Neuroticism and the mental noise hypothesis: Relationships to lapses of attention and slips of action in everyday life

We investigated the relationship between neuroticism and cognitive failure liability in everyday-life situations. Previous research (e.g., Robinson & Tamir, 2005; Robinson, Wilkowski & Meier, 2006) reported a positive association between the trait of neuroticism (N) and fluctuations in mental efficiency when performing elementary cognitive operations. High-N individuals were proposed to be characterized by increased noise within information processing from perception to action. To further examine this relationship, we collected self-report data from 222 individuals, measuring N via the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and the related construct of Behavioural Inhibition System sensitivity via the BIS/BAS scales, and assessing cognitive failure liability via the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ). The results revealed positive correlations between N and general cognitive failure liability, providing further support for the mental noise hypothesis. A more detailed investigation of CFQ subscales (Meiran et al., 1994) yielded a specific pattern, with the strongest correlation between N and the CFQ–Unintended Activation subscale (r = .40; p < .01). This suggests that high-N individuals preferably commit cognitive failures due to intrusions of task-irrelevant cognitions from associative memory.