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. 2023 Oct;52(5):1497-1523.
doi: 10.1007/s10936-023-09959-y. Epub 2023 Apr 21.

The Relationship Between Personality Traits and the Processing of Emotion Words: Evidence from Eye-Movements in Sentence Reading

Rebecca L Johnson  1 , Megan Wootten  2 , Abigail I Spear  2 , Ashley Smolensky  2
Affiliations

The Relationship Between Personality Traits and the Processing of Emotion Words: Evidence from Eye-Movements in Sentence Reading

Rebecca L Johnson et al. J Psycholinguist Res. 2023 Oct.

Abstract

Previous research shows that processing times on emotion words (both negative and positive) are faster than on non-emotional neutral words. In the current study, we explored how personality traits (the Big Five and the trait emotional intelligence factors) may further influence the processing of emotion versus non-emotion words by conducting two experiments where participants silently read sentences while their eye movements were recorded. The results replicated the facilitative emotion effect and showed that those with higher agreeableness scores had stronger emotion effects on positive words and those with higher extraversion scores, higher openness scores, higher agreeableness scores, lower sociability scores, and higher emotionality scores had stronger emotion effects on negative words. Furthermore, some personality traits also led to different ways that readers approach text, for example, through more risky reading strategies.

Keywords: Emotion words; Eye-movements; Personality traits; Reading.

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