Understanding behavior

How and why The Structure creates our behavior

Everything we think, feel, and do is the result of the relational activity we engage in. The way that activity is manifested is simple; we experience it. Relational experiences produce emotional responses, and emotional responses ultimately motivate our behavior. Different types of relational experiences, from affirmation to contradiction, create different emotional reactions and, therefore, different forms of behavior.

Positive relational activity is that relational activity that culminates in the reception of affirmation (positive confirmation) from one’s environment with respect to one’s psychological reality.

For example, Albert’s psychological reality is that he wants a piece of cake.  Al buys a piece of cake and enjoys it. Albert’s existence has been relationally affirmed by his environment.

Negative or contradictory relational activity is that relational activity that culminates in receiving a contradictory response from one’s environment with respect to one’s psychological reality.

For example, Peter’s psychological reality is that he needs to get his car fixed, but it’s Sunday, and all the repair shops are closed. Peter’s psychological reality has been relationally contradicted by his environment.

Positive and negative confirmations

Positive confirmations (affirmations) coming from our environment create positive emotional responses and, subsequently, positive behaviors. Negative or contradictory confirmations (contradictions) create contradictory emotional responses and subsequent negative or contradictory behaviors.

When contradicted or threatened by contradiction, we sense fear, apprehension, anxiety, disappointment, rejection, etc.

When there is positive coincidence, conformity, or affirmation from the environment, we sense joy, completeness, satisfaction, elation, euphoria, happiness, etc.

Given that our existential Structure is incompatible with contradiction, when contradiction does take place, we are driven to either “contradict” (neutralize) or “compensate” for the impact that contradiction has had on our psychological structure.

When either the conformational pickings are slim (not much interesting going on out there), or unresolved contradictions accumulate, The Structure will utilize stored positive or negative experiences to exercise its requirement for continuing relational activity, and we will daydream, think about, imagine, or reflect upon past, present, or possibly future relational activity. Interestingly, the emotional impact and conformational value of virtual relationships, although not as pronounced as actual ones, can serve as temporary or surrogate replacements for the real thing until the real thing comes along.

Relational sweet spots

The more an object or event is identifiable with who you are genetically, the more you will desire that object to concretely affirm the genetic reality that you are. The less an object is identifiable with who you are genetically, the more you will try to distance yourself from the object. Keep in mind that your genetic self’s primary goal is to be in conformity with the imperatives of The Structure, yet the only way that can be done is by you receiving affirming feedback from your environment: that is, feedback that affirms the positive value of your genetic self. The closer you get to relationships that affirm the positive value of who you are genetically, the closer you become to fulfilling The Structure’s relational goals.

Any positive action you take and perceive as not only being yours but one that properly fulfills The Structure’s imperatives is all you need to continue maintaining a positive and stable psychological status. That said, at times, a relational act can be confirming for you from one sector of your environment but offensive or contradicting to another.

Simple relational confirmation and BO

An example of how you naturally seek any and all relational activity that confirms the structural imperative of being constantly in relationship with your environment can be illustrated by realizing how you are drawn to your own body odors. Such relationships between you and your object world (any object or event that is not part of your genetic self) afford definitive confirmation of your being or existence. After all, what says “YOU” better or more convincingly than when you, as the subject, are able to perceive “you” as a strongly convincing self-related object? This clearly does not hold true, however, when you suspect that such odors come from someone who is not you. Indeed, when that happens, you are as strongly offended by offensive orders coming from others as you are attracted to your own.

Attraction and repulsion—value and worth

Our perception of value, including all manner of aesthetic evaluations, does not come from the objects we perceive but rather from we, the subjects who perceive them.

The perception of positive, negative, or neutral value is generally derived from those positive, negative, or neutral relational experiences that we establish with our environment. Take note that each one of us is destined to perceive such experiences in strict compliance with who we psychologically are. Those things that you value or reject as worthless, of great interest, or harmful may well be perceived quite differently, or in totally opposite ways, by the person standing next to you.

Clearly, there are values that may seem, to us, to be universal in nature, but in reality, there is nothing universal about them. The perception that a specific object is attractive may be shared by cultures other than one’s own, but such universality stops there. Not everyone on planet Earth is attracted to ice cream or Mozart, nor repulsed by graffiti or Reality TV.

That which ultimately determines in what way an object or event is valued is solely dependent on the perceiving subject’s genetic makeup and how their environmental selves may have developed over time. Given that we are in constant relational flux, so is the way we positively or negatively value those objects and events that are contained in the world around us.

