Aspects of extraversion are unrelated to pleasant affective-reactivity: Further examination of the affective-reactivity hypothesis
Introduction
Over the last few decades the subjective well-being literature has demonstrated the strong role of personality variables relative to situational factors in accounting for variation in human happiness (Costa and McCrae, 1980, Diener and Lucas, 1999). A case in point is trait extraversion, one of the strongest known predictors of various happiness indicators, particularly those concerned with global positive affect (Lucas and Diener, 2008, Lucas and Fujita, 2000). One influential explanation for this phenomenon is known as the ‘affective-reactivity hypothesis’ (ARH; Gross et al., 1998, Larsen and Ketelaar, 1991, Lucas and Baird, 2004), which derives from a broader collection of theories proposing that trait extraversion reflects variation in dispositional reactivity to rewarding stimuli (see Smillie, in press, for a review). Specifically, the ARH suggests that greater reward reactivity may result in more intense experiences of positive affect (PA) in response to positive or rewarding stimuli and situations. The cumulative effect of these differential experiences might then, in the long term, account for the chronically higher positive emotionality of extraverts.
Despite its theoretical influence, empirical tests of the ARH using positive mood induction procedures have yielded very mixed findings (see Lucas & Baird, 2004). In a recent series of experiments (Smillie, et al., 2012), we demonstrated that the ARH appears to hold only under quite specific circumstances. Specifically, if mood induction procedures incorporate clearly appetitive, goal-pursuit elements (e.g., winning money), and if mood is assessed using measures of activated PA (e.g., feelings of energy and excitement), then extraversion does indeed appear to capture stronger affective reactions. Conversely, if mood induction procedures incorporate merely pleasant stimuli without salient goal-pursuit elements (e.g., having a nice conversation), or if mood is assessed using measures relating to pleasant or ‘deactivated’ PA (e.g., feelings of satisfaction and pleasure), then extraversion does not predict affective-reactivity. These contingencies appear consistent with evidence that the neural system involved in directing motivated action toward reward goals is distinct from the neural system that mediate pleasurable enjoyment of reward attainment (Berridge, Robinson, & Aldridge, 2009).
While our recent studies in this area help to clarify the ARH, it is difficult to see why momentary experiences of increased activated PA, specifically, would cumulatively translate into more general elevations in positive emotionality. Indeed, extraversion is a strong predictor of a remarkably wide range of measures of chronic positive affectivity (Lucas & Fujita, 2000). If extraverts were susceptible to a similarly wide range of momentary positive affective experiences – including increases in pleasant PA – then the ARH would seem more plausible as an explanation for these relationships.
One potential explanation for the failure of many previous studies to support a link between extraversion and pleasant affective-reactivity is their omission of lower-order aspects of extraversion. Of particular interest is the distinction between agentic extraversion, concerned with achievement and social dominance, and affiliative extraversion, concerned with pleasant feelings and social closeness. Importantly, only agentic extraversion is thought to reflect functional variation in the dopaminergic reward system, while affiliative extraversion has been linked with areas involved in the experience of pleasure, such as forebrain opioid circuits (Depue & Morrone-Strupinsky, 2005). Agentic aspects of extraversion might therefore underlie our recent observations of increased activated PA during goal-pursuit scenarios. Indeed, the items of the extraversion scale used in these studies (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised, EPQ-R; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1991) tended to primarily concern agency and dominance (e.g., Can you get a party going? Do you usually take the initiative in making new friends?). Conversely, measures of extraversion that are more relevant to affiliative processes – concerning feelings of warmth and affection – may be more likely to capture variation in pleasant affective-reactivity.
Although no explicit tests of the ARH have contrasted measures of agentic and affiliative extraversion, one series of studies is highly relevant. First, Morrone, Depue, Scherer, and White (2000) induced activated PA using film clips portraying episodes of goal-achievement (e.g., sporting victories). The authors found that only agentic extraversion was significantly related to activated PA following the film clips (r = .32, p < 0.01), although the relationship for affiliative extraversion was also positive (r = .18, p = 0.09), and these two correlations did not differ significantly (Z = 0.98, p = .32). Second, Morrone-Strupinsky and Depue (2004) contrasted one of the goal-achievement clips from their previous study with a clip depicting scenes of social-closeness (concerning the development of a romantic relationship). A measure of agentic extraversion predicted activated PA following the goal-achievement clip (r = .37, p < .05) while a measure of affiliative extraversion predicted feelings of warmth and affection following the social-closeness clip (r = .39, p < .05). Finally, Morrone-Strupinsky and Lane (2007) attempted to conceptually replicate this finding using pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Bradley & Lang, 2007). Agentic extraversion again predicted activated PA following presentation of goal-achievement pictures (r = .29, p < .05), but this time affiliative extraversion did not predict affective reactions to either goal-achievement or social-closeness pictures.
