Sandeep Gautam's Blog, page 10

Stress causes negative emotions – are you NUTS?

Stress has been defined in many ways – one conceptualization that I find powerful and useful is the NUTS framework developed by Dr. Sonia Lupien. As per it, stress results when one or more of the following four ingredients are present in a situation.

NOVELTY
Something new you have not experienced before


UNPREDICTABILITY
Something you had no way of knowing it would occur


THREAT TO THE EGO
Your competence as a person is called into question


SENSE OF CONTROL
You feel you have little or no control over the situation

English: Emotions Q-sort (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

These conditions need not be aversive for the situation or event to feel stressful. For example, a person who is recently promoted may feel stress because of the new responsibilities that are novel and maybe he has no real option of declining the promotion, so he has little control too in the matter. Or consider the birth of a new born. So both positive and negative life events may lead to stress and maybe its more about how you are appraising stressful event.

If you are appraising a Novel event as a disruption of schedule/ comfort you will probably feel disgust; if you are appraising the same event as an opportunity to explore new stuff, you will most probably feel surprise / wonder. Its also conceivable that those high in the personality trait of Openness to experience may have more positive appraisals.

Similarly, an unpredictable situation may result in sadness if the unpredictability of rewards/ stimuli is attributed to deficits in self. If however, the unpredictability of situation is attributed to luck or external circumstances one may be more at ease and feel joy or happiness (note that ‘hap’ means luck). Its likely that those who are more Extraverted have a more positive appraisal.

A threat to ego or self may lead to feelings of fear and anxiety if the threat is considered unmanageable. On the other hand if the threat is considered manageable, it will result in the emotion of courage and facing the issue rather than running away. Those high in emotional stability (vs Neuroticism) are likely to show more positive appraisals.

Lastly, when one is in a situation that provides little options of control, one may feel anger if one is in a dominating frame of mind and needs control. On the other hand, one may feel love or compassion if one is ready to voluntarily give up control and submit oneself in the service of other. Agreeableness may mediate the relation with positive appraisals.

So as Kelly McGonigal has pointed out stress by itself is not bad; its how you appraise stressful circumstances that may be the key to suffering and wilting or rejoicing and flourishing.

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The different shades of Hope

Hope is one of the 24 character strengths as identified by VIA.  Its also known as optimism, future-mindedness and future orientation. It is defined by VIA as ‘expecting the best in the future and working to achieve it; believing that a good future is something that can be brought about.’

There are three variants of this strength, as found in the psychological literature:

Optimism
Optimistic explanatory style
Hope

Is the glass half empty or half full? The pessimist would pick half empty, while the optimist would choose half full. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(dispositional) Optimism is a general feeling that good things will happen to oneself. It’s a generalized expectancy about the future and is not tied to any specific task or goal in particular. It is a general feeling of confidence and is related to the outcome expectancy that energizes behavior while pursuing a challenge or solving a problem and results in persistence. Pessimists on the other hand are doubtful and hesitant in goal pursuit and this gets exacerbated in times of adversity. While optimists are confident of their ability to handle adversity one way or the other, pessimists tend to catastrophize.

Optimists are more likely to feel excitement and eagerness when confronted with adversity and have overall positive affect; while pessimists are more likely to feel negative emotions like guilt, despair, anger, anxiety and sadness when confronted with adversity.Optimists are confident in their ability to handle adversity and thus expend effort and energy in facing the adversity, while pessimists may indulge in wishful thinking – that getting distracted perhaps or closing their eyes – will make the adversity disappear and may stop expending effort.

Optimists are likely to use problem-focused coping (aimed at doing something about the stressor itself to blunt its impact) when in control; and use positive reframing, or accept the reality of situation, when not in control. Even in situations not under control, optimists use emotion focused coping (aimed at soothing distress) like seeing the silver lining in the cloud and learning from the bad situation. Pessimists are likely to use denial or distance themselves from the situation or use substance abuse as a means of escape.  Optimists engage with the situations while pessimist try to avoid the situations/ stressors.

Optimism has many psychological health benefits too; for eg. it helps you fight postpartum depression, and leads to lowered distress in wide ranging health conditions from lowering of pre and postoperative coronary surgery distress, to less suffering from cancer, or less distress in a caregiver caring for a person with cancer.Pessimism or hopelessness, on the other hand, rather than depression, is a stronger predictor of suicide.

Optimism is also related to behaviors that lead to more health promoting behaviors and that reduce health risks. Optimists also have better physical health and immunity and even longevity. Optimists are more likeable and thus have better social circles and networks as they use a positive problem focused approach to relationships too.

Optimism is moderately inheritable (25%), especially given its association with inheritable traits like neuroticism and extraversion, and is thus prtly in your genes. Also, it has been suggested that optimism develops as a result of early childhood experiences be it a secure attachment or development of ‘basic trust’ as per Erikson’s stages. However, optimism can be developed. Cognitive behavioral therapies intend to do so by changing the underlying thought patterns.

And that brings us to optimistic explanatory styles. While dispositional optimism is all about expectancies for the future, optimistic explanatory style grounds those expectancies into how we habitually interpret past success and failures.

One has an optimistic explanatory style when one makes stable, personal and global attributions for good events and learns to make temporary and specific attributions for negative past experiences. Pessimistic explanatory style on the other hand is when one makes stable and global, personal attributions for negative past events and experiences. Optimists have a flexible explanatory style, while that of pessimists is more rigid.

