The Influence Of Personality Traits And Cognitive/emotional Flexibility On Hoarding Behavior

Hoarding behavior refers to the acquisition,storage and non-discarding of objects by individuals.Normal hoarding behavior is of positive significance for human survival and reproduction.However,excessive acquisition and inability to discard worthless or limited goods will lead to a series of psychological and behavioral problems and affect normal life and learning.The study found that conscientiousness and neuroticism in personality traits have significant influence on hoarding behavior.Sense of responsibility reflects the degree of individual self-control,and low sense of responsibility leads to impulsive behavior,excessive acquisition of items and difficulty in organizing and discarding unwanted items,which leads to the accumulation of items in disorder over time(Grisham,Norberg,Williams,Certoma,&Kadib,2010).Cognitive flexibility is part of the implement control functions,is adapt to the new situation’s ability to change their thinking and behavior patterns,the lower cognitive flexibility may reflect the individual is difficult to perform similar to the top-down regulation process of self control,it is difficult to control to obtain the impulse,increased the difficulty of the discarded items,so the cognitive flexibility may have specific contact with hoarding.Neuroticism reflects the emotional regulation ability and stability level of individuals.Studies have found that anxiety and depression are closely related to hoarding behavior,and the experience(or expected experience)of negative emotions may lead hoarders to avoid behaviors and eventually develop and maintain hoarding behavior.Hoarding accumulates because hoarders are unable to get rid of the negative emotions brought by discarded items and hope to satisfy the need for security and comfort by constantly acquiring items.This may be because individuals with poor affective flexibility cannot flexibly suppress and get rid of the emotional stimulus materials they have experienced.The influence of personality traits,cognitive/affective flexibility on hoarding behavior needs further empirical study.Taking college students as subjects,this study adopts the method of questionnaire and experiment to explore the possible influencing factors behind hoarding behavior.The first study investigated the relationship between hoarding behavior and personality traits and negative emotions,and explored the personality characteristics of hoarding behavior.In the second study,switching task paradigm was used to study the differences of cognitive flexibility tasks between the high and low responsibility groups and the effects on hoarding behavior.In the third study,a new affective switching task developed by Genet and Siemer in 2011 was adopted to study the differences in the present affective flexibility task between the high and low neuroticism group and the effect on hoarding behavior.The first result shows that hoarding behavior is significantly positively correlated with negative emotions such as depression and anxiety,as well as neuroticism of personality traits,and is significantly negatively correlated with conscientiousness.Neuroticism,conscientiousness and negative emotions together explain the 24.4%change in hoarding behavior.The results of the second study showed that the switching cost of subjects in the high-responsibility group was significantly lower than that in the low-responsibility group,and cognitive flexibility had a predictive effect on hoarding behavior.Part of the mediating model that responsibility affects hoarding behavior through cognitive flexibility was established.The results of the third study showed that the switching cost of the subjects in the high neurotic group was significantly higher than that in the low neurotic group.After the comparison of switching costs of different task types,it was found that the switching cost of the subjects was the highest when it was necessary to transfer from the emotional rule task to the non-emotional rule task,which was significantly higher than the repeated task of the emotional rule.Emotional flexibility significantly predicts hoarding behavior,and an intermediary model of neuroticism influencing hoarding behavior through emotional flexibility is established.Comprehensive the above results show that the negative emotions such as anxiety and depression can lead to more individual hoarding,high neuroticism individuals are more likely to experience negative emotions,emotional flexibility is poorer,showed more hoarding,high sense of responsibility of individual self-discipline,cautious,restraint and cognitive flexibility is high,thus less hoarding.