Emotion+and+Personality

Emotion and Personality Chapter 13

Individual Differences in Emotional Responding
 * Emotional dispositions are the ways in which people differ from one another in the emotions they typically feel
 * The first factor in Goldberg’s analysis has typically been called **extraversion** which is defined by word clusters such as talkativeness, sociability, spontaneity, boisterousness, energy and adventure
 * The second factor is **agreeableness** which is characterized by amiability, generosity, tolerance, courtesy, warmth, honesty and trust
 * The third is **conscientiousness** which consists of consistency, reliability, formality, foresight, maturity, and self-discipline
 * The fourth is **neuroticism** marked by self-pity, anxiety, insecurity, timidity and passivity
 * The fifth is **openness to experience** which relates to wisdom, originality, objectivity, reflection and art
 * Whereas extraversion includes an interest in seeking new adventures, openness to experience pertains to an interest in new intellectual stimulation
 * **“Big Five” personality factors** – five core dimensions in personality, as identified by factor analyses of trait adjectives
 * Emotion plays an important role in several of the Big Five factors
 * Extraversion has been associated with the frequency and intensity of positive emotion experience in dozens of studies
 * Neuroticism has often been defined in terms of negative emotions. Neurotic individuals tend to choose or create situations that make them unhappy. Neurotic people may just feel more distress than others (more emotionally reactive). Neurotic people may just be terrible at regulating their emotions.
 * Agreeableness predicts people’s dispositional experience of positive affect, above and beyond the effects of extraversion. In particular, agreeableness is associated with more frequent and intense experiences of love and compassion and forgiveness. It is also associated with lower proneness to anger. Agreeableness may also be linked to effective emotion regulation.
 * The implications of conscientiousness for emotion might not be immediately obvious. Highly conscientious people tended to report greater dispositional joy, contentment and pride. Another study suggests that more conscientious people might be better at controlling the behavioral expression of their emotions.
 * Of all the Big Five factors, openness to experience has been studied the least with respect to emotion. Openness does predict dispositional positive affect and it is associated with strong feelings of love, compassion and awe.
 * One substantial body of research has used electroencephalography (EEG) methods to ask whether people have global patterns of brain activity that predispose them to certain emotional traits
 * Emotion researchers have shown a particular interest in the extent to which the left or right frontal lobe of the brain is more active in general and during specific tasks—a ratio often called **frontal asymmetry**
 * **Behavioral approach** - a tendency to seek out rewarding experiences and engage with the world
 * **Behavioral avoidance** – a tendency to withdraw from potential threats
 * Participants with greater right frontal activation reported greater behavioral avoidance relative to behavioral activation, whereas the opposite was true for participants with greater activation on the left

Emotional Intelligence
 * **Emotional intelligence** – the ability to recognize the meaning of emotions and their relationships, and to use emotions effectively in reasoning and problem-solving
 * Typically researchers and theorists emphasize three major components. Perceiving emotions in facial expressions, music art and so forth. Understand and reasoning about emotions. Managing emotions, such as calming oneself down or relieving someone else’s anxiety.

Measuring Emotional Intelligence
 * One approach is to treat it like a personality trait and measure it with self-reports. Self-report measures do appear to be measuring something and that something is beneficial.
 * The other approach to measuring emotional intelligence is to develop an ability test, comparable to IQ tests or other standardized tests. The best-known and most widely used test of this type is the **Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test.**
 * This test is 40 minutes long, tests a persons abilities on the 4 branches of emotional intelligence (described in detail in the article notes below)
 * One way is **expert scoring,** relying on the answers chosen by experts in the field. A big question is whether emotional intelligence items have any correct answer at all, or whether the answers vary by group.
 * A different way to determine the correct answers is by **consensus** –using the answer given by the largest number of people. The problem with the consensus method of scoring is that if the right answer is whatever the majority says, then the test can’t include any difficult items that only “emotional geniuses” get right.
 * Although the MSCEIT does not identify those with especially outstanding emotional intelligence, it does pick out those with the worst.
 * An alternative to either expert or consensus scoring is to base the correct answers on responses from **targets**—people who have had the experiences described in the test questions
 * According to the authors of MSCEIT, its reliability is about .9, which is similar to other standardized psychological tests
 * **Predictive validity** – if a test score accurately predicts people’s behavior in another setting
 * MSCEIT scores do correlate positive, although not always highly, with several outcomes reflecting behaviors, including quality of friendships and romantic relationships and ability to identify the emotion intended by musical compositions
 * Emotional intelligence adds little to what we already know from measures of cognition and personality

Is Emotional Intelligence Teachable?
 * People grow older and more experienced so they learn more emotional intelligence
 * The main point is that it does make sense to do research on ways of teaching emotional intelligence

The Science of Emotional Intelligence Salovey & Grewal

-emotional intelligence has been defined in many ways but this article focuses on the **four-branch model by Mayer & Salovey** - Mayer-Salovey definition of emotional intelligence: ‘‘The ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action" -Later on this definition was broken down into 4 proposed abilities: **perceiving, using, managing, and understanding emotions** 1) __perceiving__: ability to detect and differentiate emotions in faces, voices, pictures, and cultural artifacts. This also includes your own emotions not just others. It is important because it makes all the other processes possible since you are detecting the emotions here first. 2) __using:__ ability to use emotions to your advantage. Using emotions to facilitate cognitive activities such as thinking and problem solving. ex) emotionally intelligent people can use their moods or emotions to their advantage in order to complete the task at hand. Happy moods tend to facilitate creativity while sad moods tend to create carefulness and attention to detail 3) __understanding__: ability to comprehend emotion language and appreciate complicated relationships between emotions. ex) being sensitive to slight variations of emotions-happy vs. elated. Also the ability to understand how certain emotions can evolve into other emotions ex) shock turns to grief 4) __managing:__ ability to regulate emotions within both ourselves and other people. controlling our own emotions and facilitating emotions in others. Emotionally intelligent people can facilitate and manage their emotions enough to achieve intended goals
 * Definitions**

