To Do or not to Do: Inhibiting Attention and Action Depending on the Level of Extraversion

Abstract

Research into inhibition processes has been very fertile in modern psychology, especially with the more common use of advanced methods such as functional brain imaging. Despite all the advances made many questions still remain concerning the nature of inhibition processes and the very existence of inhibition. The term inhibition is widely used in everyday life with many meanings which is reflected in the many definitions and methods used to investigate inhibition in psychology. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between inhibition processes and extraversion. Participants (N=50) completed the Croatian version of the HEXACO-PI-R personality inventory (60 item version). Cognitive inhibition was measured with a location based inhibition of return task while behavioral inhibition was measured with a nonverbal Stroop-like interference task. Results show an interaction of extraversion and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) periods whereby extraverts show a greater inhibition effect at the shorter SOA periods (400, 600 ms) compared to introverts while the difference was nonsignificant at the longest SOA period (800 ms). The expected relationship between the two inhibition tasks was not observed. Implications for theories of extraversion and research concerning inibition processes are discussed.