Neurotic people at greater risk of suffering from mood swings

Germany: A recent analysis of 13 longitudinal datasets found clear evidence that more neurotic people experience greater variability in negative emotion. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 

“Previous studies agree that neurotic people experience stronger negative emotions in everyday life. Because of new, contradictory studies, there has been disagreement about whether this is also associated with increased variability in emotional experiences, i.e. mood swings,” says the study’s first author, Nina Mader from the Wilhelm Wundt Institute of Psychology at Leipzig University. Personality psychologists at Leipzig University have developed a new approach to modelling data that solves previous methodological problems. “We use an approach from Bayesian statistics that allows additional flexibility in data modelling. We first successfully tested this approach in simulations and then re-examined 13 longitudinal data sets. The results suggest that neurotic people do indeed experience greater variability in negative emotions,” explains Mader. A total of 2,518 people were asked about their emotions.

Neuroticism is a personality trait. Personality traits are relatively stable and consistent across situations over time. They encompass our experiences and behaviour, including how we think (cognition) and feel (affect). People have different personalities and, therefore different levels of neuroticism. “So there is not a black-and-white division between neurotic and non-neurotic people, but rather a dimensional continuum with many shades of grey,” says the psychologist.