I will do a separate post on learned optimism and CBT which is related to this concept of optimistic and pessimistic explanatory styles. bI will focus more on dispositional optimism and Hope.

Hope as per the framework used by Snyder has three components: the goals that are clearly conceptualized, important to self and direct one’s future orientation;  agency or a belief in one’s ability to  take the first step and reach the goals despite inevitable obstacles, and pathways or the ability to come up with alternate paths and strategies to achieve the goal, if obstacles are encountered.

Hopeful people have learning goals and are mastery oriented, while those low in hope have performance goals and have a helpless orientation. Having hope means that one can think of many alternate paths to achieve the goal and is thus focussed on success and having learning goals. High hope also entails much enthusiasm and energy while pursuing goals and leads to positive affectivity; while being low in hope correlates with negative affectivity characterized by worry, negative thoughts and dissatisfaction with self.

There is another conceptualization of hope especially in medical settings. Hope, as per Herth, has three components: The cognitive–temporal dimension taps into “the perception that the desired outcome is realistically probable,” whereas the affective–behavioral dimension refers to “a feeling of confidence with the initiation of plans” to achieve the desired goals.  Affiliative–contextual dimension refers to the “recognition of the interconnectedness between self and others and between self and spirit”. As such, this dimension can also be thought of as an interpersonal connectedness and spiritual dimension. Essentially, it contains items related to perceived social support, perceived spiritual support, and a sense of meaning and belongingness. Thus the concept of hope can be elaborated to include a social/ spiritual dimension too.

Hope is measured using Adult hope Scale, Life Orientation test , Herth Hope scale etc. Hope/Optimism as measured by these scales has been found to correlate with important life outcomes.

Optimism and pessimism, or hope and hopelessness, are moderately correlated, but different constructs. Thus someone high in optimism may not necessarily be low in pessimism; more practically, the correlates of life outcomes due to high optimism may not be same as those for low pessimism. Optimism is more strongly related to extraversion and positive affect and pessimism is more strongly related to neuroticism and negative affect.

Hope is correlated with perceived competence, self-esteem and perceived purpose in life; low hope is also correlated with depression and anxiety. The low hope anxiety relationship is mediated by inability to learn from failure and the non realization of utility of efforts/ new strategies to achieve valued outocmes. High hope is also related to higher creativity and problem solving abilities thus leading to higher academic performance.

Hope is also social; high hope people are socially competent,enjoy getting to know others, getting to know their interests, and more frequently interact with others. Low-Hope people on the other hand ruminate, get frustrated and are aggressive in their goal pursuit and struggle interpersonally.

Hope builds resilience. The agency component of hope buffers against future depression / anxiety symptoms.

Hope and perseverance are closely related and many interventions increase both; hope is correlated to perseverance as well as bravery in individuals.

Some of the interventions that have found emperical validity and have resonted with me are :

Best possible self
One door closes, another door opens
Hope letter
WOOP exercise

Hope this was useful!

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The Strengths Workout: Hope for the new year

I have always wanted to write a book; however I am very irregular with even my blog posts and think that I lack the self-discipline to write regularly or write for a longer project. I want to test both these assumptions.

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Moreover, I have been consciously moving away from theoretical stuff to more hands-on and applied issues. Writing a book typically appeared an intellectual pastime to me- where I could demonstrate my ostensibly expert/superior knowledge of a subject; lately however, I have started to veer more towards writing more of a book that is grounded in personal experience and uses theory as a guide to help other practitioners.

As you might be aware, I am deeply fascinated by strengths especially the VIA framework as developed by Peterson and Seligman. I am doing some work with school children around these strengths and hope to reach out to many more school children in this new year. While I apply the well tested interventions of positive psychology with these kids, I will also be experimenting with them myself and be on this collective strengths workout. I hope you join me on this journey.

Each fortnight I will be focusing on one of the 24 character strengths – reading books and articles related to that strength, digesting that and posting about that on my blogs- The Mouse Trap/ Flourish Mentoring; creating awareness about the strength on the social media; hopefully intervening with a larger group of school children around that strength, making that strength a focus of my life for the fortnight, making a collection of songs, movies, videos related to that strength and so on.

All this will also become rich material for a book that I will be writing in parallel, the book directed at positive psychology practitioners, especially people in school based settings who wish to work towards the socio-emotional development of children, but do not know where to start. If I am lucky enough to find a publisher, nothing like it; else I plan to release it myself (I still haven’t made a decision as to whether I will be releasing the book for free (and ebook) or it will be a very low priced paperback version).

If I manage to keep the average schedule of working on a strength per fortnight, then keeping aside 2 weeks of vacations too, I should have a book by the end of the year- however it will not be possible to have a useful book unless you all accompany me on this strengths workout. I would humbly request everyone to be generous with their time and suggestions- reading the posts and related material, thinking about the strength, experimenting with the interventions themselves and sharing their experiences with the world-at-large. Also dont forget to provide the moral support and encouragement.

For those of you who are new to the strengths framework, I strongly recommend that they take a free VIA adult/ youth survey be creating an account at viacharacter.org and reach out to me in case you need help with interpreting your free report. For starters focus on your top 5 strengths which are your signature strengths and try to see how you can enhance them even further and leverage them more in your daily life.

This VIA framework is quite a bit different from the Gallup’s Clifton Strengthsfinder 2.0 framework (please note that I am also a Gallup certified strengths coach) and both faremworks have their utilities, but for working with school children I am increasingly leaning towards VIA and will be focusing on that only for this project.

