Customizing
My Emotional Spin Cycle:
Annotated
Bibliography
Psych
409a—Fall 2001—G15
Dr. Leon James,
Instructor
October 21, 2001
Emotions
Feelings
The
Three-fold Self
The
Hierarchy of Motives
Conclusion
References
Introduction
Every
single day we as human beings go through an emotional spin cycle, a term
created by Dr. Leon James, a twelve setting system that determines our
thoughts, feelings, and actions; both positive and negative, and both towards
ourselves and those around us. Although
we are constantly exploring our realities many of us are still strangers to our
internal affective (feelings), cognitive (thinking), and sensori-motor (acting)
behaviors. Our minds are still unable
to adapt these intrinsic processes that are often publicized unconsciously.
Is it possible to
modify our innate convictions? This is
the objective of my research, to identify and analyze the entities that assist
in the formation of feelings, thoughts, and actions that direct our emotional
spin cycles. The perspectives of peers
(prior curriculum) as well as websites and other alternative sources will be
considered. Thus by investigating, we
are able to explore ourselves inwardly and make the necessary adjustments to
improve and elevate our quality of life.
The information obtained through this analysis of theory and observations are presented to aid our consciousness. But first I will consider and characterize the key concepts of emotional spin cycles; emotion, feelings, the threefold self, and the hierarchy of motives. All terms are given definition from personal pondering as well as information received from sources used to complete this study. Emotions are strong feelings that instinctively stimulate the human soul to action. The concept of feelings fundamentally is a sensation of any degree. The threefold self a term created by Dr. Leon James, is described as the three components that form an individual; feeling, thinking, and acting. The theory of the hierarchy of motives in simple terms refers to a system or structure of measure that evaluates the rank of human motives and categorizes them by the degree of our need.
Emotions have been
linked to our primate grandparents.
These instinctive actions occur independent from our everyday
understanding. These feelings have the ability
to supersede logically decision-making, they appear to control or suppress our
inner being. Emotions are forever
present; they tend to sway our frame of mind from within. But emotions are only apparent to ourselves
as well as others when we allow them to be manifested whether publicly or
internally. This excerpt taken from Emotions: Observing The
Fusion, Between Body, Mind, and Society discuss the theories of origin of
emotion, descending from primates and how it affected thoughts and
actions.
What would life be like if there was no
feeling, no emotions associated with everyday experiences? What is the meaning
of the "Star Trek" Spock character, the epitome of all logic and no
feeling? Feelings carry with them impulses--impulses that often lead to
behaviors, which, in turn, often require justification. One wonders, in fact,
of the percentage of behavior that derives from rational calculation versus
from this spontaneous, immeasurable, impulsive quality of the human condition.
For a number of reasons, the study of
emotions has become one of the hottest research areas in social psychology.
Such was not always the case. As the social sciences matured in the post-war
years, emotions were often regarded as some peripheral "error term"
in their rational choice models of decision-making. Like body hair and finger
nails, they were often seen as some legacy of our animalistic past--involving
some vestigial brain circuitry that once somehow enhanced the survival chances
of protohuman primates. These natural events, occurring involuntarily,
supposedly remained outside of the realms of intelligence, language, culture,
and of free will. They were feelings that were to be controlled if not
suppressed, to be "grown out of" like the tantrums of a young child.
But these feeling states were not about to
be so easily explained away. Emotions have the power to override even the most
rational decisions. Studies confirmed what Plato had postulated thousands of
years earlier: affect and not cognition is the major determinant of action and
belief. Further, consider the affective components of the personal
and social needs systems addressed elsewhere:
Emotions can also be examined from a physiologically perspective to discover its origins, thus identifying its effects on our cognitive process. Emotional response derived from our limbic system allows human beings to feel lust, delight, anger, fear, etc. The neocortex that provides the sensation of love assists the limbic system to establish an increased number of emotional responses. Through realizing how we feel and allowing that feeling into awareness helps us to better reason thus enhance our sensori-motor behavior. This excerpt taken from Time Magazine, The EQ Factor considers the physiological origin of emotion and its connection with our feelings, thoughts, and actions.
Emotional life grows out of an area of the
brain called the limbic system, specifically the amygdala, whence come delight
and disgust and fear and anger. Millions of years ago, the neocortex was added
on, enabling humans to plan, learn and remember. Lust grows from the limbic
system; love, from the neocortex. Animals like reptiles that have no neocortex
cannot experience anything like maternal love; this is why baby snakes have to
hide to avoid being eaten by their parents. Humans, with their capacity for
love, will protect their offspring, allowing the brains of the young time to
develop. The more connections between the limbic system and the neocortex, the
more emotional responses are possible.
It was scientists like Joseph LeDoux of New
York University who uncovered these cerebral pathways. LeDoux's parents owned a
meat market. As a boy in Louisiana, he first learned about his future specialty
by cutting up cows' brains for sweetbreads. "I found them the most
interesting part of the cow's anatomy," he recalls. "They were
visually pleasing--lots of folds, convolutions and patterns. The cerebellum was
more interesting to look at than steak." The butchers' son became a
neuroscientist, and it was he who discovered the short circuit in the brain
that lets emotions drive action before the intellect gets a chance to
intervene.
A hiker on a mountain path, for example, sees
a long, curved shape in the grass out of the corner of his eye. He leaps out of
the way before he realizes it is only a stick that looks like a snake. Then he
calms down; his cortex gets the message a few milliseconds after his amygdala
and "regulates" its primitive response.
Without these emotional reflexes, rarely
conscious but often terribly powerful, we would scarcely be able to function.
