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Free keywords:
Positive emotions; warmth-liking; affiliation; harm avoidance; personality; ECG
Abstract:
Integrating effects of personality and emotion on physiological variables is one aim of research in Personality Psychology. The present studys’ emotion induction evoked positive feelings of warmth/liking (and the opposite) in subjects which were part of a romantic partnership. 40 heterosexual couples were measured in a virtual ball game („Cyberball“), in which they were told to jointly play with their partner and another unknown couple via PC. Cyberball allows to experimentally modulate social inclusion and exclusion. Experimental design included Emotion (positive/negative), Group (experimental/control) and Gender as well as certain personality traits used as covariates.
Traits like affiliation, harm avoidance, positive emotionality and achievement orientation influenced physiological variables (ECG, skin temperature) and subjective feelings of warmth/liking. Personality also moderated the effectivity of emotion induction and resulting effects on physiological parameters (e.g. subjects high in affiliation showed larger P-Q time in negative experimental group compared to negative controls, indicating higher vagal influence). Results emphasize the importance to take personality variables into consideration while creating experimental designs including emotion inductions.