Stable Individual Differences Research Articles

Emotion information processing as a new component of emotional intelligence: Theoretical framework and empirical evidence

The relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and emotion information processing (EIP) has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. The present research addresses these gaps in the literature by introducing a conceptualization of emotional intelligence as composed of two distinct components: (1) EIK or emotion Knowledge component, captured by current ability emotional intelligence tests, related to top-down, higher order reasoning about emotions, and which depends more strongly on acquired and culture-bound knowledge about emotions; (2) EIP or emotion information Processing component, measured with emotion information processing tasks, requires faster processing and is based on bottom-up attention-related responses to emotion information. In Study 1 ( N = 349) we tested the factorial structure of this new EIP component within the nomological network of intelligence and current ability emotional intelligence. In Study 2 ( N =111) we tested the incremental validity of EIP in predicting both overall performance and the charisma of a presenter while presenting in a stressful situation. Results support the importance of acknowledging the role of emotion information processing in the emotional intelligence literature and point to the utility of introducing a new EI measure that would capture stable individual differences in how individuals process emotion information.

Social value orientation modulates fairness processing during social decision-making: evidence from behavior and brain potentials.

Social value orientation (SVO) characterizes stable individual differences by an inherent sense of fairness in outcome allocations. Using the event-related potential (ERP), this study investigated differences in fairness decision-making behavior and neural bases between individuals with prosocial and proself orientations using the Ultimatum Game (UG). Behavioral results indicated that prosocials were more prone to rejecting unfair offers with stronger negative emotional reactions compared with proselfs. ERP results revealed that prosocials showed a larger P2 when receiving fair offers than unfair ones in a very early processing stage, whereas such effect was absent in proselfs. In later processing stages, although both groups were sensitive to fairness as reflected by an enhanced medial frontal negativity (MFN) for unfair offers and a larger P3 for fair offers, prosocials exhibited a stronger fairness effect on these ERP components relative to proselfs. Furthermore, the fairness effect on the MFN mediated the SVO effect on rejecting unfair offers. Findings regarding emotional experiences, behavioral patterns and ERPs provide compelling evidence that SVO modulates fairness processing in social decision-making, whereas differences in neural responses to unfair vs fair offers as evidenced by the MFN appear to play important roles in the SVO effect on behavioral responses to unfairness.

The role of personality traits in pair bond formation: pairing is influenced by the trait of exploration.

In species with long-term pair bonds, such as zebra finches, evaluating the quality of potential mates is critically important. Courtship is an opportunity to evaluate information from dynamic behavioural cues. Personality traits, as stable individual differences in behaviour, could predict the quality of a potential mate. How might personality traits influence mate choice? We examined the influence of several personality traits, including exploration, aggression, and social preference, on pair formation in zebra finches. We provided birds with a variety of potential mates and allowed them to select a pair partner. Our semi-naturalistic mate choice paradigm allowed birds to observe social information over an extended period, simulating the challenges of social evaluation that birds encounter in the wild. We found that pairing is influenced by personality, with birds selecting mates similar to them in exploration. The partner's exploration score relative to their own was more important than the absolute exploration score.

Adolescent vocational interests predict early career success: Two 12‐year longitudinal studies

AbstractVocational interests are relatively stable individual differences that can change across the lifespan. However, little is known about the importance of interest changes, relative to stable interest levels, for predicting career outcomes. This study assessed the long‐term predictive power of adolescent interest levels and interest growth for five career outcomes: degree attainment, occupational prestige, income, and career‐ and job‐satisfaction. The study used two 12‐year longitudinal samples (N1 = 485; N2 = 1290) with vocational interests measured across multiple waves from late adolescence to young adulthood. Results from both samples converged on three key findings. First, adolescents who showed better interest fit with their eventual vocation were more satisfied with their jobs over a decade later. Second, adolescent interests predicted objective career outcomes (i.e. degree attainment, occupational prestige, and income), revealing that early interests shaped educational and career choices. Third, interest changes were typically not associated with career outcomes, indicating that adolescent interest levels played a larger role. Together, these findings highlight the critical importance of childhood and adolescent interest development for guiding career trajectories and outcomes. We discuss implications for interest development theories, educational policies, and applied interventions.

