Where does balance collide?

In physiology, balance is the ability to keep the body's center of mass over its base of support, so a person stays upright and does not fall. The nervous system does this by combining signals from the inner ear's vestibular organs, from vision, and from proprioception, the felt position of the joints and muscles, and by adjusting posture from one moment to the next. Horak's 2006 review Postural orientation and equilibrium set out what is known about this neural control and why its failure leads to falls. The referent is a sensorimotor achievement of a living body, not a bookkeeping equality, a pattern of liking in a group, or a distribution of power among nations.[1]

Unit

One person's steady upright stance or gait, held moment to moment

Recovery means

The body corrects an unplanned sway back toward the center of support through reflex and adjusted muscle activity

Measured by

Assessed by sway on a force platform, by clinical balance tests, and by the response to a push or a moving surface

In social psychology, balance is a state in which a person's liking relations fit together without strain, so a set of attitudes among people and things is consistent rather than in conflict. Heider's 1946 paper Attitudes and Cognitive Organization proposed that in a triad, for example a person, a friend, and an object, people prefer arrangements where the signs of liking multiply out to positive, and feel tension when they do not, as when a valued friend praises something one dislikes. The referent is a felt pressure toward consistent attitudes in the mind, not a ledger equality, a body's physical steadiness, or an even spread of military power.[2]

Unit

A triad of liking relations, classed as balanced or unbalanced

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Studied by having people rate how comfortable or how likely various patterns of liking among people and objects feel

In international relations, the balance of power is the idea that the survival of states is best preserved when military capability is spread roughly evenly, so that no single state or bloc can dominate the rest. Waltz's 1979 book Theory of International Politics argued that states, seeking to survive in a system with no overarching authority, tend to balance against concentrations of power, whether by building up their own strength or by forming alliances. Wohlforth and colleagues' 2007 study Testing Balance-of-Power Theory in World History examined how far this pattern actually holds across historical systems. The referent is a distribution of capability among states, not a ledger equality, a body's upright steadiness, or a consistent pattern of personal liking.[3][4]

Unit

A configuration of capability across states, judged as balanced or lopsided

Recovery means

When one state grows too strong, others may build up their own power or form alliances to restore a rough evenness

Measured by

Gauged by comparing states' military and economic resources and by tracking alliances and arms buildups

In visual design, balance refers to the equilibrium of visual weights in a composition, so that no part seems to pull the whole out of rest. This meaning comes from Arnheim (1954) in Art and visual perception: a psychology of the creative eye.[5]

Unit

Recovery means

Measured by