Colloquium: Extraversion and Reward Reactivity

Extraversion is a personality trait describing a broad tendency towards sociability, activity, boldness, and positive affect. Many biologically-oriented personality theorists have suggested that a reactive reward system underlies many of the key features of extraversion (e.g., Depue & Collins, 1999; Pickering & Gray, 1999; Rammsayer, 1998). In the context of this hypothesis I shall review some of my recent and ongoing research. From this, I suggest that (1) extraversion is indeed associated with some markers of reward system function, and (2) this may well account for many phenomena to which extraversion has been related, but (3) there is perhaps a tendency to over-apply the hypothesis: some features of extraversion appear less plausibly explained by reward-reactivity than others. Future theory and research in this area should therefore adopt a more pluralistic approach to the explanation of extraverted personality.