Speed of Processing and Personality: The Influence of Personality and Extrinsic Feedback on the Performance of Cognitive Tasks

Background: Feedback is considered as an effective means of motivating, guiding, and reinforcing desired behaviours. However, the ways to interpret external feedback may be different among individuals with different personality traits; therefore, this would influence the effects of feedback on performance. Accordingly, the influencing effects of personality towards different styles of feedback on cognitive task performance were examined. Methods: Participants (N = 71) were given three Stroop tasks as a dependent variable, whereas the Trail Making Task was an independent variable; additionally, a personality test was used to record the personality traits of each participant. The relationship between personality and feedback-induced changes in Stroop performance was computed by means of Pearson correlation, followed by a mixed-effect model to demonstrate the effect of personality on the overall performance with feedback. Results: The statistical analysis indicated that performance from those with higher levels of extraversion generally profitted from feedback, irrespective of whether it was negative feedback (r = 0.201) or positive feedback (r = 0.205). Additionally, the moderating effect of personality on feedback and performance was demonstrated. Conclusions: The limitations of the sample size and other external influences may have reduced the representativeness of the research. Nonetheless, more potential influencing factors need to be included and explored in future research.