What you expect is (not) what you get: the impact of initial and post-hoc judgments of message characteristics on political information recall

ABSTRACT How does a political text’s complexity – as a crucial characteristic of a text – uniquely affect readers’ political information processing? Based on a metacognitive response framework and extant discussions based on the Heuristic-Systematic Model vs. the Elaboration Likelihood Model, we tested whether a reader’s initial expectation of a message characteristic and stable individual differences intersect with the metacognitive processing fluency experience. Do people recall more information from the news when presented with articles that are more – or less – complex than they expected, or do they recall more information when expectations of article complexity are met? And for whom is this more likely to occur? Our results provide strong support for the notion that objective complexity is indeed the main driver of metacognitive perceptual processing fluency and information recall, while also rending partial support for the role of (in)congruency in this process. The results also showed that individual differences in processing capabilities play a significant role in shaping information recall. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications.

The reward positivity reflects the integrated value of temporally threefold-layered decision outcomes.

In reinforcement learning, adaptive behavior depends on the ability to predict future outcomes based on previous decisions. The Reward Positivity (RewP) is thought to encode reward prediction errors in the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC) whenever these predictions are violated. Although the RewP has been extensively studied in the context of simple binary (win vs. loss) reward processing, recent studies suggest that the RewP scales complex feedback in a fine graded fashion. The aim of this study was to replicate and extend previous findings that the RewP reflects the integrated sum of instantaneous and delayed consequences of a singular outcome by increasing the feedback information content by a third temporal dimension. We used a complex reinforcement-learning task where each option was associated with an immediate, intermediate and delayed monetary outcome and analyzed the RewP in the time domain as well as fronto-medial theta power in the time-frequency domain. To test if the RewP sensitivity to the three outcome dimensions reflect stable trait-like individual differences in reward processing, a retesting session took place 3months later. The results confirm that the RewP reflects the integrated value of complex temporally extended consequences in a stable manner, albeit there was no relation to behavioral choice. Our findings indicate that the medial frontal cortex receives fine graded information about complex action outcomes that, however, may not necessarily translate to cognitive or behavioral control processes.

Properties of autobiographical memories are reliable and stable individual differences

Autobiographical memory research typically focuses on individual memories with variability in individual participants' responses serving as error variance. Integrating individual-difference and experimental approaches demonstrated that properties of autobiographical memories are stable individual differences with stable patterns of correlations. In two sessions approximately one week apart, different cues were used to prompt seven autobiographical memories. Each memory was rated on 12 properties including visual imagery, emotional intensity, narrative coherence, reliving, and past rehearsals. In two studies with samples from different populations (Ns of 200 and 160), each property had a high reliability in both sessions (median α = .90), and the mean of each property averaged over seven memories correlated highly with itself over sessions (median r = .72). Multiple regressions predicting three properties from Session 1 with the remaining nine properties of Session 2 and exploratory factor analyses yielded solutions consistent with expectations from studies of individual memories. Moreover, the correlation matrices of the 12 properties across studies and sessions were extremely similar. Thus, separate sessions, cues, samples, and properties provided generalizable data about individual differences in autobiographical memory. Practical, theoretical, and methodological implications include that individual differences in memory affect: life stories and narrative structure internal to events, stable clinical syndromes and symptoms, experimental results previously attributed to the properties of individual memories, and the confidence people have in the accuracy of their autobiographical and episodic memories.

Quantifying mechanisms of cognition with an experiment and modeling ecosystem.

