“CUSTOMIZING MY EMOTIONAL SPIN CYCLE: DATA ANALYSIS”

PSYCH 459 FALL 2001-G15

INSTRUCTOR: DR. JAMES

BY: HARVEY NAKAMOTO

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Report One

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INTRODUCTION

As I showed in much greater detail in my preceding commentary entitled, “Customizing my Emotional Spin Cycle: Annotated Bibliography,” an inability to recognize each element of the three fold self – feeling, thinking, and behaving – as fundamental components of the overt behavior, serves to limit our ability to see the range of options available to us.  There is an intimate connection between how we feel, think, and behave, and a tendency for these three components of overt behavior to cycle in either a negative or positive zone, hence the name the emotional spin cycle.  If we do not learn to control this cycle we can expect to spend a greater portion of our lives in the negative zone of the emotional spin cycle than necessary.  If we feel negatively for example, and have not learned to control our own individual emotional spin cycle, we will think negatively and act negatively.  Acting negatively will increase the odds of a negative response and facilitate justification or perhaps motivation for subsequent negative feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. 

IMPLICATIONS

The fact that our society rarely address overt behavior as a product of the three fold self, shows an ignorance or negligence about the intimate connection between these three components of behavior.  Because thoughts and feelings are unobservable components of overt behavior, society seems to regard it as separate from observable behavior and hence does not feel that we need to address our affect, cognition, and sensori-motor behaviors jointly in order to modify our overt actions.  So long as this mindset remains the same we can expect people’s behavior to continue to be irrational and detrimental to their own and others lively-hood at times.  People who do not learn to control their emotional spin cycles will be entirely at the mercy of their environment.  If an external event makes them feel negatively, they will think negatively and unless they learn to bridge over into more positive thoughts they will inevitably act negatively thereby fueling further negative feelings, thoughts, and actions in themselves and others.  The goal then is to learn the best way we can each individually modify each component of our three-fold selves simultaneously as a means of allowing us to spend as much of our lives as possible cycling in the positive zone of the emotional spin cycle. 

MEANS OF CHANGE

How do we go about moving or “bridging” from a negative zone of the emotional spin cycle to a positive one? Feelings dictate our every thought and thoughts dictate our every action.  It makes sense therefore to attempt to start at the root of the problem, our affect.  Unfortunately, however, our affect is often difficult to modify directly due to the fact that it is often the result of external stimuli.  Fortunately, unlike our affect, our cognition can be directly modified and is entirely within our control.  All feelings must pass through the realm of cognition before they are expressed.  It is fortunate therefore that unlike feelings, cognition is always rational, therefore every behavior we express given the conditions, mindset (feelings), and or potential for reward or punishment at the times is whether consciously or unconsciously what we “wanted” to do at the time.  By controlling our cognitive thoughts we can indirectly modify our feelings and directly modify our behavior.  It is essential, however, the each element of the threefold self be modified simultaneously otherwise, due to their intimate connection and the resulting tendency for each of these three components to reside in the same zone, be it negative or positive, a negative feeling may pull a positive thought back into the negative zone rather than the other way around.  All of this is discussed in much greater detail in report one which I advise you to read in order to get a more complete understanding of subject matter.

REPORT 2

In the report 2 subsection of “customizing my emotional spin cycle” I used myself as a gunny pig in an effort to apply the concepts I preached in report 1.  I did so by applying the Three-Step Program, a term coined by Dr. James which refers to the three steps required for one to control their emotional spin cycle.  The three steps contained in the three-step program are: acknowledge, witness, modify.  First I needed to recognize when I was in a negative zone of the emotional spin cycle and acknowledge that I needed to gain control over it.  Then I needed to witness my threefold self in the negative spin cycle settings through various methods of objective self-monitoring of self-observation methods of data collection (my method of self-monitoring evolved as I progressed with my research). Finally, I needed to modify my negative cognition via bridging techniques into a positive cognition and use it to pull my affect and sensori-motor behaviors into the positive zone. 

