Personality, Stress, and Intuition: Emotion Regulation Abilities Moderate the Effect of Stress-Dependent Cortisol Increase on Coherence Judgments

Abstract

Objective: Findings on the relationship between hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) activity and cognitive performance are inconsistent. We investigated whether personality in terms of emotion regulation abilities (ERA) moderates the relationship between stress-contingent HPA activity and accuracy of intuitive coherence judgments.Method: ERA and cortisol responses to social-evaluative stress as induced by a variant of the Trier Social Stress Test were measured in N = 49 participants (32 female, aged 18 to 33 years, M = 22.48, SD = 3.33). Subsequently, in a Remote Associates Task they provided intuitive judgments on whether word triples, primed by either stress-reminding or neutral words, are coherent or not.Results: Under relative cortisol increase participants low in ERA showed reduced performance whereas individuals high in ERA showed increased performance. By contrast, under conditions of low cortisol change, individuals low in ERA outperformed those high in ERA.Conclusion: Personality can moderate the link between stress and cognition such as accurate intuition. This can happen to a degree that existing effects may not be become apparent in the main effect (i.e. without considering personality), which highlights the necessity to consider personality in stress research, ERA in particular. We discuss the findings with respect to individual differences in neurobehavioral mechanisms potentially underlying ERA and corresponding interactions with cognitive processing.

The Effect of COVID-19 Confinement in Behavioral, Psychological, and Training Patterns of Chess Players

“…Since personality modulates stress and cognition relationships ( Radtke et al, 2020 ), a chess player’s personality could influence how they face COVID-19 confinement. In this regard, chess players are characterized for unconventional thinking and orderliness ( Radtke et al, 2020 ), being highly competitive players, and more suspicious ( Avni et al, 1987 ), and introverted ( Vollstadt-Klein et al, 2010 ) than non-players. Interestingly, personality differences are evident even in young children who play chess.…”

The Dynamics of Personality Approach (DPA): 20 Tenets for Uncovering the Causal Mechanisms of Personality

“…For example, experiments have been used to dissociate facets of broad factors such as extraversion (Depue & Morrone‐Strupinsky, 2005; Revelle, Humphreys, Simon, & Gilliland, 1980), validate measures of motives (McClelland, 1985), and investigate the cognitive mechanisms underlying personality traits (e.g. Moeller, Robinson, & Bresin, 2010; Robinson et al, 2019; Smillie et al, 2016), as well as emotion regulation abilities (Radtke, Düsing, Kuhl, Tops, & Quirin, 2020; Quirin et al, 2011) and strategies (Gross, 2014; Gross & John, 2003).…”

“…Error awareness plays a particular role in the evaluation phase and is typically accompanied by an immediate negative emotional response upon conscious detection of a deviation from expectations in goal progress. As to high–level cognitive functions, broad holistic thought is often involved in taking many pros and cons of different goal alternatives simultaneously into consideration during the goal selection phase, whereas analytical thought is particularly important in the planning phase (Kuhl, 2000; Kuhl et al, 2020; Quirin et al, 2019).…”

“…Thus, one fruitful DPA would be to identify psychological functions that link specific traits with specific neural networks, such as with respect to the hypothesis that conscientiousness depends on a neural network that specializes in prioritizing goals (Rueter, Abram, MacDonald, Rustichini, & DeYoung, 2018). Because of its relevance for personality functioning, large–scale brain networks have been considered to underlie so–called personality systems (Quirin et al, 2019; also Tops, Quirin, Boksem, & Koole, 2017).…”

“…Collins, Jackson, Walker, O'connor, & Gardiner, 2017; Fajkowska, 2015; Mayer, 2015; Revelle & Condon, 2015; Sosnowska, Kuppens, De Fruyt, & Hofmans, 2019; Van Egeren, 2009), which demonstrates the increasing interest in uncovering the mechanisms underlying personality. Some models have also been developed by authors of the present work (DeYoung, 2015; Kuhl, 2000a,b; Kuhl, Quirin, & Koole, 2020; Tops, IJzerman, & Quirin, 2020; Quirin, Tops, & Kuhl, 2019; Read et al, 2010; Read, Droutman, & Miller, 2017; Tops, Boksem, Luu, & Tucker, 2010; Tops, Montero–Marín, & Quirin, 2016). These models and theories differ in important respects, but all endorse a systems–theoretical approach in one way or the other, referring to control theory, cybernetics, cognitive architectures based on neural networks, or other theories of complex dynamic and adaptive systems.…”