Emotion in PCT

CSGnet Archive CSG2017
1

Is there anyone in PCT land who has looked in detail at emotions in PCT? So far I have only found an entry in B:CP and some scattered references in some articles.

I am attempting to use PCT as a framework for resilience research. I am looking at using emotion (or more specifically the stress response) to operationalise conflict for a experiment. Any thoughts or previous work would be greatly appreciated.

···

Cheers,

**Sean Mulligan **

Mental Resilience Australia

M# 0459278195

**lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **

2

There was a good discussion of a pct theory of emotions on csgnet, you can find it here -> http://www.pctresources.com/CSGnet/Files/CSGnet_Threads/Emotion.pdf

There is also psychiatrist William Glasser’s take on pct, called “choice theory”, which identify 4 basic psychological needs that is somewhat related to this.

His 4 psychological needs were “love and belonging”, freedom, power and fun/learning. The other type of need is the physical need for survival.

One of my current research seem to more closely relate these needs to pct, which Glasser did not do.

That is, “love and belonging” would be related to the input of the control loop cycle, freedom to the setting of references, power to the output and fun/learning to the gain/full cycle.

Accordingly too, input would be related to external ecology and the law of requisite hierarchy in cybernetics, the setting of reference would be related to versatility and the law of requisite hierarchy, the output to economy and the law of requisite constraint and the cycle to “elegance” and gain.

Another, more conjectural take would associate the related neurotransmitters to the related type of emotions to each part of the control cycle.

I find that this control cycle can be applied successfully to very many domains of studies it seems, take economy, the input is the labor market, the reference is the consumer market, the output is the investments market and the cycle is the gain or profit…

Etc… :slight_smile:

Nicolas M Kirchberger

Envoyé de mon iPhone

···

Cheers,

**Sean Mulligan **

Mental Resilience Australia

M# 0459278195

**lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **

3

[From Fred Nickols (2017.03.20.0728 ET)]

I recently started looking into the relationships between PCT and EQ or emotional intelligence. Don’t know where that will lead. Thanks, Nicholas, for the pointer to the thread on emotion. If anyone knows of any specific connections or examinations between PCT and EQ, I’d appreciate knowing about them.

Fred Nickols

···

From: Nicolas M. Kirchberger [mailto:oberon.nmk@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 6:56 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Cc: mol@mail-list.com
Subject: Re: Emotion in PCT

There was a good discussion of a pct theory of emotions on csgnet, you can find it here → http://www.pctresources.com/CSGnet/Files/CSGnet_Threads/Emotion.pdf

There is also psychiatrist William Glasser’s take on pct, called “choice theory”, which identify 4 basic psychological needs that is somewhat related to this.

His 4 psychological needs were “love and belonging”, freedom, power and fun/learning. The other type of need is the physical need for survival.

One of my current research seem to more closely relate these needs to pct, which Glasser did not do.

That is, “love and belonging” would be related to the input of the control loop cycle, freedom to the setting of references, power to the output and fun/learning to the gain/full cycle.

Accordingly too, input would be related to external ecology and the law of requisite hierarchy in cybernetics, the setting of reference would be related to versatility and the law of requisite hierarchy, the output to economy and the law of requisite constraint and the cycle to “elegance” and gain.

Another, more conjectural take would associate the related neurotransmitters to the related type of emotions to each part of the control cycle.

I find that this control cycle can be applied successfully to very many domains of studies it seems, take economy, the input is the labor market, the reference is the consumer market, the output is the investments market and the cycle is the gain or profit…

Etc… :slight_smile:

Nicolas M Kirchberger

Envoyé de mon iPhone

Le 19 mars 2017 à 18:25, Sean Mulligan lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com a écrit :

Is there anyone in PCT land who has looked in detail at emotions in PCT? So far I have only found an entry in B:CP and some scattered references in some articles.

I am attempting to use PCT as a framework for resilience research. I am looking at using emotion (or more specifically the stress response) to operationalise conflict for a experiment. Any thoughts or previous work would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

**Sean Mulligan **

Mental Resilience Australia

M# 0459278195

**lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **

4

[Martin Taylor 2017.03.20.11.30]

There was a good discussion of a pct theory of emotions on csgnet, you can find it here -> http://www.pctresources.com/CSGnet/Files/CSGnet_Threads/Emotion.pdf

One thing that bothered me when that thread was alive, and about Bill's "Emotion" chapter as well, is that the emotions discussed are all of a kind I would clump together as "bad feelings". I don't remember seeing any suggestions for a PCT explanation of what I might call "good" emotions, such as "delight" (when you look at a beautiful landscape or an artistic masterpiece), what the Dutch call "huggelijk" (probably badly mis-spelled" but implying the sort of warm comfort you feel on a quiet evening with family, friends, and a nice drink), "rejoicing" (when you or your team wins a sporting contest, or "satisfaction" (when you complete a difficult task). None of these seem to have to do with error level, which cannot go below zero, but which is clearly not high when we experience "good" emotions. When a perception is well controlled, one doesn't have much emotion about it at all, "good" or "bad".

If error is related at all to "good" emotions, it would have to be with change in error, rather than with level of error. Might this also be true of "bad" emotions?

I'm guessing that this question may be important when we look at terrorism and radicalization, but that's just a guess.

I don't think this is much help for Sean. I hope he finds better elsewhere.

Martin

5

[Bruce Nevin 20170320.12:03 ET]

Bill talked about emotions as sensed physical states within the body. These might include changes of tension of abdominal muscles, sensations associated with capillary expansion or contraction in the skin, erection of hair follicles, variation in heart rate …Â

The amygdala is sometimes said to be the seat of emotion, and it is also said to be essential in the formation of memory. However, it is clear that there is no memory ‘organ’ or location in the brain in which memories are stored; memory is local to each synapse as the synapses are distributed throughout the brain.

The process of establishing and strengthening  memories appears to involve associative links between different parts of the brain. For example, a memory that includes strong emotion involves signals to and from the amygdala. Associative links that include perceptions of body states that we subjectively interpret as feelings and emotions are described as the basis of Pavlovian conditioning (Mirolli et al. 2009) by establishing or strengthening reference signals. Pavlov (1927) seemed to have claimed that there was a direct association of conditioned stimulus (CS) to conditioned response (CR), but Hull (1943) suggested that the association was mediated by unconditioned stimuli (US). After long debate (Lieberman 1993), it appears that both are true (Dayan & Balleine 2002, Cardinal et al. 2002). Manella et al. (2008)–my source for the above summary–have reported some success with computational models supporting the hypothesis of Cardinal et al. (2002) that the basolateral amygdala (BLA) stores CS-US associations and the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) receives or stores the CS-UR associations. They did not model CS-UR associations that link to the cerebellum (Thompson et al. 2000).Â

This points to a way of reconciling studies of conditioning with PCT. Such studies cannot provide an explanation of behavior, but they can indicate some ways of influencing how an organism establishes and modifies its internally maintained reference values.

Associative links between an imagined or remembered signal and affective body states, by way of the amygdala, can result in considerable strengthening of both the imagined perception and the associated affect. This is presumably the basis of ‘wishful thinking,’ for example. Most interestingly, there is a reciprocal relationship between the amygdala and the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC), such that talking about emotions increases activity in the RVLPFC and reduces activity in the amygdala (Lieberman et al. 2007). This is the basis of certain kinds of therapeutic interventions in emotionally challenging situations, and is an inherent aspect of the Method of Levels.Â

Refs.

Cardinal, R., J. Parkinson, J. Hall, & B. Everitt. 2002. Emotion and motivation: the role of the amygdala, ventral striatum, and prefrontal cortex. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews 26.3:321–52

Dayan, P., Balleine, B. 2002. Reward, motivation and reinforcement learning. Neuron 36:285–298.

Mannella, Francesco, Stefano Zappacosta, Marco Mirolli, & Gianluca Baldassarre. 2008. A computational model of the amygdala nuclei’s role in second order conditioning. In From Animals to Animats 10, pp. 321-330, Berlin: Springer.Â

Mirolli, Marco & Domenico Parisi. 2009. Language as a Cognitive Tool. Minds & Machines 19:517–528 [DOI 10.1007/s11023-009-9174-2]

Pavlov, I.P. 1927. Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Thompson, R.F., Swain, R., Clark, R., Shinkman, P. 2000. Intracerebellar conditioning–Brogden and Gantt revisited. Behavioural Brain Research 110.1-2:3–11.