"Most decisions we make have a vast number of possible outcomes, and any
attempt to analyze all of them would never end," says University of Iowa
neurologist Antonio Damasio, author of Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason and
the Human Brain. "I'd ask you to lunch tomorrow, and when the appointed
time arrived, you'd still be thinking about whether you should come." What
tips the balance, Damasio contends, is our unconscious assigning of emotional
values to some of those choices. Whether we experience a somatic response--a
gut feeling of dread or a giddy sense of elation--emotions are helping to limit
the field in any choice we have to make. If the prospect of lunch with a
neurologist is unnerving or distasteful, Damasio suggests, the invitee will
conveniently remember a previous engagement.
When Damasio worked with patients in whom the
connection between emotional brain and neocortex had been severed because of
damage to the brain, he discovered how central that hidden pathway is to how we
live our lives. People who had lost that linkage were just as smart and quick
to reason, but their lives often fell apart nonetheless. They could not make
decisions because they didn't know how they felt about their choices. They
couldn't react to warnings or anger in other people. If they made a mistake,
like a bad investment, they felt no regret or shame and so were bound to repeat
it.
If there is a cornerstone to emotional
intelligence on which most other emotional skills depend, it is a sense of
self-awareness, of being smart about what we feel. A person whose day starts
badly at home may be grouchy all day at work without quite knowing why. Once an
emotional response comes into awareness--or, physiologically, is processed
through the neocortex--the chances of handling it appropriately improve.
Scientists refer to "metamood," the ability to pull back and
recognize that "what I'm feeling is anger," or sorrow, or shame.
Metamood is a difficult skill because emotions
so often appear in disguise. A person in mourning may know he is sad, but he
may not recognize that he is also angry at the person for dying--because this
seems somehow inappropriate. A parent who yells at the child who ran into the
street is expressing anger at disobedience, but the degree of anger may owe
more to the fear the parent feels at what could have happened.
Emotions
are real; they influence the behavior of all who live, think, and breath. Although we are unaware of our emotions we
attempt to locate and process our feelings, thus overlooking their depth, which
is rooted in emotion. This inability to
distinguish what we feel and how we feel, becomes problematic for an individuals
mental process. It is believed that if
we venture inwardly and inspect our “gut” feelings we will find emotion. This excerpt taken from Alma Valvieja’s, My First
Report-Tailgating--Is It Okay?, looks at a personal account of what and how
she feels when she is a tailgater or when another individual tailgated
her. This self-witnessing account
identifies the source of the writer’s actions and thus heightens her awareness
of her own emotions as well as those emotions of others.
I admit that I am a
terrible tailgater. When I am on the road all I can think of is that I need to get
a certain place at a certain time. I do not realize what I am doing as a
driver, weaving back and forth and coming way too close to the driver in front
of me. There was one time that I tailgated a woman and she started hitting her
brakes. At first I just thought that she had a problem and then I realized that
she was telling me to back off. It was very dangerous for me as the tailgater
to see her brakes going off and me being too close to her. If I was not paying
a close attention to what I was doing I could have created an unfortunate
accident. After her gesture, she made me realize that I was actually tailgating
someone and I needed to stop. After self-witnessing myself for a week, I
actually improved the way I drove on the road. I tried to stay as far as
possible from the car in front of me as how much I would want the car in the
back of me to be away. When drivers are tailgating me, I retaliate by slowing
down to irritate them back as they irritate me. I just think that there is no
way of seeing that tailgating can be a good thing for the tailgater and the one
being tailgated because at the end, everyone does not win.
Emotions can be observed with children, they experience many if not all
the same emotions felt by adults. By
looking at children and what they feel, we obtain insight about our inner
thoughts and desires. When an
individual leaves childhood and enters into adulthood, people seem to make
things more complicated than needs be.
As children we view things at face value and don’t care to know the
logistics of things or events. The
world is basic and elementary unclouded by obligation, commitment, and
responsibility. But the interesting
point is that children as well as adults don’t always recognize their feelings
and don’t know how to handle them. This
passage taken from Robert Hughes, Jr., PhD, Helping
Children Understand Emotions, breaks down emotions to basic feelings and attempts
to provide meaning to emotion.
Starting at a very young age, children feel
all types of emotions. They know sadness, happiness, fear, anger, and many
other feelings. Emotions tell us how we feel about different situations. They
push us into action and give us the energy to stop negative experiences and
gain more positive experiences. Even though children feel these emotions, they
don’t always understand them. And they may not know what to do with them when
they feel them.
Feelings
Feelings most often are confused with
our emotions. Many use emotions and
feelings interchangeably. But this
should not be the case, feelings simply defined is what an individual feels. Sad, happy, excited, and scared are all
feelings they help us to understand our emotions. This excerpt taken from, Kids Health, Talking
About Your Feelings, talks about how to identify and describe our feelings
in a fundamental approach. Its easy and
straightforward, a person doesn’t have to be a brain surgeon to understand the
point.
You can't tell your friends what's inside your
backpack if you don't know what's in there yourself. Feelings are the same way.
Before you can share them with anyone, you have to figure out what feelings you
have!
Making a list of your feelings can help. You
can do this in your head or by writing it out on a piece of paper or even by
drawing pictures. What is the main emotion you have? Are you happy? Are you
sad? Are you mad? Do you feel this emotion only right now or do you feel it all
the time?
You can also describe your feelings with your
words. When you're trying to figure out your feelings, remember a situation and
then think about how it made you feel.
Saying things like, "I feel happy when I
get to go swimming" or "I feel sad when my friend can't play with
me," helps people understand you better. Just saying, "I'm
happy" or "I'm sad" or saying nothing at all is not as clear to
people you are sharing your feelings with.
