The role of adolescents' temperament in their positive and negative emotions as well as in psychophysiological reactions during achievement situations

Abstract

This study examined the role of adolescents' (n = 190) temperament in their emotional reactions in achievement situations. Adolescents rated their temperament (i.e., surgency/extraversion, negative affectivity, effortful control) and completed achievement tasks in Grade 6. They also reported their emotions before and during challenging and non-challenging tasks. In addition, adolescents' autonomic nervous system reactions (i.e., skin conductance levels) were recorded. The results showed that high effortful control was related to higher levels of positive emotions independent of the degree of task difficulty. Low negative affectivity and high effortful control were related to lower levels of negative emotions before and during the achievement tasks. High surgency/extraversion was related to lower levels of negative emotions only before the achievement tasks. Finally, low negative affectivity and high effortful control were related to higher skin conductance level before the achievement tasks, whereas high effortful control was related to higher skin conductance level during both challenging and non-challenging achievement tasks. The findings enhance current understanding of the connection between adolescents' temperament and emotions in real-time achievement situations.