Impulsivity and anxiety differences in cognitive inhibition

An identity negative priming task was employed to investigate cognitive inhibition in 245 undergraduates. The task presented consecutively a prime and a probe display that contained a target and a distracter. Negative priming is observed when subjects must respond to a target in the probe display that had been a distracter in the prime display. This task also served to study the Eriksen interference effect by comparing a condition in which the target and the distracter had the same identity with a condition in which they had different identities. Subjects completed the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire designed to measure Gray's anxiety and impulsivity dimensions. Results showed that impulsives had a lower cognitive inhibition than non-impulsives, whereas impulsive women also showed a greater Eriksen interference effect than non-impulsive women. Furthermore, no differences in task performance were found between anxious and non-anxious groups. Our discussion considers the importance of studying cognitive functioning in personality research. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.