Physiology plays a major role in feelings. It is theorized that feelings are physically apparent when
butterflies emerge in our stomachs, when our palm begins to sweat just before
giving a speech, etc. These reflexes
are stemmed from our feelings. Behavior
also has a strong correlation with feelings, for example; when we have
distorted facial expressions and increase or decrease of intonation. These
reactions too are rooted from our feelings.
Interpretations are related to feelings as well, our actions are
frequently dependent on how we interpret events and situations. Emotional response is the direct outcome of
an event reactant to an interpretation.
This passage taken from the Counseling Center, from the University of
Illinois at Urbana, Experiencing
and Expressing Emotion, explore approaches of physiology, behavior, and
interpretation to identify with feelings.
The relationships between the events in your
life and your feelings are going to be less clear if you have difficulty
identifying what you are feeling.
Naturally, there are times when you are unable to precisely name what
you feel. Identifying your feelings may
require you to take time to focus on yourself and your feelings.
If you find it difficult to notice or name
what you are feeling, it may require that you pay attention to your body. Most feelings are experienced in the
body. For example, fear may show up as
a knot in your stomach or a tightness in your throat. Our bodies are all different, so you will have to pay attention
to your body and not just rely on others experiences. You may find it helpful to make a list of
various feelings (e.g., delight, sadness, fear, insecurity, fury, shame, etc.) and
spend some time reading over the list to see if you are aware of having
experienced some of these.
Feelings are also connected to your
behavior. If you aren't sure how you
feel, but you realize that you are acting in a way that sends a clear message
to others, you may be able to infer what you are feeling from your
behavior. For example, if you have an
angry facial expression or tone of voice when you are talking with a particular
friend, it may be that you are angry or frustrated with that person without
recognizing it. Making the connection
between life's events and your feelings is very useful. Continuing with this same example, once you
recognize your feelings, you may then more clearly understand and articulate
your concerns with your friend.
Often your feelings are related to your interpretations
of events more than to the events themselves.
While it is natural to think that you are responding only to the events
of your life, in fact you make interpretations or judgments of these events,
and these interpretations play a key role in your emotional responses. When you stop to think about it, each event
could yield a variety of emotional responses; your interpretation of the event
helps link a particular emotional response to that event.
Consider the following diagram (adapted from
Ellis, 1962):
|
Event |
--------------------> |
Interpretation |
--------------------> |
Emotional |
Here, an event can be any occurrence in your life--e.g.
a score on a test. Consider the example
of two students experiencing the same event, scoring 90% on a test, but
interpreting that event in dramatically different ways. One student's interpretation might be,
"Wonderful! That was a tough test,
I studied hard, and it paid off!"
Now, imagine the other student's interpretation to be, "Oh no! I didn't get the top score. I'm never going to get into grad school and
that's terrible." Probably, the first student's emotional response
will be positive; the second student's negative. The event was the same for both; the differing interpretations
led to the differing emotional responses.
Your interpretations can be made so rapidly
and so automatically that you may not realize they are happening. When your emotional reaction is
disproportionate to the event, it is likely due to your rapid, undetected
interpretation of that event, more than to the event itself. In effect, your emotions can be a valuable
signal to you that you may need to re-examine your interpretation. Here are some common examples of
self-defeating ways people think about and interpret the events of their lives:
·
Dichotomous thinking: interpreting events in extremes, in "all or
nothing" ways (e.g., depicting vents as wonderful or terrible, with no
recognition of the grey areas in between).
·
Excessive
personalization: automatically
concluding that another's behavior or mood is in direct response to you (e.g.,
"She's in a bad mood. I must have
done something wrong."
·
Overgeneralization: seeing an event as having more impact, in more areas of
your life, than it truly does.
·
Filtering: magnifying negative events in your life and discounting
positive ones.
·
Emotional reasoning: concluding that what you feel must be the truth (e.g.,
if you feel stupid, you must be stupid).
Learn to recognize any tendencies you may have to distort
events through interpretational styles like these, and then practice choosing
and committing to more valid interpretations.
The resulting emotions will be more accurate reflections of the events
in your life.
Feelings tell us what we feel, they help us to comprehend our thoughts
toward others, events, and etc. Without
feelings and emotions we would cease to exist, human beings would not have the ability
to function appropriately. Our personal
evaluations of our own actions provide interesting information. We are able to theorize the cause of
feelings but it is only through direct observation that feelings can be
explored and studied. This self-witnessing
response, taken from Pat Masuo’s, My QDC,
looks at the writers sampling of her own behavior and reaction toward her
behaviors. By collecting data from her daily experiences on the road, she was
able to identify her feelings and emotions while she was driving. Thus having
the ability to classify and modify her behaviors.
02/04/00 9:16 PM: I chose to evaluate my
driving tendencies while I traveled to KCC. I chose this because it is the
farthest distance that I usually travel in one day. I did cut into a few lanes
and had to slow down, and I only cut into the far left lane until I had to get
to the exit for 9th street, when I cut into the far right lane. As for the rest
of the actions, I do not engage in them....I make it a habit to signal when
turning,I usually have enough time to get where I need to go...on that day I
did not insult anyone (the only comment I made was that some guy was weaving
and he would probably get into an accident if he kept it up. Other than that, I
really did not engage in any of those other attitudes.
Reaction:
I was feeling anxiety, because I was late.
This feeling prompted me to make several unnecessary lane changes and speed a
little. I also was very judgemental when I made the comment about the person
weaving in and out of traffic. If I remember correctly, I was also gripping the
steering wheel tightly.
The Threefold Self
The threefold self a term conjured by
Dr. Leon James, refers to a sequence that a individual experiences when in any
type of situation. It is broken down to
three functions interdependent on one another; the affective, cognitive, and
sensori-motor domains of behavior. Dr.
