Differing emotional sensitivities in the two factors of personal need for structure

The current project examines dispositional orientations toward positive or negative stimuli based on individual differences in personal need for structure (PNS). Although Neuberg and Newsom (1993) describe PNS as stemming from two sources of simple structure, desire for structure (DFS) and response to lack of structure (RLS), the two subscales are commonly combined. The current study found that high DFS (but not high RLS) was associated with a tendency to create more positive words in a word-fragment-completion task, generate more positive content in a story-completion task, and remember more positive words in a free-recall memory task. High-RLS (but not high-DFS) was associated with the opposite tendency (i.e., oriented toward negatives). Possible revisions to previous conclusions involving PNS are discussed.

► Research using PNS does not typically examine differences between the two subscales.
► We examine dispositional orientations toward emotional stimuli based on DFS and RLS.
► We found that high DFS was associated with an orientation toward positive stimuli.
► We found that high RLS was associated with an orientation toward negative stimuli.
► Possible revisions to previous conclusions involving PNS are discussed.