PERSONALITY AND COGNITIVE PROCESSING OF AFFECTIVE INFORMATION

Several studies have demonstrated that the personality traits of extra version and neuroticism are positively correlated with susceptibilitie s to positive and negative affect, respectively These findings are oft en explained in terms of Jeffrey Gray's theory of personality, which p redicts that extraverts and neurotics are differentially susceptible t o stimuli that generate positive and negative emotional states. The cu rrent research provides a further test of Gray's theory wing a series of cognitive tasks with positive and negative stimuli. In Study 1, par ticipants completed a word-fragment completion task, a reaction-time t ask, and a recall task. Results showed that extraversion was generally related to performance when stimuli were positive but not when stimul i were negative or neutral. Study 2 replicated these findings and demo nstrated that the relationships between personality and performance we re not mediated by current mood state. Discussion focuses on integrati ng a cognitive analysis of personality with existing biological theori es.