The relationship between extraversion-introversion and attentional bias to emotional faces in adolescents

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between adolescents’ extraversion-introversion and information processing of schematic happy and angry emotional faces. 51 male and female students (11-15 years of age) including 24 extroverted and 27 introverted were selected as the sample based on their scores in extraversion-introversion dimension of Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (JEPQ).After a semi-structured clinical interview a computerized pictorial version of the modified dot-probe task was carried out on them. Data were analyzed by regression analysis and t test. The results indicated that extraversion-introversion is a predictor of attentional bias to happy emotional faces so that with increasing extroversion in adolescents their attentional vigilance to happy faces will also increase (p<.05). The findings show that personality may systematically influence the way people perceive facial expressions of other people and the extroversion trait is associated with pleasant emotional information processing.

Keywords

• extraversion/Introversion
• emotional faces
• information processing
• attentional bias