James refers to the James-Lange theory that describes the “apparent” sequence
as well as Swedenborg’s research that outlines the “real” sequence. The James-Lange theory’s foundation is that
cognitive interpretation occurs prior to affective sensing on the other hand
Swedenborg puts more weight on affective states before cognitive
interpretation. Dr. James tends to be
more influenced by Swedenborg’s theory, that the threefold self is executed
first with the affective, the cognitive and ending with the sensori-motor
behaviors. This excerpt taken from Dr.
James, Genetic
Culture: The Primacy of the Affective over the Cognitive, discusses the
differences between the “apparent” sequence and the “real” sequence and how
they influence action.
The famous James-Lange
theory of emotions says that first, we see a bear, then we decide it is
dangerous, as a result of which our adrenaline begins to pump, which we then
sense in our body, which feels like fear, and that finally makes us run away.
The sequence seems to be:
external stimulus ----->cognitive interpretation----->physiological
response----->sensing physiological response----->affective
state----->sensorimotor act
Without prejudice, let us
try to accept the other model, namely where the affective is primary, and see
if we can give a rational account of events as we can observe them. We see a
bear. Assuming it is unexpected and unchained, we become aware of our thoughts
-- "what's it doing here; it's unchained; it's mad; it's gonna get me,
etc." In fact however, the sight of the bear instantly arouses the
affective, whose explosive activity gives rise to these various thoughts. This
scenario requires the assumption that the affective is faster, more
differentiated, more integrated, and less visible to awareness than the
cognitive.
external stimulus ----->differentiated affective states----->congruent
cognitive interpretations----->physiological responses----->sensing
physiological responses----->sensorimotor acts
Thus, in reality
differentiated affective states pre-exist as person variables and these are
selectively OCCASIONED under appropriate sensory input. Once these
affective states are selected or occasioned, it selects from the available
cognitive hierarchies and items that are CONGRUENT with the already existing
affective states. These congruent cognnitive interpretations or
understandings or meanings (powered from within by the affective state), THEN
elicit specific physiological responses that one can sense through feedback and
they alos come out into overt action (senorimotor acts) unless inhibited by
contrary or ambivalent affective states that are unconsciously occasioned by
the same sensory input. These unconscious affective-sensorimotor
connections are established as part of the individual's ontogeny and cultural
experiences.
The sequence affective--->cognitive--->sensorimotor
is found everywhere in Swedenborg's writings, as in the following samples:
|
AFFECTIVE---->COGNITIVE----->SENSORIMOTOR |
||
|
Love |
Wisdom |
Use |
|
Good |
Truth |
Appearance |
|
Will |
Understanding |
Action |
|
Intention |
Plan |
Execution |
|
Source |
Cause |
Effect |
|
Desire |
Belief |
Conduct |
|
Spiritual |
Intellectual |
Sensual |
|
Feeling |
Thinking |
Sensing |
Swedenborg was always
meticulous in respecting the primacy of the affective. In the paragraph quoted
above (DLW 384), the following stands out:
Moreover, the brain itself is divided into two hemispheres, the
heart into two ventricles, and the lungs into two lobes; the right of all these
having relation to the good of truth, and the left to the truth of good, or,
what is the same, the right having relation to the good of love from which is
the truth of wisdom, and the left having relation to the truth of wisdom which
is from the good of love.
Note his care with the
expressions "the good of truth" and "the truth of good."
First, he specifies that "the good of truth" (right brain) is the
same as "the good of love from which is the truth of wisdom."
Translating, we have "the affective of the cognitive" = "the
affective from which is the cognitive." It is thus explicitly stated that
the cognitive is from the affective. The affective is primary. Second,
it is specified that "the truth of good" (left brain) is the same as
"the truth of wisdom which is from the good of love." Once again the
directionality is strictly maintained: the cognitive (truth or wisdom) is from
the affective (good or love). There are many more such passages, as discussed in this entry.
The article Driving
Behavior and Traffic Psychology, by Dr. Leon James, also gives a superb
description of the threefold self specifically towards driving. Everyday feelings, thoughts, and actions
that occur are analyzed and explained in terms of their significance to the
affective, cognitive, and sensori-motor behaviors of an human being. Dr. James adds a list of reactions and
sequences that people go through that will alter them of their physiological
and emotional reactions as well as their irrational thought sequences. Again Dr. James puts emphasis on the concept
that feelings lead to thoughts that ultimately cause actions.
In its modern version, behaviorism
is committed to a unified theory that tries to deal with external and internal
aspects of the self (Staats, 1981; Mischel, 1973). For instance, the concept of
personality is defined in terms of built-up repertoires of basic habits. These
are actually skills and errors that can be modified through further learning.
This acquisition process is going on in three distinct domains of the person:
affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor (or perceptual-motor). Figure 1 depicts the inter-relationship between
these three aspects of driver behavior as a nested structure. All skills at any
level of expertise contain affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor features. An
illustration is presented in Table 1 based on self-witnessing reports by
drivers. Though the recording of the report is necessarily sequential in that
the driver focuses separately on each domain, in actuality the model assumes
that all three are going on simultaneously.
See Isa's comments on this.
In the following data segment tape recorded by a student, several dimensions of
affect are discernible in this person's experience during a routine driving
episode:
"Oh, no, there's a police car coming up from behind. I hope he didn't see
me driving fast. Besides, I'm not the only one who is driving fast. If he pulls
me over to the side, he has to pull everyone else over too. I'll be so
embarrassed if he pulls me over. Everyone will know that I was breaking the
law."