···

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 6:25 PM, Sean Mulligan lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com wrote:

Is there anyone in PCT land who has looked in detail at emotions in PCT? So far I have only found an entry in B:CP and some scattered references in some articles.Â

I am attempting to use PCT as a framework for resilience research. I am looking at using emotion (or more specifically the stress response) to operationalise conflict for a experiment. Any thoughts or previous work would be greatly appreciated. Â

Cheers,Â

**Sean Mulligan **

  Mental Resilience Australia

  M# 0459278195

**  lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **

6

I left out a couple of refs (not current but relevant to the history):

Hull, C.L. 1943. Principles of behavior. New York: Appleton-century-crofts.

Lieberman, D.A. 1993. Learning, behaviour and cognition. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

···

On Mon, Mar 20, 2017 at 12:03 PM, Bruce Nevin bnhpct@gmail.com wrote:

[Bruce Nevin 20170320.12:03 ET]

Bill talked about emotions as sensed physical states within the body. These might include changes of tension of abdominal muscles, sensations associated with capillary expansion or contraction in the skin, erection of hair follicles, variation in heart rate …Â

The amygdala is sometimes said to be the seat of emotion, and it is also said to be essential in the formation of memory. However, it is clear that there is no memory ‘organ’ or location in the brain in which memories are stored; memory is local to each synapse as the synapses are distributed throughout the brain.

The process of establishing and strengthening  memories appears to involve associative links between different parts of the brain. For example, a memory that includes strong emotion involves signals to and from the amygdala. Associative links that include perceptions of body states that we subjectively interpret as feelings and emotions are described as the basis of Pavlovian conditioning (Mirolli et al. 2009) by establishing or strengthening reference signals. Pavlov (1927) seemed to have claimed that there was a direct association of conditioned stimulus (CS) to conditioned response (CR), but Hull (1943) suggested that the association was mediated by unconditioned stimuli (US). After long debate (Lieberman 1993), it appears that both are true (Dayan & Balleine 2002, Cardinal et al. 2002). Manella et al. (2008)–my source for the above summary–have reported some success with computational models supporting the hypothesis of Cardinal et al. (2002) that the basolateral amygdala (BLA) stores CS-US associations and the central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA) receives or stores the CS-UR associations. They did not model CS-UR associations that link to the cerebellum (Thompson et al. 2000).Â

This points to a way of reconciling studies of conditioning with PCT. Such studies cannot provide an explanation of behavior, but they can indicate some ways of influencing how an organism establishes and modifies its internally maintained reference values.

Associative links between an imagined or remembered signal and affective body states, by way of the amygdala, can result in considerable strengthening of both the imagined perception and the associated affect. This is presumably the basis of ‘wishful thinking,’ for example. Most interestingly, there is a reciprocal relationship between the amygdala and the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC), such that talking about emotions increases activity in the RVLPFC and reduces activity in the amygdala (Lieberman et al. 2007). This is the basis of certain kinds of therapeutic interventions in emotionally challenging situations, and is an inherent aspect of the Method of Levels.Â

Refs.

Cardinal, R., J. Parkinson, J. Hall, & B. Everitt. 2002. Emotion and motivation: the role of the amygdala, ventral striatum, and prefrontal cortex. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews 26.3:321–52

Dayan, P., Balleine, B. 2002. Reward, motivation and reinforcement learning. Neuron 36:285–298.

Mannella, Francesco, Stefano Zappacosta, Marco Mirolli, & Gianluca Baldassarre. 2008. A computational model of the amygdala nuclei’s role in second order conditioning. In From Animals to Animats 10, pp. 321-330, Berlin: Springer.Â

Mirolli, Marco & Domenico Parisi. 2009. Language as a Cognitive Tool. Minds & Machines 19:517–528 [DOI 10.1007/s11023-009-9174-2]

Pavlov, I.P. 1927. Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Thompson, R.F., Swain, R., Clark, R., Shinkman, P. 2000. Intracerebellar conditioning–Brogden and Gantt revisitted. Behavioural Brain Research 110.1-2:3–11.