The robust relationship Morrone-Strupinsky and colleagues observed between agentic extraversion and activated PA following goal-achievement stimuli mirrors our own findings based on a broader measure of extraversion (Smillie et al., 2012). In contrast, only the affiliative component of extraversion shows any relationship with feelings of warmth and affection following social-closeness stimuli – albeit unreliably. There are similarities between Morrone-Strupinsky and colleagues’ induction of warm-affectionate feelings and more generic inducements of pleasant PA, such as in our recent experiments and elsewhere in the literature. Specifically, the stimuli presented are of an affectively positive nature but do not involve reward pursuit. Further, the target affective state would be clearly located in the positive-valence low-activation quadrant of major circumplex models of affect (e.g., Yik, Russell, & Steiger, 2011), alongside such pleasant PA descriptors as ‘soothed’ and ‘secure’. Measures of affiliative extraversion may therefore be more likely to predict pleasant affective-reactivity than the broad-focus measures of extraversion employed in previous tests of the ARH. Demonstration of such a relationship would qualify our previous findings, and suggest that different aspects of extraversion are related to different aspects of affective-reactivity (see DeYoung, Weisberg, Quilty, & Peterson, in press, for a similar suggestion). Furthermore, it would strengthen the plausibility of the ARH as a generalizable account of the broadly happy disposition of extraverted individuals.
In summary, the aim of the present research was to provide a further test of the hypothesis that extraverts are susceptible to increased pleasant affect. Although many studies have already failed to support this hypothesis (e.g., Lucas and Baird, 2004, Smillie et al., 2012), these have not contrasted measures agentic extraversion with measures of affiliative extraversion. An exception is two studies by Morrone-Strupinsky and colleagues, which provide some encouragement to the possibility that the affiliative aspect of extraversion may be associated with pleasant affective-reactivity.
Section snippets
Experiment 1
In experiment 1 we attempted to conceptually replicate and extend one of our previous studies (Smillie et al., 2012, study 5) using a measure of extraversion that captures the distinction between agency and affiliation. For this, we employed the extraversion measure from the Big Five Aspects Scales (BFAS; see DeYoung et al., 2007, DeYoung et al., in press), which divides extraversion into assertiveness (leadership and dominance) and enthusiasm (friendliness and positive emotion). In line with
Participants
One-hundred and thirty-one adults (17% male) aged between 18 and 52 (M = 20.06, SD = 4.05) were recruited via an undergraduate psychology research participation scheme within a large Australian university. The methods described below were administered as part of a larger project concerning personality, motivation and emotion. Additional questionnaires and tasks administered were unrelated to the aims of the present paper, and data for these participants have not been previously reported.
Extraversion and affect
The Big
Preliminary statistics
There were no significant differences among experimental groups on any of the personality or baseline affect measures (all ps > .20; see Table 1). Assertiveness was positively related to baseline assessments of activated PA, r(129) = 0.31, p < .001, and Pleasant PA, r(129) = 0.24, p = .007, while enthusiasm was positively related only to baseline pleasant PA, r(129) = 0.26, p = .002.
Manipulation check
A 2 (pre/post PA) × 2 (activated/pleasant PA) × 3 (mood condition) mixed ANOVA was conducted to verify that our mood induction
Experiment 2
Experiment 1 provided a re-examination of the ARH in terms of the relationship between aspects of extraversion and pleasant affective-reactivity. As we failed to find evidence for such a relationship, the purpose of our second experiment was to provide an additional, stronger test of this prediction. To this end, we recruited a large sample of participants (N–100) to undergo only a pleasant mood induction. We used a guided imagery procedure to induce mood in order to provide an alternative
Participants
Ninety-seven adults (41% male) aged between 18 and 44 (M = 23.87, SD = 6.37) were recruited via flyers posted on noticeboards around a large Australian university. All participants were students and members of the local community taking part in a larger study concerning personality, emotion and motivation, for which they received A$15.00 (US$15.74). Additional measures were not relevant to the aims of the present paper, and data for these participants have not been reported previously.
Extraversion, affect, and happiness
Extraversion
Preliminary statistics
Assertiveness was positively related to baseline activated PA, r(95) = 0.26, p = .011, but not pleasant PA, r(95) = 0.08, p = .43. Enthusiasm was related to baseline measures of both activated PA, r(95) = 0.42, p < .001, and pleasant PA, r(95) = 0.34, p = .002. SWL was also related to baseline measures of both activated PA, r(95) = 0.48, p < .001, and pleasant PA, r(95) = 0.43, p < .001, with near-identical relationships observed for EWB: activated PA, r(95) = 0.41, p < .001; pleasant PA, r(95) = 0.43, p < .001.
