Negative Personality Traits Research Articles

Dynamic approaches to emotions and stress in everyday life: Bolger and Zuckerman reloaded with positive as well as negative affects.

A decade ago, Bolger and Zuckerman (1995) incorporated personality into the study of daily life events and psychological distress. Their approach put an entirely new cast on research and theorizing in this area. In their work, they focused on the predominantly negative personality trait of Neuroticism. In this article we extend their work to include theory and measurement of positive events and indicators of well-being. Integrating these research strands offers the possibility of a comprehensive yet highly sensitive and dynamic approach to the study of emotions, stress, and health in everyday life.

Person perception based on rape-victim testimony

ABSTRACT Is it possible for a person's face to appear differently to observers depending on the perceived personality of that person? Subjects read about a sexual assault in which a male or female witness either smiled and watched the rape, or called for help and scared off the attacker. Those who read about the harmful witness rated him or her as consistently more hostile, socially deviant, dominant, sadistic, and more likely to take risks than the helpful witness, and as having less empathy and nurturance. The subjects then received a composite photograph of the witness and were asked to make several global and specific facial feature ratings. Those who previously perceived the male or female witness as having negative personality traits, also rated him or her as having a more thin, narrow, and pale face, a more narrow and square chin, with a long nose and thin lips, compared to the witness who was judged in more positive terms. We discuss these results in terms of the validity of eyewitness testimony.

A population survey found an association between self-reports of traumatic brain injury and increased psychiatric symptoms

Objective This study determined whether self-reported Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), identified in a community sample and occurring up to 60 years previously, is associated with current psychiatric symptoms, suicidality, and psychologic well-being. Study design and setting Three age cohorts (20–24, 40–44, 60–64) were randomly sampled from the cities of Canberra and Queanbeyan, Australia, yielding a total of 7,485 participants. The samples were administered scales measuring anxiety, depression, suicidality, positive and negative affect, personality traits, and physical health status. Results Of the total sample, 5.7% reported history of TBI involving loss of consciousness for at least 15 min, occurring an average of 22 years previously. History of TBI was associated with increased symptoms of depression, anxiety, negative affect, and suicidal ideation. Conclusion History of TBI is a risk factor for psychiatric morbidity. The effect is greatest in young adults, and occurs up to several decades subsequent to the occurrence of TBI.

Distributed self in episodic memory: neural correlates of successful retrieval of self-encoded positive and negative personality traits

Words processed with reference to the self are generally better remembered than words processed in semantic terms. An account of this phenomenon, labeled the Self Reference Effect (SRE), is that the self promotes elaboration and organization of encoded information. Although a few neuroimaging studies associated self-referential encoding with activations of the medial prefrontal cortex, no previous study has investigated the neural correlates of remembering emotional words encoded in an SRE paradigm. The main goal of this study was to define with fMRI the neural correlates of the successful retrieval of negative and positive personality traits encoded in a self-referential mode. Functional MRI scans were acquired for 11 subjects as they recognized positive and negative emotional personality traits adjectives encoded in a self-referential condition, a semantic condition and in a phonemic condition. The correct recognition of self-encoded personality traits engaged dorso-medial prefrontal cortex and lateral prefrontal regions, premotor cortex, parietal and occipital cortex, caudate and cerebellum. The specific recognition of self-encoded negative personality traits involved greater neural activation in the right extra-striate region than the recognition of positive personality traits. Our fMRI findings suggest that specific processes may operate at both encoding and retrieval to subserve the SRE. Unlike self-encoding, the retrieval of personality traits is modulated by the valence of the stimuli with greater activation for negative words. Our results indicate that personally relevant words may signal important emotional clues and support the notion of a widely distributed set of brain regions involved in maintaining the concepts of self.

In search of the emotional self: an fMRI study using positive and negative emotional words.

The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to define the neural regions mediating self-referential processing of emotional stimuli and to explore how these regions are influenced by the emotional valence of the stimulus. Ten healthy subjects were presented with words describing positive and negative personality traits during fMRI scanning in three different conditions. In the self-referential processing condition, subjects judged whether they thought each trait described them. In the other-referential processing condition, subjects judged whether the stimulus described a generally desirable trait. In the letter-recognition control condition, subjects indicated whether the word contained a specific target letter. The self-referential condition induced bilateral activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, whereas the other-referential condition induced activation in lateral prefrontal areas. Activation in the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was unique to the self-referential condition regardless of the valence of the words, although positive words produced a more robust activation than did negative words. In the self-referential condition, differences between the processing of positive and negative words were seen in regions outside the medial frontal cortex, with reductions in the insula, temporal and occipital regions, and inferior parietal regions associated with negative words. A widely distributed network of brain areas contributes to emotional processing. Among these regions, the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex is one main area mediating self-reference. By providing a personal perspective in the evaluation of emotional stimuli, the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex may mediate cognitive processes, such as those involved in psychotherapy, that guide self-regulation of emotional experience.

