor correlations were interpreted with reference to Gastaut's three EEG syndromes.