Where does reactance collide?

In electrical engineering, reactance is the part of a circuit's opposition to alternating current that comes from storing energy in magnetic and electric fields rather than from resistance, which dissipates it. The term was proposed by Édouard Hospitalier in 1893, and Steinmetz and Bedell's 1894 paper Reactance gave the first formal treatment of the quantity for alternating-current circuits. It is the imaginary part of impedance, written X and measured in ohms, and its size is fixed by the circuit's inductance, capacitance, and the frequency of the current: unlike resistance, reactance stores energy in a field and hands it back to the circuit each cycle. This referent is a physical property of a circuit, a number in ohms, and it has nothing to do with the motivational push-back in a person's mind that carries the same word.[1][2]

Unit

The imaginary part of impedance, in ohms

Recovery means

The energy stored in an inductor or capacitor is returned to the circuit each cycle, rather than dissipated as it is in resistance

Measured by

Calculated from inductance, capacitance, and frequency, or read from the imaginary part of a measured impedance, in ohms

In social and motivational psychology, reactance is the motivational arousal a person feels when a freedom to think, feel, or act is threatened or taken away, which pushes them to reassert that freedom. Jack Brehm's 1966 A Theory of Psychological Reactance introduced the idea, and Brehm and Brehm's 1981 Psychological Reactance: A Theory of Freedom and Control reviewed two decades of tests, including the boomerang effect, in which a person wants a forbidden option more strongly once it is restricted. The referent is an internal state in a person's mind, inferred from choices, behaviour, and self-report rather than read off a physical instrument. It is unrelated to the electrical quantity of the same name, which is a property of a circuit measured in ohms.[3][4]

Unit

A motivational state aroused by a threat to a valued freedom

Recovery means

The state subsides once the threatened freedom is restored or the threat is withdrawn

Measured by

Inferred from the boomerang effect in choice and behaviour, and from self-reported anger and counterarguing

When a health message tries to push someone toward a behaviour, it can provoke reactance instead of compliance, so the person resists the very advice the message urges. Dillard and Shen's 2005 On the Nature of Reactance and Its Role in Persuasive Health Communication modelled this reaction at the level of a single message and asked what it is made of. They concluded that state reactance is best treated as anger and negative thoughts about the message, so intertwined that they act as one response. This is still Brehm's motivational idea, but narrowed to a measured reaction to a specific persuasive appeal. The referent is a person's momentary answer to one message, indexed by rated anger and counted negative cognitions, and it is unrelated to any electrical quantity.[5]

Unit

A person's reaction to one persuasive message

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Rated anger toward the message combined with listed negative thoughts about it

Some psychologists treat reactance not as a passing state but as a stable trait: a general tendency to react against attempts to control one's behaviour, stronger in some people than in others. Hong and Faedda's 1996 Refinement of the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale developed a self-report questionnaire to place people on this dimension. Here reactance is a property a person carries across situations, not a reaction aroused by one particular threat or message. The referent is an individual difference, scored from agreement with statements about resenting advice and rules. It shares Brehm's root idea of resisting lost freedom, but it measures a disposition rather than a momentary state, and it too is unrelated to the electrical meaning.[6]

Unit

A person's standing on a trait dimension of reactance proneness

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Summed agreement with self-report items on the Hong Psychological Reactance Scale