دانلود مقاله ISI انگلیسی شماره 35258
ترجمه فارسی عنوان مقاله

روشن شدن رابطه بین روان رنجوری و احساسات مثبت

عنوان انگلیسی
Clarifying the relation between neuroticism and positive emotions
کد مقاله سال انتشار تعداد صفحات مقاله انگلیسی
35258 2009 4 صفحه PDF
منبع

Publisher : Elsevier - Science Direct (الزویر - ساینس دایرکت)

Journal : Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 47, Issue 1, July 2009, Pages 69–72

ترجمه کلمات کلیدی
روان رنجوری - احساسات مثبت - احساسات منفی -
کلمات کلیدی انگلیسی
Neuroticism; Positive emotions; Negative emotions
پیش نمایش مقاله
پیش نمایش مقاله  روشن شدن رابطه بین روان رنجوری و احساسات مثبت

چکیده انگلیسی

Little focus has been placed on clarifying the relation between neuroticism and positive emotions, even as numerous studies have consistently documented that neuroticism is more strongly related to negative than positive emotions while the converse holds true for extraversion. The present results show that the strength and direction of the neuroticism–positive emotion association depend on circumstances, and the relation is not necessarily always weak and non-significant. Neuroticism was inversely associated with positive emotions in an unpleasant situation, although it showed no relation with positive emotions in a pleasant situation. This suggests that high-neuroticism individuals are capable of feeling as much positive emotions as low-neuroticism individuals under certain, but not all, circumstances. This research has implications for how high-neuroticism individuals’ well-being can be enhanced via increasing their positive emotions instead of focusing on decreasing their negative emotions.

مقدمه انگلیسی

There is a myriad of studies documenting the links between personality traits and affect. Correlational, experimental, and longitudinal studies have found that neuroticism is positively associated with negative affect, and extraversion is positively associated with positive affect (e.g., DeNeve and Cooper, 1998, Tellegen, 1985 and Watson and Clark, 1992). Consistently, these studies demonstrate that neuroticism and extraversion are not only respectively linked to transient negative and positive emotions, current negative and positive affect, but also predict future negative and positive affect (Costa & McCrae, 1980). On the other hand, both correlational (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1980) and experimental (Larsen and Ketelaar, 1989, Larsen and Ketelaar, 1991 and Rusting and Larsen, 1997) studies have found barely any correlation between neuroticism and positive emotions. The underlying biological mechanisms between traits and emotions can explain why neuroticism is strongly related to negative emotions but only weakly related to positive emotions, whereas the converse is true for extraversion. Recent studies suggest that there are neural and physiological mechanisms for the relations between neuroticism and negative emotions, and between extraversion and positive emotions (Canli et al., 2001, Gomez et al., 2002 and Rusting and Larsen, 1997). Heritability studies, which found that genetics account for a large percentage of the variance in positive and negative affect (Lykken and Tellegen, 1996 and Tellegen et al., 1988), provided further support for this biological perspective. Lykken and Tellegen estimated the heritability of positive and negative affect to be as high as 80% based on retest correlations of monozygotic and dizygotic twins after ten years. Similarly, there is evidence indicating that about 31% of the variance in neuroticism and 41% in extraversion could be attributed to shared genes (Pedersen, Plomin, McClearn, & Friberg, 1988). The temperamental differences in negative and positive affect can be explained by differences in reactivity and tonic affect. Differences in reactivity to emotional stimuli arise from temperamental differences in neuroticism and extraversion. Individuals high in neuroticism react more strongly to negative stimuli than those low in neuroticism, and individuals high in extraversion react more strongly to positive stimuli than introverts (Gross et al., 1998, Larsen and Ketelaar, 1989 and Larsen and Ketelaar, 1991). Experimental studies found that neuroticism showed a positive association with negative emotions when individuals imagined an unpleasant situation, whereas extraversion was positively related to positive emotions in an imaginary pleasant situation (Larsen and Ketelaar, 1989 and Larsen and Ketelaar, 1991). Besides differences in reactivity to emotional stimuli, individual differences in emotions could also be due to differences in baseline affect. The affect-level model advocates that there are neuroticism differences in tonic levels of negative affect, so individuals high in neuroticism would feel more negative in all circumstances or with all stimuli, and likewise for extraversion (Gross et al., 1998 and Lucas and Baird, 2004). Indeed, Lucas and Baird found that individuals high in extraversion felt stronger positive affect than introverts not only in positive, but also neutral mood inductions. Both models were corroborated by findings by Gross et al., which showed that neuroticism was correlated with higher baseline negative affect, and with increases in negative emotions in response to unpleasant stimuli, whereas extraversion was correlated with higher baseline positive affect, and with increases in positive emotions in response to pleasant stimuli. The lack of an association between neuroticism and positive emotions does not indicate that they are completely unrelated under all circumstances. Though often non-significant, the negative correlations between neuroticism and positive emotions (e.g., DeNeve and Cooper, 1998 and Diener and Emmons, 1985) suggest that they are not completely independent under all circumstances and that there is a need for further clarification. Furthermore, there is evidence that neuroticism is negatively related to positive emotional information processing (positive judgment and interpretation; Rafienia, Azadfallah, Fathi-Ashtiani, & Rasoulzadeh-Tabatabaiei, 2008), implying that neuroticism may thus also be related to positive emotions. It is possible that neuroticism may be associated with positive emotions in response to pleasant but not neutral or unpleasant stimuli (or vice versa), or only for certain types of positive emotions. The present study is one of the few experimental studies (e.g., Larsen and Ketelaar, 1991 and Rusting and Larsen, 1997) to investigate whether neuroticism is related to positive emotions. It aims to clarify whether neuroticism may be related to positive emotions contingent on the type of situation, for example, a pleasant versus an unpleasant situation. Unlike previous studies which usually used very unpleasant stimuli or mood inductions to elicit strong negative emotions and minimal positive emotions, and very pleasant stimuli or mood inductions to elicit strong positive emotions and minimal negative emotions, the present study adopted a different design. The same laboratory situation was used to concurrently elicit both positive and negative emotions of mild to moderate intensities. It is possible for people to experience both positive and negative emotions in response to the same event, albeit only at low-to-moderate intensities. Positive and negative affect are not bipolar; some situations, whether they are dramatic life events or simple tasks, can simultaneously elicit mixed emotions of both positive and negative affect, although most people typically feel either happy or sad, and not both simultaneously (Larsen et al., 2001 and Larsen et al., 2004). In this study, participants completed an anagram task of moderate difficulty and were randomly assigned to receive either pleasant or unpleasant feedback. The anagram task was designed such that most participants could successfully complete some but not all the items, thus participants could either feel positive or negative about it, depending on individual differences. When coupled with unpleasant feedback, most people should experience moderate negative emotions and slight positive emotions. Conversely, with pleasant feedback, they should feel moderate positive emotions and slight negative emotions. Therefore, a merit of this experimental design is that it enabled one to examine both positive and negative emotions concurrently, unlike most previous studies which focused on either type, but not both concurrently.