Customizing My Emotional Spin Cycle:
Data Analysis

Psych 409a Fall 2001--G15
Dr. Leon James, Instructor

Sophie
October 24,2001
Instructions for this report

This is a project used to understand the emotion cycles that people have and how to identify and change my feelings, thoughts and actions within this cycle. The emotional spin cycle as designed by Dr. James is described as the continuum of feelings, thoughts and actions from rage to compassion and zeal (figure 1). Rage is defined as the desire to hurt someone and compassion is the desire to help others or protect an idea (i.e. politics, religion, art). The intermediates to these are depression, pessimism, self-destruction, feeling accomplished, optimism, and self-enhancement. These intermediates are listed from negative to positive and are described as red (negative) or blue (positive). This is called the spin cycle because in behavioral terms we act in cycles, patterns, and schemas within the domains defined as cognitive (thoughts), affective (feelings) and sensory-motor (action).

The purpose of this project is to identify my cognitive, affective and sensory-motor states a few times a day over a period of time, of at least two weeks. This personal inventory will include how I am thinking, feeling, and behaving at three or more different times of day. From this inventory I can then become aware of where I am on the emotional spin cycle at those times. After I have identified where I am I can then attempt to bridge red feelings, thoughts and actions into blue ones. These bridges are defined as either red or blue. Self-regulatory sentences or personal mantras are used to cross these bridges with determination to be positive or resistance against negative thoughts. The red bridge is the determination bridge from emotionally impaired (setting 2) to emotionally intelligent thoughts (setting 11). The blue bridge is the resistance bridge from pessimistic and cynical (setting 5) to optimistic and realistic thoughts (setting 8). I then record how I undergo these bridges and note success, failure, or battles in crossing these bridges. At the end of each day and also at the end of the week I will take a global rating. This rating will be on a scale of one to ten for my strongest stress point, self-satisfaction, feeling of accomplishment, feeling management or coping, feelings toward the future, and the negativity or selfishness of those around me. This exercise will incorporate the three-step program also known as AWM as designed by Dr. James.

Feelings, cognition and sensory-motor are referred to as the three-fold self (Dr. James, 2001). This triad of states makes up our experiences in life. Feelings or emotions are recognized by researchers as happy, sad, surprise, anger, disgust and fear. Cognition can be described as not mere thought but how an individual perceives the world and interacts with it from within the mind. Cognition definitely included thinking in humans, but as we look at different animals it is a puzzle to determine what degree of cognition exists. Sensory-motor is how we perceive the world and our self using our body (nervous system). Everything we sense with our five senses and changes in our body (hunger, sleepy, excited, etc.) are imputed to the brain consciously or sub-consciously. Our senses then can trigger our feelings, which should be definable to others. Cognition is also triggered by sensory input and feelings. A hierarchy of motives can then be established where at any point the strongest of the triad will overtake the individual.. For example, if there is a strong emotional stimuli, then emotional thoughts would override more rational thoughts. The same is true for the sensory-motor input as pain or pleasure can override rational thought. This project in performing a bridge between negative and positive thoughts, feelings, and actions requires that the cognitive self and its set of values will override strong emotions or sensory-motor discomforts (feeling hot, increased heart-rate, sweaty palms, etc.)

The purpose of this exercise is ultimately how to resist anger or control anger. The act of positive thinking is a learned trait that can be attained by different means. Some people repeat positive phrases to themselves, called personal mantra, and this helps them reduce any negative thoughts. Personal statements can be more logical and actually argue or debase any negative thoughts. The trick is that you have to believe in your positive statements. Anger stress may lead to poor health and it is worth the effort to change to a positive mindset. To defeat negativity and think positively I will record my progress during this project and try to be happy as often as possible. I am also going to incorporate a healthy lifestyle over the next month to ensure that my food, sleep and exercise patterns can help keep in good spirits.

Figure 1. The emotional spin cycle. Thoughts, feelings, and actions (doing) during negative and positive settings are described below with blue being positive and red being negative and the zones one and four focused upon others and zones two and three focused within the self (Leon James, 2001).

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