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Individual Differences in Affective Priming Effects: Any Links with Personality and Trait Affectivity?

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Abstract

Processing tendencies refer to individual differences in the automatic processing of affective stimuli. Using the affective priming paradigm one can tap these processing tendencies and differentiate positive and negative affective priming scores. In this study we used a classical evaluative decision task with nouns as primes and adjectives as targets to assess individual differences in positive and negative affective priming in two time points. Using Steyer’s (Steyer et al. in Methods of Psychological Research Online 2(1), 21–33, 1997) true intraindividual change modeling approach, the positive and negative priming scores were defined on a latent level. No significant relationships were found between positive affective priming and trait positive affect nor extraversion, as well as between negative affective priming and trait negative affect and neuroticism. As these findings are not in line with previous research (Robinson et al. in Emotion 10(5), 615–626, 2010; Robinson et al. in Personality and Individual Differences 42(7), 1221–1231, 2007) possible moderating influences are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The study was conducted as a part of the research project No. 130-1301683-1402 “Measuring Latent Psychological Attributes: Person Dispositions and Processes,” led by the second author of this paper and supported by Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports of the Republic of Croatia.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

    Blaž Rebernjak & Vesna Buško

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  1. Blaž Rebernjak
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  2. Vesna Buško
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Correspondence to Blaž Rebernjak.

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Blaž Rebernjak declares that he has no conflict of interest. Vesna Buško declares that she has no conflict of interest.

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Rebernjak, B., Buško, V. Individual Differences in Affective Priming Effects: Any Links with Personality and Trait Affectivity?. Curr Psychol 37, 520–527 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-016-9532-1

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