Passive avoidance learning among females as a function of Cloningerʹs temperament typology

Responsiveness to punishment cues has been historically associated with the socialization process, whereby individuals who are relatively unresponsive to the effects of punishment have been viewed as especially vulnerable to the development of antisocial behavior patterns. To date, much of the research on responsiveness to punishment has been conducted on male inmates or males identified as disinhibited. Almost no comparable research has been performed on females. The purpose of this study was to examine in a non-pathological female sample the extent to which constructs associated with Cloningerʹs temperament typology predict passive avoidance errors (PAEs; or failures to inhibit previously punished responses) and omission errors (OEs; or failures to respond to stimuli associated with reward) produced during an interactive computer task. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated no main or interactive effects in the prediction of OEs. However, in the prediction of PAEs, the interaction of novelty seeking (NS) and harm avoidance (HA) was significant, whereby the combination of high NS and low HA was most strongly associated with PAE frequency. Subsequent analyses indicated that response speed in combination with reflection following punishment mediated the relationship between temperament dimensions and passive avoidance learning.