Emotional Expressiveness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism: A Meta-Analysis

This meta-analytic investigation explored the relationship between measures of emotional expressiveness and the core personality constructs of Extraversion and Neuroticism. Measures of emotional expressiveness included both behavioral assessments of emotional encoding/expressiveness and self-report instruments. There were 34 effect sizes for the Extraversion-expressiveness relationship and 26 effect sizes for Neuroticism-expressiveness. The results revealed that self-report measures of emotional expressiveness yield Extraversion and Neuroticism effects that are not the same as effects provided by behavioral assessments of emotional expressiveness/encoding. However, there was a significant overall positive relationship between Extraversion and emotional expressiveness, regardless of type of expressiveness measure. Overall, Neuroticism was significantly negatively related to behavioral measures of emotional expressiveness, but unrelated to self-report measures. These results suggest that emotional expressiveness and extraversion are linked, but that self-report and behavioral measures of emotional expressiveness are not interchangeable. Nonverbal communication researchers should pay attention to both the type and scope of the instrument when selecting and using measures of emotional expressiveness.