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Personality and pleasurable emotions
Personality and Individual Differences 101 (2016) 400–406
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Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Personality and pleasurable emotions Howard Berenbaum ⁎, Philip I. Chow, Michelle Schoenleber, Luis E. Flores Jr. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 13 March 2016 Received in revised form 8 June 2016 Accepted 9 June 2016 Available online xxxx Keywords: Emotion Pleasure Personality Big Five
a b s t r a c t In three independent samples of undergraduate students, the present research examined the relations between the Big Five personality dimensions and five pleasurable emotions: tranquility, contentment, interest, cheerfulness, and vigor (only three of which, contentment, interest, and cheerfulness, had been examined in past research). Personality was measured using self-report in Studies 1 and 3, and using peer-report in Study 2. Extraversion was strongly associated with cheerfulness and vigor, openness to experience was associated with interest, and neuroticism was negatively associated with most of the pleasurable emotions. Contentment, but not tranquility, was consistently associated with conscientiousness and extraversion. Study 3 also examined the types of activities that people reported engaging in to obtain pleasure. There was some evidence of the types of activities listed being associated with personality, especially extraversion. However, individual differences in the nature of the pleasure-eliciting activities people reported could not account for the associations between personality and the experience of different pleasurable emotions. © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction A great deal of research has documented links between personality and emotion. Almost all of this research has focused on the relation between two personality dimensions, extraversion and neuroticism, and global measures of pleasant/positive affect and unpleasant/negative affect. The results of this research have been quite consistent – extraversion is associated with pleasant/positive affect whereas neuroticism is associated with unpleasant/negative affect (e.g., Gross, Sutton, & Ketelaar, 1998; Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991). However, although extraversion and neuroticism are important, there are also other important personality dimensions, such as openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (e.g., Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1993). Similarly, although global pleasant/positive affect is important, there is growing evidence that there are a variety of distinguishable types of pleasurable emotions (e.g., Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Fredrickson, 1998), which are differentially associated with a variety of factors, such as patterns of autonomic activation (Shiota, Neufeld, Yeung, Moser, & Perea, 2011), adult attachment styles (Shiota, Keltner, & John, 2006), appraisals (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988), and time courses in response to affect-eliciting conditions (Egloff, Schmukle, Burns, Kohlmann, & Hock, 2003). The goal of the present study was to examine the relations between the Big Five personality dimensions and trait levels of the following five pleasurable emotions: cheerfulness, contentment, interest, vigor, and tranquility.
⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Berenbaum).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.06.023 0191-8869/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Only three previous studies have examined the relations between different types of pleasurable emotions and personality (Berenbaum, 2002; Mitte & Kämpfe, 2008; Shiota et al., 2006), all of which examined the Big Five personality dimensions. In terms of pleasurable emotions, these three studies focused on: (1) contentment; (2) cheerfulness; and (3) interest, or on variants of these emotions. Specifically, all three studies examined contentment. Two of the three studies examined joy (Mitte & Kämpfe, 2008; Shiota et al., 2006) while the third study examined cheerfulness, which resembles joy (Berenbaum, 2002). Finally, Mitte and Kämpfe (2008) examined interest, with Berenbaum (2002) having examined enchantment, which we consider a variant of interest, and Shiota et al. (2006) having examined awe, which bears some similarity to interest. The results of these three studies were fairly consistent, and are summarized in Table 1. Extraversion was most strongly positively correlated with joy/cheerfulness. Though the associations were not as strong as they were with joy/cheerfulness, extraversion was also positively associated with contentment and interest/awe/enchantment in all three studies. Interestingly, while previous research has typically found that neuroticism is associated with negative rather than positive affect (e.g., Gross et al., 1998; Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991), the results of these three studies suggest that neuroticism may also be associated with at least some pleasurable emotions. Specifically, neuroticism had strong negative correlations with contentment and joy/cheerfulness in two of the three studies, and with interest/awe/enchantment in one study. In this limited set of investigations, openness to experience was positively associated with interest/awe/enchantment in all three studies, less strongly associated with joy in two studies, and less strongly with contentment in one study. Agreeableness was associated with joy/
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Table 1 Summary of previous findings.
Joya (M&K) Joya (S) Cheera (B) Contentment (M&K) Contentment (S) Contentment (B) Interestb (M&K) Aweb (S) Enchantmentb (B)
Extraversion
Neuroticism
Openness
Agreeableness
+++ +++ ++ ++ ++ + + ++ +
− −−
+ +
++
−−− −−−
+
−
++ ++ +
Conscientiousness +
+ +
+ ++
+ +
+/− statistically significant correlation; ++/−− abs (r) N 0.30; +++/−−− abs (r) N 0.50. M&K: Mitte & Kämpfe, 2008; S: Shiota et al., 2006; B: Berenbaum, 2002. Note: Emotion terms with the same subscript are presumed to be similar. Note: Correlations based on self-reports.
cheerfulness, as well as with contentment, in two of the three studies. Finally, conscientiousness was positively correlated with contentment in two of the three studies and less strongly associated with joy/cheerfulness and interest/awe/enchantment – each in one of the three studies. The goal of the present set of studies was to expand our understanding of the relations between the Big Five personality dimensions and distinct types of pleasurable emotions. We did so by examining two pleasurable emotions – tranquility and vigor – whose relations with the Big Five personality dimensions had not been examined in past research, along with the three emotions discussed above. Though there are many pleasurable emotions to choose from, we concentrated exclusively on those that do not focus almost entirely on self-evaluation (e.g., pride) or relationships (e.g., love). As already noted, previous personality research has focused on cheerfulness/joy, contentment, and interest. Ellsworth and Smith (1988) found that tranquility was one of six pleasurable emotions differentiated on the basis of their patterns of appraisal. Vigor is considered a distinct pleasurable emotion in both the Profile of Mood States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971/1981) and the Mood Adjective Checklist (MACL; Nowlis, 1965), and it has emerged as a distinct factor in multiple factor analytic studies of mood and emotion terms (Norcross, Guadagnoli, & Prochaska, 1984; Nowlis, 1970). Although likely related, we propose that tranquility and vigor are distinguishable from the other three pleasurable emotions that have received more attention in the literature. For instance, whereas contentment is experienced when one's needs, goals, and concerns are being successfully satisfied, we propose that tranquility is experienced when one is at peace with one's current status, regardless of goal attainment. Moreover, vigor is importantly distinct from cheerfulness. Whereas cheerfulness is experienced when one is successfully engaged in activities with a hedonic focus (i.e. when the activities are performed with the goal of having fun and experiencing happiness), vigor is experienced when one's activities are engaging and invigorating, regardless of whether they are intended to serve a hedonic function. Although we expected some similarities in how contentment and tranquility would be associated with the Big Five personality dimensions, we also expected some differences. In particular, we expected tranquility to be negatively associated with extraversion even though contentment is positively associated with that personality trait. One potential reason for contentment's consistent positive association with extraversion is that extraversion's sense of agency and outwardly focused energy probably facilitates attainment of a wide variety of goals, the satisfaction of which may frequently contribute to a sense of contentment. In contrast, tranquility is not elicited by achieving tangible goals but rather reflects being at peace with one's current status. We also expected that tranquility and contentment would show differential associations with conscientiousness, for reasons similar to those regarding extraversion. Specifically, because conscientiousness should increase the likelihood of attaining a wide variety of goals, including those that contribute to a sense of contentment, we expected conscientiousness
