Chunk #30 — Evidence for the Existence of Positive and Negative Urgency — Urgency in Relation to Comprehensive Models of Personality — Relations of the urgency traits to facets of neuroticism and conscientiousness
In Whiteside and Lynam's (2001) original factor analysis of impulsivity-like measures, they found that the impulsiveness facet of neuroticism loaded highly on negative urgency. In the factor analyses we described above, we found that impulsiveness, negative urgency, and positive urgency appeared to fall on the same factor and had highly similar patterns of relationships with the other traits included in the NEO-PI-R measure of the FFM. In particular, all three traits covary with markers of high neuroticism and low conscientiousness. We believe the three traits represent emotion-based dispositions toward rash action. But since positive and negative urgency have only recently been identified, we felt it important to consider a different possibility. Perhaps the urgency traits actually represent either simple, additive combinations of other facets of neuroticism and conscientiousness, or interactions between certain neuroticism traits and certain conscientiousness traits.
