Emotional regulation and responses to provocation: Does agreeableness make a difference?

The ability to regulate emotional expression serves as an important mechanism in the adaptation of an individual. One important individual difference related to emotional regulation is agreeableness. We examined two competing theories that link agreeableness to the ability to control emotional reactivity when involved in an aggressive situation. The person-environment fit hypothesis emphasizes social behavior as a product of how the individual and situation interact with each other. The temperament hypothesis suggests that agreeableness is linked to temperamental bases of effortful control, specifically the regulation of anger. Female college students (N = 40) participated in a study that was designed to examine individual differences in emotional self-regulation in a simulated two person social interaction. Physiological responses to perceived aggression and observations of aggressive behavior were related to self-reports to examine hypotheses about links among personality and aggression. The patterns of results were different for high and low agreeable persons when they were targets of aggression.