-The above skills cannot operate outside of the social context in which they are found. -to be able to use these skills accurately one must be in line with and understand what is considered appropriate to the people that the person is interacting with -set of skills that allow people to process emotionally relevant information well.
 * Context**

-->this led to the creation of the **Mayor-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test** (described above in chapter notes) -the MSCEIT tests emotional abilities and not personality traits AND it does not lead a person to answer in socially desirable ways
 * Measuring Emotional Intelligence**
 * -**first measures are self-reports BUT these are possibly not reliable measures because it brings up two questions: 1. are people accurate enough when reported their own emotions (are they aware of their emotions)? & 2. are people reporting themselves in a more socially desirable manner and not truthfully?

-study= emotional intelligence is negatively associated with deviant behavior in adolescent males -study= college males who scored low on MSCEIT also reported more drug use and more unsatisfying friendships -study= participants who scored high on MSCEIT predicted having higher satisfaction with social relationships & reported greater support (perceived) from parents & less negative interactions from close friends -study= college students took MSCEIT & had 2 close friends report their characteristics-->those who scored higher received more positive ratings of characteristics from friends & were more likely to provide emotional support -study=higher score MSCEIT reported greater success in opposite sex relationships -study with relationships (intimate)= people with high MSCEIT scores reported more satisfaction in relationships and vice versa---couples with both people scoring low were unhappiest and couples with both people scoring high were the happiest -study done in work environment=employees with higher scores were rated by co-workers a easier to deal with, more responsible for creating work-setting positivity. employees with higher scores were also rated by supervisors as more sociable, more stress tolerant, greater potential for leadership and interpersonally sensitive. higher scores were also found to be correlated with higher salary and promotions
 * Findings Using the MSCEIT**

EXAMPLES) Tom felt anxious, and became a bit stressed when he thought about all the work he needed to do. When his supervisor brought him an additional project, he felt . a) Overwhelmed b) Depressed c) Ashamed d) Self Conscious e) Jittery Fig. 3. Example item similar to those from the understanding emotions branch of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT).

What mood(s) might be helpful to feel when meeting in-laws for the very first time? Not Useful Useful a) Tension 1 2 3 4 5 b) Surprise 1 2 3 4 5 c) Joy 1 2 3 4 5 Fig. 2. Example item similar to those from the using emotions branch of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT). Volume

Resilient Individuals Use Positive Emotions to Bounce Back From Negative Emotional Experiences by Tugade & Fredrickson

-defined as the ability to bounce back, cope or adapt after being faced with hardship or loss -bounce back from negative emotional experiences and to be able to adapt to stressful situations effectively -resilient individuals: optimistic, energetic about life, open to new experiences, use humor, relaxation and optimism to cope with negative emotional experiences -"positive emotionality " important in resilience -__Main Research Question__: Are positive emotions just by-products of resilient modes of thinking or do they serve as some function in the ability of resilient people to cope effectively in times of stress and hardship?
 * Resilience**

-those who are more resilient would be more likely to find the silver-lining and bounce back -Trait resilience correlated -positive emotions aided individuals in achieving recovery -challenge vs. threat
 * Findings**
 * positive mood, but not negative
 * lower appraisals of threat
 * negatively with duration of cardiovascular reactivity
 * with eagerness, excitement and interest
 * challenge=no difference due to trait resilience
 * threat=high trait resilience faster recovery than low resilience

Emotion and Personality: Class Notes OCEAN __Openness to experience__ -wisdom, originality, objectivity, reflection, art -associated with flexibility, curiousity, open-mindedness -least studied -predicts dispositional affect -associated with strong feelings of love, compassion, and awe seek out new and unique experiences=may lead to happiness

C__onscientiousness__ -reliability, formality, foresight, maturity, self-disipline -linked to greater dispositional joy contentment and pride -associated with need fulfillment and personal accomplishment -may be better able to control the expression of their emotions -conscientious individuals reported less anger after being insulted, but angry feelings not necessarily linked to aggression behavior for high conscientious individuals-it was linked for low conscientious individuals

__Extraversion__ -sociable, talkative, spontaneous, boisterousness, adventure, energy -linked to frequency and intensity of positive emotional experience -respond to positive stimuli with larger increases in happiness -more activity in the dopaminergic reward circuit -extraverts and introverts report similar amounts of positive affect

__Agreeableness__ -amiability, generosity, tolerance, courtesy, warmth, honesty, trust

__Neuroticism__ -self-pity, anxiety, insecurity, timidity, and passivity -linked to unhappiness -predicts intensity of distress to upsetting film clips -linked to serotonin transporter that impairs this neurotransmitter's activity in the brain -neurotics:
 * may choose situations that make them unhappy
 * engage in social behavior that elicits unfriendly behavior
 * terrible at regulating their emotions
 * rely more on wishful thinking, withdrawal and emotional focused coping strategies and less on problem-solving and reappraisal
 * make themselves worry and stress about a task when faced with a difficult task to perform