Autonomic reactivity and personality

The autonomic nervous system and personality

In a sample of 35 male and 93 female undergraduate students (M(age) = 21.0, SD = 2.2), it was not possible to develop a meaningful scale to measure whether individuals have a dominant sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system or a dominant parasympathetic division balance using the items in Plutchik and Conte's inventory measuring psychophysiological reactivity. Replicable sex differences in response to the items were identified which may merit further study.

Personality dimensions of people who suffer from visual stress

Personality dimensions of participants who suffer from visual stress were compared with those of normal participants using the Eysenck Personality Inventory. Extraversion-Introversion scores showed no significant differences between the participants who suffered visual stress and those who were classified as normal. By contrast, significant differences were found between the normal participants and those with visual stress in respect of Neuroticism-Stability. These differences accord with Eysenck's personality theory which states that those who score highly on the neuroticism scale do so because they have a neurological system with a low threshold such that their neurological system is easily activated by external stimuli. The findings also relate directly to the theory of visual stress proposed by Wilkins which postulates that visual stress results from an excess of neural activity. The data may indicate that the excess activity is likely to be localised at particular neurological regions or neural processes.