Individual Differences in Affective Priming Effects: Any Links with Personality and Trait Affectivity?

• Published in: Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) Vol. 37; no. 3; pp. 520 - 527
• Main Authors: Rebernjak, Blaž, Buško, Vesna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-09-2018; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Individual differences (Psychology); Personality; Personality traits; Priming (Psychology); Psychological research; Psychology; Social Sciences; Visual task performance; Positive affect; Processing tendencies; Affective priming; Negative affect
• ISSN: 1046-1310; 1936-4733
• DOI: 10.1007/s12144-016-9532-1

Processing tendencies refer to individual differences in the automatic processing of affective stimuli. Using the affective priming paradigm one can tap these processing tendencies and differentiate positive and negative affective priming scores. In this study we used a classical evaluative decision task with nouns as primes and adjectives as targets to assess individual differences in positive and negative affective priming in two time points. Using Steyer’s (Steyer et al. in Methods of Psychological Research Online 2(1), 21–33, 1997) true intraindividual change modeling approach, the positive and negative priming scores were defined on a latent level. No significant relationships were found between positive affective priming and trait positive affect nor extraversion, as well as between negative affective priming and trait negative affect and neuroticism. As these findings are not in line with previous research (Robinson et al. in Emotion 10(5), 615–626, 2010; Robinson et al. in Personality and Individual Differences 42(7), 1221–1231, 2007) possible moderating influences are discussed.