Psychometric properties of Attentional Control Scale: The preliminary study on a Polish sample The presented study was focused primarily on a psychometric analysis of the Attentional Control Scale, but they also enhanced the understanding of the role of effortful attentional skills in determining the individual well-being, general adaptation or emotional disorders. The analyses included basic item and scale descriptions as well as convergent and discriminant validity. 218 Polish undergraduate students completed the battery of the self-report techniques and two paper —pencil (...) attentional tests. Data revealed a unidimensional of a 20-item ACS. It can be used validly to assess long-term individual differences in attentional skills related to the voluntary executive functions. The analysis of content, internal and construct validity as well as reliability provided evidence of the scale's significant convergent and discriminant validity when correlated with attentional tests and other personality techniques. We found strong, systematic relations between the attentional control and selected measures of temperament, arousal, emotionality, and motivation. The results allow assuming that good attentional control, may protect individuals from the emotional disorders by regulating perceptual, conceptual, and response processing. (shrink)

Studies of human performance indicate that extraverts show enhanced motivation in relation to reward signals, but not in relation to safety signals under defensive conditions. When it occurs under defensive conditions, enhanced motivation may be related to neuroticism. While extraverts show some attentional skills consistent with frontal dopaminergic facilitation, other frontal capacities may be related to conscientiousness. These findings suggest that dopaminergic influences on response and attentional processes may contribute to additional personality dimensions such as neuroticism and conscientiousness.