New year is a time for all round hope, so I have picked hope as the strength of the fortnight. More posts specifically on the topic of hope will follow. I truly hope that you are as excited about this project as I am and will joyfully accompany me on this strengths workout!

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A tale of two diseases

I have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). I am also bipolar.

Now which of the above statements shocked/ surprised you more? If I am guessing correctly the latter statement about my being bipolar came across as more of a shock/ surprise/ concern. Now what does that say about your own reactions to mental illness and your own involvement in perpetuating the stigma against mental illness?

Embed from Getty Images

Both of the above are chronic diseases to an extent. My OSA (snoring in popular parlance) cannot be treated by surgery, so the only viable option I have is to use a CPAP machine while sleeping to get a good night’s sleep. Bipolar disorder as we all know can only be contained, and I take my medicines regularly to ensure that there are no relapse into either a manic or a depressive episode.

Both, if un-diagnosed and untreated can cause havoc. OSA which was un-diagnosed/ untreated for about a couple of years or so in my case led to excessive daytime drowsiness, less alertness and lowered productively etc; if untreated OSA can cause increased risk of injury to self and others while driving as you may actually get into micro sleeps while driving. Even if not that dramatic, on a daily basis the quality of your sleep and waking life can become very diminished.  The downsides of having a manic or depressive episodes are well known- at least to readers of this blog. However, what may be less well known is that even in the throes of psychotic extremes, the risk to others from violence by bipolar people is very little and if anything they may be subjected to violence than otherwise.

When treated, that is when I use my CPAP machine regularly I have no problems at all due to my OSA either in my work life or in my personal life – I am as refreshed in morning as ever. Rather I believe I might be getting better sleep than the average person. When treated, that is when I regularly use medicine, and take other precautions like having regular sleep cycles etc for my bipolar, I am totally episode free- rather I believe I have an advantage when it comes to managing my energy and mood.

However, given all the above, which disclosure do you think has drastically lowered my chances of employment (if I was seeking employment, which I am thankfully not:-)); which disclosure would have led to discrimination in the workplace or at least got me some amused and funny looks? About which of these are my friends and acquaintances likely to gossip more? Why as a society we are still not that accepting of mental illness and stigmatize those who have it?

Some immediate consequences I can think of:

readers of The Mouse Trap will no longer take my interest in psychology as non-partisan. They will think of me as being interested in psychology only due to my being bipolar (to set the record straight I became interested in psychology in 1996 during my IIT delhi days, while my first episode happened while I worked with Hughes in 2001).  Also when I take a position like association of biploar with creativity, I will be considered biased; however nobody will say that a ‘normal’ person advocating otherwise is biased due to his being ‘normal’.
Some will start to see signs of craziness in my old/ new posts and wonder whether when I was writing them I was in a normal frame of mind or episodic. Its usually my style to try and combine seemingly disparate research ideas and that is especially prone to this analysis.
I will start getting sympathy, but like anyone living with say OSA or diabetes etc I think one should just ignore the fact about my being bipolar and not let it redefine my relationship with you. I am much more than a person with bipolar or OSA, and I prefer it that way.
there will be some embarrassment for my near and dear ones.

Why did I not disclose for so many years?

because I feared discrimination (and funny looks) at the workplace. It might have been imaginary but I was not strong enough to experiment. Now that I am self employed the stakes are much lower and I don’t care.
I myself was grappling with my being bipolar. For initial some years it was hard to accept; later I struggled with accepting medication as necessary ; but now for quite some years I am at peace and thankfully episode free.
As I believe it never affected adversely my performance at work , I did not deemed it necessary to inform my employers etc as I thought ,and still think, its none of their business.

Why did I decide to disclose publicly about this?

I have no delusions (pun intended) that I am Deepkia Padukone that my talking about a mental health issue is going to raise awareness drastically; still I want to do my bit to fight stigma and the journey starts with oneself. I had a decent career in software despite my being biploar and being biploar hasn’t stopped me from taking risks and experimenting with a second career; hopefully that can inspire or provide mental support to a person or two.
Some immediate triggers- a mouse trap reader on facebook privately messaged me asking if I only have theoretical knowledge about psychosis etc or if I had some personal experiences too. I think it was a legitimate question that deserves a legitimate answer.
Another immediate trigger- I came across a tweet by https://twitter.com/akhileshlinky about his year end ‘confession’ about being bipolar and I though heck why not ‘come out’ yourself.
but really, it doesn’t matter to me one way or other – the only upside of sharing more publicly is that it can help combat stigma.

 

What I expect from you?

don’t define me exclusively as being biploar.
reflect on your own attitudes about mental illness and try to overcome that implicit bias
resist discrimination and stigma

Lastly, thanks are due to my family and friends who have been prone to this ‘secret’ over the years and who have provided the necessary support and encouragement.

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The books that shaped my 2016

‘Love of learning’ in VIA and ‘Learner’ in Gallup, is one of my top strengths, and it typically manifests as either participating in a lot of MOOC‘s or reading a lot of books. I’m trying to move more towards learning by doing, and moving more towards applied concerns, but I guess some reflection on the books I read in 2016 and which left a mark on me are in order.

I read a total of 16 books completely in 2016 as per goodreads, and I had set a challenge of reading at least 25 books in the year, so I did fall short of target.

Not all books I read made a lasting impact and here are the ones that did.

First off, I read Poke, from start to finish, on the very first day of the year and here is my review that I posted on goodreads.