Experimental Design

I decided that I was going to take samples of episodes when I slipped into a negative emotional spin cycle three times a day for approximately 3 weeks and apply the three-step program in an effort to bridge over into a more positive spin cycle each time.  The design I employed was a quasi base line design.  I could not create a true experimental baseline design because not attempting to bridge in consideration of my awareness of the potential to do so as well as my previous experience with bridging as a youth in court ordered anger management classes would be detrimental to my own and perhaps others well being.  I decided instead that though I would apply the bridging technique in the first week and a half during the second week and a half I would try to bridge before I displayed any initiation of overt negative behavior.  For example during the baseline week, on Friday Nov. 16 at 8:30 am I woke up feeling tired I thought dam I don’t want to go to school today I stretched yawned and let my face fall back into my pillow before I bridged telling myself that education was important and that I’ve done with much less sleep, before I forced myself to jump out of bed and pretend that I’m wide awake a technique that I long ago learned psychologically helps you to feel more awake.  During the experimental week, however, on Tuesday Nov. 27 at 9:00 am I again woke up feeling tired and not wanting to get out of bed.  This time, however, before I could display any negative overt behavior (to reinforce my feelings of fatigue and make it harder for me to ultimately get up) I bridge telling myself that if I just jump out of bed and pretend to be wide awake before giving myself time to react to my feelings of fatigue I will have less difficulty convincing my psyche that I am not tired than if I initially give myself overt justification for feeling tired.  In this case as well as many others that I documented bridging before displaying the initiation of any type of negative overt behavior eased the bridging process. 

Comparison of baseline and experimental days

At the end of each day I rated the strength of my emotions throughout the day based on 6 points each rated on a 10-point scale.  I asked myself on a scale from one to ten what was your: 1.) Strongest level of stress today 2.) Strongest level of satisfaction with yourself today 3.) Best level of productivity today 4.) Best level of coping successively with my feelings today 5.) Current level of hope for the future, and 6.) Worst level of negativity or selfishness of some other people around me?  Using the results of these ratings as a comparison tool I evaluated the success of my attempted intervention in the second half of my experiment.   

Record Keeping

My method of record keeping changed throughout my experiment by means of a systematic elimination of ineffectual methods.  Initially I attempted to make a mental note of each episode in which I entered a negative zone of the emotional spin cycle and write down the most powerful three on note cards at the end of the day.  Unfortunately even after taking the recommendation of Dr. James, to think out how we are feeling in sentences as a means of making our memory more effective and accurate, my recall of negative occurrences of the emotional spin cycle were not so effective nor accurate.  Furthermore I noticed that elements of the emotional spin cycle are not always readily observable to the conscious mind unless you are trained to spot it, so this method was for the most part ineffective because it employed a more passive approach.  The next strategy of record keeping I tried came by way of a miniature tape recorder.  By training myself to push the record button whenever I felt any type of negative sensation and speak my thoughts and feelings out loud I managed to gain a much more accurate and effective look at elements of my emotional spin cycle.  While this method was very accurate it too had it’s problems, the most significant of which was the fact that speaking your thoughts and feelings into a tape recorder tends to become habitual and once you have become accustomed to it, it is not too difficult to forget that people can hear what you are thinking when you say it into a tape recorder.  During one such occasion I recorded myself saying “dam this guy is punchy, I should jump out of my car and kick his ass” I am pretty sure he heard me or read my lips because he began more vehemently challenging me to fight.  After learning this lesson, I decided that though tape recording was the most accurate method, in that it limited the possibility that attempted social conformity present even in written records taken immediately after the occurrence of the event, it was not the most plausible alternative in social settings.  I then decided that every day I would carry around both a tape recorder and a few note cards and a pen and when it was possible I would tape my every thought and feeling about the event with my tape recorder, but when social conformity prevented it I would employ Dr. James suggestion of thinking my thoughts and feelings in sentences, and promise myself that I would record things as I thought them, without any type of modification.  This was for the most part a very effective method aside from the recognition that even in the process of converting my thoughts and feelings into sentences my cognition stressed some type of social editing which I had to try my best to actively counter.   Overall, however, with a little discipline I learned to take quite effective and reliable notes of my true feelings and thoughts as they occurred as a means of getting a more accurate picture of my emotional spin cycle.  In attempting to find an appropriate method of record keeping I began to understand why so many people have difficulties controlling their emotional spin cycles, even the first step, recognition and acknowledgement requires a type of learning which society unfortunately doesn’t teach.  Fortunately I started my experiment early, allowing myself to experiment with, and learn the most appropriate means of record keeping.

