Ego Strength and Physiological Responsivity: III. The Relationship of the Barron Ego Strength Scale to Spontaneous Periodic Activity in Skin Resistance, Finger Blood Volume, Heart Rate, and Muscle Potential

I. Introduction  The first and second of this series of papers^6,7 reported a relationship between ego strength and the magnitude and temporal characteristics of physiological responses to sound stimuli. The present paper is a report of differences in ego strength related to "resting" physiological activity, ie, activity in the absence of discrete external stimuli.It has been demonstrated that the spontaneous fluctuations in autonomic measures familiar to every polygrapher are cyclic, systematic, or oscillatory in nature.¹ This rhythmicity, or periodicity, has been shown thus far to exist in period ranges of from 2 to 120-second cycles. The frequency at which periodicity occurs varies with the individual, the physiological system examined, and the psychiatric patient status of the subject.² However, our interest in this series of investigations is exploring the relationship between ego strength as a measure of adaptive capacity and various physiological parameters. Since the Barron