Started the new year in a meta way by reading this book about starting and initiating, and found it such an interesting read that finished it in one setting. A really good book to hone up your ‘Activator’ strength. Motivated to start and ship ( and fail, and succeed) multiple projects this year.

And that set the tone for the year, where I did start multiple times, and fail and fail fast, and maybe ship once or twice too.

 

Next up was Leadership, again a short book finished in a short time with an equally short review:

Leadership: What Every Leader Needs to Know by John C. Maxwell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

a good short read about why and how to increase your influence

View all my reviews

 

A book I had looked forward with great anticipation was Peak and I was not disappointed. I have already posted a detailed review of Peak on this blog.






While Peak was focused on how you can use the principles of deliberate practice for achieving excellence, the book Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia, was about the other set of outliers, those who experience abnormal thoughts and perceptions and how we can better appreciate the ‘psychotic’ condition.

Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia by Anne Cooke

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A radically different , and much needed approach to understanding the ‘psychotic’ experiences. This books brings a humane as well as a much more science informed (which doesn’t mean a medical model ) approach to the whole topic and is an essential reading for all involved !

View all my reviews

 

One book that made a deep impression on me and that I found very practical and useful was Life coaching.

Life Coaching: A Cognitive-Behavioural Approach by Michael Neenan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

a superb book and must read for all coaches; its CBT approach complements the positive psychology focus that I am more steeped in. Draws from practical experience and with coaching sessions examples is easy to relate to! highly recomnended!!

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Another book that left a deep mark and was very informative, motivating and useful to the work I do with children was Helping Children Succeed.

Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why by Paul Tough

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book for all parents, teachers, educators and policy makers …freely available here: http://www.paultough.com/helping/web/ …the online version has many embedded resources like videos etc and makes for a unique reading experience.

The only gripe is that Paul Tough, equates grit/ resilience with non-cognitive skills and makes a case that they cannot be taught in the traditional sense of the word; however many other character strengths like gratitude , forgiveness, kindness can be inculcated by giving daily homework assignments etc.

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A book that was OK types, but very useful from a coaching perspective was Triggers.

Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts–Becoming the Person You Want to Be by Marshall Goldsmith

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Marshall Goldsmith is more towards the Coaching for Compliance camp; while I lean towards Coaching with Compassion (as defined by Richard Boyatzis) ; still this is a pretty good read for anyone interested in adult behavioral change.

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I also managed to read Coping a book focused on applying positive psychology principles to how to cope in life. It is an edited collection of articles from leading psychologists and was very useful.

Coping: The Psychology Of What Works by C.R. Snyder

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was written when positive psychology had still not come of age; but this book on how to cope has a distinctly positive psychology spin to it. It has chapters on hope, optimism, mastery thinking and benefit finding – all dear to the positive psychology movement. Written by eminent authors in their fields, this easy to read collection of articles around the theme of coping is a good read for those related to the field of mental health/ counseling/ positive psychology.

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Another book that like Poke, gave me the confidence to be creative in my endeavors was Creative Confidence. I juts love this book.

Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom Kelley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a gem of a book! For anyone who thinks of himself as a not-so-creative person, this book is a must-read (and must-do) to instill the much required confidence to be creative. For someone who already thinks that he has creative streaks, this book will fuel his/her creativity by providing rich tools and thinking grounded in the design thinking philosophy.

Read this book once, or twice, but more important —this is a book to do and try things, so try the suggested activities and tips a hundred times till you gain enough confidence. I wish this book was more widely read and I had chanced on it earlier!

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Another book that I partly re-read this year, because I hadn’t finished earlier was A First Rate Madness. This book and the Understanding Psychosis… book shows my fascination with the neurodiverse mind.

A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by S. Nassir Ghaemi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An interesting perspective that mental abnormality and illness may confer some really cool benefits when it comes to leadership. Books like this will hopefully reduce stigma associated with mental illness. A brave effort indeed by Ghaemi to retrospectively diagnose many leaders with mental health and illness and make his case. Not a typical psychology book, but more of psychobiography of prominent leaders. A good read nevertheless.

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Regular readers of The Mouse Trap will notice my leaning towards philosophical issues like existentialism for some time. One such book that made me reflect deeply about meaning was Meaning in Life.

Meaning in Life and Why It Matters by Susan R. Wolf

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A very clear, accessible and important treatise on meaningfulness and its importance in life. Susan Wolf writes very clearly and makes some important contributions; which are followed by equally lucid commentaries by other philosophers and psychologists and then her response that tries to tie everything together.

Wish more philosophy books were as clear and engaging as this was. Gave me new ideas and those are subject for another day/ blog-post!

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To make progress towards my 2016 challenge I picked this book which is a comparatively short read, but I wasn’t decided and though I finished this in a couple of days, I just gained a lot of perspective from this book.

The Mind of an Ape by David Premack

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fascinating insight into the chimpanzee mind. I had read ‘original intelligence’ by David and Ann Premack quite a few years back and had admired the book a lot, so had great expectations from this book, and this book delivered, and how!

If you are fascinated by how experiments are done with animals (in this case chimpanzees) then this book is a must read. It will be especially helpful to those interested in comparative cognition and language abilities.

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The last book which I read in 2016 and which has made me ponder a lot is 80,000 hours- its supposed to resolve your mid life crises, but might have triggered one in me—-just kidding!!

