This research partially replicated Rusting's 1999 study, in that it correlated extraversion and neurotic personality scores with word selection/recall for words that have positive or negative meaning. The hypothesis stated that participants who scored high on the extraversion scale would more likely experience positive cognitions, and participants with neurotic personalities would more likely experience negative cognitions. Participants filled out personality measures and completed 2 cognitive tasks assessing memory and judgment. Results indicated a significant inverse relation between neuroticism and positive cognitions, thus implying that negative cognitions are more likely to accompany a neurotic personality. This result supported Hypothesis 2. However, results did not support Hypothesis 1, stating that positive cognitions are more likely to accompany extraverted personalities. Further discussion includes other interesting relations between demographic variables and cognitions.

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