Is left frontal brain activation in defensiveness gender specific?

Kline, John P.; Allen, John J. B.; Schwartz, Gary E.

doi:10.1037/0021-843x.107.1.149

Cited by 63 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(42 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Concerning the gender of the participants, Kline, Allen, and Schwartz (1998) showed that during the rest period, defensiveness correlated positively with relative left frontal electroencephalographic activation in women (see also Tomarken & Davidson, 1994), whereas high-defensive men showed relative right frontal activation. Jamner and Leigh (1999) found that defensiveness was positively correlated with resting plasma ␤-endorphin levels and responses in men, but not in women.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Repressive and defensive coping during fear and anger.

Pauls

Stemmler

2003

Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this study, the relationship between repressive and defensive coping styles and somatovisceral responses as well as emotion self-reports were investigated in 2 situational contexts conceived to induce fear and anger. Anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; L. Laux, P. Glanzmann, P. Schaffner, & C. D. Spielberger, 1981) × Defensiveness (Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale; D. P. Crowne & D. Marlowe, 1960) × Emotion (fear, anger) moderated regression analyses revealed that compared with baseline during fear, defensiveness was related to a decrease in heart rate variability. Also during fear, repressive-defensive copers had lower self-reports of negative affect but showed higher behavioral negative affect (m. corrugator reactivity) than other participants. During anger, defensiveness was positively related to both diastolic blood pressure reactivity and m. zygomaticus reactivity. Additional analyses showed that emotional responses of repressivedefensive copers were strongly moderated by the situational context.The history of the repressive-defensive coping style began with the development of the Byrne Repression-Sensitization scale (see Bell & Byrne, 1978). This measure evolved from the perceptual defense literature (e.g., Eriksen, 1966) in which repressors were defined as individuals who have heightened recognition thresholds for anxiety-provoking stimuli. But soon it emerged that the Byrne scale had limited discriminant validity because of its high correlation with trait anxiety measures (e.g., Weinberger, Schwartz, & Davidson, 1979).The repressive coping research progressed with the development of the Marlowe-Crowne (MC) Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) that was originally constructed for the assessment of so-cially desirable responding as a response style. Within 4 years, however, Crowne and Marlowe (1964) recognized that their scale was primarily measuring a substantive individual difference dimension rather than a response bias. Since that time, a formidable body of research has demonstrated that high-MC scorers generally believe what they are reporting and attempt to behave accordingly (e.g., Derakshan & Eysenck, 1999;McCrae & Costa, 1983). However, this insight does not rule out that high-MC scorers can also exaggerate, cheat, and lie, if necessary, to ensure that others recognize their good character or to avoid social disapproval (e.g., Millham, 1974;Paulhus & John, 1998).The core motive behind the excessively agreeable and conforming behavior of high-MC scorers seems to be the maintenance of an idealized self-concept, particularly by the defensive avoidance of negative affect such as anxiety or anger (Crowne & Marlowe, 1964, pp. 150, 190) and the prevention of threat to self-esteem from anticipated social rejection (e.g.,

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Repressive and defensive coping during fear and anger.

Pauls

Stemmler

2003

Emotion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For instance, Depue and Collins (1999) explain extraversion in terms of variations in the tonic activation level of the BAS. Left prefrontal brain hemisphere activity, an indicator of tonic BAS activation, has been related to decreased vulnerability to depression (Kline, Allen, & Schwartz, 1998). Neuroticism, an indicator of tonic BIS activation, has been related to increased reactivity to everyday stressors (Bolger & Schilling, 1991).…”

Section: Individual Reactivity To Fear Appealsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of fear in persuasion

Dillard

Anderson

2004

Psychology and Marketing

129

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Previous research on fear/threat appeals has correlated fear intensity with persuasion. However, fear might influence persuasion in at least four conceptually distinct ways: (a) the proclivity to experience fear, (b) the rise from baseline to peak, (c) peak intensity, and (d) the decline from peak to postmessage fear. A study was conducted in which 361 participants read a message that first described the dangers of influenza, then advocated obtaining a free vaccination. Significant positive correlations were observed between tonic, that is, traitlike, activation of the behavioral-inhibition system (BIS) and various indices of fear arousal. Nonsignificant correlations were observed between the behavioral-activation system (BAS) and the same indices. Both rise and peak measures of fear predicted persuasion, but decline in fear had no discernible impact on persuasion.

