Definition
Urgency is an impulsivity facet that reflects the tendency to act rashly while faced with intense emotional contexts.
Introduction
Impulsivity, a trait that is included in all major models of personality, has for decades been known to play a crucial role in psychopathological and neuropsychiatric disorders and can thus be considered a trans-diagnostic construct. It is now established that impulsivity reflects a combination of multiple and separable personality traits or psychological constructs. In a seminal study conducted to delimit the facets underlying the “umbrella” construct of impulsivity, Whiteside and Lynam (2001) administered several widely used questionnaires of impulsivity and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory to a large sample of undergraduate students. A factor analysis conducted on these questionnaires resulted in a four-factor solution, which was the basis for the creation of a scale called the...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bechara, A., & Van der Linden, M. (2005). Decision-making and impulse control after frontal lobe injuries. Current Opinion in Neurology, 18, 734–739.
Berg, J. M., Latzman, R. D., Bliwise, N. G., & Lilienfeld, S. O. (2015). Parsing the heterogeneity of impulsivity: A meta-analytic review of the behavioral implications of the UPPS for psychopathology. Psychological Assessment, 27, 1129–1146.
Billieux, J., Gay, P., Rochat, L., & Van der Linden, M. (2010). The role of urgency and its underlying psychological mechanisms in problematic behaviours. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48, 1085–1096.
Billieux, J., Rochat, L., Ceschi, G., Carré, A., Offerlin-Meyer, I., Defeldre, A.-C., et al. (2012). Validation of a short French version of the UPPS-P impulsive behaviour scale. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 53, 609–615.
Cyders, M. A., & Smith, G. T. (2008). Emotion-based dispositions to rash action: Positive and negative urgency. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 807–828.
Cyders, M. A., Smith, G. T., Spillane, N. S., Fischer, S., Annus, A. M., & Peterson, C. (2007). Integration of impulsivity and positive mood to predict risky behavior: Development and validation of a measure of positive urgency. Psychological Assessment, 19, 107–118.
Smith, G. T., & Cyders, M. A. (2016). Integrating affect and impulsivity: The role of positive and negative urgency in substance use risk. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 1(Suppl. 1), S3–S12.
Smith, G. T., Fischer, S., Cyders, M. A., Annus, A. M., Spillane, N. S., & McCarthy, D. M. (2007). On the validity and utility of discriminating among impulsivity-like traits. Assessment, 14, 155–170.
Whiteside, S. P., & Lynam, D. R. (2001). The five factor model and impulsivity: Using a structural model of personality to understand impulsivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 669–689.
Wilbertz, T., Deserno, L., Horstmann, A., Neumann, J., Villringer, A., Heinze, H. J., et al. (2014). Response inhibition and its relation to multidimensional impulsivity. NeuroImage, 103, 241–248.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Billieux, J. (2017). Urgency. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2132-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2132-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences