CUSTOMIZING MY EMOTIONAL SPIN CYCLE:
DATA ANALYSIS
BY ALYSSA CHUN
PSYCH 409A—FALL 2001—G15
DR. LEON JAMES, INSTRUCTOR
T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S
CONCLUSION
INTRODUCTION
THE DAILY SPIN CYCLE
The emotional spin cycle is a cycle in which every individual experiences every day. It is a cycle that consists of both positive and negative feelings that lead to thoughts, resulting in actions. Since the emotional spin cycle is centered around both positive and negative feelings, leading to thoughts, resulting in actions, many times we can modify our thoughts and behavior through recognition and adaptation. First, we need to recognize what sensations we experience when we encounter a situation. Through recognition we gain insight into our emotional spin cycle and once we are aware of what we are “feeling” we can take the appropriate steps to change how we think, act, and react to a variety of situations and events.
Because there is no one particular definition for emotions, feelings, the threefold-self, and the hierarchy of motives, and they are all intertwined in relation to each other and the emotional spin cycle, report 1 cites various quotes, tables, graphics, and accounts from actual people that pose various theories and views which will help us to recognize and understand each of them a little better. This text also provides valuable suggestions in behavior modification toward the emotional spin cycle. These sources are derived from generational curriculum, news media, websites, and articles to present an in-depth insight into the individual’s emotional spin cycle.
OUR SOCIETY AND THE EMOTIONAL SPIN CYCLE
In my annotated bibliography, I discovered that our society is very ignorant when it comes to our emotional spin cycle and need to be better educated. A prime example of this is cited in: “Cashing In On The Values Of American Education” by James Campbell. As Campbell states, our morals and values are learned through our education systems. He professes that educators teach morals and values improperly and that educators in fact, contribute to violence, confusion, and irrationality and destroys their ability to think for themselves. After I read this article, I have to say that I agree with Campbell and he has a very valid point. If students advance in school, they must have been motivated through parents, society, teachers, etc. They receive a passing grade and advance to another grade level. Is that really morally correct? What happens if the student tries their hardest in school and does not receive a passing grade? Will they be deemed as stupid, incompetent? How will they feel about themselves and the people around them? Chances are they would be stuck in zones 1 and 2 of the emotional spin cycle. After being active in the rage zone against others, they would begin to rage against the self, automatically, which would be a state of depression. This rage-depression flip-flop is a sociogenic habit that results from socialization within society beginning in the education system. I have to say though; just educators do not influence children and adults alike. They are influenced by society in general. But it makes you think. Would society be the way it is if they were not educated to be this way? In synopsis, society needs to be better educated about how to handle, understand, and recognize the emotional spin cycle, which deals with morals, cognition, values, emotions, and feelings.
THE HAPPENINGS OF THE EMOTIONAL SPIN CYCLE
Our emotional spin cycle is comprised of various happenings influenced by biological, behavioral, cognitive, psychoanalytic, and social-cultural components. Although we experience the emotional spin cycle everyday we are often unaware of how and why it works. Without regard for integration of each of these components, it’s almost impossible to target a particular basis of how the emotional spin cycle perseveres.
Contributing to the emotional spin cycle, biology may be responsible for the brain circuits that trigger the physical and emotional state of being “red in the face” and “hot under the collar.” Idealistically, we would hope that everyone is capable of controlling their emotions by modifying their behavior. However, sometimes this is not always feasible due to these biological factors that are not easily controlled. Many times certain emotions and feelings that accompany them may only be remedied by taking medication that alters these neural circuits. An example of this would be depression, which is caused by a decrease in the availability of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, or serotonin, which elevate arousal and mood and appear to be scarce during depression. The antidepressant drug, Prozac blocks the reabsorption and removal of serotonin from synapses in the brain (Myers, 1990).
The way we learn observable responses through behaviorism is also important to the emotional spin cycle because we may have learned to act or react a certain way to particular objects or situations and more importantly, effectively modify our behavior. Many times facial expressions and body gestures that accompany emotions such as anger may be learned responses that can easily be modified through steps such as the AWM method (see this article for additional details on the AWM method). Equally important, behaviorism may determine which external stimuli result in angry responses or aggressive acts.
How we process, store, and retrieve information through our cognitive processes, is also important to the emotional spin cycle in the sense that how we interpret situations affect our emotions and how our emotions affect our thinking and reasoning to that situation. Cognition also uses previous learned information in remembering and problem solving which results in our possibly biased attitudes and responses toward various situations.