show abstract

Section: For a Review)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Anterior asymmetries recorded during baseline conditions have predicted subsequent emotional responses in infants (Davidson & Fox 1989) and adults (Tomarken et al 1990), and correlate with personality traits thought to relate to vulnerability to depression (HarmonJones & Allen 1997;Kline et al 1998;Tomarken & Davidson 1994), as well as depression per se (Allen et al 1993;Henriques & Davidson 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consistent with this hypothesis, in substantial unpublished raw data on resting EEG and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), and has no significant relationships between extraversion and EEG asymmetry were observed (Kline 1998). The only significant relationships with the EPQ and asymmetry involved the L scale (see Kline et al 1998).It could accordingly be that brain laterality has little or nothing to do with extraversion, and that D&C are justified in leaving it out of their theory completely. On the other hand, it may be that no relationship between frontal EEG asymmetry and extraversion exists when measured by widely used and higher-order measures of the construct.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Steps to a neurochemistry of personality

Lawrence¹,

Koepp²,

Gunn³

et al. 1999

Behav Brain Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Extraversion has two central characteristics: (1) interpersonal engagement, which consists of affiliation (enjoying and valuing close interpersonal bonds, being warm and affectionate) and agency (being socially dominant, enjoying leadership roles, being assertive, being exhibitionistic, and having a sense of potency in accomplishing goals) and (2) impulsivity, which emerges from the interaction of extraversion and a second, independent trait (constraint). Agency is a more general motivational disposition that includes dominance, ambition, mastery, efficacy, and achievement. Positive affect (a combination of positive feelings and motivation) is closely associated with extraversion. Extraversion is accordingly based on positive incentive motivation.Parallels between extraversion (particularly its agency component) and a mammalian behavioral approach system based on positive incentive motivation implicate a neuroanatomical network and modulatory neurotransmitters in the processing of incentive motivation. A corticolimbic-striatal-thalamic network (1) integrates the salient incentive context in the medial orbital cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus; (2) encodes the intensity of incentive stimuli in a motive circuit composed of the nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, and ventral tegmental area dopamine projection system; and (3) creates an incentive motivational state that can be transmitted to the motor system.Individual differences in the functioning of this network arise from functional variation in the ventral tegmental area dopamine projections, which are directly involved in coding the intensity of incentive motivation. The animal evidence suggests that there are three neurodevelopmental sources of individual differences in dopamine: genetic, "experience-expectant," and "experience-dependent." Individual differences in dopamine promote variation in the heterosynaptic plasticity that enhances the connection between incentive context and incentive motivation and behavior.Our psychobiological threshold model explains the effects of individual differences in dopamine transmission on behavior, and their relation to personality traits is discussed.Keywords: behavioral sensitization; dopamine; extraversion; heterosynaptic plasticity; incentive motivation; neurobiology; personality the behavioral, emotional, and motivational characteristics of extraversion. Next, we identified a mammalian behavior pattern with corresponding characteristics, as described in the psychological and ethological literatures. Once an analogous motivation was identified, animal neurobiological research provided empirical links to its neural organization and neurochemical modulation. These hypotheses were then extended to humans and subjected to empirical tests. Extraversion: Central characteristics and underlying motivationExtraversion is a higher-order trait that is derived from a set of correlated lower-order traits. The lower-order traits are measures of behavioral and emotional characteristicssuch as social dominance, positive emo...

show abstract

Is left frontal brain activation in defensiveness gender specific?

Cited by 63 publications

References 16 publications

Repressive and defensive coping during fear and anger.

Repressive and defensive coping during fear and anger.

The role of fear in persuasion

Steps to a neurochemistry of personality

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About