1. Jennifer Lay 1, Denis Gerstorf 2, & Christiane Hoppmann 1 Correspondence: jennifer.lay@psych.ubc.ca 1 Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia 2 Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Discussion and Conclusions Neuroticism and Extraversion Magnify Bias in Retrospective Reports of Everyday Negative and Positive Affect over Time Background and Hypotheses Method Results Acknowledgments Positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) exaggerated in retrospective reports (e.g. Thomas & Diener, 1990) Short-term episodic memory influences eventually overcome by stable semantic memory influences, e.g. self- schemas, shaping recall bias (Robinson & Clore, 2002) Neuroticism and extraversion magnify retrospective exaggeration of NA and PA, respectively, in line with differential propensity to feel these emotions (Barret, 1997) This study seeks to disentangle temporal, emotional salience, and personality influences on retrospective emotion reports H1: Retrospective exaggeration of high arousal (HA) but not low arousal (LA) affect  higher salience of HA affect H2: Neuroticism linked with exaggeration of HA-NA and extraversion with exaggeration of HA-PA H3: Personality influences on bias strengthen with time  increasing reliance on self-schemas 179 adults 20-78 years (M = 49.6, SD = 19.1) from Atlanta Metropolitan area, 52% female, 93% attended college Beeped 6 times daily for 10-day period to report on current affect (8 items) on a 5-point scale Immediately after, and again 1-3 months later, asked to recall affect intensity since beginning of 10-day period Multilevel models predicted retrospective bias in HA-PA, HA-NA, LA-PA, LA-NA ratings over elapsed time (weeks) bias = (retrospective rating) – (mean of momentary ratings) Emotional salience predictors: mean affect, peak affect over 10-day period, recent affect (last day) Personality predictors: neuroticism, extraversion (8-item) Covariates: age, sex, education, cognitive measures HA-NA (irritated, nervous)HA-PA (happy, excited) LA-NA (sad, sleepy)LA-PA (calm, quiet) Overall, retrospective exaggeration of HA-PA and underreporting of LA-PA Confirmed emotional salience influences (peak affect, recent affect) can magnify retrospective biases at time 0 High neuroticism  retrospective over-reporting of HA-NA and LA-NA, under-reporting of LA-PA at time 0 ›Reflects propensity for NA & anxiety, stress reactivity? High extraversion  retrospective over-reporting of HA- PA, underreporting of LA-PA at time 0 ›Unexpected LA-PA trend - reflects extraversion facets tapped by our measure (e.g. low quietness)? Retrospective report biases tend to be time-dependent Increase in retrospective over-reporting of HA-NA over time is greater for people higher in neuroticism Increase in retrospective under-reporting of LA-PA over time is greater for people higher in extraversion ›Personality-related self-schemas may exert increasing influence on affect recall over time  adaptive? Implications for interpretation of retrospective (and trait) affect measures HA-NALA-NAHA-PALA-PA Intercept 0.029 (n.s.) -0.050 (n.s.) 0.262 ***-0.182 ** Elapsed Time 0.023 ** 0.020 ** 0.010 (n.s.) -0.018 * Mean Affect-0.641 ***-0.470 **-0.403 **-0.388 ** Peak Affect 0.177 **-0.076 (n.s.) 0.235 * 0.004 (n.s.) Recent Affect 0.122 (n.s.) 0.051 (n.s.) 0.045 (n.s.) 0.372 ** Neuroticism 0.017 * 0.015 * 0.001 (n.s.) -0.018 * Extraversion-0.004 (n.s.) -0.008 (n.s.) 0.026 ***-0.020 ** Age-0.007 **-0.009 **-0.001 (n.s.) -0.003 (n.s.) Sex (0 = ‘M’) 0.156 * 0.108 (n.s.) 0.012 (n.s.) 0.028 (n.s.) Education 0.036 (n.s.) 0.013 (n.s.) 0.030 (n.s.) 0.029 (n.s.) Letter Sets-0.026 (n.s.) -0.037 * 0.024 (n.s.) 0.012 (n.s.) Adv. Vocab. 0.016 (n.s.) 0.011 (n.s.) -0.027 *-0.004 (n.s.) Peak x Time-0.009 (n.s.) 0.010 (n.s.) 0.024 (n.s.) 0.011 (n.s.) Rec. x Time-0.041 **-0.010 (n.s.) -0.013 (n.s.) -0.057 ** Neur. x Time 0.002 (n.s.) 0.000 (n.s.) -0.002 (n.s.) 0.000 (n.s.) Extra. x Time-0.002 (n.s.) -0.004 *-0.001 (n.s.) Fig. 1: Neuroticism Magnifies Retrospective Over-reporting of HA-NA over Time Fig. 2: Extraversion Magnifies Retrospective Under-reporting of LA-PA over Time NIH Grant R01 AG15019 to Fredda Blanchard-Fields (1948-2010) Table: Predictors of Bias in Retrospective Reports of HA-NA, LA-NA, HA-PA, and LA-PA ›Positive number = over-reporting ›Negative number = under-reporting