Control

Emotions such as joy, happiness, jealousy, contentment, or anger are just some of those human emotions born from the environmental self’s interactions with the genetic self. These are emotions that without the environmental self, simply couldn’t exist. Emotions, like certain levels of happiness, for example, are felt when there is coincidence between who we are genetically and a specific number of relationships we are able to establish with our environment. Emotions like satisfaction, contentment, or fulfillment are ours when we’ve managed to contradict or vanquish an environmental challenge. Challenges test our ability to overcome possible contradictions. “I bet you can’t do this” offers us the opportunity to demonstrate our value as contradiction slayers, therefore increasing our environment’s as well as our own perception of the control we are able to wield over our lives. Keep in mind, however, that issues that deal with control or the lack thereof are strictly environment-relevant. Control has little applicability when it’s our genetic self that’s under consideration.

Certain other human emotions, like love, wonderment, awe, amazement, admiration, or even reverence, can present themselves precisely because they avoid or bypass the environmental self entirely, thereby allowing one’s genetic self or ego to relate directly to certain objects or events. In cases like these, very different emotions than those that involve the environmental self take center- stage. Indeed, so-called direct relationships allow one to bypass all environmental or self-related experiences entirely, thereby giving way to feelings of love, euphoria, elation, awe, and amazement or, when in contact with contradictory experiences, generate emotions like repulsion, repugnance, dread, or disgust.

For example, the reason we sometimes find ourselves transfixed by a certain object (like a sunset, a beautiful painting, a specific musical composition, a particular kind of food, or any object that fascinates us) is that such relational experiences take place directly between our genetic selves and certain objects we relate to and during which time issues of control become immaterial.

That said, that which may produce awe, love, or extreme admiration in one person may not at all produce the same emotion in another. It all depends on one’s genetic makeup. Simply put, in spite of the fact that two people are looking at exactly the same work of art and are both perceiving it liberated from any direct intervention from their environmental selves, being that they are genetically different, their viewing may produce very different emotions or, indeed, produce no emotional response whatsoever.

More on the environmental self

I am always talking to myself, but I wonder who’s doing the talking, who’s doing the listening, and who is coming up with all those answers?

Although all living things relate to the world around them in functional ways, we humans relate to the world around us in meaningfully functional ways. In other words, as humans, we’re able to ponder, consider, even comparatively assess, evaluate, and eventually understand those things we relate to. We humans are able to think analytically or critically. Our ability to do this, however, is not only made possible because we are, like all other living creatures, aware of our environment, but because we involve our environmental self in the relationships we establish. As mentioned before, without our environmental self, thought is not possible.

Take note that aware beings (like living things that are not human) and that are void of thought can, however, have emotional experiences yet are unable to think about them.

The origins of human thought

Thought requires comparative and/or critical reflection and, therefore, must take place within the confines of the environmental self. Given that human thought occurs where conscience relationships can be established, it’s the environmental self that must take charge of hosting said relationships.

Reflection, or thought, is that neurological activity made possible when elements contained in the environmental self are consciously compared, analyzed, or evaluated.

Recognition: A psychological plus

The intensity of human emotions, in general, depends in great part on where relational control is positioned as we relate to objects and events in our environment. When a subject perceives an object as being actual, concrete, or real, it is the experienced object that controls the relationship between itself and the subject, not the subject. When we read a novel in which the hero dies at the end, we are convinced that his or her death is fiction (the experience is virtual). We may still react emotionally to this virtual event, but we will be in control of our emotions, and therefore, the emotional impact of the experience will be minimal. However, when learning of a similar tragedy but convinced that the event is real, we will neither be in control of our emotions nor will the emotional impact of the event be attenuated by its suspected virtual nature.

When we virtually think about an object or event we feel in control of that event, especially if we are not convinced that it is real. As a result, when we carry out virtual relationships, although we may emotionally sense a portion of that relationship’s impact, we will not feel any possibility of uncontrollable contradiction. After all, the relationship is virtual, and we know it. We are well aware that we are in full or, at least, relative control of whatever occurs between us and our thoughts. In other words, when we relate to our world virtually, we know full well that we can manipulate such relationships any way we please. We can make objects conform to our needs or contradict them at will. We can neutralize or compensate for contradictions, create them, or destroy them as if they were real. But they’re not. They have lost their true structural power, and that is, sometimes, just the way we want it.

The role of personal conviction

This does not mean that virtual experiences cannot be experienced as real ones and produce, therefore, real uncontrollable emotions. Nor the other way around, for that matter. In the end, it’s all a question of personal conviction. A well-written novel or film can convince us that we’re experiencing reality, and we can react emotionally accordingly. There lies the art of the artist; Convince the audience that something is real when it isn’t.