Content analysis focuses on the "speech act" value of the components
of verbalizations (Searle, 1969; Jakobovits and Gordon, 1974). For instance,
"Oh, no" marks an affective stricture or a perception of doom; it
indexes an emotional flooding-out. "I hope" marks a religious
affection or an idealized picture of reality. "Besides, I'm not the only
one" bespeaks guilt and self-justification; it raises the specter of
personal catastrophe expressed in "I'll be so embarrassed... Everyone will
know..." A little later this subject displays affections of condemnation
or disapproval when another car cut in front: "Careless and pushy drivers
always do things like that." In another episode, this person expresses
anxiety and fear: "I almost sideswiped a car which had been traveling in
my blind spot. As I was turning back into the middle lane I was in a state of
mild anxiety. Thinking about what could've happened made me scared." Thus,
expressing fear in a driving incident or showing disapproval of another driver
are instances of affective driving behavior.
Data regarding this individual's cognitive driving behavior are obtained from
the following entry that was recorded for the same episode:
"I should cut down on how fast I'm driving and maintain the required speed
limit. I am in the middle lane and yet I am driving like an aggressive person
in the left lane. I could be increasing my chance of becoming a victim on the
road. If the police pulls me over and gives me a ticket it's nobody else's
fault but my own. I should follow the rules. I don't want others to get a bad
impression of me and think that I'm a speed demon."
Reasoning about propriety is evident in "I should maintain the proper
speed limit" and "I'm driving like an aggressive person" which
also indicates self-evaluation ("aggressive"). Propriety as well as
morality is involved in the driver's reasonings regarding the self-attribution
of error. ("It's nobody else's fault but my own"), and the entry
"I don't want others to get a bad impression of me" reveals this
person's image management techniques. In the following entry the driver seems
to be overwhelmed with the reasoned consequences of his action:
"I am thinking to myself I could have killed the guy back there. I am so
careless. He must be swearing at me and saying what an idiot I am. I could have
smashed up my brother's car."
Note that this self-analysis includes imagining what the others are thinking,
feeling, or saying ("He must be swearing..."). Thus, reasoning about
a driving situation or attributing an error to oneself are instances of
cognitive driving behavior.
For this segment of the record, the driver spoke of the following in connection
with the same episode:
"I'll driver at the required speed limit and get to my destination safely.
I am leaning slightly forward in my seat rather than my normal slightly
reclined position. I have both hands on the steering wheel rather than my
normal one [hand]. And I can feel my temperature rising."
Here the person is giving some details on motor behavior and the sensation of
getting warmer. Some of this information might be available to an observer of
camera ("I am leaning slightly forward in my seat"), but the meaning
of this act would remain obscure without the self-witnessing report
("rather than my normal slightly reclined position") or would require
complex instrumentation ("I can feel my temperature rising"). Thus,
describing sensations or motor actions are instances of sensorimotor driving
behavior.
Self-witnessing
reports of one's private or subjective world as a driver reveals an agitated
world replete with extreme emotions and impulses triggered by little acts.
Ordinary drivers can display maniacal thoughts, violent feelings, virulent
speech, and physiological signs of high stress. One driver's transcript shows
the following entry for the three domains in connection with a particular
indecent:
"My affective behavior is scared, anxious, fearful, panic stricken,
agitated, bothered, irritated, annoyed, angry, mad. I feel like yelling and
hitting. My cognitive behavior is thinking, Oh, no what is he doing. What's
happening. How could he do that. The guy was speeding. My sensorimotor behavior
is that I hear myself saying out loud, S--t! Stupid guy! I'm breathing fast,
gripping the wheel, perspiring, sitting up straight and slightly forward, my
eyes are open and watching straight ahead."
This incident involved a car cutting into the lane and forcing the car
immediately ahead to slam on the brakes causing a chain reaction; however, no
collision occurred. The self-witnessing reports of the students reveal that
each driving trip to campus (average: less than one hour) is full of incidents of
this sort in which near misses occur. Hence it has become normal and usual for
them to experience stress and panic under everyday driving conditions. Here is
another example:
"Affectively I am angry, upset, very frustrated, revenge seeking,
flustered. Cognitively I am thinking, Why can't you wait and cut after me? No
one is behind me, you idiot. No, Jolyn, you shouldn't follow too closely, he
might make a sudden stop. Good, let me hit him. Why am I upset? What is making
me feel this way? What's wrong? Gotta calm down. Do something with my hands.
Figure out what's bothering me. Sensorimotor-wise I detect heavy breathing,
impulsive reckless movements. Increased pulse. Shaking. Short of breath. Hot.
Flushed."
This person later added the following written annotation on the transcript:
"I just got to work. Traffic was terrible and I had a hard time parking.
This made me late. I was rushing around all flustered, but the bar was so
empty. I felt aroused, shaken up, but I could not find the cause. After a while
someone asked, "What's wrong?" I look around; it couldn't'[t be
anything in the bar. The bar was empty. After thinking a while I came to
realize that my driving had put me in a state of arousal."
Self-witnessing reports reveal that driving episodes can act as mood changers.
Some are instantaneous and extreme, lasting but a few seconds; others affect
the mood of the person for hours after the incident. The following is a summary
of the types of negative reactions frequently mentioned by the witnesses:
Extreme Physiological Reactions: heart pounding, stopping breathing,
muscle spasms, stomach cramps, wet hands, pallor, faintness, trembling, nausea,
discoordination, inhibition, visual fixation, facial distortion, back pain,
neck cramp.
Extreme Emotional Reactions: outbursts of anger, yelling, aggressive
gestures, looking mean and glaring, threatening with dangerous vehicle
manipulation, fantasies of violence and revenge against other drivers, panic,
incapacitation, distortion, regressive rigid pattern of behavior, fear,
anxiety, delusional talk against non-present drivers and objects.