Mood effects on the impression formation of typical and atypical targets

In this study, we investigated mood effects on impression formation of typical and atypical target persons, in an attempt to replicate the findings reported by Forgas (1992a). Listening to a particular piece of music, participants were first induced into positive, negative, or neutral mood. Then, they read statements, in which typical and atypical targets were described with positive and negative personality traits. While reading the statements, they were asked to form an impression of the target, and evaluate him/her. After the impression formation task, they were given ten minutes for an incidental free recall test. Results showed that mood congruent memory effect was found regardless of the targets. On the contrary, mood congruent judgment effect in positive mood was found only for typical targets. It was suggested that mood effects depend on the kind of information processing strategies triggered by typical and atypical targets.

Prosocial Action in Very Early Childhood

We tested a model of prosocial development, which predicted that prosocial action might decline, not increase, throughout childhood, becoming increasingly selective, individual, gender-related, and linked to emotional dysregulation. Sixty-six focal children at 18, 24, or 30 months of age were observed at home with familiar peers and then again 6 months later. Episodes of peer interaction were analysed for instances of sharing. The predicted decline in sharing with age was qualified by cohort differences and many associations with gender. Most children shared less as they grew older, but the oldest girls slightly increased their rate of sharing over time. As peer relationships developed, girls were more likely to share with other girls; boys were more likely to show reciprocity in sharing. Individual differences in sharing were moderately stable over time and linked to another form of prosocial action, sensitivity to the peer's distress. As predicted, children who shared at higher rates were rated more negatively by their mothers. The positive relationship between prosocial action and mothers' ratings of negative personality traits was especially strong for boys.

THE FEMALE ATHLETE TRIAD

THE FEMALE ATHLETE TRIAD

Physical Activity Participation in Older Adults: A Comparison of Competitors, Noncompetitors, and Nonexercisers

Histories of competitive sports involvement, health beliefs, reasons for exercising, and personality were compared across three groups of older adults who varied according to involvement in physical activity. Based on questionnaire responses, 246 participants were classified as competitors, noncompetitors. or nonexercisers. Competitors exhibited a lifelong history of sports participation. Although nonexercisers and noncompetitors participated in sports during their childhood and teenage years, their involvement in competition decreased noticeably in their 20s and remained low throughout adulthood. Competitors rated exercise significantly more important than did nonexercisers and non-competitors and had more varied reasons for exercising. Nonexercisers considered reducing stress and improving mood to be less important reasons for exercising than competitors and noncompetitors. All three groups were found to possess high levels of positive and low levels of negative personality traits.

Construct Validity of Career Indecision: Negative Personality Traits as Predictors of Career Indecision

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the construct validity of career indecision by examining its relationships to selected negative personality traits (perfectionism, self-consciousness, and fear of commitment) among 217 college students. It was hypothesized that career indecision would be positively and significantly associated with perfectionism, self-consciousness, and fear of commitment. As predicted, fear of commitment was a strong predictor of career indecision. Two of the three dimensions of perfectionism were also predictive of career indecision: Self-oriented perfectionism was a significant negative predictor of career indecision, whereas socially prescribed perfectionism was positively predictive of career indecision. However, other-oriented perfectionism was not predictive of career indecision. As was true of perfectionism, two of the three dimensions of self-consciousness were predictive of career indecision: Private self-consciousness was a positive predictor of career indecision, and social anxiety was a negative predictor. Public self-consciousness was not a significant predictor of career indecision. The implications of the findings for career counselors and for future research are discussed.

Do comparative self-appraisals during young adulthood predict adult personality?

Archival data from the University of North Carolina Alumni Heart Study were used to assess whether positive, neutral, and negative social comparisons assessed during college predicted the expression of personality during adulthood. College students in 1966 rated themselves relative to peers on several personal attributes. For men and women, these attributes produced 3 similar yet distinct variables reflecting gregariousness, achievement striving, and expressiveness. These students were contacted 20 years later and completed the NEO Personality Inventory and M. Rosenberg's (1965) self-esteem measure. In general, persons with comparatively positive self-evaluations during college viewed themselves as possessing more positive and less negative personality traits during adulthood and were also less likely to report poorer self-esteem during middle adulthood. The implications of social comparison processes for personality development are discussed.

The perceptions of stutterers by people who stutter.

Twenty-five persons who stutter completed a questionnaire asking respondents to list adjectives describing four hypothetical stutterers: a female child, male child, female adult and male adult stutterer. The majority of reported adjectives concerned negative stereotypical personality traits, indicating descriptions of stutterers by a group of persons who stutter that were similar to descriptions given by fluent subject groups. Implications of these findings are discussed.

The Formation of Attitudes Toward New Immigrant Groups1

People often receive information about new immigrant groups prior to any direct contact with group members. However, it is not clear how this information shapes attitudes toward the groups. To explore this issue, 204 subjects were told about an unknown immigrant group that was presented as high or low in personal relevance. Subjects were then given positive or negative consensus information about the emotions that group members elicit from others, group members' personality traits, and group members' values. As expected, results indicated that the presentation of positive information about emotional reactions, personality traits, and values caused attitudes to be more favorable than did the presentation of negative information. Importantly, however, the combined impact of the emotion and personality trait information depended on whether the group was perceived to be of high or low personal relevance. Specifically, when the information about emotions and personality traits was similarly valanced (i.e., both were positive or both were negative), attitudes toward the group tended to be less favorable in the high personal relevance condition than in the low personal relevance condition. In contrast, when mixed information was presented (i.e., positive emotions and negative personality traits or negative emotions and positive personality traits), attitudes tended to be more favorable in the high personal relevance condition. In addition, attitudes, once formed, predicted further perceptions of the group and behavioral intentions toward group members. The implications of the findings for the reduction of prejudice toward new immigrant groups are discussed.

