Personality and emotional processing: A relationship between extraversion and the late positive potential in adolescence

Abstract

Neuroticism and extraversion are multifaceted affective-laden personality traits that have been associated with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Research and theory have argued that extraversion, and particularly its facet positive emotionality, is specific to MDD, while neuroticism is common across internalizing disorders. Converging evidence has suggested that MDD is associated with reduced engagement with emotional stimuli, but it remains unclear whether either extraversion, neuroticism, or both modulate reactivity to emotional cues. The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related brain potential that is uniquely suited to assess engagement with emotional stimuli because it reflects sustained attention toward emotional content. The current study examined the LPP in relation to personality traits that may confer risk for depression, by examining the relationship between the LPP and both neuroticism and extraversion in never-depressed adolescent girls. Specifically, 550 girls aged 13.5-15.5 with no lifetime history of depression completed an emotional picture-viewing task and the LPP was measured in response to neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant pictures. Personality traits were gathered via self and informant report. Results indicated that high extraversion was associated with a potentiated LPP to emotional pictures—and this effect was accounted for by positive emotionality in particular. In contrast, there was no association between the LPP and neuroticism or its facets. The present study is one of the first to demonstrate that extraversion is associated with variation in neural indices of emotional picture processing, similar to what has been observed among individuals with depression and at high risk for depression.

Behavioral observations of positive and negative valence systems in early childhood predict physiological measures of emotional processing three years later

“…Children who exhibited higher levels of PA in the behavioral assessment at age 6 showed an enhanced LPP to pleasant images approximately three years later, consistent with prior findings that adolescents higher in self- and parent-reported PA exhibited an enhanced LPP to emotional stimuli (Speed et al, 2015). While the composite measure of NA was not significantly related to the LPP, temperamental fearfulness at age 6 predicted an enhanced LPP to unpleasant images, consistent with a previous cross-sectional study of fearful behavior in children (Solomon et al, 2012), and temperamental sadness predicted blunted responses to unpleasant images.…”

“…As facets of NA (i.e., fear, sadness, anger) may relate to specific components of NVS (e.g., threat, loss, frustrative non-reward) and show distinct associations with physiological measures, we also examined fear, anger and sadness as predictors of the LPP at age 9. Consistent with prior work (Solomon et al, 2012; Speed et al, 2015), we hypothesized that greater PA would predict an enhanced LPP to pleasant images or to emotional images more broadly and greater fearfulness would predict an enhanced LPP to unpleasant images. Given evidence that fearfulness and anger are distinct with regard to the direction of motivational intensity (Carver and Harmon-Jones, 2009), and sadness is characterized by physiological responses consistent with withdrawal and conservation of resources (Kreibig et al, 2007), we hypothesized that anger and sadness may demonstrate distinct associations with the LPP compared to fearfulness.…”

“…In a sample of young children, observed fearful behavior was associated with an enhanced LPP specifically to unpleasant images in childhood (Solomon et al, 2012). More recently, in a large sample of adolescent girls, questionnaire measures of PA correlated with an enhanced LPP to both pleasant and unpleasant images, raising the possibility that greater PA corresponds to increased arousal during broad emotion processing (Speed et al, 2015). Compared to questionnaire measures, laboratory assessment of temperament provides an objective, micro-level examination of affective and behavioral responses (Goldsmith and Gagne, 2012); however, no previous studies have examined behavioral indicators of both NVS and PVS in relation to the LPP.…”

Neural Reactivity to Emotional Stimuli Prospectively Predicts the Impact of a Natural Disaster on Psychiatric Symptoms in Children

“…Children with enhanced LPPs to pleasant images may demonstrate greater attentional allocation towards positive aspects of the environment, which is likely to be protective under conditions of higher stress. It is important to note, however, that blunted LPPs to emotional images appear to be a risk factor for depressive disorders in youth (37–39), possibly indicating tendencies for emotional disengagement. Thus, an alternative explanation is that withdrawal from positive stimuli increases risk for symptoms.…”

“…For example, offspring of parents with fear disorders (i.e., panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and specific phobia) and children with fearful temperament showed enhanced LPPs to unpleasant stimuli (36; 37). In addition, blunted LPPs to emotional faces have been observed in youth at risk for depression based both on parental history of depression and temperament style (37–39). Importantly, there is evidence that individual differences in processing and coping with emotions contribute to children’s responses to stress (40), suggesting that the magnitude of the LPP may moderate effects of stress on the development of symptoms.…”