Behou. Rex Thu. Vol. 31, No. I, pp. 125-127, 1993 0005-7967/93 %5.00 + 0.00 Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved Copyright 0 1992 Pergamon Press Ltd

Negative recall bias and neuroticism: state vs trait effects

BRENDAN BRADLEY, KARIN MOGG, MICHAEL GALBRAITH and ANDREW PERRE-M

Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EB, England

(Received 31 January 1992)

Summary-Incidental recall of positive and negative trait adjectives was assessed in high and low N (neuroticism) Ss in whom depressed or neutral mood had been induced. Results indicated that the negative recall bias is an interactive function of trait vulnerability (as reflected by N scores) and current mood state. In the depressed mood condition, there was a trend for high N to be associated with relatively better recall of negative material, as expected. However, in neutral mood, high levels of N predicted relatively poorer recall of negative information. This unexpected finding was discussed in relation to previous research into mood-incongruent recall effects and sex differences.

INTRODUCTION

Previous research has shown that high levels of neuroticism (N) are associated with a recall bias favouring negative information (e.g. Young & Martin, 1981; Martin, Ward & Clark, 1983). However, given that N and negative mood intercorrelate, it is unclear whether the recall bias is due to state or trait variables (i.e. mood state vs personality effects). Sutton, Teasdale and Broadbent (1988) found that a similar negative recall bias can be produced by a depressed mood induction in normal volunteers, which suggests that transient mood state plays an important role.

An alternative view is that negative cognitive biases are an interactive function of state and trait variables (Miranda & Persons, 1988). That is, a negative recall bias should be most evident in vulnerable individuals (i.e. Ss with high levels of N) who are currently in a depressed mood state. This hypothesis was tested by randomly allocating high and low N Ss either to depressed or neutral mood inductions, and then assessing their incidental recall of positive vs negative trait adjectives.

METHOD

Subjects

The Ss were 39 undergraduate students (15 female, 24 male) who scored < 11 on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock & Erbaugh, 1979t_Ss with BDI scores of 11 or more were excluded on ethical grounds in order to avoid exposing them to a negative mood induction. The sample was divided into groups of high (n = 21) and low (n = 18) neuroticism, according to whether each S’s N score was above or below the sample median of 11. Mean N scores for the high and low N groups were 14.4 and 6.9 respectively.

Materials and procedure Mood induction and questionnaires. Ss were initially given the BDI to check their suitability for inclusion in the study.

This was followed by 3 visual analogue scales (VA%; Clark & Teasdale, 1985) to assess ‘depressed’, ‘happy’ and ‘anxious’ mood. Ss rated each mood on a 1Ocm scale labelled 0 (not at all)-100 (extremely).

Half the Ss were randomly allocated to a depressed mood induction and half to a neutral mood induction, each lasting about 5 min-similar to the mood inductions used by Sutton, Teasdale and Broadbent (1988). For the depressed mood induction, Ss listened to Russia under the Mongolian yoke by Prokofiev (played at half speed) and were asked to get into the mood of the music. For the neutral mood induction, Ss listened to Pocket Calculator by Kraftwerk, with similar instructions. Next, Ss completed another set of VA% followed by the Profile of Mood States with the instruction “How do you feel right now?’ (POMS; McNair, Lorr & Droppelman, 1971), and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ; Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975).* Ss then received three additional minutes of musical mood induction to help maintain the induced mood, followed by a third set of VASs.

Recall task. Immediately after the above procedure, Ss rated 38 trait adjectives for how well each word described them using a 5 point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (extremely). The word list included 15 positive (e.g. sincere, loyal) and 15 negative adjectives (e.g. unfriendly, complaining) selected from Anderson’s (1968) list of personality trait words. The positive and negative adjectives were matched for word length and frequency. These words were presented in one of two random orders; each list began and ended with 4 neutral adjectives (e.g. choosy, changeable) to minimize recency and primacy effects. The word list was presented on audiotape; one word every 5 sec. After rating all adjectives, Ss were given an unexpected recall test in which they were allowed 3 min to write down as many of the adjectives as possible.

*The EPQ was given after the mood induction to test a separate hypothesis regarding the extent to which N scores are mood-state dependent. Each S was tested twice, with a different mood induction procedure used in each session (for further details see Bradley, Mogg, Perrett & Galbraith, 1992). Only the data from the first session are reported here. Mood induction did not affect N scores.

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RESULTS

Questionnaire measures. The mood measures indicated that the mood manipulation had the desired effect. For example, following the mood manipulation, Ss in the negative mood condition had significantly higher depression scores on the POMS and VAS compared with Ss in the neutral condition (P < 0.05).

Recall measures. The proportion of negative words recalled by each S was calculated by dividing the number of negative words recalled by the total number of words correctly recalled (excluding buffers). These proportional recall (PR) scores provide a measure of negative recall bias that takes account of individual differences in overall level of recall. An analysis of variance of PR scores was carried out with two between S factors: neuroticism (high vs low N) and mood induction (depressed vs neutral). Although the main effects of N and mood induction on recall bias were far from significant (F < I), there was a significant interaction between the two factors [F(1,37) = 5.34, P < 0.051. Mean PR scores for high and low N Ss respectively were 0.46 and 0.59 in the neutral mood condition, and 0.52 and 0.45 in the depressed mood condition. Surprisingly, within the neutral mood condition, high levels of N were associated with reiatively poorer recall of negative words (N with PR: Y = -0.42, P < 0.05). On the other hand, in the depressed mood condition, there was a near-significant trend for high levels of N to be associated with better recall of negative material (r = 0.35, P < 0.09) which is consistent with expectation.

DISCUSSlON

The results indicate that the negative recall bias is an interactive function of state and trait variables. Within a normal population of Ss, there was a trend for a negative recall bias to be associated with high levels of N, but this was only apparent following a depressed mood induction. The results suggest that a negative recall bias depends on the combination of a vulnerable personality trait (as reflected by N) and current mood state.

One surprising aspect of the results was that, in the neutral mood condition, high levels of N were associated with relatively poorer recall of negative information. This suggests that, under normal conditions, vulnerable individuals may resist or inhibit the processing of negative, ~rsonality-c~n~uent information. This finding seems to complement recent research indicating that, under certain conditions, Ss may orient processing resources away from mood-congruent information in order to regulate their mood (Parrott and Sabini, 1990; Berkowitz & Troccoli, 1990; see also Isen, 1984). Thus, the present results might similarly reflect the operation of regulatory processes in high N individuals in normal mood, which serves to minimize negative affect (i.e. a personality-incongruent recall bias). That is, under normal circumstances, high N Ss may selectively process positive, rather than negative, information in order to avoid intensifying unpleasant feelings. The present results may also suggest that the operation of such regulatory processes is impaired by inducing depressed mood.

The present study found no evidence of simpIe main effects of N or mood induction on recall bias. This contrasts with previous evidence of a negative recall bias in high N Ss in normal mood (Young & Martin, 1981; Martin et ai., 1983) and in unselected Ss after a depressed mood induction (Sutton et al., 1988). One possible reason for the discrepancy between these findings and the present results may be sex differences in the S samples. In each of the studies by Young and Martin (1981) Martin et af. (1983) and Sutton rr a/. (1988), all the Ss were female. In the present study, 62% of Ss were male. Thus, one interpretation of the discrepant results may be that mood regulatory processes are more likely to operate (or do so more efficiently) in males than females. Some support for this view is suggested by the finding that, within the neutral mood condition, high levels of N predicted relatively poorer recall of negative information among males (N with PR: r = -0.54, P < 0.05) but not females (r = -0.04). Although further research is needed to confirm and extend these findings, these preliminary results suggest that high N men arc more likely to show personality-incongruent recall effects, possibly due to mood regulatory processes. In contrast, previous evidence of personality-congruent recall effects may be specific to high N women (Young & Martin, 1981; Martin et al., 1983).

Males tend to be excluded from studies of recall bias because they are less likely to show mood-congruent recall effects than females (Clark & Teasdale, 1985). However, it would Seem important for future research to take more account of sex differences in the effects of state and trait variables on cognitive biases. For example, at the present time. it is impossible to draw any clear conclusions about the effects of neuroticism on recall biases in the general population, because much of the existing evidence of such effects pertains only to women.

In addition, the further study of mood- or ~rsonality-incongruent recall effects, which may reflect mood regulatory processes, could improve our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying reduced vulnerability to depression. The study of such regulatory processes may also have important implications for the development of more effective psychological anti-depressant treatment strategies.

Acknon~ledgemenr-Karin Mogg is supported by the Pinsent-Darwin Fund.

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Beck, A., Ward, C., Mendelson, M., Mock, J. & Erbaugh, J. (1979). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 4, 561-571.

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