Results

Overall my results were very favorable, though as I discussed earlier I could not prevent myself from bridging in the baseline week, the bridging I employed in the baseline week in all but one case occurred after I had displayed some initiation of negative behavior such as flexing my jaw or narrowing my brow.  In the experimental week, however, I was for the most part very successful (at least in terms of the amount of time that we had to make the change) in bridging immediately after becoming aware of a negative thought and before I had time to display it in any way.  My results as based on the rating scale went as follows:

Baseline period

Experimental Period

While the baseline and experimental periods do not appear to have too great a difference when looking at the averages alone, however, if you look at the trends differences begin to emerge.  I had a reasonably traumatic (at least in my mind) event that occurred on Nov. 24^th and had occasional relapses till I finally completely bridged over to positive zones on the 29^th the last day of my experiment.  Had I had more time we would have seen a relatively dramatic change occur between the baseline and experimental periods.  This is one of the major problems with statistical analysis’s you never get the full picture.  One would need to see comparison studies on the baseline and experimental weeks and the differences in the results between the bridging results as described by the experimenter and not just numbers alone to get a relatively complete understanding of the true results. 

One of the best examples of the difference between my bridging during the baseline and experimental periods can be found in the comparison between November 19 at (7:15 PM), November 21 (7:00 PM), and November 26 (7:45 PM).  The fact that these comparison days were so close on the time continuum, both being on the borderline between the baseline and experimental periods, indicates that with strong determination one can make changes relatively quickly though not necessarily easily.

Nov. 19 Monday (7:15 PM)

Driving towards Aiea High School feeling an extreme lack of enthusiasm to do my Monday run due to being extremely tired from a lack of sleep in the previous few days and very fatigued from a hard practice that day (negative blue feeling).  I am debating whether I am going to skip my run today thinking, “I hate running besides I’m tired and skipping one run won’t hurt” (negative blue thinking).  Initially listening to my negative blue thinking I take a turn going away from AHS and towards home (initiation of negative blue doing).  As I was driving home I told myself, “well you love to fight, and running is part of fighting you have to take the good with the bad” (BRIDGE - positive blue thinking).  I began feeling guilty about not running and more determined to do so as I immediately turned my car back towards Aiea High School and did my run (positive blue feeling and positive blue doing).  I evoked my hierarchy of motives to question what I valued more not having to run or being able to fight and quickly rationalized that when I give myself an ultimatum, running didn’t sound so bad.  This positive thought helped me to change both my feelings and behavior simultaneously in such a way that I actually had a much more favorable view and experience with running that day. 

Nov. 21 Wed (7:00 PM)

Again driving towards Aiea High School and again feeling an extreme lack of enthusiasm being tired again from a lack of sleep and fatigued because I had weigh-ins today and needed to loose 7 lbs to make weight (negative blue thinking).  I think dam I really don’t want to run today, I already made weight and running now won’t help your conditioning much if at all (negative blue thinking).  I immediately counter this thought telling myself, “What do you mean you don’t want to run? This is your last day of running before your fight and while today alone may not help your conditioning much, running is a lifestyle if you allow yourself to slack now it will be easier to slack again later.  Besides you promised yourself that you would run at least every Mon., Wed., Fri., and Sun. so dam it your going to run (BRIDGE – positive blue thinking).  I again invoked my hierarchy of motives to motivate myself to run this time however, the value I invoked was self-integrity I told myself that I was going to do it so I did.  The important difference between these two case however lay not in the value I invoked but in the fact that my bridge occurred before I could initiate any type of negative action to justify my negative feelings and thoughts. 

Nov. 26 Monday (7:45 PM)

Right after practice I drove to Aiea High School to run, normally (when I am in shape I run 2 miles in about 12 minutes 3 seconds to 12 minutes 6 seconds, but today I ran my heart out and still took 13 min. and 26 sec. to finish my two miles.  This made me feel very depressed.  I thought “dam my next fight is less than 2 weeks away and I’m taking 13:26 to run 2 miles? What’s wrong with me it seems like despite all my hard training I am getting in worse shape rather than in better shape, at this rate I’ll probably also loose this fight (negative blue thinking).  I quickly countered this thought reminding myself that I did train very hard today, harder than usual, and that I had also just fought so my body was likely very worn out (BRIDGE – positive blue thinking).  I rationalized that it is inconceivable that I could be getting in worse shape with all the training I am doing.  I reminded myself how much I didn’t want to run today before I started and took this as proof that my body was already fatigued.  Remembering my initial reluctance to run, I felt better about myself for completing my run none the less despite a plethora of excuses I could have made such as: its raining, the track is muddy, there is a soccer scrimmage going on and the might not let me run, my legs are sore, I trained very hard today I don’t need to run (positive blue feeling).  A small confident smile broke across my face (positive blue doing).  While this entry did not talk directly about my reluctance to run but rather my disappointment with my run itself, it is plain from my closing few sentences that I initially didn’t want to run.  My lack of an entry discussing this indicates that the negative feeling may not have come to conscious thought until it used as justification for bridging.  This I feel is the epitome of bridging when your bridge becomes so internalized that you are capable of bridging as soon as a negative feeling emerges and before you become aware of a negative thought.  Perhaps as a result of continually bridging over this particular situation, I had developed an internalized mechanism realizing that I was going to end up running anyway so there was not use having negative thoughts about it.  While I must admit that having lost my fight prior to this last entry likely contributed to the ease in which I countered my negative feelings about running, it alone could not have prevented conscious negative thoughts about running but rather would have simply made my bridge more vehement after the initial negative thought and perhaps initial negative action.  

Though in situations such as these, allowing oneself to express the initiation of a negative action may not seem superficially to matter, considering that the end result was the same in all cases I ended up running, the initial expression of a negative behavior does if nothing else, serve to reinforce the negative feelings and thoughts ultimately making it more difficult to bridge when you do attempt to do so.  Ideally one would be able to bridge as soon as they experience a negative feeling and before they become conscious of any negative thought about it, the bridge comes naturally as a result of repeated exposure, however, this type of ideal bridging requires incessant exposure to the same situation and constant bridging and reinforcement for doing so.  Just as a “conscious” can become ingrained in children as the result of continual reinforcement, so too can a bridging procedures become internalized without conscious knowledge of it.   (Look for quote describing this in learning and motivation book)

Difficulties

While finding an appropriate method of record keeping did present a small problem the only somewhat significant difficulty that I experienced in my report lay not in the record keeping but rather in external events.  Facing my first loss in boxing during the experimental week of my study was initially a very traumatic experience for me.  It made the changes I made in the experimental week at times momentarily revert back to baseline levels regardless of all my efforts to prevent it.  Even with the realization of counter methods such as invoking hierarchy of motives telling myself that there are a lot of things more important than boxing in my life and that one loss wasn’t the end of the world, I could none-the-less not fully bridge until I found an equally powerful positive external event that countered my loss.  My ability to bridge in certain citations, however, most notably of which was immediately after the fight itself showed a more advanced bridging ability and restraint than I had at baseline level or at least before I learned more about bridging methods in this class. 

Nov. 24 Saturday (8:00 PM)