Although there have been major strides toward uncovering the neurobehavioral mechanisms involved in cognitive functionslike memory and decision making, methods for measuring behavior and accessing latent processes through computational means remain limited. To this end, we have created SUPREME (Sensing to Understanding and Prediction Realized via an Experiment and Modeling Ecosystem): a toolbox for comprehensive cognitive assessment, provided by a combination of construct-targeted tasks and corresponding computational models. SUPREME includes four tasks, each developed symbiotically with a mechanistic model, which together provide quantified assessments of perception, cognitive control, declarative memory, reward valuation, and frustrative nonreward. In this study, we provide validation analyses for each task using two sessions of data from a cohort of cognitively normal participants (N = 65). Measures of test-retest reliability (r: 0.58-0.75), stability of individual differences (ρ: 0.56-0.70), and internal consistency (α: 0.80-0.86) support the validity of our tasks. After fitting the models to data from individual subjects, we demonstrate each model's ability to capture observed patterns of behavioral results across task conditions. Our computational approaches allow us to decompose behavior into cognitively interpretable subprocesses, which we can compare both within and between participants. We discuss potential future applications of SUPREME, including clinical assessments, longitudinal tracking of cognitive functions, and insight into compensatory mechanisms.

Repeatable individual differences in behaviour and physiology in juvenile horses from an early age

Most people living or working in close association with animals are familiar with individual differences in their behaviour, and awareness is growing that understanding such differences can contribute to improved management, production and welfare. Nevertheless, due to the considerable logistic and financial difficulties of conducting longitudinal studies, particularly in the large, slow-growing mammalian species comprising an important part of the world’s domestic animals, there is still little information on how early such differences emerge and whether they persist across different developmental stages. In an extension of a previous study of the behavioural and physiological (heart rate variability, HRV) response of 30 Azteca-breed foals of both sexes to repeated brief maternal separation from birth to weaning, we tested the same animals post-weaning in two tests of brief separation from their social group when they were approximately nine months and one year old, and recording the same behavioural and physiological variables as previously. As in the earlier study, we found stable individual differences in several behavioural variables: vocalization rate (R = 0.54, P < 0.01), duration of locomotion (R = 0.46, P = 0.02), duration of high tail carriage (R = 0.31, P = 0.05), and head tosses (R = 0.49, P=0.02), also in three of the four HRV measures at the two ages; change in heart rate (R = 0.47, P < 0.001), in STDRR (R = 0.39, P = 0.02) and in RMSSD (R = 0.39, P = 0.02) from baseline to the separation. These corresponded to the individual differences we had found pre-weaning. In contrast to our previous study, however, we no longer found an association between the behavioural and physiological measurements at this later age. Including previous measurement from the same animals we conclude there is considerable stability in individual differences in behaviour and physiology in response to a brief and ecologically relevant stressor from as early as the first week of age, even though close correspondence between behavioural and physiological changes disappear through development. These differences might be reliable indicators of individuals’ suitability for later use in particular applied contexts.

The Function of Casual Sex Action and Inaction Regret: A Longitudinal Investigation.

In several recent papers the sex difference in regret predicted by sexual strategies theory has been supported: men more than women report regret passing up short-term sexual opportunities (inaction regret), while women regret having had sexual encounters (action regret). However, the adaptive function of regret, to improve future behavioral choices, has not been tested. In this first longitudinal test of behavioral change following regret, we consider whether regret actually results in adaptive shifts of behavior: will men who regret passing up sex engage in more short-term sex following regret? Will women who regret short-term encounters either choose better quality partners, reduce number of one-night stands or shift their strategy to long-term relationships? Across two waves (NT1 = 399, 65.4% women and NT2 = 222, 66.2% women) students responded to questions about casual sex action regret and inaction regret, along with possible outcomes, intrapersonal traits, and concurrent contextual predictors. There was no clear evidence for the proposed functional shifts in sexual behavior. Casual sex regret was associated with respondent sex and stable individual differences, such as sociosexual attitudes, regret processing and metacognitions, but the effect of these predictors were not consistent across the two waves. Among the tested concurrent contextual predictors, sexual disgust was the most consistent across waves. Regret is considered a gauge of the value and quality of the short-term sexual encounter. However, tentatively we conclude that after this first test of function using longitudinal data, we find no evidence of a mating strategy shifting effect following sexual regret.

