Ballast is the psychological resistance to not execute orders that come from people very close and / or love that somehow control our lives: especially members of the family as parents, wives, husbands, but also the employer.

According to a Duke University study, this mechanism occurs subconsciously and is therefore not controllable. An unconscious reaction, therefore, implemented at the subconscious level.

Freedom. According to the researchers of this study also people with high reactance even end up acting against his own interest because the only thing that matters is precisely to resist at any cost to anyone looking to limit their freedom.

The term is borrowed from electro reactance, where the term indicates - in an alternating current electric circuit with two terminals - the imaginary part of the impedance. The latter represents the strength of opposition of a circuit to the passage of an electric current.

From Focus