Conceptualizing Personality as Individualized Allostasis: Exploring a Balanced Measure of Personality for...

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Psychophysiology
• Personality Science

Background:

• Homeostatic balance is fundamental to personality, psychotherapy, and psychophysiology.
• Extreme responses (fear or absence of fear) are pathological, while balanced responses indicate better health.
• Current personality measures often use a unipolar approach, favoring extreme scores.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if a balanced, moderate measurement approach (individualized allostasis) better captures healthy functioning.
• To explore the utility of the Assessment of Schema Adaptability Profile - Revised (ASAP-R) for measuring balanced functioning.
• To integrate personality assessment with psychophysiological and self-report wellbeing measures.

Main Methods:

• The Assessment of Schema Adaptability Profile - Revised (ASAP-R) was used to measure balanced functioning.
• Wellbeing was assessed using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress scale (DASS) and heart rate variability (HRV).
• The IPIP NEO 120 assessed the Big 5 personality traits.

Main Results:

• Moderate responding on the ASAP-R correlated with lower self-reported depressive symptoms on the DASS.
• Balanced functioning was associated with increased heart rate variability (HF HRV and RMSSD).
• These findings support the concept of individualized allostasis in personality assessment.

Conclusions:

• A moderate, balanced approach to personality measurement may offer a more nuanced understanding of healthy functioning.
• Developing personality measures that assess moderate responding could enhance psychotherapy and psychophysiology integration.
• This study highlights the potential of individualized allostasis in psychological assessment.