1. Personality Correlates of Responses to Associative Mismatch and to Stimuli Associated with Reward or Punishment Alan Pickering Department of Psychology

2. Collaborators Patricia Brady Institute of Psychiatry James Jeffs Luke Jones St Georges Hospital Medical School

3. Outline Summarise Grays Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) of personality Note mixed results in existing literature Present new studies addressing basic issues from scratch

4. Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST) Bottom-up theory of fundamental personality dimensions Psychopharmacological and lesion studies in animals identify two basic systems

5. Basic Systems of RST Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) Behavioural Activation System (BAS)

6. BIS Characteristics Inputs: see next slide Outputs: inhibition and arousal Corresponding personality trait: anxiety Neural substrate: septo-hippocampal system

7. BIS Activating Inputs Aversive secondary reinforcers: i.e. conditioned stimuli associated with punishment or frustrative nonreward Novel stimuli: i.e. where an associative mismatch occurs Innate fear stimuli

8. BAS Characteristics Inputs: see next slide Outputs: arousal Corresponding personality trait: impulsivity (sensation seeking) Neural substrate: dopaminergic projection systems

9. BAS Activating Inputs Appetitive secondary reinforcers: i.e. conditioned stimuli associated with reward or relieving nonpunishment

10. Existing Studies Extensive literature since 1970 Several reviews (e.g., Pickering et al, 1997) Usually significant results Conflicts across studies

11. Typical Experiment 1.Take healthy volunteers 2.Measure their trait anxiety and/or impulsivity 3.Expose to BIS and/or BAS activating stimuli 4.Measure behavioural effects of 3 and correlate with scores from 2

12. Confusing Findings Effects of wrong personality trait Unexpected direction of correlations Variations of traits that correlate Nature of reinforcers used varies Unrealistic/complex reinforcers used Misunderstanding of theory by other researchers Some parts of theory untested Unexpected effects of gender

13. New Studies 1 Associative mismatch stimuli Stimuli associated with ecologically valid punishments (EVPs) Verbal instructions warning of EVPs Investigated behavioural effects and personality correlates of the following:

14. New Studies 2 Additivity of effects Associated neural activations via fMRI Other issues explored were:

15. Basic Paradigm Choice reaction time (RT) task Warning stimuli manipulated to create BIS and BAS inputs Key stimuli presented to Ss incidentally while doing choice RT

16. Standard Trial Sequence

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19. Associative Mismatch Sequence

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22. Secondary Reinforcer Sequence

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25. Choice RT Task Measures Mean RT and % errors on: critical trials (associative mismatch or secondary reinforcer) compared with immediately preceding standard trials

26. BIS (Trait Anxiety) Questionnaires Eysencks Neuroticism Scale: EPQ-N Spielbergers State-Trait Anxiety Inventory: STAI-Y2 Cloningers Harm Avoidance Scale: HA Carver and Whites BIS Scale: BIS

27. Study One: Overview Investigated effects of Associative Mismatch (AM) 30 healthy volunteers (M/F) Trait anxiety measures used: STAI-Y2; BIS; HA 140 choice RT trials (1-40 practice), including 12 AM trials

28. Study One: Correlations RT Difference (AM – Standard) MeasureCorr.p-value Y2-0.300.1 HA-0.14ns BIS-0.350.06 Comb.-0.320.09

29. Study One: AM RTs By Anxiety Median Splits

30. Study Two: Overview Investigated effects of AM and secondary reinforcers (SRs), both aversive and appetitive 40 healthy volunteers (male medical students) Used preconditioning procedure to create secondary reinforcers 350 choice RT trials (1-50 practice), including 6 AM and 24 SR trials

31. Study Two: Questionnaires Trait anxiety measures used: STAI-Y2; BIS; HA; EPQ-N A range of measures of BAS- related traits (impulsive sensation seeking)

32. Study Two: BAS Questionnaires Eysencks Extraversion and Psychoticism Scales: EPQ-E/P Eysencks Impulsiveness Scale: I7- IMP Cloningers Novelty Seeking Scale: NS Carver and Whites BAS Scale: BAS Introvertive Anhedonia: IAN

33. Study Two: Preconditioning Fully counterbalanced design Associates 4 neutral geometric symbols (A-D) with reinforcing events Subject immerses hand in ice-water for unknown period (actually 45 secs) Subject watches award of random prize in 50 pence units (actually £3.50)

34. Study Two: Preconditioning Symbols Occurs …Associated Reinforcement A7 times in first 35 secs cold water immersion Punishment (Pun) Btwice to signal last 10 secs of cold water Pun or Relieving Non-Pun (RNP) C7 times signalling 50 pence reward each time Reward (Rew) Dtwice to signal end of reward sequence Frustrative Non- Reward (FNR)

35. Study Two: Overall RTs

36. Study Two: AM & BIS Correlations I RT Difference (AM – Comparison) MeasureCorr.p-value Y2-0.05ns EPQ-N-0.04ns HA-0.280.08 BIS-0.23ns HA+BIS-0.280.08 Comb.-0.18ns

37. Study Two: AM & BIS Correlations II RT Difference (Rew – Comparison) MeasureCorr.p-value Y2-0.04ns EPQ-N-0.11ns HA-0.20ns BIS-0.300.06 HA+BIS-0.270.09 Comb.-0.19ns

38. Study Two: Rew Regression Results DV= RT Diff (Rew – comparison) Ist Block: Anxiety (HA+BIS) 2nd Block: BAS traits Final model: DV= K – 0.35*Anx – 0.32*EPQ-E

39. Study Two: Pun & BIS Correlations RT Difference (Sym-B – Comparison) MeasureCorr.p-value Y20.280.08 EPQ-N0.350.03 HA0.14ns BIS0.420.008 HA+BIS0.310.06 Comb.0.360.02

40. Study Two: Pun RTs By Anxiety Median Splits

41. Conclusions Anxiety is related more strongly to the arousal, than to the inhibition, produced by associative mismatch (AM) Anxiety is related more strongly to the inhibition, than to the arousal, produced by secondary reinforcers associated with punishment (SR-Pun) The anxiety measures correlating with AM and SR-Pun effects may differ

42. Conclusions (continued) The arousal effect, produced by secondary reinforcers associated with reward (SR-Rew), is: associated with extraversion- impulsivity measures additive to the arousal effect produced by AM