A signal-detection approach to individual differences in negative feeling

Feeling is an important aspect of core personality traits and affective-style. Here we implemented a new signal-detection-theory based model for feeling generation, involving two parameters: report-criterion (c), the level above which enough emotional evidence has gathered for intense feeling to appear, and evidence-differentiation (d(a)), the ability to emotionally differentiate between (negative) triggers of varying intensity. Results indicate that a low c was related to Neuroticism but not to affective-style, yet a low d(a) was related to limited access to emotion regulation strategies, but not to personality traits.