Title

Taking Offense: Effects of Personality and Teasing History on Behavioral and Emotional Reactions to Teasing

Abstract

This study investigated how global personality traits and teasing history are related to participants' emotional and behavioral reactions to an actual teasing event. College undergraduates (N=108) worked on a task with a same-sex confederate. While interacting, the confederate either teased participants about how slowly they were working on the task or made a benign comment about the nature of the task. Analyses revealed that even mild teasing can generate negativity towards the teaser and interaction. More interestingly, however, personality moderated reactions to teasing, as teasing condition interacted with each of the Big Five personality domains in theoretically meaningful ways. Childhood teasing history also moderated reactions to teasing, as frequent victims and frequent teasers responded in different ways.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2003

Notes/Citation Information

This article was made available online June 26, 2003.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1111/1467-6494.7104003

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