/div>

On Sun, Mar 19, 2017 at 6:25 PM, Sean Mulligan lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com wrote:

Is there anyone in PCT land who has looked in detail at emotions in PCT? So far I have only found an entry in B:CP and some scattered references in some articles.Â

I am attempting to use PCT as a framework for resilience research. I am looking at using emotion (or more specifically the stress response) to operationalise conflict for a experiment. Any thoughts or previous work would be greatly appreciated. Â

Cheers,Â

**Sean Mulligan **

  Mental Resilience Australia

  M# 0459278195

**  lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **

7

Thanks Nicolas - those old discussions are a great starting point.

Cheers

Sean

···

Cheers,

**Sean Mulligan **

Mental Resilience Australia

M# 0459278195

**lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **

8

[Fred Nickols (2017.03.21.0546 ET)]

Regarding the subject line of this thread: “I get upset when things don’t go as I intended or as I expected.�

That thought occurred to me in pondering why I get upset. It would seem that what Bill said about emotions being tied to error is on the mark.

I wonder if the Method of Levels has application in dealing with emotions. I suspect it does.

Fred Nickols

···

From: Sean Mulligan [mailto:lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 7:10 PM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Cc: mol@mail-list.com
Subject: Re: Emotion in PCT

Thanks Nicolas - those old discussions are a great starting point.

Cheers

Sean

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: “Nicolas M. Kirchberger” oberon.nmk@gmail.com

Date: 20/03/2017 21:55 (GMT+10:00)

To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu

Cc: mol@mail-list.com

Subject: Re: Emotion in PCT

There was a good discussion of a pct theory of emotions on csgnet, you can find it here → http://www.pctresources.com/CSGnet/Files/CSGnet_Threads/Emotion.pdf

There is also psychiatrist William Glasser’s take on pct, called “choice theory”, which identify 4 basic psychological needs that is somewhat related to this.

His 4 psychological needs were “love and belonging”, freedom, power and fun/learning. The other type of need is the physical need for survival.

One of my current research seem to more closely relate these needs to pct, which Glasser did not do.

That is, “love and belonging” would be related to the input of the control loop cycle, freedom to the setting of references, power to the output and fun/learning to the gain/full cycle.

Accordingly too, input would be related to external ecology and the law of requisite hierarchy in cybernetics, the setting of reference would be related to versatility and the law of requisite hierarchy, the output to economy and the law of requisite constraint and the cycle to “elegance” and gain.

Another, more conjectural take would associate the related neurotransmitters to the related type of emotions to each part of the control cycle.

I find that this control cycle can be applied successfully to very many domains of studies it seems, take economy, the input is the labor market, the reference is the consumer market, the output is the investments market and the cycle is the gain or profit…

Etc… :slight_smile:

Nicolas M Kirchberger

Envoyé de mon iPhone

Le 19 mars 2017 à 18:25, Sean Mulligan lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com a écrit :

Is there anyone in PCT land who has looked in detail at emotions in PCT? So far I have only found an entry in B:CP and some scattered references in some articles.

I am attempting to use PCT as a framework for resilience research. I am looking at using emotion (or more specifically the stress response) to operationalise conflict for a experiment. Any thoughts or previous work would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

**Sean Mulligan **

Mental Resilience Australia

M# 0459278195

**lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **

9

[Chad Green (2017.03.21.0922 EDT)]

FN: That thought occurred to me in pondering why I get upset. It would seem that what Bill said about emotions being tied to error is on the mark.

CG: I know exactly why I get upset. It’s because of the natural limitations and idiosyncrasies of the brain itself. Its inevitable obsolescence in the face of
overwhelming complexity should be apparent by now. Naturally it will do everything in its power to hide its inadequacies from us.

As for solutions, I think Yaneer Bar-Yam of the New England Complex Systems Institute is on the right track here:

https://medium.com/complex-systems-channel/teams-a-manifesto-7490eab144fa

Best,

Chad

···

From: Fred Nickols [mailto:fred@nickols.us]
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2017 6:17 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Subject: RE: Emotion in PCT

[Fred Nickols (2017.03.21.0546 ET)]

Regarding the subject line of this thread: “I get upset when things don’t go as I intended or as I expected.�

That thought occurred to me in pondering why I get upset. It would seem that what Bill said about emotions being tied to error is on the mark.

I wonder if the Method of Levels has application in dealing with emotions. I suspect it does.

