AUTONOMIC REACTIVITY, EYELID CONDITIONING AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO NEUROTICISM AND EXTRAVERSION

No evidence was found to support the hypothesis that neurotic patients demonstrate over-reactivity of the autonomic nervous system in response to stressful stimuli, or that introverts and extraverts are characterised by ease and difficulty respectively with which they form conditioned responses. Normal controls, instead of showing the least autonomic reactivity as postulated, showed the greatest. The difficulties of measuring autonomic reactivity in relation to pre-stress levels are discussed and in view of these problems the conclusions are interpreted with caution. Factor analysis of the data yielded a primary Anxiety/Neuroticism factor, which had high loadings for 'basal' forearm blood flow and heart rate which are thought to reflect anxiety. There was a close relationship between N and Taylor Scale anxiety scores and it is suggested that Eysenck's N scale is close to the clinical concept of anxiety. © 1969.