and contentment to be positively correlated. In contrast, we cannot generate or find theoretical grounds to predict a similar positive association between conscientiousness and tranquility. Whereas we expected some very clear differences in how tranquility and contentment would be associated with at least some personality dimensions, we did not expect large differences in how cheerfulness and vigor would be associated with personality. However, we thought that in comparison to vigor, cheerfulness might be slightly more strongly associated with extraversion and agreeableness given that: (a) we would expect social activities to be more strongly associated with cheerfulness than with vigor; and (b) sociability is a facet of extraversion, and people who are more agreeable are more focused on interpersonal success. Although all of the studies described herein examine the associations among personality and trait-like experiences of pleasurable emotions, an additional goal of the present research was to begin exploring why personality might be associated with individual differences in the experience of different pleasurable emotions. Specifically, in the third of this set of studies, we considered whether the kinds of activities people report deriving pleasure from were associated with personality. We hypothesized that one reason for relationships between personality and pleasurable emotion is that personality guides activity choices, thus influencing the type of pleasure experienced. We therefore tested whether the associations between personality and pleasure would remain after taking into account individual differences in the kinds of activities that people reported they engage in with the goal of experiencing pleasure. 2. Study 1 2.1. Method 2.1.1. Participants Participants were 252 undergraduate students (47.6% female) who ranged in age from 18 to 31 (M = 18.9, SD = 1.3). Of the 235 participants who provided information concerning race/ethnicity, 86.8% reported being European-American, 6.8% reported being AsianAmerican, 2.6% reported being Latina/o, 2.1% reported being bi/multiracial, and 1.7% reported being African-American. 2.1.2. Measures 2.1.2.1. Pleasurable emotions. Participants were asked to indicate the degree to which they generally experience each of 16 pleasurable emotions, using a 5-point scale (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely). Vigor was measured using the emotion terms active, energetic, and vigorous; cheerfulness was measured using cheerful, fun, and happy; contentment was measured using contented, fulfilled, and satisfied; tranquility was measured using calm, serene, and tranquil; interest was measured using interested, curious, fascinated, and intrigued. The descriptors used to measure each of the five types of pleasurable emotion
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were selected on an a priori basis. The average inter-item correlations of emotion terms within each of the five types of pleasure were: vigor: 0.53 (α = 0.77); cheerfulness: 0.54 (α = 0.78); contentment: 0.57 (α = 0.80); tranquility: 0.50 (α = 0.75); interest: 0.46 (α = 0.77). For the sake of verifying that both vigor and cheerfulness would be relatively high in arousal, and that both tranquility and contentment would be relatively low in arousal, we had 12 judges (including, but not limited to, the authors of this paper) rate the arousal level of each emotion on a 9-point scale (1 = extremely calm; 9 = extremely excited) using the Self-Assessment Mannequin (SAM; Bradley & Lang, 1994). Interrater reliability was quite good; the intraclass correlations, treating raters as random effects, and the mean of the raters as the unit of reliability, was.96. As expected, the mean arousal rating of the three vigor items was highest (7.6; range: 7.3–7.8), with the mean arousal rating of the three cheerfulness items also being relatively high (6.4; range: 6.2–6.7). As expected, the mean arousal rating of the three tranquility items was lowest (2.1; range: 1.8–2.3), with the mean arousal rating of the three contentment items also being relatively low (3.9; range: 3.8–4.0). The mean arousal rating of the four interest items was approximately the middle of the arousal scale (5.3; range: 4.8–6.0). 2.1.2.2. Personality. Participants provided information concerning each facet of the Big Five by completing the NEOFFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the 50-item version of the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg et al., 2006). Each of the five personality subscales on the NEOFFI is composed of 12 items rated on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Each of the five personality subscales on the IPIP is composed of 10 items rated on a 5-point scale (1 = very inaccurate; 5 = very accurate). Both the IPIP and NEOFFI personality scales have been found to have good psychometric properties and reasonable evidence of convergent and discriminant validity (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1999; Lim & Ployhart, 2006; Robins, Fraley, Roberts, & Trzesniewski, 2001). In the present study, internal consistencies, measured using Cronbach's alpha, were: neuroticism = 0.87 (NEO) and 0.88 (IPIP); extraversion = 0.83 (NEO) and 0.91 (IPIP); openness = 0.73 (NEO) and 0.79 (IPIP); agreeableness = 0.75 (NEO) and. 76 (IPIP); conscientiousness = 0.88 (NEO) and 0.85 (IPIP). 2.2. Results and discussion We began by examining the correlations among the five types of pleasure. As can be seen in Table 2, with the exception of tranquility, which was significantly positively correlated only with contentment, all other types of pleasure were significantly positively correlated with each other. We next used structural equation modeling (SEM), using Amos 17.0 (Arbuckle, 2008), to examine the relation between pleasurable emotions and personality. The NEO-FFI and IPIP scales served as observable indicators of personality, and the observable indicators of the five types of pleasurable emotions were those listed above (e.g., active, energetic, and vigorous were indicators of vigor). To test whether personality was differentially associated with cheerfulness and vigor, we compared a model in which the associations
Table 2 Correlations among the five types of pleasure for Studies 1 and 2. 1. 1. Vigor 2. Cheerfulness 3. Contentment 4. Tranquility 5. Interest
0.42⁎⁎ 0.28⁎⁎ −0.11 0.29⁎⁎
2.
3.
4.
5.
0.72⁎⁎
0.55⁎⁎ 0.81⁎⁎
0.12 0.43⁎⁎ 0.46⁎⁎
0.65⁎⁎ 0.65⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎ 0.25⁎
0.56⁎⁎ 0.11 0.20⁎⁎
0.29⁎⁎ 0.19⁎⁎
0.10
Correlations below the diagonal are for Study 1; correlations above the diagonal are for Study 2. ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
between personality and cheerfulness were constrained to be identical to the associations between personality and vigor, and then compared the fit of this constrained model with the fit of an unconstrained model. An illustration of the unconstrained model can be seen in Fig. 1. As expected, the unconstrained model provided a significantly better fit, χ2 (5) = 12.0, p b 0.05. A similar approach was used to test whether personality was differentially associated with contentment and tranquility. Again, as expected, the unconstrained model provided a significantly better fit, χ2 (5) = 53.2, p b 0.01. Thus, the results of these analyses indicated that cheerfulness and vigor are differentially associated with personality, as are contentment and tranquility. The standardized estimates between the latent constructs of pleasurable emotions and the latent constructs of personality, derived from the unconstrained model described above, are presented in Table 3. As predicted, interest was strongly associated with openness to experience. Both cheerfulness and vigor were positively associated with extraversion, though as expected the association was slightly stronger with cheerfulness1 than with vigor. Though not predicted, vigor was also significantly associated with conscientiousness, whereas cheerfulness was not. As expected, extraversion was significantly positively associated with contentment whereas it was significantly negatively associated with tranquility. Also as expected, conscientiousness was significantly positively associated with contentment but not with tranquility. Finally, neuroticism was significantly negatively associated with all pleasurable emotions other than interest, with the associations being strongest with contentment and tranquility. Although the results were consistent with predictions, the fact that all the data were based on self-report leaves open the possibility that the associations that were found were merely an artifact of a self-report bias. Consequently, in Study 2, we collected data from an independent sample from which we obtained self-reports of pleasurable experience which were examined in relation to peer-reports of personality. 3. Study 2 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants Participants were 71 undergraduate students (47.0% female) who ranged in age from 18 to 32 (M = 20.1, SD = 2.1) who were participating in a separate study examining the perceived utility of emotions and for whom peer-reports of personality were obtained. In terms of race, 47.9% reported being White/European-American, 38.0% reported being Asian-American, 4.2% reported being African-American, and 9.9% reported being bi/multi-racial or “other.” In terms of ethnicity, 11.3% reported being Hispanic/Latina/o. 3.1.2. Measures 3.1.2.1. Pleasurable emotions. Pleasurable emotions were measured exactly as they had been in Study 1. The average inter-item correlations of emotion terms within each of the five types of pleasure were: vigor: 0.34 (α = 0.60); cheerfulness: 0.75 (α = 0.90); contentment: 0.59 (α = 0.81); tranquility: 0.46 (α = 0.72); interest: 0.54 (α = 0.82). 3.1.2.2. Peer-reported personality. Participants were asked to invite up to four family members or friends to take an online survey, in which family members/friends would answer questions regarding the undergraduate participant that invited them. Invitations were sent via participants'
1 To rule out the possibility that this correlation was artificially inflated due to item overlap, the analysis was redone after computing an IPIP extraversion score excluding three items that included the words “cheerful” or “enjoy.” When doing so, the association between extraversion and cheerfulness declined very slightly, from 0.68 to 0.63. The other extraversion scales used in this study did not include pleasure words among their items.
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403
Fig. 1. Model examining the relation between pleasurable emotions and personality, including standardized loadings of manifest variables on latent variables. Note. Circles represent latent variables whereas rectangles represent manifest variables. Conscien. = conscientiousness. Note. Additional information regarding the paths between personality and pleasurable emotions can be found in Table 3.
personal email accounts and contained a link to a separate online questionnaire. The average number of peer reports, among the 71 participants for whom we obtained at least one, was 1.7 (SD = 0.9). To increase the likelihood of obtaining peer reports, we used the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003), a very brief yet empirically validated measure of the Big Five personality trait domains. Participants rated (1 = disagree strongly; 7 = agree strongly) the degree to which ten different statements described the undergraduate participant that had invited them to complete the survey. The extraversion scale (α = 0.79) was composed of “is extraverted, enthusiastic” and “is reserved, quiet” (reverse-scored). The neuroticism scale (α = 0.66) was composed of “is anxious, easily upset” and “is calm, emotionally stable” (reverse-scored). The openness scale (α = 0.74) was composed of “is open to new experiences, complex” and “is conventional, uncreative” (reverse-scored). The agreeableness scale (α = 0.60) was composed of “is critical, quarrelsome” and “is sympathetic, warm.” The conscientiousness scale (α = 0.74) was composed of “is dependable, self-disciplined” and “is disorganized, careless” (reversescored). Importantly, despite each scale consisting of only two items, the reliabilities obtained in our sample were relatively high and stronger than those found in previous research (e.g., Heller, Komar, & Lee, 2007).
