Elevated Affective Lability and Poor Response Inhibition: An Investigation based on Emotional and Non-Emotional Go/No-Go Tasks

The aim of the current study was to test the association between affective lability and the magnitude of response inhibition deficits using four different versions of go/no-go tasks that were composed of (a) affective faces, (b) affective words, (c) neutral faces, or (d) neutral words, with an undergraduate sample that displayed a wide range of emotional instability and impulsivity (N = 45). We hypothesized that heightened affective lability would be significantly associated with deficits in response inhibition, particularly in the context of emotional go/no-go tasks that presented salient and potent emotional materials. Overall findings showed that the magnitude of difficulty in inhibiting potent but irrelevant stimuli on emotional go/no-go tasks was significantly associated with heightened affective lability (characterized by unstable shifts between elated and depressed moods) after taking into consideration the contribution of negative affect and impulsiveness. In contrast, non-emotional go/no-go performance did not significantly predict affective lability. Further, depression-elation mood shifts were significantly associated with greater difficulty in inhibiting irrelevant positive rather than negative emotional information. This line of research may help improve our understanding on the nature of poor inhibitory control associated with conditions characterized by emotional dysregulation.