6 - SEEK/AVOID & THE HEDONIC SCALE
In one way or another, we always seem to strive for
success. We strive for a sense of "well being" - of feeling
good. We seek health and exuberance. We also find success by
reaching any personal goal. Such goals can include supporting
or nurturing loved ones - family and friends. Supporting
one's personal beliefs such as one's religion, country, and
way of life are other common goals. As we strive for any of
these, we frequently say that we "want" them. Fundamentally,
we succeed by nurturing and obtaining what we "want" whether it
be a wonderful home, a dynamic career, a loving family, or a
closer relationship with our spiritual God. What is "wanted"
is effectively "the goal" to be achieved. Achievement of "what
is wanted" (achievement of the goal) is being successful.
On a slightly different tack, success can also be
avoiding the "pitfalls" of life - avoiding misery, disease,
and death. We do not "want" any of these. Avoiding any
"unwanted" thing whether loathesome, disgusting, or harmful
can be deemed successful, too. Success is not only achieving
whatever is valued or "wanted", but it is also avoiding
whatever is aversive and "unwanted".
Failure, on the other hand, is the lack of success.
It is misery and being overwhelmed by obstacles and adversaries.
Failure is the destruction of health and happiness, the misfortune
of disease and pain. Death, of course, is the ultimate failure.
So, what's the point? The point is that in our own minds
seeking success and avoiding failure is the central theme of life.
All that jazz about the hypowhatever and the sympathetiwhazzits
just doesn't seem relevant to our everyday lives. Our lives appear
framed in other terms such as success and failure, winning and losing,
happiness and despair. No matter what we do, no matter how grand
or small the endeavor, we always have some objective, some goal,
some "want" that we seek to successfully achieve. But with the goal
comes the possibility of failure which we try to avoid in our quest
for success. This is the omnipotent theme of our lives.
Despite our quest for an idyllic existence, the environment
can be harsh, and achieving happiness has been a hard struggle. As
threats by the environment challenged our ancestors, they had to
choose how and where to direct their limited resources. Their time,
effort, and valuables could be used to overcome external threats
or be used to enhance their inner well-being. However, maximizing
both was impossible. Over the eons of time, those who stretched
their resources to overcome external threats were rewarded - they
survived. Those who squandered their resources eventually
succumbed to the pressures of natural selection. The key to survival
has been feeding precious resources into successful behaviors and
withdrawing them from useless or destructive ones - hence the maxim,
emotive energy rises to success and falls from failure.
For the survivors, the cost of stretching limited resources
was "stress." The internal energy to overcome external threats
must come from somewhere within, and the grand, fulfilling feeling
of life was the only available donor. The survivors overcame dangers
by withholding precious energy from parts of their inner selves and
diverting it instead toward alertness, concentrated thought, and
effective action - frequently anxious and extreme action. Only
through temporary, partial self-sacrifice could the survivors tip
the balance of natural selection in their favor. The existence of
stress lives on with us today as a legacy of how demanding natural
selection can be.
Yet, with each success by our ancestors, when the immediate
threat was overcome, self-sacrifice was no longer needed and
concentrated thought, action, and stress lessened. At such times,
a sense of well-being returned to the body as the sacrificed inner
body returned to a balanced energy flow. Today, just as with our
ancestors, we sense this balanced flow as being pleasant. If the
flow is strong and vibrant, we even call it euphoric. This, too,
is the legacy of natural selection. As we overcome obstacles, we
are allowed to return to and bask in the ultimate feeling - the
vibrant and fulfilling feeling of life.
Hedonic Scale
Over time, stress levels and alertness rose and fell
with each new hazard, and the body relaxed and returned to
"good" feelings only after successfully overcoming each hazard.
This ebb and flow of feeling became a living barometer of what
was "good" and "bad" in the environment. The barometer fell
when "bad" lurked nearby and our bodies took a defensive and
stressful posture. It rose again after the "bad" had passed
leaving the body with a balanced, fulfilling feeling recognized
as "good." Eventually, this living barometer had "good/seek"
at one end and "bad/run away" at the other. Our ancestors
learned to approach "good" feelings and withdraw from "bad"
feelings. Today, our sensations of internal stress and well-being
are the remnants of past ancestral struggles. Our "barometric"
feelings now form the basis of our wants, our needs, our goals.