3.2. Results and discussion We began by examining the correlations among the five types of pleasure. As can be seen in Table 2, the correlations among the different pleasurable emotions were stronger in Study 2 than in Study 1, though the pattern of correlations was similar. For example, as in Study 1, in Study 2 tranquility was less strongly associated with the other pleasurable emotions than the others were with each other. We next examined the correlations between self-reported pleasure and peer-reported personality. As can be seen in Table 3, the pattern of associations in Study 2 was rather similar to that in Study 1, though the strengths of the associations tended to be weaker in Study 2 than in Study 1; the weaker associations, coupled with the smaller sample size, resulted in fewer associations being statistically significant. As in Study 1, interest was positively associated with both openness to experience and extraversion. As in Study 1, both cheerfulness and vigor were positively associated with extraversion; as in Study 1, the association was stronger with cheerfulness, though in Study 2 the difference was remarkably small. The positive association between vigor and conscientiousness was quite similar to that in Study 1, though in Study 2 the correlation fell short of statistical significance. As in Study 1, extraversion was positively associated with contentment but
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Table 3 Associations between the different pleasurable emotions and the big five personality dimensions.
Openness Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Self-report Mean Conscientiousness Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Self-report Mean Extraversion Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Trait Mean Agreeableness Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Trait Mean Neuroticism Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Trait Mean
Vigor
Cheerfulness Contentment Tranquility Interest
−0.09
−0.13
−0.07
0.08
0.50⁎⁎
0.11
0.26⁎
0.07
0.04
0.21⁎
0.16⁎
0.11
0.09
0.07
0.25⁎⁎
0.06
0.08
0.03
0.06
0.33
0.21⁎⁎
0.05
0.24⁎⁎
−0.01
0.02
0.18
0.11
0.15
−0.05
0.04
0.16⁎
0.21⁎⁎
0.19⁎
0.24⁎⁎
0.18
0.18
0.12
0.19
0.06
0.08
0.54⁎⁎
0.68⁎⁎
0.21⁎⁎
−0.34⁎⁎
0.21⁎⁎
0.37⁎⁎
0.39⁎⁎
0.28⁎
−0.11
0.27⁎
0.53⁎⁎ 0.48
0.55⁎⁎ 0.55
0.29⁎⁎ 0.26
0.14 −0.11
0.45⁎⁎ 0.31
−0.05
0.02
0.03
0.00
−0.01
−0.14
−0.06
−0.03
−0.02
−0.07
0.19⁎ 0.00
0.28⁎⁎ 0.08
0.23⁎⁎ 0.08
−0.18⁎⁎ −0.18⁎⁎
−0.41⁎⁎
−0.44⁎⁎
−0.02
−0.27⁎
−0.43⁎⁎
−0.39⁎⁎
−0.21⁎
−0.21⁎
−0.24⁎⁎ −0.46⁎⁎ −0.23 −0.36
−0.36⁎⁎ −0.39
−0.44⁎⁎ −0.37
−0.12 −0.12
0.02 0.00
0.30⁎⁎ 0.08
⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
negatively associated with tranquility, though in Study 2 the correlation fell short of statistical significance. Similarly, as in Study 1, conscientiousness was positively associated with contentment, though in Study 2 the magnitude of the correlation was smaller and it was not statistically significant. Finally, as in Study 1, neuroticism was negatively associated with vigor, cheerfulness, contentment, and tranquility; neuroticism was also negatively associated with interest in Study 2. Although the results of Study 2 largely replicated those of Study 1, neither Study 1 nor Study 2 enabled us to test whether the links between pleasurable emotions and personality had anything to do with the kinds of activities that people engage in for the sake of obtaining pleasure. Consequently, in Study 3, in addition to measuring personality and trait measures of pleasurable emotions, we also asked participants to list activities they engaged in that gave them pleasure and to indicate the degree to which those activities provided them with pleasurable emotions. We also rated the nature of the pleasure-eliciting activities listed by participants. 4. Study 3 4.1. Method 4.1.1. Participants Participants were 154 undergraduate students (58.4% female) who ranged in age from 18 to 24 (M = 19.4, SD = 1.2). Of the 152 participants who provided information concerning race/ethnicity, 49.3% reported being European-American, 34.9% reported being AsianAmerican, 7.2% reported being African-American, and 8.6% reported
being bi/multi-racial or “other”; in terms of ethnicity, 8.4% reported being Hispanic or Latina/o. 4.1.2. Measures 4.1.2.1. Pleasurable emotions. Pleasurable emotions were measured exactly as they had been in Studies 1 and 2. The average inter-item correlations of emotion terms within each of the five types of pleasure were: vigor: 0.39 (α = 0.66); cheerfulness: 0.64 (α = 0.84); contentment: 0.58 (α = 0.81); tranquility: 0.51 (α = 0.76); interest: 0.48 (α = 0.79). 4.1.2.2. Personality. As in Study 1, participants provided information concerning each facet of the Big Five by completing the 50-item version of the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg et al., 2006). In Study 3, internal consistencies, measured using Cronbach's alpha, were: neuroticism = 0.87; extraversion = 0.90; openness = 0.72; agreeableness = 0.83; conscientiousness = 0.80. 4.1.2.3. Activities. Participants were asked to write “one-sentence descriptions of each of the 10 things that are most likely to lead you to experience some sort of pleasure (such as contentment/satisfaction, tranquility/serenity, interest/curiosity, fun/cheerful, vigor/energy).” To enable us to examine how personality was associated with the nature of the pleasurable activities that people reported engaging in, each activity was independently rated by 3 judges using the same system used by Berenbaum (2002). Specifically, each activity was rated on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all; 5 = extremely) on the degree to which it involved: (a) a social component; (b) an intellectual component; (c) meeting basic human needs, such as eating and sleeping; (d) a physical component; (e) nurturing someone/something; (f) mastery/virtuosity; (g) spirituality; and (h) a form of entertainment. Interrater reliabilities, measured by intraclass correlation (treating raters as random effects and the mean of the raters as the unit of reliability), were: (a) social = 0.93; (b) intellectual = 0.93; (c) basic needs = 0.93; (d) physical = 0.93; (e) nurturant = 0.67; (f) mastery = 0.87; (g) spirituality = 0.62; and (h) entertainment = 0.81. In addition, each judge rated the degree to which the average college student would be expected to experience each of the following five pleasurable emotions (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely) in response to each activity: (a) active/energetic/vigorous; (b) cheerful/fun/happy; (c) contented/fulfilled/satisfied; (d) calm/serene/tranquil; and (e) interested/curious/fascinated/ intrigued. Interrater reliabilities, measured by intraclass correlation (treating raters as random effects and the mean of the raters as the unit of reliability), were: (a) vigor = 0.80; (b) cheerful = 0.75; (c) contentment = 0.56; (d) tranquility = 0.77; and (e) interest = 0.80. 4.2. Results and discussion We began by examining the correlations among the five types of pleasure reported by participants. As can be seen in Table 4, as in Studies 1 and 2, the different pleasurable emotions tended to be positively correlated with each other, though correlations with tranquility tended to be a little lower, and included the only non-significant correlation. We next examined the correlations between self-reported pleasure and self-reported personality, reported in Table 3. Also presented in Table 3 are the mean correlations (computed after using Fisher transformations and then converting back to Pearson correlations) across the three studies. As can be seen in Table 3, the pattern of associations in Study 3 was rather similar to that in Studies 1 and 2. As in Studies 1 and 2, interest was positively associated with both openness to experience and extraversion. As in Studies 1 and 2, both cheerfulness and vigor were strongly positively associated with extraversion. Extraversion was positively correlated with contentment in all three studies. Although extraversion was positively correlated with tranquility in Study 3 (albeit somewhat weakly and not significantly), across studies extraversion and tranquility were actually negatively correlated (albeit weakly, on
H. Berenbaum et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 101 (2016) 400–406
average). In Study 3, conscientiousness was associated with all pleasurable emotions other than interest; the only two pleasurable emotions with which conscientiousness was associated across studies were vigor and contentment. Unlike Studies 1 and 2, in Study 3, agreeableness was associated with all pleasurable emotions other than tranquility. Finally, neuroticism was negatively associated with vigor, cheerfulness, contentment, and tranquility, as in Studies 1 and 2. As can be seen in Table 5, there was evidence of an association between personality traits and the kinds of activities people reported engaging in to experience pleasure. Extraversion, in particular, was associated with numerous aspects of the activities participants listed. Individuals who were more extraverted tended to list activities that were considered more social, physical, and spiritual, and which were less likely to satisfy basic needs. Individuals who were more agreeable tended to list activities that were more social and involved entertainment, and which were less intellectual. As one might expect, people who were more conscientious tended to list activities that were more nurturant. Individuals with higher levels of openness tended to report fewer activities that were nurturant; more notable, however, is that people with higher levels of openness did not report more intellectual activities. Also notable is that neuroticism was not significantly associated with any aspects of the activities. As can be seen in Table 5, the correlations between personality and pleasurable emotions in response to the listed activities (as rated by judges) were less strong than were the correlations between personality and self-report measures of pleasurable emotions. Individuals who reported being more extraverted listed activities that were rated as being more cheer- and vigor-eliciting, consistent with the findings across studies that extraversion was associated with trait levels of cheerfulness and vigor. The degree to which people reported being neurotic was not associated with the degree to which the activities they reported engaging in were rated as inducing any type of pleasurable emotion, just as it was not associated with the types of activities they listed. Notably, although positive, the correlation between openness to experience and the degree to which the listed activities were interesteliciting activities was weak and not statistically significant, consistent with the absence of an association between openness to experience and the degree to which listed activities were intellectual in nature. However, individuals who reported being more agreeable listed more cheer-eliciting activities, consistent with the finding in the same group of people (Study 3) of an association between agreeableness and trait levels of cheerfulness. Along the same lines, individuals who reported being more conscientious listed more tranquility-eliciting activities, consistent with the finding in the same group of people (Study 3) of an association between conscientiousness and trait levels of tranquility. In our final set of analyses, we examined whether personality would continue to be associated with pleasurable emotions after taking into account the nature of the pleasure-eliciting activities that participants listed. To do so, in all cases in which there had been a significant correlation between a personality dimension and a type of pleasurable emotion, we computed a partial correlation removing shared variance with all activity ratings that were significantly correlated with that personality dimension. For example, we computed the partial correlations: (a)
Table 4 Correlations among the five types of pleasure for Study 3.
1. Vigor 2. Cheerfulness 3. Contentment 4. Tranquility 5. Interest
1.
2.
3.
4.
0.57⁎⁎ 0.31⁎⁎ 0.18⁎ 0.63⁎⁎
0.60⁎⁎ 0.38⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎
0.37⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎
0.12
Correlations below the diagonal are for traits; correlations above the diagonal are for activities. ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
405
Table 5 Correlations Between the big five personality dimensions and ratings of participants' pleasurable activities. Openness Conscientious Extraversion Agreeable Neuroticism Social Nurturant Entertainment Physical Basic needs Intellectual Mastery Spiritual Vigor Cheerfulness Contentment Tranquility Interest
−0.10 −0.16⁎ 0.12 0.14 −0.12 −0.04 −0.06 0.03 0.05 0.11 −0.03 −0.13 0.12
0.10 0.18⁎ −0.06 −0.10 0.02 −0.004 0.04 0.05 −0.02 −0.02 0.02 0.21⁎⁎ −0.08
0.19⁎ 0.09 0.10 0.28⁎⁎ −0.23⁎⁎ −0.16 −0.04 0.26⁎⁎ 0.23⁎⁎ 0.19⁎⁎ −0.13 0.04 −0.06
0.26⁎⁎ 0.15 0.19⁎ 0.03 −0.09 −0.18⁎ −0.06 0.11 0.03 0.22⁎⁎ −0.03 0.09 −0.09
−0.08 −0.03 −0.07 −0.13 0.08 0.03 −0.10 0.03 −0.15 −0.08 −0.11 0.04 0.01
⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
between openness and interest removing shared variance with activity nurturance ratings, as nurturance was the only activity rating significantly correlated with openness; and (b) between agreeableness and cheerfulness removing shared variance with (simultaneously) activity social, entertainment, intellectual, and cheerfulness ratings, as agreeableness was significantly correlated with all four of these ratings. The partial correlations were typically extremely similar to the zero-order correlations. The average reduction between the zero-order correlation and the partial correlation was b 0.03. For example, whereas the zeroorder correlation between extraversion and cheerfulness was 0.55, the partial correlation (removing shared variance with all six of the activity ratings that had been significantly correlated with extraversion) was 0.53. 5. General discussion The results of the present research replicated those of past research indicating that individual differences in a variety of personality dimensions are associated with individual differences in the experience of pleasurable emotions, as well as that the associations depend on the particular type of pleasurable emotion (Berenbaum, 2002; Mitte & Kämpfe, 2008; Shiota et al., 2006). Consistent with past research, we found that extraversion was strongly associated with cheerfulness and was moderately associated with contentment and interest. Extending this, we also found extraversion was strongly associated with vigor but was not at all, or was negatively, associated with tranquility. Also in line with past work, we found consistent evidence of neuroticism being negatively associated with all forms of pleasure other than interest. Building on the rather limited past research on the other three Big Five personality traits, openness was most strongly associated with interest, whereas agreeableness was not associated with any type of pleasurable emotion in Studies 1 and 2. However, in Study 3, agreeableness was modestly associated with all forms of pleasure except tranquility, mirroring the inconsistent results regarding agreeableness in past studies and raising the question of which constructs may moderate the agreeableness-pleasure relationships within or across varying samples. As found in past research, conscientiousness was associated with contentment, yet, this personality trait was equally strongly associated with cheerfulness and tranquility across our three studies. This unexpected finding also warrants further investigation. Our results substantially add to the evidence that there is a variety of distinguishable pleasurable emotions. In particular, our results indicate contentment and tranquility are distinguishable. This is important because, as pointed out by Fredrickson (1998), “contentment is often used interchangeably with other low-arousal positive-emotion terms such as tranquility or serenity” (p. 306). In addition, the personality trait of extraversion is often assumed to reflect positive affect, whereas
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our results suggest that the relations between extraversion and positive emotionality are more nuanced than previously thought. The results of our research also indicate that similarities and differences in how pleasurable emotions are associated with personality do not appear to be entirely accounted for by whether the pleasurable emotion is low or high in level of arousal. For example, even though contentment and tranquility are both characterized by low levels of arousal, extraversion was positively correlated with contentment but negatively correlated with tranquility. Understanding the links between personality and specific types of pleasurable emotions has the potential to help explain how and why personality is associated with a wide variety of important outcomes. For example, the results of this study raise the possibility that one factor partially accounting for the link between neuroticism and internalizing psychopathology (e.g., Griffith et al., 2010) is that neuroticism is associated with diminished levels of tranquility. Our finding that vigor was positively associated with conscientiousness provides a clue to help account for the well-established finding that health outcomes are associated with conscientiousness (e.g., Roberts, Walton, & Bogg, 2005). For example, it may be the case that vigor enables highly conscientious individuals to maintain the energy needed to maintain good health. Study 3 explored a potential explanation for the link between personality and pleasurable emotions, namely the possibility that people varying in different personality dimensions would engage in different types of pleasurable activities. As expected, we found modest evidence of personality (especially extraversion, and to a lesser extent, agreeableness) being associated with the types of activities participants reported. We believe it is noteworthy that openness and neuroticism were barely, if at all, associated with the types of activities participants reported. Most important, in our view, is that even for extraversion and agreeableness, taking into account the kinds of activities participants listed could not account for the relation between personality and pleasure. That activities could not account for the link between personality and pleasure is consistent with the results of past research that engagement in social activities cannot account completely for the link between extraversion and global positive affect (Argyle & Lu, 1990; Lucas, Le, & Dyrenforth, 2008), though more recently, Smillie, Wilt, Kabbani, Garratt, and Revelle (2015) found that the quality of social experience (specifically, perceived social contribution), rather than the quantity of social activity, mediated the link between extraversion and global positive affect. Although it will be important to replicate these findings, they suggest that the reason personality is associated with pleasure is largely because of the ways people experience activities, and not just their choices of activities. Given the cross-sectional, correlational nature of our study, we cannot draw inferences regarding causality. However, we would now hypothesize that personality is associated with pleasure for one or both of the following reasons: (a) individual differences in personality will influence what individuals focus on while engaged in the same activity (e.g., focusing on people vs. ideas when attending a political event); and (b) individual differences in personality will influence people's interpretations and appraisals of activities and their consequences. And, of course, pleasurable emotions may also influence personality, another possibility worthy of future consideration. Author notes Philip I. Chow is currently at the Department of Psychology, University of Virginia. Michelle Schoenleber is currently at the Department of Psychology, St. Norbert College. Luis E. Flores, Jr. is currently at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. We wish to thank Dana Chamberlin, Caroline Perlman, and Stephanie Kim for their assistance carrying out the research.
