In sum, there is clear evidence that positive and negative urgency are distinct from other traits that also dispose individuals to rash action, that they can be measured by both questionnaire and interview, that they account for different aspects of risky behavior than do other traits, and that the two urgency facets have different concurrent and prospective correlates from each other. In part for these reasons, Smith et al. (2007a) concluded that the term “impulsivity” should be retired from the trait lexicon; instead of referring to impulsivity, researchers should identify the specific trait of interest to them. Positive and negative urgency are two of those traits. Below, we argue that they are of particular interest, because they uniquely refer to the impact of emotion on rash action. Before doing so, we first consider urgency's place in comprehensive models of personality.
