Practicing the two disciplines for relaxation and enlightenment: comment on "Role of the feedback signal in electromyograph biofeedback: the relevance of attention" by Qualls and Sheehan.

Qualls and Sheehan's finding of a disordinal Personality Trait X Treatment interaction underscores the indispensability of both disciplines of scientific psychology for the study of some important phenomena. It is noteworthy that such interactions are entirely congruent with a reasonable conception of personality traits as dispositions, that is, as inherently interactive functional units. Using absorption, the trait studied by Qualls and Sheehan, as an example, it is shown how an empirically corroborated interactive trait concept can be used as a source of ideas for further Trait X Treatment studies and even for pure experimentation. Specifically, a distinction is proposed between two hypothetical mental sets: an experiential (or respondent) set and an instrumental (or operant) set. High-absorption subjects differ from low-absorption subjects in that the former appear more experientially and less instrumentally disposed than the latter. This hypothetical difference, in conjunction with the assumption that relaxation can function respondently as well as operantly, can be used to account for Qualls and Sheehan's findings and suggests additional investigations as well.