It manifests as a scale, a scale of values, which
drives our minds and thoughts enabling each of us to discern
"good" from "bad" and "success" from "failure".
Antonio Damasio points to this through his statement:
"At their most basic, emotions are part of homeostatic regulation and
are poised to avoid the loss of integrity ... emotions of all shades
eventually help connect homeostatic regulation and survival 'values'
to numerous events and objects in our autobiographical experiences."
(Damasio, 1999. pg. 54-55)
Victor S. Johnston further builds upon this barometric scale
idea through his "hedonic tone" theory:
"The most important characteristic of all feelings - emotions
as well as affects - is that they come in two different
hedonic tones, positive and negative. No feelings
are neutral, for the presence of hedonic tone - pleasantness
and unpleasantness - defines feelings ..."
(Johnston, 1999. pg. 61-62)
"... the intensity of an emotion ... can be so dramatic
that we often describe emotions by different names when they are
really just different degrees of the same emotion. Happiness,
for example, runs from contentment to joy to ecstacy, while
degrees of sadness may be described as discontent, unhappiness,
grief, or even depression."
(Johnston, 1999. pg. 86-87)
"The hedonic dimension of feelings can be envisaged as a
scale ranging from an extremely pleasant or positive pole, to an
extremely unpleasant or negative pole. All feelings, in
addition to their unique qualitative natures - like disgust,
pain, pride, happiness, or sadness - are accompanied by shifts
along this common hedonic dimension."
(Johnston, 1999. pg. 96)
This scale of feelings provides a framework for evaluating
all things in our environment. Such feelings become the means
by which we make decisions:
"Two simple hypotheses arise ... first is that sensory feelings
evolved in response to those environmental events that have
consistently presented opportunities or threats to biological
survival in ancestral environments ... second, behaviors
followed by positive feelings are facilitated, whereas
behaviors followed by negative feelings are inhibited."
(Johnston, 1999. pg. 67)
"Just as with the motor learning mechanism, we can
generate innumerable variations of hypotheses until our emotional
value system deems a particular outcome to be favorable. We call
such activities thinking or decision making, and it is these
cognitive operations that dominate our conscious mind."
(Johnston, 1999. pg. 118)
By defining Johnston's Hedonic Scale, it now becomes
possible to design a system which accounts for decision and
emotional processes. One of the best ways to understand any
abstract concept is through a model or diagram. I have a model
built from the Johnston's Hedonic Scale which I call the Emotive
Emotive Energy Behavioral Diagram (EEBD). Though it is a
3-dimensional model resembling a steel drum or "pan" (examples at
www.rhythmicalsteel.com) the essential facets
of the EEBD can be effectively portrayed by 2-dimensional (2D)
views such as the side view in Figure 1 below. In addition to the
Hedonic Scale, the other major components of the Emotive Energy
Behavioral Diagram include the Action Curve, the Efficiency Space,
and the Emotional Bowl.
Figure 1.
The idea of a linear "scale" of emotions with positive
and negative elements has its roots in a statement by humanist
Abraham Maslow, who adroitly postulated in his landmark book,
Motivation and Personality, that the "... human being is a wanting
animal ... (and those) wants seem to arrange themselves in some
sort of hierarchy of prepotency."
(Maslow, 1970, p. 7)
The concept of a linear scale congealed in
Victor Johnston's book, Why We Feel where Johnston represented
emotions "as a scale ranging from an extremely pleasant or positive
pole, to an extremely unpleasant or negative pole." To measure the
relative degee of positive or negative feeling along the scale, I
will use Maslow's term, "want." In other words, positioning along
the Hedonic Scale will show items as being "wanted more" or "wanted
less" relative to other items marked along the scale.
