On Traits and Temperament: General and Specific Factors of Emotional Experience and Their Relation to the Five‐Factor Model

TLDR

The study investigates how general and specific self‑rated affect measures relate to the five‑factor personality traits. It finds that Neuroticism and its facets are strongly linked to negative affect, Extraversion and its facets to positive affect, Conscientiousness relates to positive affect mainly through attentiveness (with the achievement facet broadly correlating with positive affect), and hostility is strongly associated with low Agreeableness, highlighting the temperamental basis of higher‑order traits and the importance of lower‑order facets.

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article we investigate relations between general and specific measures of self‐rated affect and markers of Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Replicating previous research, we found strong and pervasive associations between Neuroticism, its facets, and the various negative affects; and between Extraversion, its facets, and the positive affects. Conscientiousness also had a significant, independent relation with general positive affect, but this effect was entirely due to the specific affect of attentiveness, which was more strongly related to Conscientiousness than Extraversion. Conversely, only the achievement facet of Conscientiousness correlated broadly with the positive affects. Finally, hostility had a strong independent association with (low) Agreeableness. The results for Neuroticism and Extraversion further clarify the temperamental basis of these higher order trait dimensions; whereas those obtained for Agreeableness and Conscientiousness illustrate the importance of examining personality‐affect relations at the lower order level.