Evaluation of International Affective Picture System (IAPS) ratings in an athlete population and its relations to personality

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the selected International Affective Picture System (IAPS) pictures for an athlete population. A secondary focus was on whether ratings of IAPS pictures were related to personality traits. A total of 219 athletes participated in the study. Participants viewed 224 pictures that were selected from (IAPS). Ratings in terms of valence and arousal were obtained. To determine locations of the pictures on valence and arousal dimensions, a scatter plot was drawn: x-axis of the plot was valence and y-axis was arousal. The Turkish affective space figure drawn in accordance with the ratings that were obtained from the sample revealed that the pictures were distributed along each dimension. A path model was tested to examine the relationship between responses to the picture sets for four regions and personality traits. The results clearly indicated that the path model provided a good fit to the data. Four path coefficients were found to be statistically significant. Results indicated that IAPS ratings obtained from the Turkish athlete population are comparable with original ratings reported by Lang, Bradley, and Cuthbert (2005). In addition, responses to IAPS pictures was found to be modulated by personality traits.