Personality and behavioral syndromes in two Peromyscus species: presence, lack of state dependence, and lack of association with home range size

One common theme of adaptive hypotheses for the existence of stable individual differences in behavior (personality) or persistent correlations among behaviors (behavioral syndromes) is an association between intrinsic state (e.g., body size, mass, metabolism) and the behavioral traits of interest. Empiricists are tasked with assessing whether there is an association between intrinsic state and behavior, but the statistical methods to appropriately quantify the among-individual correlation between intrinsic state and behavior have only recently become widely known. We conducted a multiyear study in wild mice of two Peromyscus species (Peromyscus leucopus noveboracensis and Peromyscus maniculatus gracilis) to assess the existence of stable individual differences in four different behaviors (presence of animal personality, as assessed by quantifying repeatabilities) and one measure of intrinsic state (body mass), the degree of association between these four behaviors (presence of behavioral syndromes), and the association of these behavioral traits with body mass using multivariate methods that allowed us to estimate the within-individual (residual) component and the among-individual component. We used standardized behavioral tests to measure struggle time (time spent struggling when removed from the trap) and exploration time (time spent exploring a novel surface) and used open-field trials to measure whether or not an individual entered the open field plus the total time it spent active in the open field. In P. leucopus, we assessed whether coarse but quick methods of assessing animal personality (struggle or exploration time) correlate with behavior using more in-depth estimates obtained by open-field trials. Additionally, we tested the ecological relevance of our personality measures by assessing their association with home range size in P. leucopus. In both species, struggle time, exploration time, and body mass were significantly repeatable and there was a significant among-individual correlation between struggle time and exploration time. However, in both species, there was no evidence for an among-individual correlation between our measure of intrinsic state (body mass) and personality traits. In one species (P. leucopus), we found that individuals that spent more time struggling or exploring a novel surface were also more likely to emerge into an open field and spent more time being active in an open field, but these four behavioral measures were not associated with home range size. Our results suggest among-individual correlation among these different behaviors but no among-individual correlation between behavior and intrinsic state. Over the past 15 years, it has become clear that nonhuman animals exhibit “personalities”: some individuals consistently differ in their behavior, and there is limited flexibility in their behavior when they experience environmental change. Biologists have now been searching for why and how animal personalities exist and their ecological and evolutionary consequences. Some explanations have focused on how condition or “internal state” may cause variation in animal personalities. In this study, we show that two species of wild mice exhibit personalities and that their personality traits are associated with one another, in that mice that were less docile were also more active, exploratory, and bold. We then show that their personality traits were not linked with body mass, suggesting a lack of association between internal state and personality. Our results provide important insights into the causes of personality in nonhuman animals.

Individual differences in exploring versus exploiting and links to delay discounting

AbstractSometimes, we must choose between obtaining an immediate reward or foregoing it in favor of searching for a better reward elsewhere. Such decisions have been characterized as involving exploration‐exploitation trade‐offs. Here, we studied the reliability and basis of individual differences in tasks involving choices between exploration and exploitation. In Studies 1, 2, and 4, we found little evidence for a stable individual difference in tendency to explore (vs. exploit). Additionally, we tested delay discounting as a potential predictor of individual differences in exploration. In Studies 3 and 4, we found that delay discounting was inconsistently predictive of exploration behavior. Our results support the claim that people adapt their exploration behavior to the environment in which they find themselves. This adaptation overrides any general preference to explore environments more or less than other people. Our results also suggest that predictors of exploration may be exclusively restricted to the particular environment in which they were observed. Implications for past and future research of exploration‐exploitation decision making are discussed.