Everything around us can be graded according to our personal
hierarchy of "wants," our personal set of values. If you have
ever used words such as like, dislike, good, bad, desire, aversion,
interest, concern, love, hate, and a plethora of others which we
intuitively recognize as being positive or negative in nature,
then the concept of the Hedonic Scale should be familiar to you.
Many people have their own words for it: "my list of priorities,"
"my goals," "my strengths and weaknesses," "my likes and dislikes,"
"good and bad." These various terms are all encompassed by the
"Hedonic Scale" which is just a new name for a common belief held
by virtually everyone.
The understanding of "want" is "a desire to obtain or seek."
If you want a new home, you try to obtain it. You seek it. If you
want new clothes, again, you seek them by sewing them yourself or by
going to a store and buying them. You "seek" knowledge at this very
instance by reading, presumably because you "want" knowledge. As a
general rule, we SEEK things we WANT. If we want
it, if we deem it as "positive" or needed, we go for it. We buy it.
We make it. We save it. We spend our precious human energy resources
(time, effort, and money) gaining what we want.
Not everything, though, is wanted to the same degree; some are
wanted more than others. For food, at this very moment, a steak may
be preferred over chicken, even though chicken is frequently desired.
Similarly, for shelter, a ranch style home may be preferred over a
classic two-story home. Even "apples and oranges" comparisons are
possible when using the term "want." Truly, a person can compare and
choose an apple over an orange or the other way around. Similarly,
given a choice between a new car and a trip to Hawaii, most people could
make a decision one way or the other; the car would have a higher "want
value" than the trip or vice versa. We can do this mental magic because
every idea or concept of mind carries a dynamic potency which falls into
a personal hierarchy of wants. From this hierarchy, we make all of our
decisions. Each list is personal, each list is different. This unique
list is the basis of the Hedonic Scale (see Figure 2 below).
Figure 2.
Undesirable or "negative" things also fall within a hierarchy
on the Hedonic Scale. Paying taxes is typically "unwanted." So is going
to jail. However, given a choice between paying taxes or going to jail,
most people choose the former. As much as each of us may wish to avoid
paying taxes, jail is usually much more aversive. Consequently, jail is
unwanted more than taxes and falls lower on our hierarchy. Thus, just
as "seek" couples naturally with our understanding of "want," the notion
of "avoid" is the natural adjunct to "unwant." The more "unwanted"
anything is, the more we avoid it. In general, we AVOID things
which are UNWANTED. Where the positive end of the Hedonic Scale
represents things which are wanted, the negative end represents things which
are unwanted.
The ideas of "seek" and "avoid" in regards to values, or
variants thereof, including "approach" and "withdrawal," are nothing
new. The root of these are many including statements by Elizabeth
Duffy (1962, p.5), Magda Arnold
(Ellis, 1962, p. 44-44), Nathaniel
Branden (1969, p. 64), Albert
Bandura (1977, p. 58-59), Robert
Plutchik (1980, p. 156), Richard
Restak (1988, p. 110), and many
others. Any of the pairings (seek/avoid, approach/withdrawal,
approach/avoid, etc.) is appropriate, and you may freely exchange one pair
for another without affecting this theory. However, one distinguishing
point between "seek" and "avoid" was best described by McClelland, et al.:
"... approach and avoidance must not be understood simply as 'going
towards' or 'away from' a stimulus in a spatial sense. Thus 'rage,'
when it goes over into attack, is an 'avoidance' response, even though
it involves 'going towards' something. Avoidance must be defined in
terms of its objective - to discontinue, remove, or escape from a
certain type of stimulation ..."
(McClelland, et al., 1976, p. 35)
In other words, when you attack and destroy something, you remove
it from your present and your future environment. Thus, attack,
with intent to destroy, is a behavior meant for permanent avoidance
through erradication.
The next logical question might very well be, "What about the
middle of the Hedonic Scale?" Much of what we encounter daily is
of little or no consequence to us, and the middle portion covers
this. For instance, I suspect you do not covet a few twigs strewn
in your neighbor's yard, but you likely do not fear them either.
