Neural Motivational States at Rest Relate to Individual Attitudes Towards Emotions

• Abby Freebery, Psychology, University of Delaware

• Philip Gable, Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware

Our study investigated the relationship between participant’s resting brain activity and their self reported personality measures. Many experiments have examined the comparison between resting state and emotional traits (Harmon-Jones, 2004), but few investigate the attitudes towards emotions. The Attitudes Towards Emotions Scale (ATE) assesses how individuals evaluate a specific emotion (anger, joy, sadness, disgust, and fear). These emotions have corresponding motivational states (i.e. joy is an approach motivated emotion while fear is a withdrawal motivated emotion). Frontal asymmetry is a feature of the electroencephalogram (EEG) which measures the difference in alpha (8-14 Hz) amplitude between the left and right frontal regions. These scores indicate the motivational states of approach (greater relative left) and withdrawal (greater relative right) motivation. Participants (N = 197) were instructed to fill out a self-report questionnaire consisting of the ATE and the Behavioral Activation Systems scale (BAS; measures trait approach motivation). Resting brain activity, measured using EEG, consisted of an 8-minute resting task where participants were asked to alternate eyes open and closed. Correlational matrices showed a positive relationship between greater relative left frontal activity and attitude towards joy (r = .18, p = .01), suggesting greater approach motivation at rest with a greater score towards joy on the ATE, indicating a more positive attitude towards joy. We also found a negative relationship between greater relative left frontal activity and attitude toward fear (r = -.15, p = .04), suggesting greater withdrawal motivation with greater score towards fear. A second correlation showed a positive relationship between BAS and attitude towards joy (r =.14, p = .047) as well as BAS and attitude towards fear (r = .19, p = .005). These results suggest that resting motivational states reflect attitudes towards different emotions. People who described positive attitudes towards approach (or withdrawal) related emotion showed greater approach (or withdrawal) at rest. However, the BAS correlates to positive attitudes towards all emotions, regardless of corresponding motivational state.