80,000 Hours: Find a fulfilling career that does good by Benjamin Todd

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

a wonderful guide to choosing the right career, especially relevant to those who want to have a social impact or ‘make a difference’. The advice is research backed, grounded in psychology principles, and while being value laden to an extent, is also very pragmatic.

If only all self-help advice and non-profit functioning was as rigorous as the 80,000 hrs looks to be!

View all my reviews

 

What a way to end the year!! Which books did you read in this year and which made a lasting impression on you?

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Memory and Reasoning: Insight from Apes

I have been reading the excellent book ‘The mind of an ape‘ by David and Ann Premack and also enrolled in a MOOC tiled ‘Origins of the human mind’ offered by Dr. Matsuzawa, so apes have been on top of my mind recently.

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Prof Matsuzawa describes an experimental procedure where numerals from 1 to 9 are very briefly displayed on the screen and then masked and the chimpanzee is required to touch the numerals, displayed randomly on the screen briefly, and now invisible as are masked, in ascending order. The chimpanzee is able to perform the task at 80% accuracy, a feat at which if human subjects try they can never succeed (humans perform at 0% accuracy).

We typically pride ourselves as being the epitome of civilization and cognitive abilities, but its humbling to find that there are tasks at which the chimpanzee can excel! This task, in particular, requires immediate memory (sensory/short-term memory) which it seems is better in the chimp.

The different experiments on the chimp also made me think about the underlying structure of memory and reasoning systems. Like humans, it seems chimps too have two different reasoning systems- one tuned to physical world and the other to social/agentic world.

The physical reasoning system is attuned to thinking about causal reasons between psychical objects and events. The question of concern is ‘what caused what?’ . One needs to have a (rudimentary) theory of cause and effect. Some basic understanding of physics is necessary and is instrumental in the development of the capacity of tool use. As a matter of fact too use is one of the ways this physical reasoning system is studied.

The social /agentic reasoning system is attuned to thinking about other con-specifics/ living creatures. It attributes intentions to people and answers ‘who did what to whom?’. One needs to have a (rudimentary) theory of mind to know that others have intentions/ beliefs/ desires etc. A simple paradigm to measure this is whether one understands the visual gaze of a person and can take his/her perspective and know whether the other is able to see something or not.

The physical and social reasoning systems have been show to be different and dissociated in humans and as per one theory are differently accentuated in autistic (more physical reasoning) and schizophrenic (more social reasoning) mind.

Another ability where chimps and humans markedly differ is in their abstract/symbolic representations and linguistic abilities. While chimps can be taught language to a great extent, they don’t develop symbolic language naturally. Language requires abstract and symbolic representation. One can contrast this with the immediate/imaginal representation.

Again, while autistic people have a good immediate/imaginal (thinking/seeing in images instead of words/ symbols) representation system (for e’g’ like in movie ‘rain man’ they can tell the exact number of matchsticks dropped on the floor without counting), their language development is typically hampered , perhaps due to deficits in the abstract/semantic/symbolic representation system.

Thus we see two sets of cognitive functions, and the two sets seem to be slightly at odds with each other: Physical reasoning and concrete/ immediate/imaginal representation; and social reasoning and abstract/semantic/ symbolic representation.

The species  (chimps/humans) who are good at imaginal and physical reasoning system may not be as good at symbolic and the social reasoning system. Similarity within the human family, autistic and schizophrenics may excel at different such functions. While we lost or never gained the ability for highly accurate imaginal system since around 5 MYA when we diverged from chimps and bonobos, we gained the ability for abstract/ symbolic representation. Given the limited real estate that the brain can occupy in any body, its inevitable that as you evolve you lose some and you gain some abilities. Like we lost the ability to use four hands that chimpanzee has.

To summarize, one can associate and link the above to human memory systems. One can conceive of four such memory/reasoning systems:

Visuo-spatial/ short term/ sensory memory: related to immediate memory and imaginal representation.
Procedural memory: related to Physical reasoning/ tool use /physical skills etc and objects representations.
Episodic memory: related to social reasoning and agent representations.
Semantic memory: related to language and symbolism and abstract representations.

Its easy to see how we can apply the same memory/reasoning model to chimps/ other apes without necessarily anthropomorphism. And its equally hard to see and admit that chimps may be better than us at certain cognitive functions and tasks.

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The Four Major Goals of Life revisited

I wrote about the four major goals in life on my psychology today blog quite some time back and want to revisit it today in the light of reading Susan Wolf‘s ‘Meaning in life and why it matters’ which is a very accessible and engaging, as well as a short, read.

A Good Dog Can Bring Happiness to Your Life (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Susan Wolf claims that there are two usual suspects when it comes to explaining our major striving and actions. The reason why we do something may be to enhance our self-interest (the egoistic principle) or the reasons may lie in ethical and moral considerations (the altruistic principle). In the former case we are driven by an overarching goal of maximizing happiness (for ourselves) and in the latter case we are driven by moral principles that are impartial and do not lace any special emphasis on our own interests. For example, if we are utilitarian in our ethics, we may be driven by the moral imperative of maximizing happiness(utility) of maximum people/ entities.

Thus, happiness and morality are two important goals/ value systems and the corresponding reliance on self-interest or impartial moral imperatives, respectively, makes us decide on our course of action. However, she also claims that this picture is far from complete. Not all our reasons are reasons of self-interest or morality, but some are reasons of love.

To illustrate by way of an example, consider the fact that I may care for my wife when she is sick. Now, this act is neither purely due to self-interest nor can it be considered purely a moral act- there may be better ways of acting morally- maybe some other sick man deserves my help more. But I care for her out of love. And caring for her provides and adds meaning to my life.