Developing and validating attention bias tools for assessing trait and state affect in animals: A worked example with Macaca mulatta

Attention bias is a new approach to assessing animal affect that has shown promising results in several animal species. It describes a tendency to preferentially attend to emotional compared to neutral cues and is influenced by underlying affect. It is important in the early days of this new field that we develop widely utilisable methods and incorporate lessons from the human literature from which tasks are adapted. This fundamental knowledge is critical to the development of standardised and sensitive tools, and the validation of experimental protocols to ensure best practice. Here, we describe protocols for two preferential-looking attention bias tasks. Study 1 involved a manual task using freely available low-cost materials. Study 2 used an automated task requiring specialist equipment and programming, but presumably less prone to noisy data. Tasks were tested with 109 socially housed rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta, who had been trained to sit by a target, but received no other training. Tasks involved showing animals emotional face pairs (threat-neutral), and subsequent blind coding of video for duration of looking at either face. Three measures of social attention were examined: time spent looking at the threat face (THR), total time looking at the threat-neutral face pair overall (TL), and attention bias difference score (ABD) calculated as time spent looking at the neutral face subtracted from time spent looking at the threat face. Based on the human literature and early primate work, the influence of five potential confounding factors on attention was assessed: trial number, stimulus ID, previous testing experience, time of day and visual field to which the threat face was presented; as were several life history factors: sex, age, and social rank. Both tasks revealed stable individual differences in baseline social attention (THR and TL: effect sizes = 0.15−0.31; repeatabilities = 0.12−0.26; suggesting sensitivity to trait affect), but not ABD (which may be more sensitive to brief shifts in emotion state). All potential confounding factors had a significant effect on at least one measure of social attention. For a subset of monkeys who took part in both Study 1 and Study 2 several years apart (n = 18), there was significant reproducibility between tasks for all three measures (R = 0.15−0.63), supporting an argument for stable individual differences in baseline attention bias, and validating the two tasks for measuring the same trait. The attention bias method shows promise for further development of standardised protocols with animals. We provide framework and recommendations for future method development.

Approximate number system discrimination training for 7-8 year olds improves approximate, but not exact, arithmetics, and only in children with low pre-training arithmetic scores

We investigated whether training the Approximate Number System (ANS) would transfer to improved arithmetic performance in 7-8 year olds compared to a control group. All children participated in Pre- and Post-Training assessments of exact symbolic arithmetic (additions and subtractions) and approximate symbolic arithmetic abilities (a novel test). During 3 weeks of training (approximately 25 minutes per day, two days per week), we found that children in the ANS Training group had stable individual differences in ANS efficiency and increased in ANS efficiency, both within and across the training days. We also found that individual differences in ANS efficiency were related to symbolic arithmetic performance. Regarding arithmetic performance, both the ANS training group and the control group improved in all tests (exact and approximate arithmetics tests). Thus, the ANS training did not show a specific effect on arithmetic performance. However, considering the initial arithmetic level of children, we found that the trained children showed a higher improvement on the novel approximate arithmetic test compared to the control group, but only for those children with a low pre-training arithmetic score. Nevertheless, this difference within the low pre-training arithmetic score level was not observed in the exact arithmetic test. The limited benefits observed in these results suggest that this type of ANS discrimination training, through quantity comparison tasks, may not have an impact on symbolic arithmetics overall, although we cautiously propose that it could help with approximate arithmetic abilities for children at this age with below-average arithmetic performance.

