Integrating Trait and Social-Cognitive Views of Personality: Neuroticism, Implicit Stress Priming, and Neuroticism-Outcome Relationships

The trait perspective of personality emphasizes the broad role of traits in outcome prediction, whereas the social-cognitive perspective emphasizes the importance of if—then intrapsychic associations. Three studies (N = 188) were conducted to reconcile these alternative views of personality in the c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin 2010-05, Vol.36 (5), p.677-689
Main Authors: Moeller, Sara K., Robinson, Michael D., Bresin, Konrad
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aggression
Aggression - psychology
Aggressiveness
Anxiety Disorders - psychology
Associations
Attitudes
Cognition
Eating
Feeding Behavior - psychology
Female
Humans
Male
Models, Psychological
Neuroticism
Personality
Personality Assessment
Personality traits
Priming
Reactivity
Stress
Stress, Psychological - psychology
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Summary:The trait perspective of personality emphasizes the broad role of traits in outcome prediction, whereas the social-cognitive perspective emphasizes the importance of if—then intrapsychic associations. Three studies (N = 188) were conducted to reconcile these alternative views of personality in the context of stress-related behaviors. Implicit priming tasks were used to quantify the extent to which stress primes activated thoughts of aggression (Studies 1 and 2) or eating (Study 3), and trait levels of neuroticism were also assessed. Neuroticism did not consistently predict stress-related implicit associations, consistent with the independence of these predictors. Of more importance, such implicit associations predicted problematic outcomes (e.g., physical aggression), but only to the extent that relevant individuals were also high in neuroticism. The results highlight an interface of trait and social-cognitive views of personality and do so in the context of understanding stress-reactivity processes, a topic of importance to multiple literatures.
ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/0146167210367487