Thus, Susan introduces a third phenomena in the mix – meaningfulness. When people act out of reasons of love they make their life meaningful. Now as per Susan this acting out of reasons of love could be love directed towards a person or towards an activity. Thus I may be passionate about psychology or blogging and may devote my life to such an activity and as that activity provides me fulfillment and also adds value to the world, it is meaningful. Her definition of meaningfulness is where subjective attraction meet objective value- you find something or some person worthy of your love (attractive) and are drawn towards it such that you engage in such a way as to make a positive contribution/ difference.

Meaning as per Susan is due to reasons of love -either for a person or an activity -she doesn’t distinguish between the two, and in my opinion causes some confusion. IMHO, its important to make a distinction between acting out of love for a person and acting out of love of an activity. Also she mentions two conceptualization of meaning- one driven by feelings of fulfillment and the other by getting involved in something bigger than oneself.

How does all this relate to the four major goals I have talked about previously? To recap, the goals are:

Happiness (maximizing pleasure and ‘self’ focus)
Morality /Integrity (living morally and ‘group’/community focus)
Meaning (living authentically and ‘other’/ family focus)
Success (making an impact and ‘task’/ work focus)

Susan has already delineated how happiness and morality are the two primary reasons for our actions, and she introduced meaning as the third major one; however, imho meaning (living authentically in accordance with ones values )  needs to be differentiated from living successfully or making an impact in the world. Meaning is intimately tied to others- our lives can never be meaningful out of context- they are meaningful only in relation to others appraisal of them as such and also our appraisal of them as such. Meaning is inter-subjective. It lies in between.  If happiness can be deemed more or less subjective (only you can know if you are truly happy) and success as more or less objective (there can be objective criteria on which to measure the success of a life) , meaning is more about a common inter-subjective appraisal (whether both parties found the interaction meaningful). I caring for my wife is meaningful both to me and to my wife and its power lies in that inter-subjectivity. Morality on the other hand can be said to be neither objective nor subjective but transcending all.

Thus, while happiness can only be known from a first person perspective, and success judged accurately only from third person perspective, perhaps meaning can be formulated best from a second person perspective – that of the other!

Interestingly, while happiness is more about living in the present, and success more about what you have already achieved in the past, Meaning in my view is directed towards the future- if I am engrossed in meaningful  relationship or project, I am looking forward to how the relationship or the project grows. For example, to sensitize my clients to the importance of meaningfulness, I ask them to think about their epithet or what they would like to be written on their tombstone-   this exercise inevitably makes them reflect on what is actually meaningful to pursue (relationships) and what can be ignored or de-emphasized (workaholism) .

in summary, we are driven by four types of reasons or motivations – reasons of self-interest, reasons of morality/altruism, reasons of love for individuals and reasons of engrossment in activities/ projects. Thus the four major goals of life worth striving for Happiness, Morality, Meaning and Success!

PS: you may also like my Times of India blog post about differentiating happiness from meaning.

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Manic Depressive Leaders in a Time of Crisis

S. Nassir Ghaemi, in his book, A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the links between  Leadership and Mental Illness, makes a case for the fact that while ‘normal’ leaders are good in times of stability and peace; in times of crisis, mentally ill or mentally abnormal people make for better leaders.

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He does this via historical analysis of leaders like Gandhi, Martin Luther King jr, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln etc. Some of these leaders he classifies as being predominantly depressive, others as manic while the rest as being of bipolar proclivity. In the book he writes:

The depressed person is mired in the past; the manic person is obsessed with the future. Both destroy the present in the process.

He lists four traits that distinguish a manic/depressive leader from other normal leaders: Empathy, Resilience,  Creativity and Realism! I can easily map these to the ABCD dimensions: empathy is an Affective trait (the ability to feel emotions), resilience is more about Behaviors (bouncing back from failures), creativity is related to Cognition (ability to think in a divergent manner) while realism can be linked to Desire/Dynamism (do we do realistic assessments).

He claims, and I find that claim very attractive and true, that depressive people typically are better at empathy and realism, that is, they have heightened empathy and realism as compared to the normal population; in a similar vein, manic people are typically better at creativity and resilience than the normal population.

If one views depression and mania  as somewhat opposed to each other. at least on on some dimensions, it goes without saying that depressive people may be less creative (they are typically stuck in ruts)/resilient (they often cant cope and sometime stake the extreme step of suicide); similarly, in a manic phase, people may be less realistic (may even become psychotic losing touch with reality)/ empathetic (may not be able to get inside the head of others).

While a depressive or manic phase may be debilitating, the relatively ‘normal’/symptom free period may confer advantages on depressives, manics or bipolars by making them leverage their resilience, creativity, realism and empathy, especially to tide over crisis.

Why should it be the case that in normal periods a ‘normal’ leader may help, but in a crisis only an ‘abnormal’ leader may be able to rise to the occasion? The answer lies in evolution and genetic diversity. Consider moths that are generally gray in color, but some are darker (closer to black) while some others lighter (white in color) . The majority gray moths are the ‘normal’ moths, while the minority black and white are abnormal ones. Now these moths are exquisitely adapted to their environments, and typically gray moths will flourish. However if the area has suddenly become polluted such that darker color moths are now less easier to detect than the gray moths by the predators, then dark moths will thrive at the cost of  light moths.

