Healthy volunteers who participate in clinical trials usually present
a specific personality profile characterized by high extroversion and
low anxiety traits. Herein, we examined whether anxiety traits influen
ce performance and vigilance, as well as reactivity for six emotions (
fear, anger, disgust, sadness, happiness and a neutral state), the lat
ter being induced by the presentation of six film excerpts. Sixty-four
healthy volunteers were stratified into high and low anxiety groups o
n the basis of their score on the Cattell and Hamilton Anxiety Scales.
They were assessed on the Digit Symbol Substitution Scale (DSST), Cho
ice Reaction Time (CRT) and Visual Analogue Scales (VAS). Their emotio
nal reactivity was evaluated before and after each film excerpt, on re
sponses to the Differential Emotions Scale (Izard DES). Prior to emoti
onal induction, high-anxious subjects presented a pattern of low posit
ive emotions and high negative emotions. After each film excerpt, emot
ional reactivity was more pronounced for high-anxious subjects compare
d with low-anxious subjects. However, there were no significant intera
ctions between anxiety level and the values of DSST, CRT or VAS. The p
resent findings raise the question of the relevance of selecting healt
hy volunteers according to their personality traits. In future studies
, anxiety level will be further investigated as a factor of response v
ariability to drugs, by examining differences in response to psychotro
pic drugs as a function of this factor.