See Isa's testimonial.
Extreme Irrational Thought Sequences: paranoic thinking that one is
being followed or inspected, talking out loud to other drivers who are not
within ear shot, script writing scenarios involving vengeance and cruelty
against "guilty" drivers, denial of reality and defensiveness when a
passenger complains of a driver's error, psychopathic interactions as when two
drivers alternately tailgate each other dangerously at high speed.
These findings raise an important public issue: What is the mental health of
the more than one hundred million licensed drivers in this country? Research
with the self-witnessing method is needed to assess the generality of these
preliminary findings with college students. We need to map out the behavior of
drivers under varying social and psychological conditions so as to arrive at a
comprehensive theory of driving behavior.
Self-witnessing reports by
drivers reveal that driving behavior is a complex entity occurring
simultaneously within three conscious behavioral areas of the individual:
affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor. Content analysis of the reports shows
the driver to be involved in the effort to comply to rules (e.g.,
traffic signs), norms (e.g., don't follow too closely), and roles
of driving behavior (e.g., I'm a bully, or I'm a polite driver). In this
struggle to comply, three aspects of the driver's inner world are prominent:
compliance in relation to the driver's feelings (affective compliance),
compliance in relation to the driver's thoughts (cognitive compliance), and
compliance in relation to the driver's sensory and motor responses, such as,
sensations, perceptions, motor acts, and overt verbalizations (sensorimotor
compliance). These three domains of compliance constitute the driver's
threefold self. Growth, maturity, or expertise as a driver will be a function
of the driver's threefold self.
The struggle for affective compliance involves the driver's motivation,
character, and conscience; it is a matter of the driver's good will or bad
will. Affective non-compliance to driving rules, norms, and roles engenders
driving behaviors that are irresponsible, dangerous, callous, brutish, and
imaginatively full of violence, bullying, and domineering attitudes or
intentions. The struggle for cognitive compliance involves the driver's
rationality and understanding. Cognitive non-compliance to rules, norms, and
roles engenders behaviors that are irrational, unsafe, rude, petty and full of
self-serving explanations and attribution errors. Sensorimotor compliance
involves the driver's performance efficiency, sensory awareness, and overt
verbalizations. Sensorimotor non-compliance engenders erratic and
discoordinated vehicle operation that increases the potential for accidents; it
also allows the driver to be rude and opportunistic.
Future research might explore the psychological mechanisms that mediate
affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor compliance in driving behavior by
applying to this area what social psychologists have found in other areas of
behavior. For example, Kelman (1958) studied the conditions under which
people's opinions and attitudes are influenced by the actions of others. To
account for his data he theorized three levels of depth in the social
influencing process: (1) obedience, or external compliance; (2) identification,
or compliance by conformity to others; (3) internalization, or internal
compliance (that is, by free choice).
Applying this model to driving behavior, we can theorize that the driver must
go through three stages of internalization in order to become a fully mature
and safe driver. Stage 1 may be called Driving Obedience and
involves the learning of external compliance in the affective, cognitive and
sensorimotor domains. Stage 2 may be called Driving Identification
and involves learning to conform to appropriate norms of driving such as
politeness, fairness, and rationality. Stage 3 may be called Driving
Internalization and involves the learning of altruistic concerns for other
highway users and taking responsibility for their safety and comfort.
We can then look upon the driver as possessing a threefold self: (1) the
affective driving self, (2) the cognitive driving self, and (3) the
sensorimotor driving self. The content and interaction of these three aspects
of the driver's private world will determine the overt, public aspects of the
driver: vehicle maneuvering, cautiousness, safety record, skill, knowledge,
awareness, and so on.
The threefold self helps us to classify and understand what we are
feeling, thinking, and acting. Through
realizing the threefold self we are able to identify triggers and stimuli that
cause us to feel, think, and act the way we do. This concept gives us the ability to change our perspectives that
will ultimately assist in stabilizing our emotional spin cycles. This passage extracted from Nou Saopeng’s, My
Report 1: Tailgating Behavior, examines the writers threefold self with a
self-witnessing report. In Saopeng’s
account feeling, thoughts, and actions are directly observed and identified
when describing a personal experience on the road.
|
MY OWN BEHAVIOR |
I don't
consider myself to be a tailgator but there were times when first time
passengers
would tell me that I follow too close. When they said this, I was shocked to
hear such nonsense because I hate tailgators. I feel upset (FEELINGS)
when people tailgate because I think that it is inconsiderate and wrong for
someone to intentionally tailgate another person (THOUGHTS) therefore I do not
tailgate (ACTIONS). Although I refuse to believe that I follow too close,
there was an incident when I was driving around the island (note there is only
one lane). A van in front of me suddenly pulled over to the
shoulder lane and as I was passed, the driver stuck the middle finger at
me. I was confused for I had no idea of what I did wrong to have made him
do that to me. Then my mother suggested that maybe I was following to
close. What???? No way I was just driving, enjoying the view, and was not
following too close the van. My sister who was the front seat passenger
agreed with me, she also felt that I was
not following too close.
This incident really hit me and made me think that there is
a difference between tailgating with intent and tailgating without
intent. There were times when I have been a victim of being
tailgated. And I feel that it is completely different from when my
allegedly tailgating incident with the van. I was on the passing lane of
the freeway going way above the speed limit. I was going the normal 65
m.p.h. Then a car behind me kept on started pushing and pushing me to go
faster. He was right up against the back of my car. The odd thing I
noticed was that no other cars on all the other lanes. I would have
gotten out of his way but from my rear view mirror I could see him smirking at
me. It was like he wanted to make trouble to me. That made me
irritated (FEELINGS) so I wanted to teach him a lesson (THOUGHTS) so I
started to slow down and kept on decelerating (ACTIONS). We were down to 35 mph
on the freeway! He finally got the mad and sped off on the the other
lane. As he passed he glared at me and I just smiled.