Manipulation check
A 2 (pre/post
General discussion and conclusion
The affective-reactivity hypothesis suggests that extraverted people experience stronger positive affective reactions than introverted people. In the long-term, the accumulation of these pleasantly-valenced experiences may explain why extraverts are generally happier than introverts, particularly in terms of chronic positive emotionality (Lucas & Fujita, 2000). Our first experiment replicated our recent demonstrations that extraversion is related to affective-reactivity only in terms of
Acknowledgement
The third author would like to acknowledge the research support of NIMH (No. F31-MH093041) under the grant title ‘A New Form and Function for Personality’.
References (40)
- et al.
Dissecting components of reward: ‘liking’, ‘wanting’, and learning
Current Opinion in Pharmacology.
(2009) - et al.
Mood instability is the distinctive feature of neuroticism. Results from the British Health and Lifestyle Study
Personality and Individual Differences
(2012) - et al.
Film-induced incentive motivation and positive activation in relation to agentic and affiliative components of Extraversion
Personality and Individual Differences
(2000) - et al.
Differential relation of two distinct, film-induced positive emotional states to affiliative and agentic extraversion
Personality and Individual Differences
(2004) - et al.
Parsing positive emotion in relation to agentic and affiliative components of extraversion
Personality and Individual Differences
(2007) - et al.
The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(1986) - et al.
The International Affective Picture System (IAPS) in the study of emotion and attention
- et al.
Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences
(2003) - et al.
Trends in ambulatory self-report: Understanding the utility of momentary experiences, memories, and beliefs
Psychosomatic Medicine
(2012) - et al.
Influence of extraversion and neuroticism on subjective well-being: Happy and unhappy people
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
(1980)
Subjective wellbeing as an affective-cognitive construct
Journal of Happiness Studies
The happy personality: A meta-analysis of 137 personality traits and subjective well-being
Psychological Bulletin
A neurobehavioral model of affiliative bonding: Implications for conceptualizing a human trait of affiliation
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Personality neuroscience and the biology of traits
Social and Personality Psychology Compass
Between facets and domains: 10 Aspects of the Big Five
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Personality and subjective well-being
The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-revised
An intraindividual process approach to the relationship between extraversion and positive affect: Is acting extraverted as ‘‘good’’ as being extraverted?
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Emotion elicitation using films
Cognition & Emotion
Cited by (25)
The temperamental basis of extraversion and its implications for psychopathology
2022, Personality and Individual DifferencesThe interactive effect of neuroticism and extraversion on the daily variability of affective states
2019, Journal of Research in PersonalityThe Big Five, everyday contexts and activities, and affective experience
2019, Personality and Individual DifferencesA model for personality at three levels
2015, Journal of Research in PersonalityCitation Excerpt :To an individual differences theorist, the issues of how and why individuals differ in their patterns are central to the domain of study (Costa & McCrae, 1992a; Digman, 1990, 1997; Eysenck, 1981; Eysenck & Himmelweit, 1947; Goldberg, 1990; Hogan, 1982; Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). To a biologically minded psychologist, these dynamic processes reflect genetic bases of biological sensitivities to the reinforcement contingencies of the environment (Corr, 2008a; Corr, DeYoung, & McNaughton, 2013; DeYoung et al., 2010; Smillie, 2008; Smillie, Cooper, Wilt, & Revelle, 2012; Smillie, Geaney, Wilt, Cooper, & Revelle, 2013). To a mathematically oriented psychologist, these dynamic processes may be modeled in terms of the differential equations of the Dynamics of Action (Atkinson & Birch, 1970; Atkinson & Raynor, 1974; Revelle, 1986, chap.
Cybernetic Big Five Theory
2015, Journal of Research in PersonalityCitation Excerpt :Emotions like excitement and enthusiasm, which characterize Enthusiasm as a trait, have a clear incentive component. Further, both Assertiveness and Enthusiasm predicted high levels of aroused positive affect (e.g., feeling “energetic” and “active”) in response to an appetitive film clip depicting vigorous goal-directed behavior (Smillie, Geaney, Wilt, Cooper, & Revelle, 2013). The cybernetic perspective provides an elegant explanation for the fact that the distinction between wanting and liking is not complete at the trait level.
Extraverts categorize their daily experiences by specific social relationships
2014, Journal of Research in PersonalityCitation Excerpt :Though plausible, recent studies cast doubt on the view that extraversion is simply a predilection for pleasant stimuli. Differences between extraverts and introverts were found only when pleasant stimuli contained elements of goal-pursuit (Smillie, Cooper, Wilt, & Revelle, 2012; Smillie, Geaney, Wilt, Cooper, & Revelle, 2013). Thus the extent to which valence is a more accessible category for extraverts than introverts remains an open question.