Reframing Anxiety as a Resource

This is the second article in a series designed for the layperson that will explain the basics of Affect Engineering as a theory of emotions. Each article will begin with a list of questions that it will aim to address. The sections that follow will be in two parts each. The first part will be a short statement that answers each question as succinctly as possible. The second part will either be an explanation that goes into more detail where needed or explain some of the implications of the short answer.

QUESTIONS

1. What does reframing Anxiety as a resource entail for Affect Engineering and what are its implications?
2. How are primary and secondary drives incorporated into Affect Engineering?
3. How are the concepts of will, willpower, and free will addressed in Affect Engineering?
4. What is the 1:1:1:1 Ratio in Affect Engineering and what are its implications?
5. What do maintaining and breaking a double bind mean in the context of Affect Engineering?

What does reframing Anxiety as a resource entail for Affect Engineering and what are its implications?

SHORT ANSWER

Within the context of Affect Engineering, to value an entity with respect to the fulfillment of a purpose entails an investment of Anxiety or energy. In short, to value something is to have Anxiety invested into it.

IN DEPTH EXPLANATION

In the first article of this series, entities were described as possessing a value comprised of two parts: an existential part and a utility part with respect to a particular purpose. To mark an entity with both an existential value and a utility value requires requires an investment of energy from the individual. Entities that have more energy invested in them than other entities are seen in Affect Engineering as having a high value, while entities that have less energy invested in them are seen as having a low value. This energy is labeled Anxiety in Affect Engineering, and is measured in Emotional Units within its framework.

To give an example using the sport of golf, five different balls and holes for courses will be considered for an individual. The individual has five separate goals, but they are all identical, that is to say, the goal is to make par for each hole. Each course has a different par, ranging from par 1 to par 5. The size of the flag above each hole is representative of how much Anxiety is invested into making each shot for each hole. A larger flag means more Anxiety is invested in each stroke.

Each ball is the same distance from their respective hole as all of the other balls. The par 1 hole will have the most Anxiety invested into each stroke because there is only one chance to get the ball in the course; that is to say, the Uniqueness of the stroke is 1/1 for the par one hole. The par 5 hold will have the least amount of Anxiety invested into each stroke because the Uniqueness of each stroke is 1/5. Hypothetically speaking, if an individual had 100 units of Anxiety (i.e., Emotional Units) invested into landing the ball into the hole in one stroke for the Par 1 course, then they might be expected to have approximately 20 units of Anxiety (i.e., Emotional Units) invested into each stroke for the par 5 course. A similar estimate could be made for the par 2 (i.e., 50 E.U.), par 3 (i.e., 33.3 E.U.), and par 4 (i.e., 25 E.U.) courses.

The overall Anxiety invested for making par on each course is the same. However, all of the Anxiety is invested into the single stroke permitted for the par 1 course. For the other courses, the Anxiety invested is split between the number of strokes available to make par. To say that an individual values something, in Affect Engineering, is to say that the individual has Anxiety is invested in it.

How are primary and secondary drives incorporated into Affect Engineering?

SHORT ANSWER

Both primary or biological drives (e.g., those related to survival such as the impulse to eliminate hunger, or thirst) and secondary or non-biological drives (e.g., those that are learned or associated, such as the impulse to seek social connections or work towards achieving a particular feat) are construed as motivation to do a single action and are one-directional in Affect Engineering. The impulse behind an action related to a specific drive is held in check or balanced by its opposing impulse (e.g., the impulse to eat food to acquire nutrients vs. the impulse to not eat food).

IN DEPTH EXPLANATION

An impulse can generally be described as an inclination to act that arises as a reaction to either internal stimuli (e.g., seeking food in response to physical sensations of hunger) or external stimuli (e.g., moving one’s hand away from a hot stove). In Affect Engineering, the impulse behind a drive is perhaps best thought of as a vector, possessing both force (e.g., motivational force) and a single direction, while the drive itself is perhaps best thought of as a ray, that is, a half-line extending in one direction towards infinity but with no specific magnitude. The force behind a drive may fluctuate, increasing or alternatively diminishing, but its direction does not change. What this entails for Affect Engineering is that the impulse behind an action related to a primary drive, such as the motivation to eat food to acquire nutrients and energy, is considered to persist even after eating and the physical sensations of hunger have near diminished to the individual. It is at this point that the impulse behind the action (i.e., acquiring food to eat) would be held in check or balanced by an opposing impulse behind the opposite action, motivation to not acquiring food in order to not eat, or fasting in this case. Both impulses on their own, if left unchecked by one another, would lead to death, from either starvation or overeating (e.g., choking, or gastric rupture). For the primary drives, life is sustained by striking a balance between the two impulses behind the mutually exclusive actions, as one cannot eat and not eat at the same time.

This holds true for impulses behind actions related to the other primary drives (drinking water to hydrate vs. not drinking water to not hydrate; sleeping to rest vs. not sleeping to not rest). If either impulse is taken to an extreme over the other, then death would be the end result. In the case of reproduction, either sexual (two parents) or asexual (single parent like sea stars, Komodo Dragons, and many plants species), while not engaging in it does not necessarily lead to the death of the individual, if the impulse were taken to an extreme (i.e., held above its opposing impulse 100% of the time), it would lead to the extinction of the species if every member of the species took the impulse to not engage in reproduction to that same extremity. In the framework of Affect Engineering, it bears more resemblance to secondary drives in that sense for the individual, which will be discussed next.

For impulses behind actions related to secondary drives, death would only be the result in half of the instances, when the impulse behind a specific action is held above the impulse to not do that same action 100% of the time and this interferes with any of the aforementioned primary drives that keep the individual alive. For instance, an individual who holds a particular impulse behind an action related to a secondary drive above its counterpart 100% of the time would very likely have to forgo sleeping, eating, drinking, resting, or in some cases all of the above if the impulse to do the specific action is held above its counterpart at any cost. Some examples include running without stopping (or any other endurance feat to set a world record for that matter) vs. not running, acquiring as much wealth indefinitely vs. not acquiring wealth, or acquiring fame indefinitely vs. not acquiring fame. Excessive ambition in any endeavor comes with its own risks. A popular phrase in mountain climbing sums up this point up clearly, “Every dead body on Mount Everest was once a highly motivated person.”

Any impulse to act, if taken to the extreme over not doing that same action, will lead to death. For impulses related to primary drives, the distinguishing feature is that the impulse and its opposing impulse must both be balanced against one another, so that the individual does not die or so that the species persists in the case of reproduction. For impulses related to secondary drives that are non-biological and learned or associated, the impulse only needs to be balanced on one side of the spectrum to ensure that death does not happen for the individual. Notwithstanding, there are notable instances where this could occur that would still need to be accounted for and explained in Affect Engineering or any theory of emotions, such as in cases of altruistic suicide, and political or religious martyrdom to name a few.

How are the concepts of will, willpower, and free will addressed in Affect Engineering?

SHORT ANSWER

Closely related to drives, the will in Affect Engineering refers to the resolve to do a particular action in Affect Engineering. Willpower refers to an individual’s capacity to continue doing an action, oftentimes in the face of obstacles from external pressures in the environment or internal pressures within the individual. Free will refers to an individual’s capacity to decide to change or not change what they are doing at whim.

IN DEPTH EXPLANATION

Defining the will as the resolve to do an action means that the individual has reached a firm decision about what action they plan to take at any given moment. This will oftentimes be influenced by a deadline for action, where the window for opportunity to acquire certain entities is limited. The variables that will influence the resolve to do an action and a deadline for action will typically be those that threaten the entity, benefit the entity, or are related to the individual’s ability to do anything about the situation. The concepts of threat components (e.g., threat severity and threat susceptibility) along with efficacy components (response efficacy and self-efficacy), are borrowed from communication and psychology literature on the subject, but they are implemented differently within Affect Engineering’s Framework, (i.e., as contingencies within larger functions). Threat severity in Affect Engineering is understood as the degree to which an event in the future or a second entity is expected to damage, destroy, or deny access to the original entity the individual is valuing for a purpose, while threat susceptibility refers to the chance the threat of harm will take place. Response efficacy in Affect Engineering, is understood as the expected effectiveness of an action the individual can take to prevent the threat of harm to the original entity, while self efficacy refers to the likeliness the individual believes they can perform the response. For those interested on more information on the concepts outside of this framework:

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215.

Rogers, R. W. (1975). A Protection Motivation Theory of Fear Appeals and Attitude Change1. The Journal of Psychology, 91(1), 93–114.

Witte, K. (1992). Putting the fear back into fear appeals: The extended parallel process model. Communication Monographs, 59(4), 329–349.

