Emotional (in)stability: Neuroticism is associated with increased variability in negative emotion after all

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Mental Health Research
• Statistical Modeling

Background:

• Neuroticism is associated with increased negative emotions.
• Previous research on neuroticism and emotional variability yielded conflicting results.
• Bounded rating scales may artificially suppress observed emotional variability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To re-examine the association between neuroticism and emotional variability.
• To propose and validate an alternative statistical approach to account for bounded scales.
• To investigate if neuroticism predicts greater fluctuation in negative emotions.

Main Methods:

• Utilized Bayesian censored location-scale models to analyze emotional data.
• Accounted for the possibility of emotional states outside scale bounds.
• Analyzed 13 longitudinal datasets comprising 2,518 individuals and 11,170 measurements.

Main Results:

• Found clear evidence that individuals higher in neuroticism exhibit greater variability in negative emotions.
• The proposed Bayesian model demonstrated superiority over alternative approaches in simulations.
• Challenged prior research suggesting no association between neuroticism and emotional variability due to scale limitations.

Conclusions:

• Neuroticism is robustly associated with increased negative emotional variability.
• Bayesian censored location-scale models offer a more accurate method for studying emotional variability with bounded data.
• This study reaffirms the link between neuroticism and emotional instability.