How recognition is represented or symbolized

As said, existential recognition can come in all shapes and sizes. A business employee might get a pat on the back or a bonus, a town official, his bust placed in the town center, and a student might get a gold star or applause for a job well done. Writers or other artists might welcome a mention or paragraph about themselves in someone else’s book, their names in lights, an invitation to be interviewed on radio or TV, or some fancy object of peer acknowledgement like a statue or shiny gold trophy. Some of us will donate money to causes that promise to put our names on a plaque or, if we’re important or accomplished enough, our names or a message carved into solid marble walls or even a token of international appreciation like a peace prize. We even give recognition to the dead. For example, it is customary to posthumously award gratitude to fallen war heroes. This, because that is what we would expect from the living if we had given our lives for the continuation of their well-being. We put our names on our graves and, perhaps, an epitaph. We even build mausoleums and construct gigantic edifices that can be seen from miles away. We write our names in the sand, hang padlocks on fences, or carve out private messages on trees or sidewalks; anything that hopefully will provoke others to notice something that is ours; anything that we feel might provide us with as long-lasting relational echo as possible. This should not surprise us as without at least some form or level of recognition (the more the merrier), we would ignore one of our existential Structure’s most essential imperatives: Confirmation.

Goal-seeking

Goal-seeking is humankind’s most common form of behavior. Goals are goals because they promise us confirmation of either our environmental selves, our genetic selves, or both. Goal-seeking is invariably accompanied by some measure of effort by the goal-seeker. The psychological downside of making an effort to achieve a specific goal, however, is that it can expose the environmentally linked value of the person who makes the effort. In other words, making an effort can relationally expose one’s value as a human being.

Said in a different way, relational exposure primarily refers to the exposure of the self to environmental affirmation or contradiction.

Exposure and vulnerability

If, for example, you have a paper to write for school, and you make an effort to do a good job, you leave your environmental value exposed for your environment to affirm, contradict, or simply ignore. The more effort you make, the more vulnerable you become to the full emotional and structural impact of environmental affirmation or contradiction. Similarly, when little or no effort is made to reach a goal, one’s exposure to structural contradiction is reduced. For example, if you hand in a project but tell your teacher that family obligations stopped you from doing the job you would have liked to do, the impact from the teacher’s potential contradiction of the work’s value will be lessened. You will be less exposed because you have declared to the judging entity that you haven’t made much of an effort to accomplish the task, and besides, not doing so wasn’t your fault.

Exposure and sour grapes

When you are unsuccessful in reaching a specific goal, the value of that goal structurally shifts from being a potentially affirming goal to becoming a contradictory one. As an example, when Jonny learns that he can’t go to the local air show, the air show, very logically, becomes not all that interesting after all. When a phenomenon like this is examined from a structural perspective, it is easy to see that when potentially confirming goals becomes unreachable and, therefore, contradicting, one will logically perceive that goal as now undesirable instead of desirable.

Contrary to psychology’s classic explanation of the “sour grape experience,” when a subject fails to reach a desired goal, like procuring some grapes from a dangling vine, the subject experiences that goal as no longer desirable, but not because of some supposed need to defend their ego from a non-descript or hidden psychological threat, the subject experiences the unreachable goal as undesirable or even offensive because the goal itself has become contradictory instead of affirming. The subject does not rationalize the value of their goal-seeking objective; they simply experience what that object’s true affirming or contradictory value actually is.

Specific types of goal-seeking

Human effort can be manifested in three separate ways: as coming directly from the genetic self, from the environmental self or, as is frequently the case, from both. But take note, if the reason for trying to reach a specific goal is not environmentally driven, it will not be susceptible to the effects of environmental contradiction.

As an example, let’s take Mary and her love of painting landscapes. Few members of her environment like what she paints, but Mary is not affected by their criticisms. For Mary, the relational confirmation she seeks has little or perhaps no environmental significance. What Mary paints is genetically driven and, therefore, not directly susceptible to social pressures or influences. Socially or environmentally based efforts expose the environmental self to possible environmental contradiction. But, in Mary’s case, she doesn’t paint landscapes to impress or satisfy others. As a result, she isn’t emotionally affected by any negative feedback (counteractions) that might come from her environment. Contradictions coming from her environment that refer to Mary’s painting of landscapes will, of course, affect her psychologically as Mary has an environmental ego just like we all have. They will simply not affect her as much. The only time she will be significantly affected by such criticism is when such contradictions come from those with whom Mary holds more genetic-related relationships (father, mother, siblings, lover). Those close to us always affect us more than those that are not. The more relational space a living object takes in a subject’s ego, the more criticism coming from that object will affect a subject.