Emotional outbursts as an outlet for unconscious hostility commonly encountered within the emotional spin cycle may be associated with the psychoanalytic theory, which is concerned with how behavior springs from unconscious drives and conflicts. With psychoanalysis, personality traits and disorders my disguise unfulfilled sexual and aggressive wished and childhood traumas.
Particular situations themselves may also provoke certain emotions and feelings more than others and may also vary in intensity. Socialization may influence the behavior and thinking, and concerns the varying degrees across cultures and situations, as we are products of different environmental contexts. How we as a society view various situations also has a tremendous toll on our emotional spin cycle due to the inhibitions and candors that are placed on us.
THE FUTURE AND THE EMOTIONAL SPIN CYCLE AND A POSSIBLE SOLUTION
It’s hard to predict what the future holds for society and the emotional spin cycle. Although society is adopting an enlightened attitude of most people in supporting laws and protecting human rights, without people being able to recognize their emotions and learning how to control them, I think society is setting themselves up for a more hostile and aggressive environment in the future. While we as a nation show the resilient ability and unity in the face of attack, it seems like violence is increasing around the world due to lack of education, recognition, and control over everyday thoughts, feelings and actions. Society also needs to delineate is what is important, what is right, and what is wrong. And, even though we regard our education systems to the highest degree, and have the highest college attendance figures in the world, it seems that morals and values are taught in a sort of universal fashion but need to be better defined and reinforced by educators and parents. I personally have a dreary outlook on what is to come of society just because it seems to me that although we as a nation are becoming more intelligent with the use of technology and science, we also need to learn how to use them properly. It seems while our knowledge of material things are increasing, the knowledge of ourselves and the ability to gain insight into our inner understanding and balance are decreasing.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
THE THREEFOLD SELF
Since behaviorism is an approach to psychology that focuses on overt behavior and is based on the belief that personality is determined by rewards and punishments, these rewards and punishments are rather skills and errors that may be customized through further learning. We first need to recognize how we react to various circumstances and situations before we can modify our behavior. This includes thoughts, bodily sensations, feelings, emotions, and behavior. According to James, this acquisition process is present in three distinct domains of the person, which are the affective, cognitive, and sensorimotor (or perceptual-motor) and are interrelated to behavior as a nested structure. In it’s simplest from, the affective domain may be defined as the feeling one experiences, the cognitive domain may be defined as the thinking one’s experiences, and the sensorimotor domain may be defined as the action one takes toward a variety of individuals (including oneself) or situations.
Why are affective behavior, cognitive behavior, and sensory motor behavior important? Each one of these components contributes to every individual’s emotional spin cycle. Without will and feelings (affective), there would not be any intellect and thoughts (cognition), and without will and feelings, intellect and thoughts, there would not be any actions (sensorimotor). Therefore, what would we be without any of these things? Would we be inanimate objects? Would we be humans?
THE THREESTEP METHOD
Through collecting the following data on my emotional spin cycle, I learned how to control my daily emotional
spin cycle by utilizing the three steps known as the three methods or AWM
method (see this
article for additional details on the AWM method):
Step 1: I ACKNOWLEDGE
that I need to gain better control over my negative spin cycle.
Step 2: I WITNESS
my threefold self in the negative spin cycle settings through objective
self-monitoring or self- observation
methods of data collection.
Step 3: I MODIFY my
spin cycle in one selected area, and then I start again with another area.
THE SAMPLING TECHNIQUE AND RECORD KEEPING
I limited my self-witnessing observations to three samples
each day for seven days. I sampled my emotional spin cycle three times a day:
in the
morning, afternoon, and evening allowing me to collect a better or more
representative sample of my emotional lifestyle habits, resulting in 21 samples
of how my threefold self is behaving. I monitored my threefold self at various
times during the day and recorded which of the 4 zones of the emotional spin
cycle I was in at the time of the self-observation on my computer in a journal
entry format. I selected one intense
feeling that stood out in my mind that I experienced on each day at each time,
I described it, and in addition described the thinking and doing that went with
it. By doing this procedure, I obtained
the data on my emotional spin cycle.
During the second week I did the
self-modification attempt and again, 21 samples that measured how what happens
from week 1 to week 2.
THE DESIGN
Week 1 consisted of sampling and differentiating. During this week, I selected one intense feeling that stood out in my mind that I experienced at a specific time of day, along with the thinking and doing associated with it and kept a diary on my computer each day of the feelings that I experienced. In these entries I logged
The actual feeling I experienced and the
sequence associated with it
The thoughts that were in my mind that
accompanied the feeling or that occurred right after
The sensations and actions associated that
that feeling (and thinking)
During week 1, I also collected global ratings. By collecting these 6 numbers at the end of each day it will allow me to get a global assessment comparison between week 1 and week 2.
I proceeded to modify and resample my feelings and behavior in week 2. This required me to select several areas in my emotional spin cycle that I wanted to target for self-modification at this time in my life by using the bridge technique. The bridge technique involves the following steps:
1. What was I feeling? What did I feel like doing? What were my
emotions?
2. What was I thinking? What
were the sentences I said to myself?
3. What were the sensations in
my body, the appearance to others, and acts I did overtly?
4. What was the Bridge I used
(Determination-- red
or Resistance-- blue)?
What self-regulatory sentences did I say to myself?
5. What was my modified
thinking?
6. What was my new feeling?
7. What were the resulting
sensations, appearance, and overt acts?
The first
three steps are the same as during phase 1. Step 4 refers to the content of my
Bridge. This refers to the sentences that I said to convince myself to
"cross the bridge" from the negative zone to the positive. This
technique involved thinking as the first step to actively and consciously tries
to counteract the currently observed negative thinking with the positive thinking.
This is possible to do for most people most of the time. However, the individual has to be motivated
to do it. Before I started, I had to have the motive to want to counteract my
negative thinking in this particular situation. The following spin cycle diagram provides the two bridge points
for thinking: setting 2 to setting 11 for the red bridge (others and world), and setting 6 to setting
8 which is the blue bridge (self).
The red bridge involves transcending from emotionally impaired thoughts (setting 2) to emotionally intelligent thoughts (setting 11).
The blue bridge involves transcending from pessimistic and
cynical thoughts (setting 5) to optimistic and realistic thoughts (setting 8). Because, I already function well in all 12 settings of the spin cycle,
as this is part of my socialization learning, what I needed to do next was get
myself to increase activity in the positive thinking zone. When I was in a
state of anger or rage, the negative thinking received strong support from the
negative feeling, and my mind was very active in those two spin cycle settings
(2 and 3). All sorts of reasons come into my conscious awareness to justify my
anger, to vent, to retaliate. Nevertheless it is possible to motivate myself ahead of time to be prepared to react in a certain way to
the anticipated negative thinking. This
preparation involves knowing ahead of time what I’m going to say to myself when
I observe myself to perform rageful feelings and impaired thoughts (setting 2
and 3 cycle).
After
analyzing all the data on my emotional spin cycle through my journal entries of week one, I noticed, that the majority of
the time I found myself experiencing zones 1 and 2 of the emotional spin
cycle. Both of these zones are
considered to be in the negative zones, either toward my self or through
others. This was a very deplorable
realization for me since I go through these emotions everyday and was not aware
of how pessimistic I really was and how much rage I had either toward myself or
toward others. This gave me the
motivation to want to counteract my negative thinking in these situations to
change my behavior by using the bridge technique.
During
week two, I basically went through the same routine as I did in week one, but
whenever I started experiencing zones 1 and 2 of the emotional spin cycle, I
would try to use the bridge technique to counteract my negative thinking. Since a large number of my incidents of rage
occurred in my workplace and were directed toward my bosses or coworkers
selfishness, I would use the red bridge by telling myself that they had a reason for their actions. In a way, I tried to justify their actions
to myself to make me less angry.
Likewise, when I experienced zone 2 of the emotional spin cycle,
depression and dissatisfaction toward myself, many of my incidents revolved
around my procrastination of homework and other class assignments. In this case, I would try to tell myself,
that the reason I would procrastinate so much is so I could clear my head and
get a better idea of what to write or how to complete them. Other incidents of depression and
dissatisfaction toward myself included random situations, some with friends,
family, etc. and at times it was my inability to help someone. In these situations, I would use the blue bridge and I would tell myself that they were just
going through a phase, or it is just not possible to help them. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it
didn’t. Here are two examples each of
the red
bridge and the blue bridge.
