Personality Influences The Brain's Responses To Emotional Situations More Than Thought; Extraverts Show More Brain Reactivity To Positive Images Than Introverts

WASHINGTON — How our brains respond to different environmental stimulus is in large measure a result of what type of personality we have, according to a new study that examines brain activity by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

This study published by the American Psychological Association in this month's journal of Behavioral Neuroscience suggests that depending whether a person is extraverted or neurotic, his or her brain will amplify different experiences over others.

In their study, psychologists Turhan Canli, Ph.D., and colleagues of Stanford University used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the relation between brain responses to emotional stimuli – pictures.

While in a fMRI scanner, 14 healthy 19-42 year old women's brain reactions to pictures containing negative images (crying or angry people, spiders, guns or a cemetery) or positive images (happy couple, puppies, foods like ice cream or brownies or sunsets) that provoked strong emotional reactions were determined.

A personality measure was also used to help the researchers determine the participants’ level of extraversion – the tendency to be optimistic and sociable and their level of neuroticism – the tendency to be anxious, worried and socially insecure.

The fMRI results show that the women who scored high on extraversion also had greater brain reactivity to positive stimuli compared to negative stimuli than did those women who scored low on extraversion. The associations between extraversion and neural activity in response to positive images were observable in several areas of the brain that control emotion, including the frontal cortex, amygdala and anterior cingulate.

For the women who scored low on extraversion, no brain reactivity to positive stimuli was found. But those who scored high on the neuroticism measures had more brain reactions to negative stimuli, but in fewer parts of the brain that control emotions.

"Depending on personality traits, people’s brains seem to amplify some aspects of experience over others," said Dr. Gabrieli. "All of the participants saw very positive and very negative scenes, but people’s reactions were very different. One group saw the cup as being very full while the other group saw it as very empty."

These results show that individual differences in brain reactivity to emotional stimuli are associated with specific personality traits, which also supports earlier MRI studies of extraverted and depressed people, according to the authors. Extraverts compared to introverts were found to have elevated frontal blood flow even at rest and depressed patients whose conditions have been linked to neuroticism were found to have reduced blood flow in that same region of the brain.

Previous examinations of emotion and brain activation have had inconsistent results, said lead author Canli. Some studies have shown that the amygdala, a part of the brain responsible for emotional memory, plays a role in shaping emotional experience, face recognition and processing visual and emotional stimuli.

Other research contradicts those findings and maybe, Canli says, because the participants in the studies were more extraverted than those in other studies. "Those personality differences could lead to differing amygdala responses across studies."

In future studies, said Dr. Canli, we will assign participants more specific tasks to perform while viewing emotional stimuli, such as rating the emotional experience they are having, retrieving emotional memories or encoding the pictures into memory. "By doing that, we begin to lay out a road map of how personality plays into our emotional processing in specific domains of functioning, such as attention, experience, memory and perception."

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Article: "An fMRI Study of Personality Influences on Brain Reactivity to Emotional Stimuli," Turhan Canli, Ph.D., Zuo Zhao, Ph.D., John E. Desmond, Ph.D., Eunjoo Kang, Ph.D., James Gross, Ph.D., and John D.E. Gabrieli, Ph.D., Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 115, No. 1.

Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/journals/ bne.html after February 16.

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world’s largest association of psychologists.

APA’s membership includes more than 159,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 53 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 59 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.

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-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), February 12, 2001

Answers

I'm not sure what this proves Rich. Maybe it will lead to some effective therapies for neurotic, introvert saps. Maybe it just demonstrates that we are all born with different hard-wiring and we are stuck with it. What does it mean to you?

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 12, 2001.

"Depending on personality traits, people’s brains seem to amplify some aspects of experience over others," said Dr. Gabrieli."

(To the quotation above) My first reaction: WELL DUH!!!

My second reaction: "This person gets PAID to generate such obvious conclusions???"

While in a fMRI scanner, 14 healthy 19-42 year old women's brain reactions to pictures containing negative images (crying or angry people, spiders, guns or a cemetery) or positive images (happy couple, puppies, foods like ice cream or brownies or sunsets) that provoked strong emotional reactions were determined.

You'll notice that the images were predetermined to be positive or negative. The reactions of the participants were then judged based upon this flawed presupposition. In my uneducated opinion, this is garbage science.

Is a person crying necessarily a negative image? Don't some people cry when happy? Of course they do.

Is the image of a gun a negative one for all? Ridiculous.

Do you know anyone who does not look upon spiders as hideous creatures? I sure do.

Ice cream and brownies do nothing for me. In fact I dislike brownies and my amygdala would register accordingly, I'm sure.

I rarely read about projects such as this one because it makes me crazy. I'd love to have an explanation as to how this might in fact be a quality piece of research. Perhaps I really am an ignorant SOB (no offense Mis-SOB).

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), February 12, 2001.

I'm no arachnophobe! They've got a job to do, just like everyone else. Bingo, you suprise me - in some cultures spiders are a sign of very good luck.

I've met some interesting specimens who harbor great passions for the eight-leggeds. Do you think I might get a grant to study THEM?

-- flora (***@__._), February 12, 2001.

Come into my web said the spider to the Flora.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), February 12, 2001.

Nor am I, flora. I'm the kinda guy who lets most spiders stay in the house to do their thing. The larger, thicker ones go out into the yard. None are killed in my house.

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), February 12, 2001.

Rich: "None are killed in my house."

You are more forebearing than I am, Rich.

I don't destroy spiders or their webs anywhere BUT in my house, except to meet my ordinary needs, like walking from the house to the car, or pruning a shrub. However, if a spider is in MY home, I feel no more compunction about killing it than any other creature killing an invader in their home.

If a spider stays out of sight and out of my way, there's no problem. The moment it impinges on my space, it is dead meat. Take the spiders that get into the bathtub or the shower when I am there wanting to cleanse myself: they're dead meat. I apologize - and squish 'em dead. But, if they come into the shower stall in the dead of night, who gives a rip? Not me.

-- Miserable SOB (misery@misery.com), February 12, 2001.

Do spiders have souls?

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), February 13, 2001.

" I dislike brownies and my amygdala would register accordingly"

They just need to be prepared that special way buddy,then spiders don't really seem to make a shit.But I must ask what is a amyglada? would it be akin to an anus? or other innard?

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), February 13, 2001.

Lars, I cannot speak to the soul issue regarding spiders, but they are part of creation and therefore deserving of my respect. Common house and garden spiders perform such obvious valuable service to humankind that it is second nature for me to pardon them from the sentence of death merely due to any perceived inconvenience. At some level I'm a Jainist in that I really do value life to the extent I wish to do no harm, and almost always act accordingly, except where my life or that of those I love is threatened.

Capn, I really dislike brownies and would not partake even doctored with the best of herbs. Now you prepare a quality ragu and I might just go to town!

Art Bell had a frequent guest who was a proponent of clicking forward one's amygdala. He theorized doing so would engage psychic abilities. Cloudbusting was a pet project of this guy, whose name I cannot for the life of me recall right now. Too many "brownies" doncha know.

M-SOB, next time you have a spider to be rescued, drop me an email. Hi Ho Silver and all that. :)

I really hoped somebody familiar with research projects in psychology might chime in here. I want to know if what I think to be a skewed project is in fact legitimate or not.

-- Rich (howe9@shentel.net), February 13, 2001.

"I really hoped somebody familiar with research projects in psychology might chime in here. I want to know if what I think to be a skewed project is in fact legitimate or not."

I think you'd be on thin ice with those close to psychological reasearch projects with such a request. I am suprised that we don't have at least one person involved with the 'hard sciences' ranting on about psychology being a 'soft science'. I could quickly drag in at least one 'ologist' who'd claim it's not really a science afterall {of course he himself would be one heck of a subject for a psychological researcher - hard to find the control group for, though}.

I'll save my cynical morning rant about 'publish or perish' 'til later. Could be adjusted by a 'nuther cup o' joe.

-- flora (***@__._), February 13, 2001.