In person, online, and up close: the cross‐contextual consistency of expressive accuracy

People vary widely in their expressive accuracy, the tendency to be viewed in line with one’s unique traits. It is unclear, however, whether expressive accuracy is a stable individual difference that transcends social contexts or a more piecemeal, context‐specific characteristic. The current research therefore examined the consistency of expressive accuracy across three social contexts: face‐to‐face initial interactions, close relationships, and social media. There was clear evidence for cross‐contextual consistency, such that expressive accuracy in face‐to‐face first impressions, based on brief round‐robin interactions, was associated with expressive accuracy with close others (Sample 1; Ntargets = 514; Ndyads = 1656) and based on Facebook profiles (Samples 2 and 3: Ntargets = 126–132; Ndyads = 1170–1476). This was found on average across traits and for high and low observability traits. Further, unique predictors emerged for different types of expressive accuracy, with psychological adjustment and conscientiousness most consistently linked to overall expressive accuracy, extraversion most consistently linked to high observability expressive accuracy, and neuroticism most consistently linked to low observability expressive accuracy. In sum, expressive accuracy appears to emerge robustly and consistently across contexts, although its predictors may differ depending on the type of trait.

The Development of Generosity From 4 to 6 Years: Examining Stability and the Biopsychosocial Contributions of Children's Vagal Flexibility and Mothers' Compassion.

Individual differences in children’s prosocial behaviors, including their willingness to give up something of value for the benefit of others, are rooted in physiological and environmental processes. In a sample of 4-year-old children, we previously found evidence that flexible changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were linked to donation behavior, and that these physiological patterns may support greater sensitivity to the positive effects of compassionate parenting on donation behavior. The current study focused on a follow-up assessment of these children at age 6. First, we examined the stability of individual differences in donation behavior and related parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity from age 4 to 6. Second, we examined associations between donation behavior and RSA at 6 years. Third, we examined whether the association between children’s RSA and donation behavior at age 6 varied depending on mothers’ compassionate love. We found low to modest stability in donation behavior and RSA reactivity from age 4 to 6. These findings provide preliminary evidence that stable individual differences in altruism, as reflected by generosity, and in some aspects of parasympathetic functioning during opportunities to be prosocial, emerge in childhood. In addition, we found that some of the same associations between donation behavior, RSA, and compassionate love that we previously observed in children at 4 years of age continued to be evident 2 years later at age 6. Greater decreases in RSA when given the opportunity to donate were associated with children donating more of their own resources which, in turn, were associated with greater RSA recovery after the task. Lastly, mothers’ compassionate love was positively associated with donation behavior in children who demonstrated stronger decreases in RSA during the task; compassionate parenting and RSA reactivity may serve as external and internal supports for prosociality that build on each other. Taken together, these findings contribute to the perspectives that individual differences in altruistic behaviors are intrinsically linked to healthy vagal flexibility, and that biopsychosocial approaches provide a useful framework for examining and understanding the environmental and physiological processes underlying these individual differences.

Occurrence of and Reasons for "Missing Events" in Mobile Dietary Assessments: Results From Three Event-Based Ecological Momentary Assessment Studies.

BackgroundEstablishing a methodology for assessing nutritional behavior comprehensively and accurately poses a great challenge. Mobile technologies such as mobile image-based food recording apps enable eating events to be assessed in the moment in real time, thereby reducing memory biases inherent in retrospective food records. However, users might find it challenging to take images of the food they consume at every eating event over an extended period, which might lead to incomplete records of eating events (missing events).ObjectiveAnalyzing data from 3 studies that used mobile image-based food recording apps and varied in their technical enrichment, this study aims to assess how often eating events (meals and snacks) were missed over a period of 8 days in a naturalistic setting by comparing the number of recorded events with the number of normative expected events, over time, and with recollections of missing events.MethodsParticipants in 3 event-based Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) studies using mobile image-based dietary assessments were asked to record all eating events (study 1, N=38, 1070 eating events; study 2, N=35, 934 eating events; study 3, N=110, 3469 eating events). Study 1 used a basic app; study 2 included 1 fixed reminder and the possibility to add meals after the actual eating events occurred instead of in the moment (addendum); and study 3 included 2 fixed reminders, an addendum feature, and the option to record skipped meals. The number of recalled missed events and their reasons were assessed by semistructured interviews after the EMA period (studies 1 and 2) and daily questionnaires (study 3).ResultsOverall, 183 participants reported 5473 eating events. Although the momentary adherence rate as indexed by a comparison with normative expected events was generally high across all 3 studies, a differential pattern of results emerged with a higher rate of logged meals in the more technically intensive study 3. Multilevel models for the logging trajectories of reported meals in all 3 studies showed a significant, albeit small, decline over time (b=−.11 to −.14, Ps<.001, pseudo-R²=0.04-0.06), mainly because of a drop in reported snacks between days 1 and 2. Intraclass coefficients indicated that 38% or less of the observed variance was because of individual differences. The most common reasons for missing events were competing activities and technical issues, whereas situational barriers were less important.ConclusionsThree different indicators (normative, time stability, and recalled missing events) consistently indicated missing events. However, given the intensive nature of diet EMA protocols, the effect sizes were rather small and the logging trajectories over time were remarkably stable. Moreover, the individual’s actual state and context seemed to exert a greater influence on adherence rates than stable individual differences, which emphasizes the need for a more nuanced understanding of the factors that affect momentary adherence.

Using multiple short epochs optimises the stability of infant EEG connectivity parameters

Atypicalities in connectivity between brain regions have been implicated in a range of neurocognitive disorders. We require metrics to assess stable individual differences in connectivity in the developing brain, while facing the challenge of limited data quality and quantity. Here, we examine how varying core processing parameters can optimise the test–retest reliability of EEG connectivity measures in infants. EEG was recorded twice with a 1-week interval between sessions in 10-month-olds. EEG alpha connectivity was measured across different epoch lengths and numbers, with the phase lag index (PLI) and debiased weighted PLI (dbWPLI), for both whole-head connectivity and graph theory metrics. We calculated intra-class correlations between sessions for infants with sufficient data for both sessions (N’s = 19–41, depending on the segmentation method). Reliability for the whole brain dbWPLI was higher across many short epochs, whereas reliability for the whole brain PLI was higher across fewer long epochs. However, the PLI is confounded by the number of available segments. Reliability was higher for whole brain connectivity than graph theory metrics. Thus, segmenting available data into a high number of short epochs and calculating the dbWPLI is most appropriate for characterising connectivity in populations with limited availability of EEG data.

Stable individual differences in strategies within, but not between, visual search tasks.

A striking range of individual differences has recently been reported in three different visual search tasks. These differences in performance can be attributed to strategy, that is, the efficiency with which participants control their search to complete the task quickly and accurately. Here, we ask whether an individual’s strategy and performance in one search task is correlated with how they perform in the other two. We tested 64 observers and found that even though the test–retest reliability of the tasks was high, an observer’s performance and strategy in one task was not predictive of their behaviour in the other two. These results suggest search strategies are stable over time, but context-specific. To understand visual search, we therefore need to account not only for differences between individuals but also how individuals interact with the search task and context.

The Psychometric Properties of a Portuguese Version of the Trait-Meta Mood Scale: an Attachment Framework

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Portuguese version of Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS). The TMMS is a self-report measure that assesses stable individual differences in the way people attend, discriminate, and repair their mood and emotions. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) were conducted in a sample of 1070 Portuguese university students, aged 17–30 years. Attachment, coping and rumination measures were used to establish construct validity, and internal consistency was also tested. The CFA failed to gather support for the original three-factor structure. Results suggested that a four-factor structure, including 26 items tapping suppression, clarity, repair, and difficulties in defensive repression provided the best fit to the data. The four subscales evidenced good internal consistency. In addition, concurrent validity with attachment, coping, and rumination variables was determined. This four-factor structure provided a valid and reliable measure to assess emotion regulation and is proposed to add some comprehensive value to the assessment of emotion regulation under an information-processing and attachment framework.