If a new house is seen as positive and jail as negative, then twigs
on the neighbor's lawn is inbetween and of "zero" concern (of no
value). We use "indifference" to describe our feelings since we
feel neither attraction nor repulsion (neither want nor unwant).
Effectively, we are "neutral" toward it. We IGNORE
anything of NEUTRAL value. The more indifferent we
are toward something, the closer to the middle of the Hedonic Scale
we go.
Figure 2 is an example of an Hedonic Scale ("stood on end"
for convenience) and marked with a few items along the scale. The most
desirable items are near the positive end. Items then grade downward
in value toward the neutral middle and continue to grade downward to
more aversive items including the most repulsive ones at the negative
end of the scale. Yet, this is just a sample, and your personal scale
of values may differ dramatically. You may dislike steak because you
are a vegetarian. You may like laundry because you own a string of
successful laundromats. Thus, steak and laundry will be reversed on your
personal scale. Any of the others may switch as well, but regardless of
how you organize your preferences, you will ultimately end up with a
hierarchy of values - a linear scale of wants.
Please note that "want" as a term was selected because
it tends to be the most flexible and most readily understood term.
Other terms such as "need" fall prey to inconsistent or limited
usage. For critical issues such as food, "need" and "want"
interchange easily, but when looking at casual but desired things,
such as a vacation souvenir, the appropriateness of "need" disappears.
We may claim that we "want" a souvenir mug or T-shirt, but do we really
need it? Chances are, most of us would deny a dire need for mementoes.
Where "want" still applies, "need" no longer does.
The term, "want," also seems to work effectively at any point
on a hierarchy of things either sought or avoided. This flexible usage
is important because "want to," "like to," "need to," "must," and all
other similar terms must reduce to one common denominator - energy.
Nature is not encumbered by language nor culture nor convention.
It speaks in energy. It lives through energy. Its hierarchies
are expressed by energy. If we show any preference in a decision,
that preference must be based in energy where the energy potential
of one idea supercedes that of another. And so it is with "wants,"
"needs," "musts," "desires," "drives," "values," - call it what you
will, all are made of the same stuff, the same biological currency,
the same resource. As the cliche corrupted from Shakespeare goes,
"a rose by any other name is still a rose," and the rose in this case
is energy. Whether described as "want," "like,", "need," "must," or
whatever, we use these terms to compare items or concepts and make
decisions based upon the results of the comparisons. It is the
hierarchy allowing us to make comparisons that is important, not
the terminology. Using "want" as the ubiquitous term for any value
helps to emphasize the common and single denominator of energy as
the basis of the hierarchy.
Even though at any point in time our values form a hierarchy,
be assured that the Hedonic Scale is dynamic, too. Because we are
constantly gaining experience every day of our lives, our wants
may change from moment to moment. Perhaps you may have been
enamored with a particular car since childhood, and it has been
high on your Hedonic Scale. However, after owning the car and finding
it to be a "lemon," your value of the car may drop dramatically
and the car will be unwanted in the future. Indifference may
change as well. As twigs in your neighbor's yard accumulate,
they may create an eyesore, or worse, a fire hazard which will
change your attitude toward them. The twigs will move to a lower
level on your scale by moving from "indifference" to "unwanted."
The Hedonic Scale accepts this dynamism and only indicates that
if frozen in a snapshot of time, our values will form a hierarchy
of wants.
With the Hedonic Scale established, we now have a mechanism for
evaluating anything in terms of "good" or "bad." Value judgements and
prioritization can be performed. Even "personal preferences," "hunches,"
"gut feelings," and "intuition" now have a common frame of reference.
Though we may not know why, in any decision, something inside will
point the way with a "good" or "bad" feeling. This "something" is the
personal Hedonic Scale inside each of us responding to the environment
(both internal and external).
Once a scalar reference is acknowledged, the immediate follow-on
issue becomes "intesity." We all intuitively recognize that some emotions
are stronger than others, and the EEBD could not be complete without a
reference for it. Emotional intensity is represented within the EEBD
by the "Action Curve" ...
