Taroyan, N., Butnicu, B., Ypsilanti, A. et al. (1 more author) (2020) Individual differences in performance speed are associated with a positivity/negativity bias. An ERP and behavioural study. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 14. 7. ISSN 1662-5153
Abstract
There is current dispute over the origins, incidence and development of Positivity Bias, i.e., preferential processing of positive relative to negative information. We addressed this question using a multi-method technique of behavioural, psychometric and event related potential (ERP) measures in a lexical decision task (LDT). Twenty four university students (11 female) participated (age range 18-26), but 4 were omitted owing to data issues. Participants were classified as Positivity Biased (PB) if their LDT responses to positive words were faster than to negative words, and vice versa for those classified as Negativity Biased (NB), leading to a group of 11 PB participants and a group of 9 NB participants. Interestingly, the PB group was significantly faster overall than the NB group and had significantly shorter P2 component ERP latencies in the left occipital region. Furthermore, the PB group had significantly higher scores for Expressive Suppression, together with higher scores for Crystallised Knowledge and for Cognitive Reappraisal. These results suggest that around 55% of the students had Positivity Bias, and these were more efficient in processing information and had better emotion regulation abilities than those with a Negativity Bias.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 Taroyan, Butnicu, Ypsilanti and Overton. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
Keywords: | positivity bias; ERP; LDT; individual differences; emotion regulation; cognitive abilities |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 17 Jan 2020 15:30 |
Last Modified: | 20 Feb 2020 11:29 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Frontiers Media |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3389/fnbeh.2020.00007 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:155712 |