The role of extraversion, neuroticism and positive and negative mood in emotional information processing

Abstract

The present research investigates the role of the personality dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism in emotional information processing and the moderating role of positive and negative mood. Six hundred and fifty-four university female students completed the Persian version of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised (EPQ-R); then, on the basis of extreme scores in extraversion and neuroticism dimensions from the main sample, four groups (each with 30 Ss) were selected. All groups experienced positive and negative induced mood in two separate sessions with 2 weeks interval. After mood induction in each session, subjects performed three cognitive tasks: free recall, probability rating and story completion. The findings revealed that subjects with higher extraversion, made more positive judgments and interpretations in the positive mood condition; and individuals with higher neuroticism, made more negative judgments and interpretations in the negative mood condition; but extraverted and neurotic subjects did not differ significantly in the number of positive and negative recalled words in the two mood conditions. Overall, the results indicated that personality traits influence emotional information processing, and support the moderating role of mood states in judgment and interpretation.