Special educators' perceptions of stutterers

A questionnaire asking respondents to list adjectives describing four hypothetical stutterers (a typical female child, male child, female adult, and male adult stutterer) was completed by 82 special educators in six states. The majority of reported adjectives were negative stereotypical personality traits, indicating descriptions of stutterers similar to other groups, including teachers and speech-language pathologists. Implications of these findings and suggestions for pre-service and continuing education programs for special educators are discussed.

School Administrators’ Perceptions of People Who Stutter

A questionnaire asking respondents to list adjectives describing four hypothetical stutterers (a female child, male child, female adult, and male adult) was completed by 42 school administrators in Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and West Virginia. The majority of reported adjectives were negative stereotypical personality traits, indicating perceptions of people who stutter similar to perceptions held by other groups, including teachers, special educators, and speech-language pathologists. Implications of these findings and suggestions for pre-service and continuing education programs for school administrators are discussed.

Plasma fibrinogen: levels and correlates in young adults. The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study.

Sufficient evidence exists that plasma fibrinogen is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease to prompt a search for fibrinogen determinants. The authors measured fibrinogen in 4,193 participants in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Study with three objectives: to describe fibrinogen levels in young adults, to determine if correlates of fibrinogen in older adults apply to younger adults, and to examine several additional hypothesized correlates. Fibrinogen (overall mean +/- standard deviation = 263 +/- 57 mg/dl) was greater in women than in men and in blacks than in whites; it was associated positively with cigarette smoking, body mass index, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood pressure, and negatively with physical activity, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, and ethanol intake. Socioeconomic stress indicators and negative personality traits hypothesized as being associated with fibrinogen, possibly through adrenergic mechanisms, proved weak correlates. Parental history of diabetes was correlated positively with fibrinogen, in part because those with a positive parental history had greater body mass. Diabetes mellitus, lipoprotein(a), left ventricular mass, and oral contraceptive use were also positively correlated with fibrinogen concentration. Thus, even in young adults, fibrinogen is associated positively with most risk factors for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. This has implications for the role of fibrinogen as a risk factor and, potentially, for cardiovascular disease prevention.

Mother parity as a main and moderating influence on early mother-infant interaction

This study investigated main and moderating effects of mother parity on maternal attitudes and behaviors. In a sample of 87 mothers with 5-month-old infants, relations between determinants of parenting (maternal personality, marital quality, infant negative emotionality) and maternal behavior and attitudes (sensitivity, self-efficacy, mother-reported infant temperament) were examined as a function of parity. Results revealed both main and moderating effects of parity. Multiparous mothers reported higher self-efficacy, whereas primiparous mothers reported more of an increase in marital ambivalence following the baby's birth. The relations of self-efficacy, sensitivity, and mother-reported infant temperament to a laboratory measure of infant crying all differed by parity. In addition, for primiparous mothers, negative personality traits related to reported infant temperament, and for multiparous mothers, marital ambivalence and maternal sensitivity appeared to reflect a compensatory process. These results suggest that parity contributes to explaining how differing family systems influence development during infancy.

Teachers’ Perceptions of Stutterers

A questionnaire asking respondents to list adjectives describing four hypothetical stutterers (a typical 8-year-old female, 8-year-old male, adult female, and adult male stutterer) was completed by 103 elementary and secondary teachers. The majority of reported adjectives were negative stereotypical personality traits, indicating perceptions of stutterers similar toother groups, including speech-language pathologists. Implications of these findings and suggestions for pre-service and continuing education programs for teachers are discussed.

言語課題遂行時の聴取音楽による気分一致効果について

Two studies investigated the mood congruent effects of music on word cognition. In both studies, bright or sad music was used in order to induce elated or depressed mood, and subjects were assigned to either the bright or the sad music condition. In Study 1, positive and negative personality trait words and non-words were presented with the music to examine the effect on incidental recall. Thirty-one subjects were asked to judge whether the words were positive or negative as quickly and accurately as possible. In Study 2, 37 subjects were presented with ambiguous personality trait words without and with music to examine how their interpretations of ambiguous stimuli were affected by music. The results showed the mood congruent effects on recall, interpretation, and response time, and these findings agreed with those obtained from other studies of the mood effects on cognition, especially on recall. It was suggested that music induces a certain mood, which influences on cognitive processes of other stimuli.

Development of a Self-Report Measure of Self-Relevant Feedback: Initial Validation

The development of a self-report measure of preferences for self-relevant feedback (choice between positive or negative personality trait adjectives that might be descriptive of the self) is described. The initial study of validity yielded correlations in the expected direction with measures of depression, self-esteem, neurosis, and general maladjustment. Implications for research were discussed.