The distinction between an expectation of benefit and a threat of harm is largely one of interpretation in Affect Engineering, as the absence of a threat of harm may be viewed as an expected benefit, just as the absence of an expected benefit may be viewed as a threat of harm. A benefit is the counterpart to threat, and in Affect Engineering is the degree to which an event in the future or second entity might repair, create, or enable access to the original entity being valued. Threats of harm and expected benefits are used in different setups of the functions as one may have more salience to an individual than the other for any number of reasons (e.g., environment, culture, language, social factors in one’s upbringing, etc.). For instance, if an individual is more oriented towards pursuing rewards than avoiding costs, or vice versa, different emotional responses could result from the same scenario depending on how information is presented to the individual. If costs resonate more to an individual, then threats of harm would be expected to lead to emotions that have a greater intensity. Alternatively, if rewards resonate more to an individual, then expectations of benefits would be expected to lead to emotions that have a greater intensity for the individual.

In Affect Engineering, threats of harm, expectations of benefit, and efficacy with respect to an individual’s ability to do anything about the situation are expressed as expected contingencies (e.g., positive contingencies, such as event A always happens whenever event B happens; or negative contingencies, such as event C never happens whenever D happens). The implementation of these concepts (i.e., threat, benefit, efficacy) in Affect Engineering is more nuanced as they are variables that make up part of larger functions, are affected by other variables in the function, and their influence is not always readily apparent. Generally, these variables further raise or lower an individual’s valuation of an entity with respect to a purpose even more. If an individual has a particular threshold for action, that is to say, a point at which the energy invested into entity being valued for a purpose becomes too great for the individual to ignore (i.e., a powerful call to action), then the individual will resolve themselves to do something about it and take action of some sort if possible.

To explain this, an individual’s desire to eat an ice cream cake later in the day will be considered as an example. The entity in question is the ice cream cake, it is being valued for the purpose of eating, and it has a high value to the individual. The ice cream cake was delivered and left on the individual’s porch, but they were not at home to receive it. Upon learning that the ice cream cake was delivered, they check the weather forecast and discover that an extreme heat advisory is in place all day, with temperatures forecast to be at or above 115 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat wave is a threat to the ice cream cake, and would be expected to elevate the individual’s valuation of the cake and the Anxiety invested in it, as the heat threatens to melt and spoil the cake. However, if the individual knows that they can successfully perform an effective action to safeguard the ice cream cake against the heat, such as returning home and placing it in a refrigerator or freezer before it becomes ruined, then the valuation of the cake will lower, as excess Anxiety no longer needs to be invested into protecting the cake’s edibility.

Defining willpower as an individual’s capacity to continue doing an action concerns an individual’s ability to maintain a certain sense of urgency in a situation. For most forms of the functions, the variables that influence willpower in Affect Engineering are those related to attentional control, the spotlight of attention, and reasoning. This concerns the individual’s ability to maintain the spotlight of attention over certain aspects of a situation while permitting other aspects to fall into attentional decay. For example, if faced with a seemingly near impossible task to complete, an individual with a strong sense of will power might delegate all of their attentional resources to what they can do about the situation while ignoring the threat of harm or impending danger to themselves (i.e., permitting it to fall into attentional decay). This would help with managing available Anxiety resources, so as to not overinvest them and feel overwhelmed by the task at hand. One example of this would be a firefighter attempting to save people from a burning building who devotes less attention to the risks posed to their own life from the fire in order to stay calm while they focus on finding and rescuing trapped individuals.

Defining free will as an individual’s capacity to decide to change or not change what they are doing at whim concerns whether or not one wishes to construct a function that is more indeterministic in its outlook and where free will is permitted, or a function that is more deterministic and/or fatalistic in its outlook. As mentioned in the first article of this series, the Sentiment variable is generally modeled as an individual’s capacity for free will, but the efforts taken by the individual and their capacity to regulate their own emotions and valuations (i.e., willpower above), also contribute to this.

What is the 1:1:1:1 Ratio in Affect Engineering and what are its implications?

SHORT ANSWER

The 1:1:1:1 Ratio is one of the principles that Affect Engineering follows. It holds that one person may give one value (i.e., feel one emotion) for one entity as it relates to the fulfillment of one purpose.

IN DEPTH EXPLANATION

The 1:1:1:1 Ratio, holds that one person may give one value for one entity as it relates to the fulfillment of one purpose to avoid premature or erroneous conflation in Affect Engineering. One example of premature conflation would be in assuming that a single entity elicits the same value and the same emotion to an individual for every purpose that it is being considered. For example, a cell phone may be valuable to an individual for the purpose of making phone calls, but if it has a low quality camera, then it may be less valuable to the individual for the purpose of taking pictures; if it has an ideal design and interfacing for texting then it may be valuable to the individual for the purpose of texting, but if it cannot be used to browse the internet or run a navigation app, then its value for the purpose of browsing the internet and the purpose of navigating to find a restaurant will be less.

