CLARIFYING GRAYS THEORY OF PERSONALITY - A RESPONSE TO PICKERING, CORR AND GRAY

Rusting and Larsen (1997) [Rusting, C. L. & Larsen, R. J. (1997). Extr aversion, neuroticism and susceptibility to positive and negative affe ct: A test of two theoretical models. Personality and individual Diffe rences, 22, 607-612.] tested two alternative accounts of the relations hips between personality and sensitivities to positive and negative mo od induction procedures: (1) an Eysenckian model, which suggests that extraversion and neuroticism should relate to positive and negative se nsitivity, respectively, and (2) a model based on Newman's interpretat ion of Gray's theory, which suggests that extraversion and neuroticism interact to influence positive and negative affect sensitivity. Picke ring et al. (1998) [Pickering, A. D., Corr, P. J. & Gray, J. A. (1998) . Interactions and reinforcement sensitivity theory: A theoretical ana lysis of Rusting and Larsen (1997). Personality and Individual Differe nces, 23.] argued that the second model we tested was an inaccurate ac count of Gray's theory, and that our results supported Gray's theory. In the current paper we clarify our interpretation of Gray's theory, a nd further evaluate whether the results obtained in Rusting and Larsen (1997) support that interpretation. To accomplish this second task, w e re-analyze the data from Rusting and Larsen (1997) to test three pos sible models: (1) the Eysenckian model, (2) the Gray-Newman model and (3) a new model based on the Pickering et al. clarification of Gray's reinforcement sensitivity theory. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All r ights reserved.