Study aim: To investigate the interactive effects of behavioral activation or behavioral inhibition and induced pleasant or unpleasant emotions on working memory performance among young adults.
Material and methods: Eighty participants (age 18–32 years) were randomly classified into 2 groups behavioral activation or inhibition and then sub-divided further via whether they received inductions in either pleasant emotions or unpleasant emotions. A pre-test measure of the working memory test was recorded and repeated after emotional induction.
Results: The ANOVA analysis indicated significant effect of PERSONALITY factor (F1,76 = 4.760, p = 0.0322, ηp2 = 0.059) on results of the working memory test. The memory performance of the behavioral activation group that received positive emotion was better than the other groups, and the working memory performance of the behavioral inhibition group that received positive emotion was poorer than the other groups. Furthermore, the working memory performance of the behavioral activation group (positive emotion) was better than the other groups. Also, the working memory performance of the behavioral inhibition group (positive emotion) was poorer than the other groups.
Conclusions: Finally, the findings support the different effects of the brain behavioral systems and sport emotional induction on working memory.
