Aspects of extraversion are unrelated to pleasant affective-reactivity: Further examination of the affective-reactivity hypothesis

Luke D. Smillie*, Joachim T. Geaney, Joshua Wilt, Andrew J. Cooper, William Revelle

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

Two experiments examined whether aspects of extraversion concerned with agency (leadership, dominance) and affiliation (friendliness, positive emotion) reflect susceptibility to positive affect (PA). In experiment 1, both aspects of extraversion predicted increased activated PA (vigor, excitement) following an appetitive mood induction, replicating our recent findings in this area (Smillie, Cooper, Wilt, & Revelle, 2012). Neither agentic nor affiliative extraversion predicted increased pleasant PA (contentment, satisfaction) following a pleasant mood induction. In experiment 2, induced pleasant PA was again unrelated to extraversion, as well as to two indicators of overall happiness. These observations suggest that extraverts are not generally more susceptible to PA, and that affective-reactivity cannot explain the strong relationship between extraversion and indicators of overall happiness.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)580-587
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Research in Personality
Volume47
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2013

Funding

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’.

Keywords

  • Affective-reactivity
  • Extraversion
  • Happiness
  • Positive affect

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Social Psychology
  • General Psychology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Aspects of extraversion are unrelated to pleasant affective-reactivity: Further examination of the affective-reactivity hypothesis'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this