When The Red Bridge Technique Worked
|
11/26/01 3:30 pm I just
got home from class and I am kinda irritated because one of my classes has a
mandatory attendance policy and most of the time half the students in the
class don’t even show up. I go to
class every single day, as I am supposed to but the students that don’t
attend class seem to be getting the same grade as me and I don’t think that
it is very fair. That makes me feel
anger towards the teacher because they are not sticking to their policy (zone
1) but then again, maybe they are and just haven’t totaled the other students
attendance in with the rest of their overall grades. This made me a little less angry. |
When The Red Bridge Technique Didn’t Work
|
11/24/01 11:00 pm Tonight
was a very good night up until I got into yet another fight with my
boss. We were working at around 9:30
pm I took a break since I had not stoped busting my butt for about 2 hours. It didn’t seem like they needed help, so
when I realized that they did (no one said anything) I went to help my bosses
and coworkers and my boss made this really snide remark to me and said “Only
now you come to help when everything’s done.” She did not say it in a joking way and there were a lot of
people around. Out of rage (zone 1) I
reacted in a very negative way. I
said “Kiss my a%@” and she tried to play it off like she was only joking and
I just replied “I wasn’t” and walked away.
I have to say though, although I reacted very negatively, it gave me
satisfaction to let her know how I really felt. I know this is bad, and I tried to tell myself to just ignore
it but I couldn’t my rage got the best of me and my bridge technique just
didn’t work. |
When The Blue Bridge
Technique Worked
|
11/26/01 8:00 pm I’ve been
doing homework for the past 4 hours and it seems like I haven’t done
anything! I am definitely in zone 1
and 2 of the emotional spin cycle because I can’t figure out what to do for
my assignments or am just not in the homework mood. I’m feeling rage because although I am trying to get things
done, it is just not happening. I
feel like going out and having fun and forgetting about homework. I know that I will regret it but right now
I just don’t care (zone 2). I know I
will have to pay for it tomorrow but oh, well! Then, I thought, maybe I can go out and clear my mind for
a while, and then tomorrow I can get
on a role and finish my projects with a clear head. That made me move into zones 3 and 4. |
When The Blue Bridge
Technique Didn’t Work
|
11/25/01 10:00 am I just
got off the phone with a really good friend who I have known for 10 years and
he has had a drug problem for the past 6 years. We always fight about this problem because I think that he is
zone 2 of the emotional spin cycle because he is into self-destructive
behavior. When I ask him why, it’s
because he says that he is in zone 3 and it makes him happy. When I hear this, I get angry with him and
I get in zone 1 because I don’t want to see him hurt himself like that and I
have to admit, am trying to condemn him.
We end up talking about it but nothing happens and he still continues
to do this so we just end our conversation and usually make like nothing
happened. But I’m not sure if that is
constructive behavior (zone 4) because I’m depressed at myself for not
stopping him, leaving me in zones 1 & 2.
Then I went into zone 4 and thought okay maybe this is just a phase. But after serious consideration and worry,
I don’t think it is a phase.
Realistically, he’s been doing it for 6 years. A six-year phase?? I don’t think so. |
**Click here to see the rest of the data on my emotional spin cycle.
For the
most part though, the bridge technique did work. I had 14 incidents of negativity in either zone 1 (rage and
anger) or zone 2 (depression and dissatisfaction) and the bridge technique did
work for 10 of them. The instances when
the bridge technique didn’t work, I think it was due to the fact that I was
just so angry or depressed that it was as though my emotions were controlling
me and I let them get the best of me.
THE RATING SCALE
The rating scale consisted of Global Ratings, which I collected once at the end of each day. By colleting these 6 numbers, at the end of each day it allowed a global assessment comparison between week 1 and week 2.