Therefore as far as tailgating goes, I feel that it lies in
the hands of the person being tailgated to take action. If one feels that
the person behind them are following too close, then get out of their
way. Or if you have the guts and a good insurance policy, then do what I
did but that is a big risk because an accident could have come out of it.
As much as I hated the man in the van for giving me the finger, it made me
realize that I do follow close and now I try to be more aware of my distance
with the car in front of me out of consideration for them.
Soliman G. Valdez seems to have had a similar affective reaction to
being tailgated like Ryan Mitsui, although Valdez was able to better control
his cognitive and sensori-motor behaviors before allowing then to control him. In Valdez’s, Report
1: Initial Self-Assessment as a Driver, he relives a self-witnessing report
of being tailgated. He describes his
reactions to what happened and how he was able to alter his emotional spin
cycle by realizing his threefold self and making the appropriate modifications
to control his feelings, thoughts and actions.
The last time I can remember being tailgated
was when I went to the Hickam Air Base. Because I was monitoring my driving, so
I drove the correct speed limit and tried really hard not to tailgate. As I got
closer to the gates, I slowed down. A past experience taught me to drive really
slow at these gates. A while back I went to the gate pretty fast and the gate
guard yelled at me to slow down as I passed the gate. He scared the
"crap" out of me. Anyway, since I was getting close to the gates, I
turned my headlights off, and slowed down. Only one lane was open so the guy in
back of me had no choice but to stay behind me. This guy was driving so close
to me that, I almost had to tell him to get out of my seat. Instead of getting
mad, or trying to get him back, I thought about the class and decided that this
guy must have had a good reason to be following me so close. He probably was
late for a date or had to use the rest-room.
Thinking this guy had a good reason to
tailgate me made me feel better about being tailgated. It also made me feel
good that I did not try to retaliate in any way. I felt it was my good deed for
the day. My only disappointment was that, even thought the guy had a good
reason to tailgate me, I still thought he was still an "ass" for
following me so close.
The Hierarchy of Motives
The hierarchy of motives another
expression devised by Dr. James refers to the structure that categorizes our
motives, in regards to our emotions, feelings, and values. Religious
Behaviorism in Swedenborg Glossary, by Dr. James, speaks about a hierarchy
of the self that is controlled by our motivations or drives that in turn
influence our behaviors. This hierarchy
of motives is linked to the threefold self because in knowing our drives or
motives we are able direct our feelings, thoughts, and actions in order to
satisfy those drives and motives.
Modern scientific
behaviorism has a similar triadic organization. At the top of the control
hierarchy (the inmost of the individual), behaviorism places the concept of
motivation or drive. Like Swedenborg's concept of the will, the concept of
motivation or drive has both structural and functional characteristics.
Structurally, drives and impulses are understood to be neuro-physiological or
psycho-biological substances issuing deep from within the neural cells of the
brain and spreading its effects through hormonal substances carried by the
blood stream. Functionally, drives and impulses have strong influences on overt
behavior.
One current theory, for
example, is that alcoholism is a hereditary imbalance of neurochemical agents.
Another, is that emotions such as depression or elation, occur when certain
specific brain-produced chemicals reach a particular concentration in the blood
stream. In Swedenborg's dualist system, the will is a structural,
neuro-physiological organ made up of spiritual substances which he calls
"affections." Affections or "loves" are hierarchically
organized spiritual neurons whose patterns reflect the individual's character.
Drives and impulses in behavioral psychology correspond to affections and loves
in spiritual psychology. (A further development of this topic may be seen in
the entry on spiritual genes.
Another comparison may be
offered from educational psychology and learning theory. One well known
behavioristic approach in education today involves the identification of
"behavioral objectives" in the classroom. The results are often
influential in that they are used by curriculum writers and school achievement
test makers. Behavioral objectives are stated at the level of action required
to obtain a predesignated result. There are two accounting systems behaviorists
ascribe to the desired response: the cognitive system and the affective system.
Debate is still going on in the literature as to whether the cognitive or the
affective comes first in determining the external act.
One common model in
educational psychology categorizes all instructional behaviors into three
categories of behavioral objectives or leanings: affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor.
Affective school behaviors include the students' values towards the subject
matter, their motivation and perseverance in self-practice, and their ability
to apply the leanings to real life situations. Cognitive school behaviors
include the students' reasoning and rationality, their ability to analyze and
draw conclusions from facts. Sensorimotor school abilities include perceptual
and motor activities.
It is easy to perceive that
the trinity in Swedenborg's psychology is in agreement with the triadic system
of human behavior in behavioristic and medical psychology. The will corresponds
to the affective system; the understanding corresponds to the cognitive system;
and use or actions correspond to the sensorimotor system. Having made this identification,
and to the extent that it is valid, we can extend the comparisons to see
whether there are details in Swedenborg's model which have not as yet been
discovered by modern efforts.
The only way to alter ones emotions is to recognize and modify. In Ryan
Mitsui’s, Report
2, Tailgating, he recounts a self-witnessing report where he is the
tailgated and then becomes the tailgater.
The writer describes his feelings when another driver is on following
closely behind him and then when the roles switch. At first the motivation is clear it is to punish the other person
for tailgating him but then he realizes that its not worth the trouble or risk
to follow, because he could have been seriously injured. By witnessing his actions, thought, and
feelings through the threefold self, the writer is able to reevaluate his
motives and their result.
