Feelings as a currency of care: A role for agreeableness in emotional reactivity

Objective and background: The personality trait of agreeableness is linked to a number of core tendencies (e.g., empathy, warmth) that operate in a feeling-based manner. Following considerations of this type, it is proposed that the motivations and characteristics of agreeable individuals, relative to disagreeable individuals, should render them more receptive to emotional events and more responsive to them for this reason.

Method: Potential links between agreeableness and emotional reactivity were assessed in two studies involving four samples (total N = 517) in which participants continuously rated their feeling states in response to a variety of affective images.

Results: Agreeableness did not predict the speed with which emotional reactions began, but agreeable individuals exhibited higher-magnitude peak intensities, regardless of whether stimuli were appetitive (pleasant) or aversive (unpleasant) in nature.

Conclusions: The findings provide novel insights into the personality trait of agreeableness, emotional reactivity phenomena, and the dynamic processes that link agreeableness to emotion.