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Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Personality and pleasurable emotions Howard Berenbaum ⁎, Philip I. Chow, Michelle Schoenleber, Luis E. Flores Jr. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 13 March 2016 Received in revised form 8 June 2016 Accepted 9 June 2016 Available online xxxx Keywords: Emotion Pleasure Personality Big Five
a b s t r a c t In three independent samples of undergraduate students, the present research examined the relations between the Big Five personality dimensions and five pleasurable emotions: tranquility, contentment, interest, cheerfulness, and vigor (only three of which, contentment, interest, and cheerfulness, had been examined in past research). Personality was measured using self-report in Studies 1 and 3, and using peer-report in Study 2. Extraversion was strongly associated with cheerfulness and vigor, openness to experience was associated with interest, and neuroticism was negatively associated with most of the pleasurable emotions. Contentment, but not tranquility, was consistently associated with conscientiousness and extraversion. Study 3 also examined the types of activities that people reported engaging in to obtain pleasure. There was some evidence of the types of activities listed being associated with personality, especially extraversion. However, individual differences in the nature of the pleasure-eliciting activities people reported could not account for the associations between personality and the experience of different pleasurable emotions. © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction A great deal of research has documented links between personality and emotion. Almost all of this research has focused on the relation between two personality dimensions, extraversion and neuroticism, and global measures of pleasant/positive affect and unpleasant/negative affect. The results of this research have been quite consistent – extraversion is associated with pleasant/positive affect whereas neuroticism is associated with unpleasant/negative affect (e.g., Gross, Sutton, & Ketelaar, 1998; Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991). However, although extraversion and neuroticism are important, there are also other important personality dimensions, such as openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness (e.g., Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1993). Similarly, although global pleasant/positive affect is important, there is growing evidence that there are a variety of distinguishable types of pleasurable emotions (e.g., Ellsworth & Smith, 1988; Fredrickson, 1998), which are differentially associated with a variety of factors, such as patterns of autonomic activation (Shiota, Neufeld, Yeung, Moser, & Perea, 2011), adult attachment styles (Shiota, Keltner, & John, 2006), appraisals (Ellsworth & Smith, 1988), and time courses in response to affect-eliciting conditions (Egloff, Schmukle, Burns, Kohlmann, & Hock, 2003). The goal of the present study was to examine the relations between the Big Five personality dimensions and trait levels of the following five pleasurable emotions: cheerfulness, contentment, interest, vigor, and tranquility.
⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820, United States. E-mail address: [email protected] (H. Berenbaum).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.06.023 0191-8869/© 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Only three previous studies have examined the relations between different types of pleasurable emotions and personality (Berenbaum, 2002; Mitte & Kämpfe, 2008; Shiota et al., 2006), all of which examined the Big Five personality dimensions. In terms of pleasurable emotions, these three studies focused on: (1) contentment; (2) cheerfulness; and (3) interest, or on variants of these emotions. Specifically, all three studies examined contentment. Two of the three studies examined joy (Mitte & Kämpfe, 2008; Shiota et al., 2006) while the third study examined cheerfulness, which resembles joy (Berenbaum, 2002). Finally, Mitte and Kämpfe (2008) examined interest, with Berenbaum (2002) having examined enchantment, which we consider a variant of interest, and Shiota et al. (2006) having examined awe, which bears some similarity to interest. The results of these three studies were fairly consistent, and are summarized in Table 1. Extraversion was most strongly positively correlated with joy/cheerfulness. Though the associations were not as strong as they were with joy/cheerfulness, extraversion was also positively associated with contentment and interest/awe/enchantment in all three studies. Interestingly, while previous research has typically found that neuroticism is associated with negative rather than positive affect (e.g., Gross et al., 1998; Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991), the results of these three studies suggest that neuroticism may also be associated with at least some pleasurable emotions. Specifically, neuroticism had strong negative correlations with contentment and joy/cheerfulness in two of the three studies, and with interest/awe/enchantment in one study. In this limited set of investigations, openness to experience was positively associated with interest/awe/enchantment in all three studies, less strongly associated with joy in two studies, and less strongly with contentment in one study. Agreeableness was associated with joy/
H. Berenbaum et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 101 (2016) 400–406
401
Table 1 Summary of previous findings.
Joya (M&K) Joya (S) Cheera (B) Contentment (M&K) Contentment (S) Contentment (B) Interestb (M&K) Aweb (S) Enchantmentb (B)
Extraversion
Neuroticism
Openness
Agreeableness
+++ +++ ++ ++ ++ + + ++ +
− −−
+ +
++
−−− −−−
+
−
++ ++ +
Conscientiousness +
+ +
+ ++
+ +
+/− statistically significant correlation; ++/−− abs (r) N 0.30; +++/−−− abs (r) N 0.50. M&K: Mitte & Kämpfe, 2008; S: Shiota et al., 2006; B: Berenbaum, 2002. Note: Emotion terms with the same subscript are presumed to be similar. Note: Correlations based on self-reports.
cheerfulness, as well as with contentment, in two of the three studies. Finally, conscientiousness was positively correlated with contentment in two of the three studies and less strongly associated with joy/cheerfulness and interest/awe/enchantment – each in one of the three studies. The goal of the present set of studies was to expand our understanding of the relations between the Big Five personality dimensions and distinct types of pleasurable emotions. We did so by examining two pleasurable emotions – tranquility and vigor – whose relations with the Big Five personality dimensions had not been examined in past research, along with the three emotions discussed above. Though there are many pleasurable emotions to choose from, we concentrated exclusively on those that do not focus almost entirely on self-evaluation (e.g., pride) or relationships (e.g., love). As already noted, previous personality research has focused on cheerfulness/joy, contentment, and interest. Ellsworth and Smith (1988) found that tranquility was one of six pleasurable emotions differentiated on the basis of their patterns of appraisal. Vigor is considered a distinct pleasurable emotion in both the Profile of Mood States (POMS; McNair, Lorr, & Droppleman, 1971/1981) and the Mood Adjective Checklist (MACL; Nowlis, 1965), and it has emerged as a distinct factor in multiple factor analytic studies of mood and emotion terms (Norcross, Guadagnoli, & Prochaska, 1984; Nowlis, 1970). Although likely related, we propose that tranquility and vigor are distinguishable from the other three pleasurable emotions that have received more attention in the literature. For instance, whereas contentment is experienced when one's needs, goals, and concerns are being successfully satisfied, we propose that tranquility is experienced when one is at peace with one's current status, regardless of goal attainment. Moreover, vigor is importantly distinct from cheerfulness. Whereas cheerfulness is experienced when one is successfully engaged in activities with a hedonic focus (i.e. when the activities are performed with the goal of having fun and experiencing happiness), vigor is experienced when one's activities are engaging and invigorating, regardless of whether they are intended to serve a hedonic function. Although we expected some similarities in how contentment and tranquility would be associated with the Big Five personality dimensions, we also expected some differences. In particular, we expected tranquility to be negatively associated with extraversion even though contentment is positively associated with that personality trait. One potential reason for contentment's consistent positive association with extraversion is that extraversion's sense of agency and outwardly focused energy probably facilitates attainment of a wide variety of goals, the satisfaction of which may frequently contribute to a sense of contentment. In contrast, tranquility is not elicited by achieving tangible goals but rather reflects being at peace with one's current status. We also expected that tranquility and contentment would show differential associations with conscientiousness, for reasons similar to those regarding extraversion. Specifically, because conscientiousness should increase the likelihood of attaining a wide variety of goals, including those that contribute to a sense of contentment, we expected conscientiousness
and contentment to be positively correlated. In contrast, we cannot generate or find theoretical grounds to predict a similar positive association between conscientiousness and tranquility. Whereas we expected some very clear differences in how tranquility and contentment would be associated with at least some personality dimensions, we did not expect large differences in how cheerfulness and vigor would be associated with personality. However, we thought that in comparison to vigor, cheerfulness might be slightly more strongly associated with extraversion and agreeableness given that: (a) we would expect social activities to be more strongly associated with cheerfulness than with vigor; and (b) sociability is a facet of extraversion, and people who are more agreeable are more focused on interpersonal success. Although all of the studies described herein examine the associations among personality and trait-like experiences of pleasurable emotions, an additional goal of the present research was to begin exploring why personality might be associated with individual differences in the experience of different pleasurable emotions. Specifically, in the third of this set of studies, we considered whether the kinds of activities people report deriving pleasure from were associated with personality. We hypothesized that one reason for relationships between personality and pleasurable emotion is that personality guides activity choices, thus influencing the type of pleasure experienced. We therefore tested whether the associations between personality and pleasure would remain after taking into account individual differences in the kinds of activities that people reported they engage in with the goal of experiencing pleasure. 2. Study 1 2.1. Method 2.1.1. Participants Participants were 252 undergraduate students (47.6% female) who ranged in age from 18 to 31 (M = 18.9, SD = 1.3). Of the 235 participants who provided information concerning race/ethnicity, 86.8% reported being European-American, 6.8% reported being AsianAmerican, 2.6% reported being Latina/o, 2.1% reported being bi/multiracial, and 1.7% reported being African-American. 2.1.2. Measures 2.1.2.1. Pleasurable emotions. Participants were asked to indicate the degree to which they generally experience each of 16 pleasurable emotions, using a 5-point scale (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely). Vigor was measured using the emotion terms active, energetic, and vigorous; cheerfulness was measured using cheerful, fun, and happy; contentment was measured using contented, fulfilled, and satisfied; tranquility was measured using calm, serene, and tranquil; interest was measured using interested, curious, fascinated, and intrigued. The descriptors used to measure each of the five types of pleasurable emotion
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were selected on an a priori basis. The average inter-item correlations of emotion terms within each of the five types of pleasure were: vigor: 0.53 (α = 0.77); cheerfulness: 0.54 (α = 0.78); contentment: 0.57 (α = 0.80); tranquility: 0.50 (α = 0.75); interest: 0.46 (α = 0.77). For the sake of verifying that both vigor and cheerfulness would be relatively high in arousal, and that both tranquility and contentment would be relatively low in arousal, we had 12 judges (including, but not limited to, the authors of this paper) rate the arousal level of each emotion on a 9-point scale (1 = extremely calm; 9 = extremely excited) using the Self-Assessment Mannequin (SAM; Bradley & Lang, 1994). Interrater reliability was quite good; the intraclass correlations, treating raters as random effects, and the mean of the raters as the unit of reliability, was.96. As expected, the mean arousal rating of the three vigor items was highest (7.6; range: 7.3–7.8), with the mean arousal rating of the three cheerfulness items also being relatively high (6.4; range: 6.2–6.7). As expected, the mean arousal rating of the three tranquility items was lowest (2.1; range: 1.8–2.3), with the mean arousal rating of the three contentment items also being relatively low (3.9; range: 3.8–4.0). The mean arousal rating of the four interest items was approximately the middle of the arousal scale (5.3; range: 4.8–6.0). 2.1.2.2. Personality. Participants provided information concerning each facet of the Big Five by completing the NEOFFI (Costa & McCrae, 1992) and the 50-item version of the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg et al., 2006). Each of the five personality subscales on the NEOFFI is composed of 12 items rated on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). Each of the five personality subscales on the IPIP is composed of 10 items rated on a 5-point scale (1 = very inaccurate; 5 = very accurate). Both the IPIP and NEOFFI personality scales have been found to have good psychometric properties and reasonable evidence of convergent and discriminant validity (Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1999; Lim & Ployhart, 2006; Robins, Fraley, Roberts, & Trzesniewski, 2001). In the present study, internal consistencies, measured using Cronbach's alpha, were: neuroticism = 0.87 (NEO) and 0.88 (IPIP); extraversion = 0.83 (NEO) and 0.91 (IPIP); openness = 0.73 (NEO) and 0.79 (IPIP); agreeableness = 0.75 (NEO) and. 76 (IPIP); conscientiousness = 0.88 (NEO) and 0.85 (IPIP). 2.2. Results and discussion We began by examining the correlations among the five types of pleasure. As can be seen in Table 2, with the exception of tranquility, which was significantly positively correlated only with contentment, all other types of pleasure were significantly positively correlated with each other. We next used structural equation modeling (SEM), using Amos 17.0 (Arbuckle, 2008), to examine the relation between pleasurable emotions and personality. The NEO-FFI and IPIP scales served as observable indicators of personality, and the observable indicators of the five types of pleasurable emotions were those listed above (e.g., active, energetic, and vigorous were indicators of vigor). To test whether personality was differentially associated with cheerfulness and vigor, we compared a model in which the associations
Table 2 Correlations among the five types of pleasure for Studies 1 and 2. 1. 1. Vigor 2. Cheerfulness 3. Contentment 4. Tranquility 5. Interest
0.42⁎⁎ 0.28⁎⁎ −0.11 0.29⁎⁎
2.
3.
4.
5.
0.72⁎⁎
0.55⁎⁎ 0.81⁎⁎
0.12 0.43⁎⁎ 0.46⁎⁎
0.65⁎⁎ 0.65⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎ 0.25⁎
0.56⁎⁎ 0.11 0.20⁎⁎
0.29⁎⁎ 0.19⁎⁎
0.10
Correlations below the diagonal are for Study 1; correlations above the diagonal are for Study 2. ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
between personality and cheerfulness were constrained to be identical to the associations between personality and vigor, and then compared the fit of this constrained model with the fit of an unconstrained model. An illustration of the unconstrained model can be seen in Fig. 1. As expected, the unconstrained model provided a significantly better fit, χ2 (5) = 12.0, p b 0.05. A similar approach was used to test whether personality was differentially associated with contentment and tranquility. Again, as expected, the unconstrained model provided a significantly better fit, χ2 (5) = 53.2, p b 0.01. Thus, the results of these analyses indicated that cheerfulness and vigor are differentially associated with personality, as are contentment and tranquility. The standardized estimates between the latent constructs of pleasurable emotions and the latent constructs of personality, derived from the unconstrained model described above, are presented in Table 3. As predicted, interest was strongly associated with openness to experience. Both cheerfulness and vigor were positively associated with extraversion, though as expected the association was slightly stronger with cheerfulness1 than with vigor. Though not predicted, vigor was also significantly associated with conscientiousness, whereas cheerfulness was not. As expected, extraversion was significantly positively associated with contentment whereas it was significantly negatively associated with tranquility. Also as expected, conscientiousness was significantly positively associated with contentment but not with tranquility. Finally, neuroticism was significantly negatively associated with all pleasurable emotions other than interest, with the associations being strongest with contentment and tranquility. Although the results were consistent with predictions, the fact that all the data were based on self-report leaves open the possibility that the associations that were found were merely an artifact of a self-report bias. Consequently, in Study 2, we collected data from an independent sample from which we obtained self-reports of pleasurable experience which were examined in relation to peer-reports of personality. 3. Study 2 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants Participants were 71 undergraduate students (47.0% female) who ranged in age from 18 to 32 (M = 20.1, SD = 2.1) who were participating in a separate study examining the perceived utility of emotions and for whom peer-reports of personality were obtained. In terms of race, 47.9% reported being White/European-American, 38.0% reported being Asian-American, 4.2% reported being African-American, and 9.9% reported being bi/multi-racial or “other.” In terms of ethnicity, 11.3% reported being Hispanic/Latina/o. 3.1.2. Measures 3.1.2.1. Pleasurable emotions. Pleasurable emotions were measured exactly as they had been in Study 1. The average inter-item correlations of emotion terms within each of the five types of pleasure were: vigor: 0.34 (α = 0.60); cheerfulness: 0.75 (α = 0.90); contentment: 0.59 (α = 0.81); tranquility: 0.46 (α = 0.72); interest: 0.54 (α = 0.82). 3.1.2.2. Peer-reported personality. Participants were asked to invite up to four family members or friends to take an online survey, in which family members/friends would answer questions regarding the undergraduate participant that invited them. Invitations were sent via participants'
1 To rule out the possibility that this correlation was artificially inflated due to item overlap, the analysis was redone after computing an IPIP extraversion score excluding three items that included the words “cheerful” or “enjoy.” When doing so, the association between extraversion and cheerfulness declined very slightly, from 0.68 to 0.63. The other extraversion scales used in this study did not include pleasure words among their items.
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403
Fig. 1. Model examining the relation between pleasurable emotions and personality, including standardized loadings of manifest variables on latent variables. Note. Circles represent latent variables whereas rectangles represent manifest variables. Conscien. = conscientiousness. Note. Additional information regarding the paths between personality and pleasurable emotions can be found in Table 3.
personal email accounts and contained a link to a separate online questionnaire. The average number of peer reports, among the 71 participants for whom we obtained at least one, was 1.7 (SD = 0.9). To increase the likelihood of obtaining peer reports, we used the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003), a very brief yet empirically validated measure of the Big Five personality trait domains. Participants rated (1 = disagree strongly; 7 = agree strongly) the degree to which ten different statements described the undergraduate participant that had invited them to complete the survey. The extraversion scale (α = 0.79) was composed of “is extraverted, enthusiastic” and “is reserved, quiet” (reverse-scored). The neuroticism scale (α = 0.66) was composed of “is anxious, easily upset” and “is calm, emotionally stable” (reverse-scored). The openness scale (α = 0.74) was composed of “is open to new experiences, complex” and “is conventional, uncreative” (reverse-scored). The agreeableness scale (α = 0.60) was composed of “is critical, quarrelsome” and “is sympathetic, warm.” The conscientiousness scale (α = 0.74) was composed of “is dependable, self-disciplined” and “is disorganized, careless” (reversescored). Importantly, despite each scale consisting of only two items, the reliabilities obtained in our sample were relatively high and stronger than those found in previous research (e.g., Heller, Komar, & Lee, 2007).