I was
driving home on the freeway when all of a sudden I see these two bright lights coming
up really fast and then at the last second he cuts into the next lane, barely
avoiding me. I say to my self, "Ohh you fucken ass hole!!" and I
immediately begin in HOT pursuit. I notice that it is a brand new truck because
he still has the factory plates. So I know that he will be worried if anything
happens to his car and mine is basically a beach car so I don't really care
what happens. I begin to follow REALLY close, and he speeds up to about 75 MPH
to try and avoid me, but at this point, I'm so mad! I can feel the
adrenaline rushing through me, like when you make a hard turn on a roller
coaster. It's actually kinda fun in the sense of the rush and the thrill. So
anyway I still don't let up and am tight on is rear like white on bread at 75
MPH. He switches lanes, and I do too, still close as ever, he was not going to
go unpunished!! He tries to lightly step on his brake pedal to scare me off and
comes even closer to me, but I know that he won't run the risk of braking hard
and hitting his brand new truck, so I don't back off, he tries to switch lanes
two or three more times, but I'm still there! So finally he gets off at an off
ramp and I am tempted to follow, but then I finally come to my senses and
realize that all this is stupid and I could really be hurt or even die!!
The hierarchy of motives is much like Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs. Both category individual’s
motives and needs that are dependent upon a persons emotions, feeling, values
as well as basic need. Due to the lack
of resources for hierarchy of motives, I would like to consider Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs in depth. This
excerpt taken from the American Outlook Magazine, Symbols
and Substance, by S.T. Karnick, gives the overview of Maslow’s theory of
the hierarchy of needs; how the needs are satisfied and how we progress up
toward self-actualization, the top.
Symbols and Substance
by S. T. Karnick
During the 1940s, the American psychologist Abraham Maslow
came up with an idea that makes a good deal of sense. He posited that human
beings have a certain “hierarchy of needs” that they pursue with remarkable
consistency. According to Maslow’s theory, people first think about physical
needs such as food, clothing, shelter, and the like, and when these have been
at least somewhat gratified, they consider slightly higher-level
self-preservation needs such as safety from physical danger. After that, they
look after desires such as companionship and esteem by others. Higher up, and
hence later in one’s concerns, are factors such as self-expression,
self-fulfillment, and personal contentment—he called this part of the process
self-actualization. It is here, at the top of people’s hierarchies of needs,
that we find concern for concepts such as justice, fairness, equality, and the
like.
The magazine, At Home Mothers also considered Maslow’s, hierarchy of
needs, but was focused specifically toward the
relationship between mother and child.
In How to
Find and Maintain Balance & happiness an An At-Home Mother, by Dr.
Ferne Cherne, customizes Maslows theory for at-home mothers; emphasizing that
they need to keep balance between their own drives with their responsibilities
as mothers. Dr. Cherne also stresses
the importance of mothers satisfying their own needs for stimulation and
self-esteem, she also gives a warning that if these needs are not fulfilled it
may cause anxiety or depression.
As the psychologist, Abraham Maslow explained
in his hierarchy of needs, once we have security, housing, and basic material
necessities such as food and clothing, other psychological needs emerge – the
needs for positive self-esteem, pride, stimulation, and recognition. When these
needs are not met, you can be a prime candidate for depression, anxiety, or a
host of physical symptoms. The opportunity is there to be tempted to make
unhealthy choices to ease the frustration. Or you might begin to try to get
your needs for recognition, achievement or self-esteem met through your
children. You push little Suzy into the dance lessons she doesn’t want, but you
wished you had. You become the so-called soccer mom. You use an array of toys,
games and stimulation methods on your children to boost academic achievement.
All of which, in the long run, can be harmful to your children and family. Yes,
children must be nurtured and encouraged to try a variety of activities, but
for their own needs, within their own framework, when they are ready, not to
meet your needs. Maybe you put too many demands on your spouse. He wants rest,
relaxation and time with the kids. You want more stimulation. He wants to be a
couch potato on Friday night. You can’t wait to go out. Trying to get your
needs for stimulation, self-esteem, and recognition met through other members
of the family puts a tremendous strain on everyone.
The top of Maslow’s
pyramid sits self-actualization; that is characterized by an individual’s drive
to develop their self. In Self Help
Magazine, Psychology of Cyberspace-Addiction to Cyberspace, Why is This Thing
Eating My Life?, Is this the Real Me?,
by John Suler Ph.D., examines the ideal of self-actualization and how it
encompasses ours need to express ourselves and have interpersonal
relations. By finding a sense of
personal awareness we as individuals are able to elevate our consciousness to a
much higher state that will impact society.
Thus modifying our emotional spin cycles to decrease the duration and
frequency, and to increase in progression and recovery.
At the top of Maslow's hierarchy lies the need
for "self-actualization." This need subsumes many of those from the
lower levels - the need for fulfilling interpersonal relationships, to express
oneself, to satisfy one's intellectual and artistic needs by successfully
engaging the world around us. The key to self-actualization, though, is that it
specifically involves the striving towards the development of oneself as a
unique individual. It is the ongoing process of realizing and cultivating one's
inner potentials. It is the flowering of the "true" self.... Not
everyone reaches this level of Maslow's pyramid.
The
emotional spin cycle guides our way of life, we are constantly influenced by
our emotions and feelings and how we handle them. Learning to cope with and understand these sensations are
imperative to the well-being of our society.
Through awareness we will be able to raise the emotional intelligence of
the population for the betterment of our consciousness as one entity. It is my hope that through my research and
analysis someone will be touched by the information presented and will be
motivated to learn about and modify their own emotional spin cycle, which will
ultimately reach the world to strive for this cause.
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Citation: Helping Children Understand Emotions Internet. October 14, 2001. Available:
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& Happiness As An At-Home Mother
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Available:
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