Personality from a controlled processing perspective: an fMRI study of neuroticism, extraversion, and self-consciousness.

Full Abstract

Although neuroticism has been central to most theories of personality, self-reported neuroticism has had limited success in predicting expected behavioral outcomes. The reason for this may be due, in part, to the imprecision of self-reports. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between neural correlates of control systems and neuroticism, extraversion, and self-consciousness. In response to an oddball task, neuroticism was associated with increased dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) reactivity, typically associated with discrepancy detection, whereas extraversion and self-consciousness were associated with lateral and medial frontoparietal networks, respectively, typically associated with task-focused (lateral) or self-focused (medial) controlled processes. We also examined whether the neural measure of neuroticism would predict a relevant behavioral outcome better than self-reports would. Interoceptive accuracy, an outcome associated with neuroticism, was better accounted for by dACC reactivity (r2 = .74) than by self-reported neuroticism (r2 = .16), suggesting that neural reactivities may provide a more direct measure of personality than self-reports do.

Author information

Author/s: Eisenberger, Naomi I (NI); Lieberman, Matthew D (MD); Satpute, Ajay B (AB);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095-1563, USA. neisenbe(-atsign-)ucla.edu

Grants: R21MH66709-01 (Agency:NIMH NIH HHS) ; RR08655 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; RR12169 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS) ; RR13642 (Agency:NCRR NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience (Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2005-Jun; vol 5 (issue 2) : pp 169-81

Dates: Created 2005/09/26; Completed 2005/12/02; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 16180623, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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