3.2. Results and discussion We began by examining the correlations among the five types of pleasure. As can be seen in Table 2, the correlations among the different pleasurable emotions were stronger in Study 2 than in Study 1, though the pattern of correlations was similar. For example, as in Study 1, in Study 2 tranquility was less strongly associated with the other pleasurable emotions than the others were with each other. We next examined the correlations between self-reported pleasure and peer-reported personality. As can be seen in Table 3, the pattern of associations in Study 2 was rather similar to that in Study 1, though the strengths of the associations tended to be weaker in Study 2 than in Study 1; the weaker associations, coupled with the smaller sample size, resulted in fewer associations being statistically significant. As in Study 1, interest was positively associated with both openness to experience and extraversion. As in Study 1, both cheerfulness and vigor were positively associated with extraversion; as in Study 1, the association was stronger with cheerfulness, though in Study 2 the difference was remarkably small. The positive association between vigor and conscientiousness was quite similar to that in Study 1, though in Study 2 the correlation fell short of statistical significance. As in Study 1, extraversion was positively associated with contentment but
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Table 3 Associations between the different pleasurable emotions and the big five personality dimensions.
Openness Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Self-report Mean Conscientiousness Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Self-report Mean Extraversion Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Trait Mean Agreeableness Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Trait Mean Neuroticism Study 1: Self-report Study 2: Peer-report Study 3: Trait Mean
Vigor
Cheerfulness Contentment Tranquility Interest
−0.09
−0.13
−0.07
0.08
0.50⁎⁎
0.11
0.26⁎
0.07
0.04
0.21⁎
0.16⁎
0.11
0.09
0.07
0.25⁎⁎
0.06
0.08
0.03
0.06
0.33
0.21⁎⁎
0.05
0.24⁎⁎
−0.01
0.02
0.18
0.11
0.15
−0.05
0.04
0.16⁎
0.21⁎⁎
0.19⁎
0.24⁎⁎
0.18
0.18
0.12
0.19
0.06
0.08
0.54⁎⁎
0.68⁎⁎
0.21⁎⁎
−0.34⁎⁎
0.21⁎⁎
0.37⁎⁎
0.39⁎⁎
0.28⁎
−0.11
0.27⁎
0.53⁎⁎ 0.48
0.55⁎⁎ 0.55
0.29⁎⁎ 0.26
0.14 −0.11
0.45⁎⁎ 0.31
−0.05
0.02
0.03
0.00
−0.01
−0.14
−0.06
−0.03
−0.02
−0.07
0.19⁎ 0.00
0.28⁎⁎ 0.08
0.23⁎⁎ 0.08
−0.18⁎⁎ −0.18⁎⁎
−0.41⁎⁎
−0.44⁎⁎
−0.02
−0.27⁎
−0.43⁎⁎
−0.39⁎⁎
−0.21⁎
−0.21⁎
−0.24⁎⁎ −0.46⁎⁎ −0.23 −0.36
−0.36⁎⁎ −0.39
−0.44⁎⁎ −0.37
−0.12 −0.12
0.02 0.00
0.30⁎⁎ 0.08
⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
negatively associated with tranquility, though in Study 2 the correlation fell short of statistical significance. Similarly, as in Study 1, conscientiousness was positively associated with contentment, though in Study 2 the magnitude of the correlation was smaller and it was not statistically significant. Finally, as in Study 1, neuroticism was negatively associated with vigor, cheerfulness, contentment, and tranquility; neuroticism was also negatively associated with interest in Study 2. Although the results of Study 2 largely replicated those of Study 1, neither Study 1 nor Study 2 enabled us to test whether the links between pleasurable emotions and personality had anything to do with the kinds of activities that people engage in for the sake of obtaining pleasure. Consequently, in Study 3, in addition to measuring personality and trait measures of pleasurable emotions, we also asked participants to list activities they engaged in that gave them pleasure and to indicate the degree to which those activities provided them with pleasurable emotions. We also rated the nature of the pleasure-eliciting activities listed by participants. 4. Study 3 4.1. Method 4.1.1. Participants Participants were 154 undergraduate students (58.4% female) who ranged in age from 18 to 24 (M = 19.4, SD = 1.2). Of the 152 participants who provided information concerning race/ethnicity, 49.3% reported being European-American, 34.9% reported being AsianAmerican, 7.2% reported being African-American, and 8.6% reported
being bi/multi-racial or “other”; in terms of ethnicity, 8.4% reported being Hispanic or Latina/o. 4.1.2. Measures 4.1.2.1. Pleasurable emotions. Pleasurable emotions were measured exactly as they had been in Studies 1 and 2. The average inter-item correlations of emotion terms within each of the five types of pleasure were: vigor: 0.39 (α = 0.66); cheerfulness: 0.64 (α = 0.84); contentment: 0.58 (α = 0.81); tranquility: 0.51 (α = 0.76); interest: 0.48 (α = 0.79). 4.1.2.2. Personality. As in Study 1, participants provided information concerning each facet of the Big Five by completing the 50-item version of the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg et al., 2006). In Study 3, internal consistencies, measured using Cronbach's alpha, were: neuroticism = 0.87; extraversion = 0.90; openness = 0.72; agreeableness = 0.83; conscientiousness = 0.80. 4.1.2.3. Activities. Participants were asked to write “one-sentence descriptions of each of the 10 things that are most likely to lead you to experience some sort of pleasure (such as contentment/satisfaction, tranquility/serenity, interest/curiosity, fun/cheerful, vigor/energy).” To enable us to examine how personality was associated with the nature of the pleasurable activities that people reported engaging in, each activity was independently rated by 3 judges using the same system used by Berenbaum (2002). Specifically, each activity was rated on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all; 5 = extremely) on the degree to which it involved: (a) a social component; (b) an intellectual component; (c) meeting basic human needs, such as eating and sleeping; (d) a physical component; (e) nurturing someone/something; (f) mastery/virtuosity; (g) spirituality; and (h) a form of entertainment. Interrater reliabilities, measured by intraclass correlation (treating raters as random effects and the mean of the raters as the unit of reliability), were: (a) social = 0.93; (b) intellectual = 0.93; (c) basic needs = 0.93; (d) physical = 0.93; (e) nurturant = 0.67; (f) mastery = 0.87; (g) spirituality = 0.62; and (h) entertainment = 0.81. In addition, each judge rated the degree to which the average college student would be expected to experience each of the following five pleasurable emotions (1 = very slightly or not at all, 5 = extremely) in response to each activity: (a) active/energetic/vigorous; (b) cheerful/fun/happy; (c) contented/fulfilled/satisfied; (d) calm/serene/tranquil; and (e) interested/curious/fascinated/ intrigued. Interrater reliabilities, measured by intraclass correlation (treating raters as random effects and the mean of the raters as the unit of reliability), were: (a) vigor = 0.80; (b) cheerful = 0.75; (c) contentment = 0.56; (d) tranquility = 0.77; and (e) interest = 0.80. 4.2. Results and discussion We began by examining the correlations among the five types of pleasure reported by participants. As can be seen in Table 4, as in Studies 1 and 2, the different pleasurable emotions tended to be positively correlated with each other, though correlations with tranquility tended to be a little lower, and included the only non-significant correlation. We next examined the correlations between self-reported pleasure and self-reported personality, reported in Table 3. Also presented in Table 3 are the mean correlations (computed after using Fisher transformations and then converting back to Pearson correlations) across the three studies. As can be seen in Table 3, the pattern of associations in Study 3 was rather similar to that in Studies 1 and 2. As in Studies 1 and 2, interest was positively associated with both openness to experience and extraversion. As in Studies 1 and 2, both cheerfulness and vigor were strongly positively associated with extraversion. Extraversion was positively correlated with contentment in all three studies. Although extraversion was positively correlated with tranquility in Study 3 (albeit somewhat weakly and not significantly), across studies extraversion and tranquility were actually negatively correlated (albeit weakly, on
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average). In Study 3, conscientiousness was associated with all pleasurable emotions other than interest; the only two pleasurable emotions with which conscientiousness was associated across studies were vigor and contentment. Unlike Studies 1 and 2, in Study 3, agreeableness was associated with all pleasurable emotions other than tranquility. Finally, neuroticism was negatively associated with vigor, cheerfulness, contentment, and tranquility, as in Studies 1 and 2. As can be seen in Table 5, there was evidence of an association between personality traits and the kinds of activities people reported engaging in to experience pleasure. Extraversion, in particular, was associated with numerous aspects of the activities participants listed. Individuals who were more extraverted tended to list activities that were considered more social, physical, and spiritual, and which were less likely to satisfy basic needs. Individuals who were more agreeable tended to list activities that were more social and involved entertainment, and which were less intellectual. As one might expect, people who were more conscientious tended to list activities that were more nurturant. Individuals with higher levels of openness tended to report fewer activities that were nurturant; more notable, however, is that people with higher levels of openness did not report more intellectual activities. Also notable is that neuroticism was not significantly associated with any aspects of the activities. As can be seen in Table 5, the correlations between personality and pleasurable emotions in response to the listed activities (as rated by judges) were less strong than were the correlations between personality and self-report measures of pleasurable emotions. Individuals who reported being more extraverted listed activities that were rated as being more cheer- and vigor-eliciting, consistent with the findings across studies that extraversion was associated with trait levels of cheerfulness and vigor. The degree to which people reported being neurotic was not associated with the degree to which the activities they reported engaging in were rated as inducing any type of pleasurable emotion, just as it was not associated with the types of activities they listed. Notably, although positive, the correlation between openness to experience and the degree to which the listed activities were interesteliciting activities was weak and not statistically significant, consistent with the absence of an association between openness to experience and the degree to which listed activities were intellectual in nature. However, individuals who reported being more agreeable listed more cheer-eliciting activities, consistent with the finding in the same group of people (Study 3) of an association between agreeableness and trait levels of cheerfulness. Along the same lines, individuals who reported being more conscientious listed more tranquility-eliciting activities, consistent with the finding in the same group of people (Study 3) of an association between conscientiousness and trait levels of tranquility. In our final set of analyses, we examined whether personality would continue to be associated with pleasurable emotions after taking into account the nature of the pleasure-eliciting activities that participants listed. To do so, in all cases in which there had been a significant correlation between a personality dimension and a type of pleasurable emotion, we computed a partial correlation removing shared variance with all activity ratings that were significantly correlated with that personality dimension. For example, we computed the partial correlations: (a)
Table 4 Correlations among the five types of pleasure for Study 3.