I was standing in the middle of the ring with my head down awaiting the judge’s decision.  I was feeling exhausted and disappointed with myself for not doing as well as I thought I should have (negative blue feeling).  I thought, “dam you’re a looser, you had the fight won and you gave it away in the last round all you had to do was suck it up for 2 more minutes and you would have won (negative blue thinking).  The judges announced their decision, “your winner, in the blue corner, RICHARD TENGARO.”  I closed my eyes and exhaled loudly and mouthed the words fuck as I shook my head in disgust (negative blue and red doing thought the negative red was not intentional in that I was not upset with anyone but myself, however, the overt action I displayed could be and likely was taken as anger with others).  I told myself don’t be a poor looser, you lost fair and square go over and congratulate if you don’t you will regret not doing so later (positive red thinking and to a degree positive blue thinking in that I acted as sportsman like as possible to prevent feeling bad about not having done so later).  Richard attempted to touch gloves with me, but I knocked his gloves down and gave him a big hug and told him great fight, you were the better fighter tonight” (positive red doing and positive blue doing).  I ran over to his corner hugged both of his trainers and told them “good fight” smiling sincerely.  “Great fight” they added, “both of you guys.”  I told them “man your kid was in great shape, I burned out in the last round” (positive red and blue doing).  “Yea I know you had em” they agreed.  “It was a lot of fun though” I added “can we do it again sometime?” (Positive blue doing in that I was already setting up a rematch so as to have something to work for rather than getting depressed over my loss).  “DEFINITELY! DEFINITELY!” they promised, “we have to.”  The assurance of a rematch made me immediately feel a lot better about my loss.  I thanked them as they removed my headgear and gave me water.  While my inability to bridge before displaying the initiation of an overt negative behavior as “I closed my eyes and exhaled loudly and mouthed the words fuck as I shook my head in disgust” could be technically deemed a failure by the criteria I expressed earlier, my ability to bridge so fully, at least while in the ring, in a situation which was so traumatic (in consideration of my EXTREMELY competitive nature) did conceptually indicate a degree of advanced bridging that I wouldn’t have been able to display at baseline level or at least before learning and applying the bridging techniques taught in this class.  Unfortunately a relative inexperience with loosing, and cultural influences and life experiences which stressed the necessity to win, made it difficult for me to invoke my hierarchy of motives as a means of simultaneously pulling my affect along with my cognition and sensorimotor behaviors back into the positive zones because I had difficulty convincing myself that there was anything more important than winning.  Consequently, external events that reminded me of my loss at times allowed a recovery of negative cycling connected to this experience. 

One such example of a recovery of this negative cycling was experienced three days later on November 27^th Tuesday at 4:40 PM. 

November 27^th Tuesday at 4:40 PM

A good friend of mine named Shawn who didn’t watch my fight came up to my while I was wrapping my hands and told me, “dam I heard you lost your fight, what happened? I felt pretty upset about the reminder (negative red feeling) and thought dam that was a pretty rude question (negative red thinking).  I looked at him somewhat angrily lightly shook my head and looked back down at my hands exhaled through my nose and resentfully said, “I lost” (negative red doing).  He said, “No I know that but how? I heard you were robbed” and waited for an answer that never came.  He pressed, “What do you think? Do you think you won?”  “NO!” I said, “the judges gave him the fight and I can’t blame them.  If I make the fight that close there’s no one to blame but myself.  I didn’t train hard enough and now I’m paying for it now, but I definitely won’t let that happen again” (negative red doing and negative blue doing and at the end a slight indication of positive blue doing).  “Yea I’m sure you won’t,” he agreed with a smile.  I felt very bad about being so rude to him earlier (negative blue feeling) and told myself that I should have by no means taken offense to his questions especially considering that he was a good friend (negative blue thinking and positive red thinking).  I apologized to him for being so rude and told him that I had not yet gotten over the loss (positive red doing and positive blue doing in that I took an active part in alleviating my feeling bad about being so rude to him earlier).  He told me, “Ooh no I shouldn’t have asked such questions I remember how hard it was for me the first time I lost”.  I felt great compassion for my friend as he so graciously sympathized with me and put himself in my place for a second and felt better about myself knowing that I have such good friends that are supportive and understanding even when I get ugly towards them (positive red feeling positive blue feeling).  This was one of the worst cases of an inability to bridge appropriately during my experimental period.  This inability actually brought with is some minor consequences; I was selfish to a supportive friend and felt bad about acting that way.  The fact that it occurred in the experimental period indicates a degree of failure but a subsequent and very similar situation handled much more graciously indicates a bridging ability that would have been possible in the baseline week when not trying so hard to bridge before initiation of any negative action that would produce no major consequences.

I found a bit of difficulty modifying negative reactions to reminders of my loss.  IN fact I was not able to bridge completely until several days later on Nov. 29^th Thursday at 2:40 PM.  But before I start I think that it may or may not be important to note (depending on your view on things) that that morning feeling a little depressed that I could not get over my loss, I got down on me knees and said a prayer for strength to overcome this self-imposed hardship. 

Nov. 29^th Thursday at 2:40 PM

After class today I was talking with Dr. James about report 2 and told him that my experiment may be slightly distorted given my loss, which I took pretty hard.  I felt slight depression returning as I was forced to recall the event (negative blue feeling).  We began talking about mindsets and I told him that though I could quite easily control mindsets for everything else I had difficulty doing so when it came to things I regarded as competition.  I gave him an example of how when I go to Vegas with my family I always leave happy because I have the right mindset when I go.  I told him that I designate an amount of money that I “want” to loose to have fun, say $1000.  Because I am not intending to win, I do not think of it as competition and thus if I “loose” $500 I feel ecstatic because I feel like I “won” $500.  He smiled and said, “That’s a good way to think of things, why don’t you use the same mindset for competition?  You know I always tell my children to aim for second they’ll be happier.”  For the first time in a long time I was speechless and after a pause answered very ignorantly… “I don’t know I just can’t”.  As I walked a way I realized the extreme simplicity of the extreme simplicity of the solution to one of my major flaws… needing to be the best at everything.  Like a revelation it hit me, competition like most everything else in this world is a matter or mindset, and like most everything else can or can’t exist depending on how you look at it and in what time frame.  As I view gambling as a means of having fun rather than something to be “won” or “lost” so too should I view competition.  If I think of all my fights solely as a means of having fun, I will have fun win or loose.  This new found wisdom along with my personal belief that Dr. James served as a temporary mouthpiece of a divine truth and celestially perfect idea, made me feel almost glad that I lost and his proposition (which I must admit I initially thought was absurd in light of very different life experiences) of aiming for second began to hold some merit for me.      

That very same night at 7:45 PM I was given a chance to test my newfound wisdom.

November 29 Thursday 7:45 PM

Coming out of Down to Earth after buying my dinner, I saw an old acquaintance that I had not seen for a long time.  He walked up to me with a big grin and said, “What happened, I heard you lost you fight.”  Much to my surprise I did not feel depressed at all about the fight though I did feel a little irritated that when I win it’s no big deal and no one hears about it, but when I loose on the other hand news spreads like wild fire (slightly negative red feeling and thinking).  Rather than having any truly bad feelings about those who were so vehemently spreading the news of my loss I actually felt sorry for those who think winning is everything and wished that I could teach them what I just learned.  Similarly to my attempt to teach my gambling mindset to some of my friends, however, I realize that thought the concept can be understood it is difficult to apply it unless you experience some type of “revelation” that allows you to do so.  I return a completely genuine smile and tell him, “Yea but I had a lot of fun” as I walk away still smiling recalling every event in my mind. 

While technically one could view these events as failure in that one can’t always rely on external events as a means of controlling their emotional spin cycle, the change that the external event brought to my mindset makes me very hopeful about future attempts to bridge under similar circumstances.  While this event did initially appear to present a problem, the successful resolution of it proposes perhaps even better results for future bridging attempts.  Furthermore, if I had not sincerely tried to seek out more advanced and quicker reacting bridging methods following my loss I doubt my bridge would have occurred so rapidly in terms of how long it normally takes me to bridge completely from a competitive loss.

Conclusion

 While it would be ideal if we could get to the point where we could cognitively destroy any negative feelings before we even consciously experience any negative thoughts about them, I have not as of yet reached a point where I can confidently say that I have completely mastered this stage of, “enlightenment” if you will.  I do feel, however, that the techniques taught in this class have helped me to become more able to break the chain between negative thoughts and negative behaviors.  Though this is a great step since overt behavior is the only criteria upon which we can be judged at least terrestrially, my ultimate goal is to break the chain between negative feelings and negative thoughts as a means of completely eliminating negativity from the consciousness as many Buddhist monks have done.   In doing this I simultaneously destroy the possibility that I will ever commit negative behaviors because without a negative thought a negative behavior is impossible.