A similar analogy can be applied to humans. Normal leaders are adapted to stable conditions; while in times of crisis, more atypical brains may suffer greater advantage.

So next time you select a leader, be mindful of whether its a change/crisis situation or a stable situation; if a crisis/ change situation, you may do well to do some reverse discrimination and select a mentally ill/ abnormal person as a leader!!

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Finite nature of human control and the Existential Givens

In one of the earlier posts we looked at the four existential givens and linked them to the ABCD model. I also related them to personality and emotions here.  To recap, the four existential givens,  are:

Life (vs death): We all live, yet we also all know that one day we will die.
Freedom (vs determinism): We are in charge of (some of) our actions, and yet we are also driven by outside forces.
Community (vs isolation): Man is a social animal and yet one is alone in one’s personal private experiences.
Meaning (vs absurdity): Life seems to be endowed with meaning (and worth living), yet the universe seems incomprehensible, apathetic and absurd.

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Towel with the words “Don’t Panic” on Towel day (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not navigating the contradictions inherent in these existential givens successfully, leads to conflicts and gives rise to anxiety, depression, guilt and even rage. And yet we know that we can not transcend/overcome these ultimate concerns, but have to learn to live with them.

At root these problems are problems of control, especially the desire for control, while being limited by human capabilities and potentialities. At the one hand we are seriously limited and on the other hand we do have a great potential; and yet our control over these conditions of our life are not infinite, but very much finite and limited.

Let me explain. At core, these problems are respectively problems of control over our bodies, over self, over others and over our understanding of the world. To elaborate,

Death/Life: We have finite control over our bodies and their lifespan. We can prolong life, but never get rid of the fact that one day we will die. We may try to symbolically live forever by making contributions to the world, but that too is ephemeral on the scale of historical time. We are confronted with the finite nature of our existence. And to resolve this, we have to come to terms with our non-being to fully appreciate and indulge in being! To live fully one must first confront death. Despite the fact of our eventual non-being we choose to be! and this is a non-trivial fact. As a matter of fact, Camus started ‘Myth of Sisyphus‘ with this quote: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
Determinism/Freedom: We have finite control over our own self and its actions. We can exercise free will to an extent, but never get rid of all the different form of conditioning, learning and genetic and other factors that drive our behavior. We are confronted with the finite nature of our agency. And to resolve this, we have to get in tune with our underlying genetics, upbringing etc, to become more self aware and thus more free/ effective. To exercise one’s will fully, one must first leverage and comprehend the outside influences. Can you choose your environment so that in future it elicits out your desired behavior? Despite the fact that all our actions are not under our conscious control, and are driven largely by unconscious (and possibly deterministic) processes, we persist in making our choices. As the famous interaction between Smith and Neo goes: “Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson? Why, why? Why do you do it? Why, why get up? Why keep fighting? …….Why, why do you persist Mr. Anderson?  Neo: because I choose to.”
Isolation/Community: We have finite control over others and how deeply we can relate with them. We can feel connected to some people, at some times, but not to all people at all the times. We have a desire and a need to merge for the common good, expressed in the form of love, and yet an instinct to remain separate and alienated from others, especially when our love is not reciprocated. We are confronted with the finite nature of our vulnerability and ability to reach out. And to resolve this we have to come to terms with our separateness, by getting unhinged from the actions of others , but still putting our best foot forward, we can create positive relationships. To create truly powerful and positive relationships, one has to not think in terms of merging/ dependence/reciprocity,  but move to a space where one is a specific individual in intimate relation to another individual and caring about that individual. By discovering our individuality, we create stronger bonds! Despite the fact of our remaining separate individuals, we choose to love and work towards common /shared identities. Love and community and deep bonds is paradoxically about no bonds. As Richard Bach says: “If you love someone, set them free, if they come back, they’re yours, if they don’t, they never were“
Meaning/Absurdity: We have finite control over our knowledge of the world and of whether things make sense, and if so how? We can find correlations and causal relations between a few things in the world, but there are things that happen randomly, unpredictably or by pure luck/ chance. We have a burning need to make sense of things (after all this sense making makes us predict and thus survive), and yet our intellect also makes us acutely aware of the meaninglessness, randomness or absurdity of the things in the larger scheme of things. We feel special and unique and yet know that we are a mere speck in the universe. We are confronted with the finite nature of our ability to know and comprehend. And to resolve this, we have to come to terms with the absurdity of life/universe. Once we discover that life/ world around us may not have any inherent meaning, its left upon us to endow life with meaning and significance. Despite the fact that things don’t make sense, the fact that the world may be random/ insane, we still choose to be sane and consistent. As Douglas Adams mentions in ‘Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy‘ we need extreme amounts of sanity when confronted with absurdity of our position :” And so he built the Total Perspective Vortex — just to show her. And into one end he plugged the whole of reality as extrapolated from a piece of fairy cake, and into the other end he plugged his wife: so that when he turned it on she saw in one instant the whole infinity of creation and herself in relation to it. To Trin Tragula’s horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion.”

English: 42, The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life according to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. ???????: 42, ????? ?? ??????? ?????? ????? ? ???????????? ?????????? ?? ?????????. Deutsch: 42, die Antwort auf die große Frage nach dem Leben, dem Universum und dem ganzen Rest, bezogen auf Per Anhalter durch die Galaxis von Douglas Adams. Italiano: 42, La risposta Fondamentale alla Domanda sulla Vita secondo la Guida galattica per gli autostoppisti. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the end I would like to end with two quotes: One from Camus: “It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning” and the other a popular anonymous quote: “Relax. nothing is under control.” 

