CUSTOMIZING MY EMOTIONAL SPIN CYCLE:
DATA ANALYSIS
BY ALYSSA CHUN
PSYCH 459—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.
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, OUR SOCIETY, 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. Because I was not satisfied with my results from week 2, I did
the self-modification attempt again, for a third week, and collected another 21
samples that measured the variance of my behavior modification from week 2 to
week 3.
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 weeks
1,2, and 3.
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?
In
week 3, I again proceeded to modify and resample my feelings and behavior due
to the fact that I was not satisfied with my results from week 2 and knew that
I was capable of modifying my behavior to a more beneficial fashion.
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.
Week
3 consisted of the same exact procedures as week two. However, in this case, I tried a little harder to be more aware
of the emotions that was experiencing and became a little more conscious of how
I was reacting, in turn, trying harder to control my feelings before they
controlled me.
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. In week 2, I experienced 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.
In
week three, I experienced 13 incidents of negativity in either zone 1 (rage and
anger) or zone 2 (depression and dissatisfaction) and surprisingly, the bridge
technique did work for 11 of them. I
think since I saw how negative my thinking was in weeks one and two, I made the
extra effort to try and modify my thinking and behavior so I wasn’t such a
negative person.
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.
I am proud to say that in week
three, there was a drastic change. In
week three as compared to week one, which were my original observations, my
stress level went from a 6 to a 5, the satisfaction with myself increased from
a 3 to a 7, my effectiveness and productivity went from a 4 to a 7, my ability
to successfully cope with things went from a 3 to 7, my level of future
increased from a 4 to 7, and the negativity or selfishness of some other people
went from a 5 to a 4. 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 and did not do as
wholeheartedly as in week two. The
results from week three was more along the lines of what I had hoped to
accomplish from this experiment. 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 |
Week Three
|
Date |
Stress |
Satisfaction With Myself |
Effectiveness Or Productivity |
Coping Successfully |
Level Of Hope For The Future |
Negativity Or Selfishness Of Some
Other People |
|
11/28 |
7 |
5 |
6 |
4 |
5 |
5 |
|
11/29 |
6 |
5 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
1 |
|
11/30 |
4 |
9 |
9 |
9 |
9 |
4 |
|
12/01 |
5 |
7 |
6 |
8 |
7 |
4 |
|
12/02 |
3 |
7 |
6 |
7 |
7 |
5 |
|
12/03 |
5 |
6 |
6 |
7 |
7 |
6 |
|
12/04 |
6 |
9 |
8 |
8 |
10 |
5 |
|
Averages |
5 |
7 |
7 |
7 |
7 |
4 |
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 so I
instead increased it to three weeks. In
my doing so I feel I got a better representative sample but still it wasn’t
enough time to completely understand and change the complexity of 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
SREPORT 1:
CUSTOMIZING MY EMOTIONAL SPIN CYCLE: