Distinguishing evaluation from description in the personality-emotion relationship

Personality characteristics and emotional experiences contain both descript ive and evaluative aspects. The purpose of the present study was to test wh ether evaluation was a mediator in two well-established personality-emotion relationships. Using structural equation modeling procedures with two samp les of participants, the authors demonstrated that evaluation fully mediate d the relationship between neuroticism and negative affect and partially me diated the relationship between extraversion and positive affect. The resul ts suggest that both description and evaluation components are essential to understanding the complex relationships between personality and emotion.