Fred Nickols****

10

There was a good discussion of a pct theory of emotions on csgnet, you can find it here -> http://www.pctresources.com/CSGnet/Files/CSGnet_Threads/Emotion.pdf

There is also psychiatrist William Glasser’s take on pct, called “choice theory”, which identify 4 basic psychological needs that is somewhat related to this.

His 4 psychological needs were “love and belonging”, freedom, power and fun/learning. The other type of need is the physical need for survival.

One of my current research seem to more closely relate these needs to pct, which Glasser did not do.

That is, “love and belonging” would be related to the input of the control loop cycle, freedom to the setting of references, power to the output and fun/learning to the gain/full cycle.

Accordingly too, input would be related to external ecology and the law of requisite hierarchy in cybernetics, the setting of reference would be related to versatility and the law of requisite hierarchy, the output to economy and the law of requisite constraint and the cycle to “elegance” and gain.

Another, more conjectural take would associate the related neurotransmitters to the related type of emotions to each part of the control cycle.

I find that this control cycle can be applied successfully to very many domains of studies it seems, take economy, the input is the labor market, the reference is the consumer market, the output is the investments market and the cycle is the gain or profit…

Etc… :slight_smile:

Nicolas M Kirchberger

Envoyé de mon iPhone

···

Cheers,

**Sean Mulligan **

Mental Resilience Australia

M# 0459278195

**lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **

11

[From Nicolas M Kirchberger (2017.03.22.1931 ET)]

From what I’ve been reading lately, some book on direct marketing by John Carlton and currently the book “ego is the enemy” by Ryan Holiday.

It appears to me that “emotional intelligence” is all about the strategic control of one’s own ego by minimizing it while maximizing other people’s ego, effectively “doping them out” as sociologist Erving Goffman would say (I recommend reading his books about covering and uncovering moves in social “games” and other interesting things). It seems to be a strategic move to obtain some benefit by making other people feel better or feel like “everything is normal” even when it may not be the actual case.

Also, Goffman’s concept of the “Umwelt”, a person’s psychological environment that can be changed positively or negatively in a way that affect the feeling of safety of the person depending wether the change is perceived as an opportunity or a threat. On main goal of a person according to Goffman is to keep his “umwelt” normal or returning it to normal, which is heavily related to the PCT concepts of control and disturbance so I highly recommend his books, especially the book “relation in public”.

Nicolas M Kirchberger

···

From: Nicolas M. Kirchberger [mailto:oberon.nmk@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2017 6:56 AM
To: csgnet@lists.illinois.edu
Cc: mol@mail-list.com
Subject: Re: Emotion in PCT

There was a good discussion of a pct theory of emotions on csgnet, you can find it here → http://www.pctresources.com/CSGnet/Files/CSGnet_Threads/Emotion.pdf

There is also psychiatrist William Glasser’s take on pct, called “choice theory”, which identify 4 basic psychological needs that is somewhat related to this.

His 4 psychological needs were “love and belonging”, freedom, power and fun/learning. The other type of need is the physical need for survival.

One of my current research seem to more closely relate these needs to pct, which Glasser did not do.

That is, “love and belonging” would be related to the input of the control loop cycle, freedom to the setting of references, power to the output and fun/learning to the gain/full cycle.

Accordingly too, input would be related to external ecology and the law of requisite hierarchy in cybernetics, the setting of reference would be related to versatility and the law of requisite hierarchy, the output to economy and the law of requisite constraint and the cycle to “elegance” and gain.

Another, more conjectural take would associate the related neurotransmitters to the related type of emotions to each part of the control cycle.

I find that this control cycle can be applied successfully to very many domains of studies it seems, take economy, the input is the labor market, the reference is the consumer market, the output is the investments market and the cycle is the gain or profit…

Etc… :slight_smile:

Nicolas M Kirchberger

Envoyé de mon iPhone

Le 19 mars 2017 à 18:25, Sean Mulligan lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com a écrit :

Is there anyone in PCT land who has looked in detail at emotions in PCT? So far I have only found an entry in B:CP and some scattered references in some articles.

I am attempting to use PCT as a framework for resilience research. I am looking at using emotion (or more specifically the stress response) to operationalise conflict for a experiment. Any thoughts or previous work would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

**Sean Mulligan **

Mental Resilience Australia

M# 0459278195

**lack.of.inspiration@gmail.com **