1. Vigor 2. Cheerfulness 3. Contentment 4. Tranquility 5. Interest
1.
2.
3.
4.
0.57⁎⁎ 0.31⁎⁎ 0.18⁎ 0.63⁎⁎
0.60⁎⁎ 0.38⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎
0.37⁎⁎ 0.36⁎⁎
0.12
Correlations below the diagonal are for traits; correlations above the diagonal are for activities. ⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
405
Table 5 Correlations Between the big five personality dimensions and ratings of participants' pleasurable activities. Openness Conscientious Extraversion Agreeable Neuroticism Social Nurturant Entertainment Physical Basic needs Intellectual Mastery Spiritual Vigor Cheerfulness Contentment Tranquility Interest
−0.10 −0.16⁎ 0.12 0.14 −0.12 −0.04 −0.06 0.03 0.05 0.11 −0.03 −0.13 0.12
0.10 0.18⁎ −0.06 −0.10 0.02 −0.004 0.04 0.05 −0.02 −0.02 0.02 0.21⁎⁎ −0.08
0.19⁎ 0.09 0.10 0.28⁎⁎ −0.23⁎⁎ −0.16 −0.04 0.26⁎⁎ 0.23⁎⁎ 0.19⁎⁎ −0.13 0.04 −0.06
0.26⁎⁎ 0.15 0.19⁎ 0.03 −0.09 −0.18⁎ −0.06 0.11 0.03 0.22⁎⁎ −0.03 0.09 −0.09
−0.08 −0.03 −0.07 −0.13 0.08 0.03 −0.10 0.03 −0.15 −0.08 −0.11 0.04 0.01
⁎ p b 0.05. ⁎⁎ p b 0.01.
between openness and interest removing shared variance with activity nurturance ratings, as nurturance was the only activity rating significantly correlated with openness; and (b) between agreeableness and cheerfulness removing shared variance with (simultaneously) activity social, entertainment, intellectual, and cheerfulness ratings, as agreeableness was significantly correlated with all four of these ratings. The partial correlations were typically extremely similar to the zero-order correlations. The average reduction between the zero-order correlation and the partial correlation was b 0.03. For example, whereas the zeroorder correlation between extraversion and cheerfulness was 0.55, the partial correlation (removing shared variance with all six of the activity ratings that had been significantly correlated with extraversion) was 0.53. 5. General discussion The results of the present research replicated those of past research indicating that individual differences in a variety of personality dimensions are associated with individual differences in the experience of pleasurable emotions, as well as that the associations depend on the particular type of pleasurable emotion (Berenbaum, 2002; Mitte & Kämpfe, 2008; Shiota et al., 2006). Consistent with past research, we found that extraversion was strongly associated with cheerfulness and was moderately associated with contentment and interest. Extending this, we also found extraversion was strongly associated with vigor but was not at all, or was negatively, associated with tranquility. Also in line with past work, we found consistent evidence of neuroticism being negatively associated with all forms of pleasure other than interest. Building on the rather limited past research on the other three Big Five personality traits, openness was most strongly associated with interest, whereas agreeableness was not associated with any type of pleasurable emotion in Studies 1 and 2. However, in Study 3, agreeableness was modestly associated with all forms of pleasure except tranquility, mirroring the inconsistent results regarding agreeableness in past studies and raising the question of which constructs may moderate the agreeableness-pleasure relationships within or across varying samples. As found in past research, conscientiousness was associated with contentment, yet, this personality trait was equally strongly associated with cheerfulness and tranquility across our three studies. This unexpected finding also warrants further investigation. Our results substantially add to the evidence that there is a variety of distinguishable pleasurable emotions. In particular, our results indicate contentment and tranquility are distinguishable. This is important because, as pointed out by Fredrickson (1998), “contentment is often used interchangeably with other low-arousal positive-emotion terms such as tranquility or serenity” (p. 306). In addition, the personality trait of extraversion is often assumed to reflect positive affect, whereas
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our results suggest that the relations between extraversion and positive emotionality are more nuanced than previously thought. The results of our research also indicate that similarities and differences in how pleasurable emotions are associated with personality do not appear to be entirely accounted for by whether the pleasurable emotion is low or high in level of arousal. For example, even though contentment and tranquility are both characterized by low levels of arousal, extraversion was positively correlated with contentment but negatively correlated with tranquility. Understanding the links between personality and specific types of pleasurable emotions has the potential to help explain how and why personality is associated with a wide variety of important outcomes. For example, the results of this study raise the possibility that one factor partially accounting for the link between neuroticism and internalizing psychopathology (e.g., Griffith et al., 2010) is that neuroticism is associated with diminished levels of tranquility. Our finding that vigor was positively associated with conscientiousness provides a clue to help account for the well-established finding that health outcomes are associated with conscientiousness (e.g., Roberts, Walton, & Bogg, 2005). For example, it may be the case that vigor enables highly conscientious individuals to maintain the energy needed to maintain good health. Study 3 explored a potential explanation for the link between personality and pleasurable emotions, namely the possibility that people varying in different personality dimensions would engage in different types of pleasurable activities. As expected, we found modest evidence of personality (especially extraversion, and to a lesser extent, agreeableness) being associated with the types of activities participants reported. We believe it is noteworthy that openness and neuroticism were barely, if at all, associated with the types of activities participants reported. Most important, in our view, is that even for extraversion and agreeableness, taking into account the kinds of activities participants listed could not account for the relation between personality and pleasure. That activities could not account for the link between personality and pleasure is consistent with the results of past research that engagement in social activities cannot account completely for the link between extraversion and global positive affect (Argyle & Lu, 1990; Lucas, Le, & Dyrenforth, 2008), though more recently, Smillie, Wilt, Kabbani, Garratt, and Revelle (2015) found that the quality of social experience (specifically, perceived social contribution), rather than the quantity of social activity, mediated the link between extraversion and global positive affect. Although it will be important to replicate these findings, they suggest that the reason personality is associated with pleasure is largely because of the ways people experience activities, and not just their choices of activities. Given the cross-sectional, correlational nature of our study, we cannot draw inferences regarding causality. However, we would now hypothesize that personality is associated with pleasure for one or both of the following reasons: (a) individual differences in personality will influence what individuals focus on while engaged in the same activity (e.g., focusing on people vs. ideas when attending a political event); and (b) individual differences in personality will influence people's interpretations and appraisals of activities and their consequences. And, of course, pleasurable emotions may also influence personality, another possibility worthy of future consideration. Author notes Philip I. Chow is currently at the Department of Psychology, University of Virginia. Michelle Schoenleber is currently at the Department of Psychology, St. Norbert College. Luis E. Flores, Jr. is currently at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. We wish to thank Dana Chamberlin, Caroline Perlman, and Stephanie Kim for their assistance carrying out the research.
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