What this entails for Affect Engineering is that each entity an individual cognizes has a single value, and subsequently a single emotion, mapped onto every purpose for which it is being considered. An individual would feel multiple emotions for a single entity, the cell phone in the above case, but each would be for a different purpose that is being considered. For example, if a knife is being considered by an individual for three different purposes, then it would have at least three valuations and there would be at least three emotions felt for the knife by the individual.

These valuations may be combined or averaged thereafter if one wishes, but they are first calculated separately. This also applies in the case of a purpose and its complementary purpose or opposite purpose. For instance, returning to the entity of the ice cream cake, it would be given a value by an individual for the purpose of eating food and a separate value for the purpose of not eating food. The valuation of the entity will tend to be higher for one purpose or the other, while the lesser valuation will approach its existential value. The ice cream cake cannot be highly useful for both the purpose of eating and the purpose of not eating, as that would be a contradiction.

What does maintaining a double bind mean in the context of Affect Engineering?

SHORT ANSWER

In Affect Engineering, maintaining a double bind means balancing the success to failure rate between a purpose and its opposing purpose that are both related to a primary drive in such a way that the individual’s life can be sustained. Breaking a double bind means unbalancing the success to failure rate between a purpose and its opposing purpose that are both related to a primary drive by holding the priority of one purpose above its opposite to the point where the individual’s life cannot be sustained. For purposes related to secondary drives there is no double bind and this does not apply directly, but a balance between purposes still must be maintained for at least one of the purposes if the individual is to continue living.

IN DEPTH EXPLANATION

A double bind is, in short, a dilemma where conflicting messages leave the individual with no satisfactory choice due to both courses of actions leading to undesirable results. Affect Engineering’s adherence to the 1:1:1:1 Ratio necessitates a specificity of word choice that admittedly borders on pedantic, but it is nevertheless crucial in order to avoid premature conflation, that is, erroneously combining two emotions for a single entity into one, or even two purposes into one purpose when there should be two separate purposes considered.

For example, to hold the statement, “I will eat until I am full,” as a single purpose would be a violation of the 1:1:1:1 Ratio in Affect Engineering, as there are two purposes in this statement being considered, and not one. The first purpose the individual is considering is to eat. The second purpose is to not eat or to fast at some point, however one wishes to phrase it. If taken to the extreme and fulfilled indefinitely (e.g., at the maximum rate and without stopping, such as a pie eating contest, or alternatively a politically minded hunger strike), each of these objectives — to eat, and to not eat — would lead to the individual’s death if left unchecked. Both end results, from the two mutually exclusive purposes of eating and fasting, are generally considered undesirable to someone who wants to continue living, as most of an individual’s goals depend upon them being alive in order to achieve them.

In Affect Engineering, to say that an individual is “Maintaining a double bind” is another way of saying the individual is striking a balance between fulfilling two purposes that would each lead to the individual’s death if the fulfillment of one was taken to an extreme level above the other. The individual swings back and forth between fulfilling the two purposes in order to sustain their life. In the framework of Affect Engineering, maintaining a double bind of this sort is a necessary condition for survival; it is the equivalent of maintaining homeostasis; this will be the topic of the third article in this series.

It follows then that breaking a double bind entails upholding one of these purposes over the other to such a degree that life can no longer be maintained. An individual who takes a hunger strike the full distance, or an individual who in their ambition to win the pie eating contest chokes or dies from a rupture of the stomach, is said to have broken a double bind in Affect Engineering. In the framework of Affect Engineering, breaking a double bind of this sort always leads to death, and it is the equivalent of not maintaining homeostasis.

Because purposes and their opposing purposes that concern secondary drives (e.g., learned or associated ones, such as the acquisition of fame or wealth) do not lead to death for both purposes, they are not considered double binds. However, purposes that concern secondary drives typically will lead to death on one end if their fulfillment is pursued incessantly and indefinitely over their opposing purpose, albeit it indirectly, as this would likely cause a primary drive to be neglected in the process. The success to failure rate only needs to be balanced on one side if it concerns a secondary drive, as performing the action (e.g., the acquisition of fame) indefinitely without rest or stopping would also make it impossible to balance the primary drives, but not performing the action (e.g., not seeking the acquisition of fame) is not necessarily fatal.

Preview: Appraisals in the Context of Affect Engineering

Appraisals in the context of Affect Engineering concern the maintenance of homeostasis, and will be covered in the next article.

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