Error-related brain activity in extraverts: Evidence for altered response monitoring in social context

Abstract

While the personality trait of extraversion has been linked to enhanced reward sensitivity and its putative neural correlates, little is known about whether extraverts’ neural circuits are particularly sensitive to social rewards, given their preference for social engagement and social interactions. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), this study examined the relationship between the variation on the extraversion spectrum and a feedback-related ERP component (the error-related negativity or ERN) known to be sensitive to the value placed on errors and reward. Participants completed a forced-choice task, in which either rewarding or punitive feedback regarding their performance was provided, through either social (facial expressions) or non-social (verbal written) mode. The ERNs elicited by error trials in the social – but not in non-social – blocks were found to be associated with the extent of one’s extraversion. However, the directionality of the effect was in contrast with the original prediction: namely, extraverts exhibited smaller ERNs than introverts during social blocks, whereas all participants produced similar ERNs in the non-social, verbal feedback condition. This finding suggests that extraverts exhibit diminished engagement in response monitoring – or find errors to be less salient – in the context of social feedback, perhaps because they find social contexts more predictable and thus more pleasant and less anxiety provoking.

Temporal Course of Interference Control from Early to Late Young Adulthood: An ERP Study

“…Therefore, in this study we used a narrow age range focusing on early adult years to investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological development of one of the core executive functions, interference control, after adolescence. Since intellectual abilities [ 63 ] and personality traits [ 64 ] can affect the performance on the executive function tasks as well as ERP amplitudes [ 65 ], all participants in this study were pretested with a battery of psychological tests to estimate non-verbal IQ, speed of information processing, neuroticism, extraversion, psychoticism and impulsiveness.…”

III. To err is human…: can the methods of cognitive neuroscience contribute to our understanding of errors in anaesthesia?

“…20 In another study, extraversion was also associated with reduced ERN magnitude, but mostly in association with social stimuli (facial expression). 21 The authors suggested that extroverts either engage less in performance monitoring or find errors less salient, perhaps related to greater underlying confidence in social interaction.…”

Are social support, loneliness, and social connection differentially associated with happiness across levels of introversion-extraversion?

“…Supporting this position, there is a considerable body of evidence supporting the assertion that social wellbeing is indeed correlated with extraversion (Deng et al, 2021). People with higher extraversion have been shown to be more averse to aloneness; to respond to social stimuli with greater attention, reward, and positivity; and to have greater social capital and support compared to people with higher introversion (Dumitrache et al, 2018; Fishman et al, 2011; Fishman and Ng, 2013; Jacques-Hamilton et al, 2018; Lu et al, 2014; Smillie, 2013; Swickert et al, 2002; Teppers et al, 2013; Tulin et al, 2018). All of this evidence lends credibility to the belief that people with higher introversion enjoy solitude, whereas people with higher extraversion need social connection to thrive.…”