neuroticism

(noun)

A personality trait manifested by characteristics of anxiety, moodiness, worry, envy and jealousy.

Related Terms

  • Openness to Experience
  • extroversion
  • trait
  • frontal lobe

Examples of neuroticism in the following topics:

  • The Five-Factor Model

    • Neuroticism also refers to an individual's degree of emotional stability and impulse control.
    • People high in neuroticism tend to experience emotional instability and are characterized as angry, impulsive, and hostile.
    • Watson and Clark (1984) found that people reporting high levels of neuroticism also tend to report feeling anxious and unhappy.
    • In contrast, people who score low in neuroticism tend to be calm and even-tempered.
    • Neuroticism and extroversion tend to decline slightly with age (Donnellan & Lucas; Terracciano et al.).
  • Allport's, Cattell's, and Eysenck's Trait Theories of Personality

    • He believed personality is largely governed by biology, and he viewed people as having two specific personality dimensions: extroversion vs. introversion and neuroticism vs. stability.
    • In the neuroticism/stability dimension, people high on neuroticism tend to be anxious; they tend to have an overactive sympathetic nervous system and even with low stress, their bodies and emotional state tend to go into a flight-or-fight reaction.
    • He also hypothesized that neuroticism was determined by individual differences in the limbic system, the part of the human brain involved in emotion, motivation, and emotional association with memory.
  • The Brain and Personality

    • It was an investigation carried out in which identical and fraternal twins, ages 11 and 12, were tested for neuroticism.
    • Eysenck developed a model of personality based on neuroticism and a second factor, extroversion.
    • Eysenck also hypothesized that neuroticism was determined by individual differences in the limbic system, the part of the human brain involved in emotion, motivation, and emotional association with memory.
  • Overview of Personality Assessment

    • According to the five factor model, the five dimensions of personality lies along a continuum of opposing poles and include Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
    • Eysenck's inventory focuses on three dimensions: psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism.
  • Incentive Theory of Motivation and Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Motivation

    • Other studies provide evidence that the effectiveness of extrinsic motivators varies depending on factors like self-esteem, locus of control (the extent to which someone believes they can control events that affect them), self-efficacy (how someone judges their own competence to complete tasks and reach goals), and neuroticism (a personality trait characterized by anxiety, moodiness, worry, envy, and jealousy).
  • Personality Psychology

    • The five-factor model is the most widely accepted trait theory today: it includes the five factors of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, which each occur along a continuum.
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