Like culture and gender, personality exerts a pronounced impact on our emotions. Recall the Big Five personality traits described in Chapter 3—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (or OCEAN). Of these five, three strongly influence our experience and communication of emotion (Pervin, 1993). The first is extraversion, the degree to which one is outgoing and sociable versus quiet and reserved. High-extraversion people experience positive emotions more frequently than low-extraversion people, because high-extraversion people seem to “look for happiness” in their everyday lives, focusing their attention more on positive events than on negative (Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991). High-extraversion people also rate themselves as better able to cope with stress and more skilled at managing their emotional communication than do low-extraversion people (Lopes, Salovey, Cote, & Beers, 2005).

Another personality trait that influences emotion is agreeableness. People high in agreeableness—those who are trusting, friendly, and cooperative—report being happier in general, better able to manage stress, and more skilled at managing their emotional communication than low-agreeable people. High-agreeable people also score substantially higher on measures of emotion management and are rated by their peers as having superior emotion management skills (Lopes et al., 2005).

The tendency to think negative thoughts about oneself, known as neuroticism, also affects emotional experience and expression. High-neurotic people focus their attention primarily on negative events (Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991). Consequently, they report more frequent negative emotions than do low-neurotic people and rate themselves as less happy overall. They also describe themselves as less skilled at emotional communication, and they test lower on scientific measures of emotion management than do low-neurotic people (Lopes et al., 2005).

Clearly, your degree of extraversion, agreeableness, and especially neuroticism influences how often you experience positive and negative emotions and how effectively you manage and communicate these emotions. At the same time, keep in mind that personality is merely one of many pieces that make up the complex puzzle that is emotion. Part of becoming a competent emotional communicator is learning how your personality traits shade your emotional experience and expression and learning how to treat personality-based emotion differences in others with sensitivity and understanding.