It is only by coming to terms with our finite control, and the possible meaninglessness of it all, yet being driven by our potentialities, that we can hope to live a good life!

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Between the Stimulus and the Response: the four functions of the Mind

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Victor E Frankl

Schematic of an idealized analytical instrument. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In today’s post I will be drawing heavily from the spiritual traditions of India (Yoga etc), and interested readers are redirected to these excellent sources for more information about the same.

As per the spiritual tradition of India, Mind (or Antahkaran) is made up of four functions or parts. These are Manas, Chitta, Ahamkar and Buddhi. These are typically translated as sensory-motor mind, memory bank, ego and intellect respectively. As an interesting aside, Buddha derives from the common root of Buddhi (budh- to know) and stands for the enlightened one.

Here is a brief description of the four functions:

Manas is ordinary, indeterminate thinking — just being aware that something is there and automatically registers the facts which the senses perceive.

 

The subconscious action, memory, etc., is caused by chitta. The function of chitta is chinta (contemplation), the faculty whereby the Mind in its widest sense raises for itself the subject of its thought and dwells thereon.

 

Buddhi determines, decides and logically comes to a conclusion that something is such-and-such a thing. That is another aspect of the operation of the psyche — buddhi or intellect. buddhi, on attending to such registration, discriminates, determines, and cognizes the object registered, which is set over and against the subjective self by aha?k?ra.

 

Ahamkara — ego, affirmation, assertion, ‘I know’. “I know that there is some object in front of me, and I also know that I know. I know that I am existing as this so-and-so.” This kind of affirmation attributed to one’s own individuality is the work of ahamkara, known as egoism.

There is also a hierarchical relation between these with Buddhi at the top and Manas at the bottom. Now, lets look at each of these more closely.

Manas, or sensory-motor mind, is not just registering stimulus but also responsible for executing actions and may be equated with the sensory/ motor cortical functions of the brain.  It controls the 10 Indriyas (5 senses and 5 action-oriented faculties). Its important to note that Manas is doing both the functions associated with stimulus as well as the response,  though its the first one when it comes to stimulus processing (registering the stimulus)  and the last one when it comes to executing responses/actions ( it blindly executes the action that has been decided / chosen upstream). Of course one could just have a reflex action where a stimulus leads to response, but in majority of human action, there is a space between the two. That space is provided by the rest of the mind functions.

Chitta, or memory-prospecting mind, may be typically equated with the association cortex part pf the brain. Many refer to chitta as the memory or impressions bank, but forget to mention the future oriented part of it. Here is a quote:

The part of the Mind thinking and visualizing the objects, events and experiences from the past or the future (emphasis mine) is called the Chitta and this act is called Chintan.

Its thus evident that Chitta drives Manas not only based on past memories, but also based on future expectations or predictions. From brain studies , we know that the same part of the brain is used for memory as well as prospection.  Chitta using past memories to drive manas (and thus behavior or motivated cognition) I view as being conditioned by classical conditioning processes. Chitaa using future expectations/ predictions to drive behavior and motivated cognition, I view as being conditioned by operant conditioning processes. In many philosophical and spiritual traditions, one of the aims is to get over (social) conditioning. Chitta hinders spiritual awakening by using habits, which is an integral pat of chitta function. The habits are nothing but the conditioning, but again one in stimulus path and the other in response/action path.

Ahamkara, or experiential-agentic self, may be typically equated with consciousness/ conscious and ego-driven self. It knows and say ‘I am’  Conscious entities typically have two functions- experience and agency. It is something it is to be like that conscious entity (experience) and the entity has volition or ability to do things (agency). The concept of self as a conscious entity that has experience (in the stimulus path) and agency (in the response/ action path) is important for this notion of ahamkara. With self comes concepts like real self and ideal self which drive and are driven by experience and agency respectively. The less the discrepancy between the two the better your spiritual growth. An interesting concept here is that of coloring or external decorations- your coloring or how you see your self do lead to downward impact on chitta and manas by contaminating the stimulus/ action.

Buddhi, or knowing-deciding mind, is the final frontier on your path to spirituality.  The typical functions associated with Buddhi are knowing, discriminating, judging and deciding. I think knowing/ discriminating (between stimuli/ actions etc) is a stimulus path function, while judging/ deciding (between actions/ responses/ attending to a stimuli) is a response path function. However I also believe they converge to a great extent here or else we will have a problem of turtles all the way down. Once you start to see things as they are, you are also able to choose wisely. At least that is what the scriptures say and what Boddhisattvas aspire or achieve.

To me this increasingly fine-grained control of what we perceive and how we act , from the gross actions and perceptions of manas to the discriminating decisions of buddhi are very intuitively appealing and also appear to be grounded in psychological and neural processes.

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Mindfulness (Buddhism based) has become all the rage nowadays, yet if we look at the spiritual traditions of India, perhaps while Yoga defined as Chitta vritti nirodaha (or “Yoga is the silencing of the modifications of the mind”) does refer to being in the present (here-and-now) and not to be disturbed by the perturbations of chitta (memories of past or expectations of future), one also needs to go beyond just Chitta vritti, to addressing the Ahamkara coloring and finally to try achieving the Buddha nature where there is little disparity in doing and being. (Mindfulness) Meditation needs to move beyond being curious, non-judgemental  and in the present to where one doe shave a judgement function, but one that is perfectly attuned.

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