1. What was my strongest stress point today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)
2. What was my strongest level of satisfaction with myself today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)
3. What was my best level of effectiveness or productivity today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)
4. What was my best level of coping successfully with my feelings today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)
5. What is my current level of hope for the future: (1=little hope or brightness; 10=extremely hopeful and bright)
6. What was the worst level of negativity or selfishness of some other people around you (1=almost no negativity or selfishness observed; 10=extremely strong negative or selfish behavior observed)
OBSERVATION CONTENT AND VISIBILITY OF THE SPIN CYCLE
To my disappointment, my results did not vary dramatically from week one to week two. However the assessment that did increase dramatically was my self-satisfaction, which went from a 3 in week one, to a 7 in week 2. I am not sure why the increase was so dramatic. It could be because during week two, I was at least conscious and aware of my thoughts, feelings, and actions and made an effort to change them, even though under many circumstances, was unsuccessful. There was though a slight change in my effectiveness or productivity that increased from a 4 in week one to a 6 in week 2, my coping successfully from a 3 in week one to a 4 in week 2, and level of hope for the future increased from a 4 in week one, to a 5 in week two. This all could have been related to the fact that I was consciously attempting to modify my thoughts, feelings, actions as I did not do in week one. The results of my global ratings are as follows:
Week One
|
Date |
Stress |
Satisfaction With Myself |
Effectiveness Or Productivity |
Coping Successfully |
Level Of Hope For The Future |
Negativity Or Selfishness Of Some
Other People |
|
11/14 |
8 |
4 |
4 |
5 |
5 |
7 |
|
11/15 |
7 |
4 |
6 |
1 |
5 |
10 |
|
11/16 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
7 |
5 |
|
11/17 |
5 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
|
11/18 |
5 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
1 |
|
11/19 |
8 |
3 |
4 |
2 |
2 |
4 |
|
11/20 |
6 |
5 |
5 |
3 |
4 |
7 |
|
Averages |
6 |
3 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
Week Two
|
Date |
Stress |
Satisfaction With Myself |
Effectiveness Or Productivity |
Coping Successfully |
Level Of Hope For The Future |
Negativity Or Selfishness Of Some Other
People |
|
11/21 |
6 |
5 |
7 |
2 |
3 |
8 |
|
11/22 |
1 |
7 |
7 |
7 |
7 |
1 |
|
11/23 |
10 |
9 |
9 |
2 |
3 |
10 |
|
11/24 |
7 |
8 |
7 |
2 |
3 |
10 |
|
11/25 |
5 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
2 |
|
11/26 |
5 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
|
11/27 |
5 |
8 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
1 |
|
Averages |
6 |
7 |
6 |
4 |
5 |
5 |
Most of my feelings of negativity, including rage and anger toward others occurred in my workplace and the majority of the time it was directed away from myself and toward my bosses or coworkers. I experienced a great deal of rage and anger towards them because I feel that they are taking advantage of me and because it interferes with my schoolwork. The incidents in which I directed the most rage or depression toward myself was in instances of procrastination with my school work.
DIFFICULTIES AND VALIDITY OF OBSERVATIONS
Because we collected data on our own emotional spin cycle, I feel that my samples are not externally valid and should not be generalized to different individuals, settings, or conditions and are not representative of the population. My observations are biased in the sense that my own interpretations of events have influenced my actions to these events. If another individual interprets the same event in a different way, our results would be considerably different.
I also believe that my samples are invalid because I honestly felt pressures as to what I needed to write because this is an assignment in which I will be receiving a grade and could not express my emotions in an honest and uninhibited manner.
In addition I think that a limited time sample of two weeks was not enough time to collect a sufficient amount of data to draw accurate conclusions about my emotional spin cycle. Since it was an assignment, I felt rushed to meet the due date and also dealt with distractions such as other homework assignments and employment.
Since this report is displayed on the world wide web for all to see, I felt that I could not express my true feelings and emotions in instances of rage because I did not want to offend anyone, leading me to censor certain thoughts and feelings also contributing to invalidity.
CONCLUSION
Prior to completing this assignment, I was unaware of the sensations I experienced when I encountered certain situations.
Throughout this assignment, I learned how to recognize and gain insight into my emotional spin cycle and am now aware of what I am “feeling” and have learned how to take the appropriate steps to modify how I think, act, and react to a variety of situations and events.
I thought this assignment was well worth the time and effort because I learned how to modify my feelings, thoughts, and actions. The only thing that I would have changed is the time allotted to complete the assignment, making it longer, and less time restricted. I also would have liked to do this assignment while I was not taking other classes and working because I could have focused on it more and, in turn, may have learned more than I did about myself and my emotional spin cycle.
REFERENCES
Myers, D. (1990). Exploring Psychology. New York: Worth Publishers. (p. 4)
Citation: “General Instructions for Your Research
Project.” Internet. 15 Nov. 2001. Available:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy15/g15reports-instructions.html
Citation: “Dr. Driving’s Three-Step Program For A
Driver Personality Makeover.” Internet. 15 Nov. 2001. Available:
http://www.aloha.net/~dyc/threestep.html
Citation: “Cashing In On The Values Of American
Education.” Internet. 15 Nov. 2001. Available:
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/40/40campbell.shtm
MY
HOMEPAGE
CLASS
HOMEPAGE
REPORT 1:
CUSTOMIZING MY EMOTIONAL SPIN CYCLE: