La personnalité comme modulateur de la réactivité émotionnelle : une approche psychophysiologique

La personnalité et les émotions sont des concepts étroitement liés théoriquement comme empiriquement, cependant, la question de savoir quels aspects de la réactivité émotionnelle modulent la personnalité a été peu étudiée en soi. Cette question est abordée dans ce travail au moyen de méthodes psychophysiologiques (en particulier la réponse électrodermale et les potentiels évoqués), afin d’isoler les différents éléments de la réponse émotionnelle. Les résultats montrent que la personnalité module à la fois les aspects somatique et cognitif de la réponse émotionnelle. Finalement, le présent travail fait état de possibles implications de ces différences de réactivité émotionnelle liées à la personnalité sur le fonctionnement psychologique en situation de prise de décision, ainsi que dans l’épisode dépressif. Personality and emotions are theoretically and empirically related concepts; however which emotional responsiveness aspect is modulated by personality has been hardly addressed. This issue is thus investigated here with psychophysiological methods (namely skin conductance response and event-related potentials), in order to separately focus on different parts of the emotional response. The results show that both somatic and cognitive aspects of the emotional response are modulated by personality. Finally, the present work reports that personality-related differences regarding emotional responsiveness might be implicated in psychological functioning in a decision-making task, as well as in depression

Impact of low frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation on event-related brain potentials.

Contradictory findings exist concerning the inhibitory function of low frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). Therefore, the study examines the impact of different duration of low frequency rTMS on ERPs. In 17 subjects, auditory ERPs were measured before and after 1 Hz rTMS delivered over the left prefrontal cortex during 10 min (600 pulses) and 15 min (900 pulses). Results showed that 15 min of 1 Hz rTMS induced a significant increase of P300 latency. There was no effect for early ERP components (N100, P200 and N200). This study confirms and extends that 1 Hz rTMS produces a real inhibitory effect only when the duration of the stimulation is about 15 min. The data suggest that rTMS modifies the speed of cognitive processing rather than the energetical aspect of information processing, and that cortical inhibition induced by the magnetic stimulation affects principally the controlled cognitive processes and not the automatic ones

Do Personality Traits Modulate the Effect of Emotional Visual Stimuli on Auditory Information Processing?

peer reviewedSeveral lines of evidence attest robust relationships between personality dimensions and emotions, including cognitive aspect of emotion. More particularly, many studies reported strong relationships between extraversion, the behavioral activation system (BAS), and the cognitive processing of positive information, on the one hand, and between neuroticism, the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), and the processing of negative information, on the other hand. Recently, DePascalis, Awari, Matteucci, and Mazzocco (2005) reported that personality traits modulated the effect of the emotional visual stimuli on the mismatch negativity (MMN). The aim of the present study was to replicate these data and extend them to other personality dimensions. Auditory MMN was recorded in normal subjects simultaneously to the presentation of emotional pictures selected as neutral, positive, or negative from the International Affective Picture System, and presented in randomized order. The results support the recent finding that personality (namely, BIS and harm avoidance) modulates the influence of emotional (negative) context on auditory information processing. The present findings suggest that the modulation by personality of change detection in the unattended environment as a function of context valence is limited to unpleasant context

Relationships between Cloninger's biosocial model of personality and the behavioral inhibition/approach systems (BIS/BAS)

Novelty seeking and harm avoidance are two major temperamental dimensions from the Cloninger's biosocial model of personality that are theoretically related to Gray's behavioral approach system (BAS) and behavioral inhibition system (BIS), respectively. The revised version of the temperament and character inventory (TCI-R) and the Carver and White BIS/BAS scales were developed to assess these constructs. Despite the theoretical relationships between the two models, no study investigated the associations between these scales. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the relationships between the TCI-R and the BIS/BAS scales. A total of 150 healthy participants (75 females) completed the BIS/BAS scales and the TCI-R. Results showed that harm avoidance and reward dependence were good predictors of BIS, whereas persistence and novelty seeking were good predictors of BAS, when age and gender were controlled. This study supports the theoretical links between BIS and harm avoidance, and between BAS and novelty seeking, and extends these links to other Cloninger's dimension. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved