 17. Cognitive Approaches to Personality  373
events seemed further away in the future 
(Liu et al., 2013).
In Studies 3 and 4 they then examined 
these ideas in the context of visual perception 
tasks. In Study 4, for example, neurotic par -
ticipants thought that stimuli were shrinking 
(thus moving away from the self) faster than 
they were growing (thus moving toward the 
self), though this was not the case. The same 
bias was not evident at low levels of neuroti -
cism. Overall, this (Liu et al., 2013) program 
of research provided some initial support for 
the idea that neuroticism triggers perceptions 
consistent with self-  regulation by avoidance, 
though further explications of this model 
would seem desirable. In addition, we need 
more basic evidence that neuroticism facili -
tates motor behaviors consistent with avoid -
ance (Robinson et al., 2013).
Neuroticism as  Conflict
Freud (1926) posited intrapsychic conflict 
in the genesis of neurotic symptoms. This 
emphasis on conflict was shared by later 
psychodynamic theorists as well, such as 
Horney (1945) and Fenichel (1945). Al -
though these particular theories may seem 
outdated, it is not outdated to suggest that 
anxiety is almost inevitable in the context 
of conflicting desires and goals (Baumeister, 
Muraven, & Tice, 2000). From this perspec -
tive, we would expect anxious people to be 
more conflicted than nonanxious people.
There are sources of evidence consistent 
with these ideas. Emmons (1986) found that 
goal conflict is predictive of both anxiety and 
neuroticism. Similarly, King and Emmons 
(1990) found that conflict over emotional 
expression is predictive of neuroticism. Fur -
thermore, both role conflicts (Donahue, 
Robins, Roberts, & John, 1993) and con -
flicts among sources of knowledge about 
the self (Colvin, 1993) are predictive of neu -
roticism levels. In a general sense, then, neu -
roticism and conflict appear to be linked to 
each other. It would be useful to extend this 
conflict-  related perspective in the context of 
information processing or decision-  making 
paradigms. For example, would the induc -
tion of conflict differentially slow decision 
making at high levels of neuroticism? We 
know of relatively little research of this type.Neuroticism as  Mental  Noise
Neuroticism is often contrasted with stabil -
ity, a nomenclature suggesting some degree 
of instability at higher levels of neuroti -
cism. Consistent with this nomenclature, the 
thoughts and feelings of neurotic individuals 
do seem to fluctuate to a greater extent over 
time (Maples, Miller, Hoffman, & Johnson, 
2014). Moreover, very high levels of neuroti -
cism have been linked to borderline person -
ality symptoms, with a central feature being 
instability in thoughts, feelings, and behav -
iors (Lieb, Zanarini, Schmahl, Linehan, & 
Bohus, 2004). Accordingly, some degree of 
instability may be central to the trait of neu -
roticism.
A portion of this instability is likely to be 
cognitive in nature. Neuroticism has been 
linked to rumination,  a repetitive form of 
thinking about the past (Hervas & Vazquez, 
2011), as well as worry,  an apprehensive 
form of thinking about the future (Borkovec 
& Sharpless, 2004). Even when neurotic 
people think about the present, they often 
do so in a self-  conscious way (Perkins, Ar -
none, Smallwood, & Mobbs, 2015). As a 
result, the neurotic person often loses the 
signal of present reality in the noise of his or 
her off-task thinking.
Consistent with these ideas, there is typi -
cally a fairly strong inverse relationship 
between neuroticism and the trait of mind -
fulness (Hanley & Garland, 2017). This is 
noteworthy in part because the items of the 
mindfulness scale (Brown & Ryan, 2003) 
do not look like neuroticism items; rather, 
they look like absentminded lapses of at -
tention (e.g., “I drive places on ‘automatic 
pilot’ and then wonder why I went there”). 
Furthermore, there is evidence that mindful -
ness may account for, or mediate, some of 
the problems endemic to high levels of neu -
roticism. Specifically, Fetterman, Robinson, 
Ode, and Gordon (2010) found that both the 
neuroticism–  impulsivity and neuroticism– 
self- control relationships were mediated by 
mindfulness. For example, neurotic people 
engage in impulsive behavior in part because 
they are not paying attention to what they 
are doing (Fetterman et al., 2010).
There are even more basic sources of evi -
dence here. Mental noise can be assessed 