Customizing My Emotional
Spin Cycle:
Psych 459 Fall 2001 G15
December 6, 2001
To customize your own daily emotional spin cycle is to take a conscious look at the many different emotions that we as human beings experience.À The roller coaster of emotions that we ride, are caused by many different causes.À Occurrences deemed as either good or bad help to determine what type of emotions we will in turn feel.À After these occurrences happen, we tend to either have a positive or negative feeling associated with the occurrence.À These feelings, whether positive or negative, in turn cause us to think and react in either manner.À This whole process is also known as the Threefold-Self.À The Daily Emotional Spin Cycle and the Threefold-Self go hand in hand.À The data that I collected over approximately a two week period will help to make clearer the ?big picture? of what really happens when we feel, think, and act.À By understanding such things, we might be able to act positively for positive feelings and thoughts and at the same time react positively for negative feelings and thoughts.À In essence we are trying to control our emotions and keep them positive no matter the nature of the triggering occurrences.À There are undoubtedly many consequences to our actions as citizens in society, so it is important for us as a society to attempt to increase the actions that might make this world a more positive and healthy environment to live, and to limit the negative actions that might very well be detrimental to the progress of society.À It is hard to say what might come about in the future.À Everyone needs to be aware of the implications of living negatively.À Maybe we need to train ourselves to bridge our actions positively instead of negatively just as they did with the hippie movement of the 70?s.À Although it was a romantic sense of thinking, the hippie movement is one that comes to mind when discussing changes in thinking and action from negative to positive.À Individually our actions might seem insignificant, but collectively they make up the core of human civilization.À All of our actions as a society start with the Threefold-Self, which travels through the daily emotional spin cycle.
Report
1: Customizing My Emotional Spin Cycle: Annotated Bibliography
All individuals are socialized in accordance with cultural norms.À To be socialized means to acquire particular habits in the three areas of human functioning:
-habits of feeling (Affective Domain of Behavior)
-habits of thinking (Cognitive Domain of Behavior)
-habits of acting (Sensori-Motor Domain of Behavior)
Every individual has a Threefold-Self in which the three parts function together, yet each can be distinguished and isolated for observation and self-modification.
The Daily Emotional Spin Cycle is a cycle that we all go through in all of our daily lives.À It is the way we feel about things that happen, and then the way we think about and ponder the happening, and finally the action we take due to the feelings and thoughts.À All of these feelings, thoughts, and actions can either be positive or negative, and can either be directed toward our selves as well as others.
Spin
cycle = 12 settings in 4 zones, each zone having 3 settings, one each for the
parts of the threefold self. Half of the settings are negative, half positive.
Two of the zones are about others and the world (red) and two are about the
self (blue). The bridge of determination (red) is the crossing over from
negative red thinking (setting 2) to positive (setting 11). the bridge of
resistance (blue) is the crossing over from negative blue thinking (setting 5)
to positive (setting 8).
The
content of the 4 zones and 12 settings are:
Zone 1
(negative red) = Feeling rage-anger (setting 1) coupled with impaired thinking
(2) lead to aggressive behavior (3)
Zone 2
(negative blue) = Feeling depression (setting 4) coupled with pessimistic
thinking (5) lead to self-destructive behavior (6).
Zone 3
(positive blue) = Feeling self-mastery and self-satisfaction (setting 7)
coupled with optimistic thinking (8) lead to self-enhancing behavior (9).
Zone 4
(positive red) = Feeling resolve or zeal or compassion (setting 10) coupled
with emotionally intelligent thinking (11) lead to supportive and constructive
behavior (12).
Data
Collection and Analysis
We want
to get to know our daily emotional spin cycle in detail so that we can control
it and customize it to our own desirable level.À The data collection portion of the report helps us learn how to
control our daily emotional spin cycle.À
We learn to do this by going through the Three-Step Method.
The Three-Step Method ÀÀ
1. Step 1: I ACKNOWLEDGE that I need to gain
better control over my negative spin cycle.
2. Step 2: I WITNESS my threefold self in the
negative spin cycle settings through objective self-monitoring or
self-observation methods of data collection.
3. Step 3: I MODIFY my spin cycle in one selected
area, and then I start again with another area.
Sampling Technique Week 1
I decided to sample my emotional spin cycle three times a day-morning,
afternoon, and evening.À Doing the
sample three times daily helped to make my sample more representative of my
emotional lifestyle habits.À Every day
for the first week I recorded my emotions, thoughts, and actions associated
with my daily experiences in the morning, afternoon, and night.À A lot of my data collecting occurred while I
was either at home, school, or at work so it was easy for me to immediately
write down my observations.À I wrote down
in detail the feelings I had, as well as the thoughts I had.À I also wrote down the actions I took after
the many occurrences.À Many times this
included words I muttered to myself in frustration for example:
8:35 pm Monday November 12th, 2001:
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ This evening I was at
work answering the telephone.À The
caller on the line asked for something, but I could not quite understand or
hear him.À I asked him to please speak
up louder because I could not hear him and he told me to ?open my f**cking
ears.?À I immediately hung up on
him.À I was very upset and wanted him to
call again so I could possibly get my own verbal shots in and then hang up on
him again.À He did not call back.À There was no chance at negative action, but there
sure were a lot of negative feelings and thoughts.
During this instance, I had some feelings in the negative red zone (zone
1).À I had feelings of anger and
rage.À It then went into the negative
thinking stage (negative red, zone 2).À
At this point I definitely had emotionally impaired thoughts.À My emotions however did not get an
opportunity to go toward the negative doing stage (negative red, zone 3).À If the person had called back, that would
have been a prime opportunity to act out on my negative feelings and
emotionally impaired thoughts.À But
again he did not call back.
Rating Scale
Regarding my feelings, thoughts, and actions, I used the Global Rating
Scale.À I used this scale everyday
during my first week of observations.À
The ratings for Monday November 12th, 2001 were as follows:
__8___1)
What was my strongest stress point today:
(1=very weak; 10=extreme)
__7___2)
What was my strongest level of satisfaction with myself
today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)
__7___3)
What was my best level of effectiveness or productivity
today: (1=very weak; 10=extreme)
__5___4)
What was my best level of coping successfully
with my feelings today: (1=very ineffectual; 10=extremely effective)
__8___5)
What is your current level of hope for the future: (1=little hope or
brightness; 10=extremely hopeful and bright)
__6___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)
Modifying and Re-sampling Week
2
In week 2 of my analysis, I used the Bridge Technique.À It involved 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?
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4. What was the Bridge I used
(Determination--red or Resistance--blue)? What self-regulatory sentences did I
say to myself?
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5. What was my modified thinking?
6. What was my new feeling?
7. What were the resulting sensations,
appearance, and overt acts?
4:15 pm Saturday November 24th, 2001:
ÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀÀ I was working and a patron came to the help desk to ask to register and check into a room at the hotel I work at.À I ask the patron to fill out a registration card.À I followed my request by giving him a pen to use.À Apparently the pen was brand new and had not yet been used thus the ink was not flowing in it yet.À Basically the pen did not work, so the patron gave me a sarcastic look and asked me for a pen that worked.À His exact words were ?can I get one that works.?À He said this in a very sarcastic tone.À In a matter of seconds I flew through the emotional spin cycle.À I got a handful of pens and slapped them lightly on the counter all at once and replied, ?take your pick.?À This man had just agitated me.
During this instance I was feeling a little bit of anger.À To see such a bad and nasty attitude directed at something so small as a pen not working made me somewhat upset.À I traveled through the negative red feeling, thinking, and doing all over again.À (zones 1,2, and 3)À I was feeling agitation.À I felt like doing what I did and that was subtly reacting to his nasty attitude.À One overt act I committed was taking out a handful of pens when I could have easily offered him another one instead of a handful.À I did somewhat bridge my thinking though because it did irritate me, but I seemed to let it agitate me rather then out right anger me.À Maybe that is why I just subtly ?got my vengeance? by offering a bunch of pens and saying ?take your pick? instead of yelling of getting into an argument.À My modified thinking was that I felt that this man couldn?t have been this old and grumpy.À Sure enough he wasn?t.À Maybe he saw that his actions were a little bit unnecessary.À Before he went on his way we exchanged in small talk.À I felt happier and more at peace.À There were no overt acts, but I had feelings of peace and happiness inside my mind and body.À The bridging did work after all.À You could say that it did not work at first, but it did actually work afterwards because I could have easily kept my negative feelings and thoughts about this man, but in turn I used the red bridge.À I used some emotionally intelligent thinking.À I asked myself that maybe he was just tired from the flight he just got off of and that was the reason for his grumpiness.À I concluded that he was an old man who was tired and I thought that he probably did not come all the way to Hawaii to be grumpy and unhappy.À I thought that he would probably be in a better mood after a meal and a nap.
One main difficulty of the analysis and data collection was the actual bridging.À It was hard to remind myself that week 2 was meant for me to attempt to catch myself and to not take negative action when negative feelings and thoughts came about.À Overall I don?t think there might be too many errors.À The only error or problem might be that since I was both the experimenter and the guinea pig there may be errors due to bias.À Being that I took records of myself while observing myself errors could have occurred.À I took the observations at school, work, and at home.À Mainly all of the occurrences that were useful for the analysis and data collection happened at work.À Work is a very stressful and hostile environment that is perfectly suitable for the red bridging technique.À The only time I got to exercise the blue bridging was when I was at home sending an email and my computer froze on me after I had just finished writing a long email.À I just told myself that it was just an email and that I would just write another one.À The spin cycle became visible after a few attempts at bridging my behavior.À I saw that there indeed was a moving of emotion and action from negative to positive.À It became clearer as I consciously attempted to bridge my behavior.
This experiment was enjoyable and interesting.À I don?t know if it will correct all of my negative feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, but just being able to recognize them is a big help.À I think that in the long run, just learning what I did form this experiment will help me to be a more positive and happy person.À I am not a pessimist at all, so in that sense I really don?t have a problem using the blue bridge.À My issue with the daily emotional spin cycle is in the red area.À Simple inconsideration angers me, sometimes to the point that I want to act aggressively or destructively.À I know that I am not as bad as others, yet I know that there is still, room for improvement and this analysis will help with that.À In time I hope to master maneuvering through the daily emotional spin cycle without any hitches.
References
Citation:À ?General Instructions for Your Research Project.? Internet. 5 Nov.2001. Available:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/leonj/leonpsy15/g15reports-instructions.html
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