Psychosomatic Medicine 3:427-434 (1941)
© 1941 American Psychosomatic Society

The Measurement of Individual Differences in Autonomic Balance

¹ The Samuel S. Fels Research Institute, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio

To summarize the report briefly, the Eppinger and Hess hypothesis has been slightly reworded as follows:

A. The differential chemical reactivity and the physiological antagonism of of the adrenergic and cholinergic branches of the autonomic nervous system permit of a situation in which the action of one branch may predominate over that of the other. This predominance, or autonomic imbalance, may be phasic or chronic, and may obtain for either the adrenergic or the cholinergic system.

B. Autonomic imbalance, when measured in an unselected population, will be distributed continuously about a central tendency which shall be defined as autonomic balance.

The hypothesis has been tested by measuring the physiological status of 62 children 6 to 11 years of age, for twenty physiological variables, twelve of them supposedly mediated at least in part by the autonomic nervous system; and by intercorrelating the resulting data. Positive intercorrelation among most of the appropriately reflected autonomic functions, and further evidence of their communality from a factor analysis, lends support to the first portion of the hypothesis. For 48 of these children, scores for the autonomic factor are shown to be quite consistent over periods of at least a year, and best measured in terms of a multiple regression equation derived from the factor analysis. These regression scores are regarded as measures of autonomic balance and are found to distribute themselves symmetrically about a central tendency. Support is thus afforded the second portion of the hypothesis which defines the central tendency of the distribution as autonomic balance.

The seven-test and its regression equation is offered as the first, though tentative, quantitative, weighted scale for the measurement of individual differences in the autonomic nervous system.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. A. Shields Development of Autonomic Nervous System Responsitivity in Children: A Review of the Literature International Journal of Behavioral Development, October 1, 1983; 6(3): 291 - 319. [Abstract] [PDF]