Your flawless genetic self

The genetic person that you are is the psycho-genetic representation of who you are as an existing human being. For this reason, and this reason alone, it is qualitative rather than quantitative in nature. It’s not how much you are something, it’s that simply you are that thing. Your genetic person, or your ego, should not be subject to contradiction. For your ego, or your genetic person, it is simply a matter of being or not being. By its very nature, it should never be exposed to the contradicting potential of the environment or to the judgment of others. The genetic person represents our psychological existential starting point, no more, no less. This is, indeed, its fundamental nature. This, with the genetic content it’s represented by, allows us to be, to exist. In this sense, the genetic person and existence by itself are understood to represent one and the same thing. Since it is not possible to exist more or less, one should not be seen as a genetic person more or less inclined to this or that thing, or better or worse than another genetic person. In other words, the person you are genetically cannot, in principle, be exposed to any judgment which would establish whether your ego is stronger or weaker, has more or less value, or is more or less important than another. Having said that, it would seem that there is no way to escape such eventualities when we are exposed to the environment or our social surroundings. In those cases, the qualitative status of our genetic egos suddenly become of quantitative consideration by our environment.

For the above-mentioned reasons, it seems obvious that our human condition can and often should be experienced as illogical or implausible. Could it be that we are actually qualitative beings forced to live in a quantitative universe? How many times have you felt the need to receive confirmation from people in your environment about who you are rather than what you are (your genetic person)?

Control and our genetic and environmental selves

As humans, our genetic selves are our primary points of relational departure and, therefore, the primary representative of who we really are. Our genetic selves are also the focal point of our innate, structurally driven search for confirmation. The ego or genetic self does not involve itself with evaluations or judgments. That job is reserved for our environmental selves (that part of who we are that is derived directly from our environment). Our genetic selves focus exclusively on searching for confirmation of the existential reality that they are, and yet, it is our quantitative, analytical, judgmental environmental selves that constitute our only pathway to confirmation, whether that confirmation directly references our genetic selves or our environmental selves. Our environment is hard-pressed to distinguish between who our genetic selves are and who our environmental selves are, and so are we. In the end, therefore, both selves must cooperate to guarantee that the total “us” can continue following all three structural mandates.

For example, while contemplating a sunset (a purely non-judgmental and, therefore, a purely non-environmental experience), Martha’s view is blocked by a group of people who move in front of her. A part of Martha’s environment quantitatively contradicts a qualitative relationship she is having (the group blocks Martha’s qualitative relationship with another portion of her environment). Now, all of a sudden, it is Martha’s environmental self that must step in and become involved in her genetic relationship. So Martha gets to her feet and politely asks the group to move to the side so that she can continue her qualitative relational experience.

More about control

Control is a psychological construct present or relevant to our relational interactions with our environments and, therefore, only of importance to our environmental selves. Indeed, our desire to control ourselves and/or others is about the only effective tool we have in our arsenal of defensive tactics that offers protection from contradictions that arrive from the world around us. He or she who controls their environment best will best be able to follow the structural imperative of continuance and, therefore, remain in consonance with the existential mandates that guide our existence.

Control seems to be desired by most, with the exception of those who are in love and, therefore, are little interested in the status of their environmental selves. Those who suffer most from the threat anxiety (anxiety linked to the possibility of contradiction) will be those who will desire most to be in control of their surroundings.

Control can be symbolized in any number of ways. Political power, one’s financial strength, or an admired place in society all serve to better control the eventuality of contradiction. He or she who has the largest home, the most expensive car, the most successful children, or the most social recognition feels better equipped to fend off contradiction and an eventual meeting with the most terrifying contradiction of all: death. This is the reason, perhaps the only reason, why the possession of material wealth seems so vital to so many of us.

That said, when we find other ways of avoiding contradiction in more traditional ways (while still feeling in control of our destinies), many of us will do so. Living entirely alone and, thereby, avoiding entirely the contradicting pressures of society, or joining a group or commune that is guided by a set of pre-agreed social norms, is another way of avoiding socially driven contradiction.

Control and transportation

Our sense of control over the actions we take is directly dependent upon how convinced we are that we can handle a crisis of contradiction were it to appear. This holds true when we are moving from one place to another, either on our own or using some other mode of transportation to do so.

For example, when we’re going to someplace on foot or by automobile, we feel very much in control of our actions. When contradiction appears (someone gets in our way, we must stop at a red light or dodge a passing car), we are convinced that all we have to do is pay attention to our surroundings, and we’ll arrive at our destination intact. Setting off for a particular destination on a bicycle, skateboard, or motorcycle, however, might make us feel less in control of our journey’s outcome and, consequentially, anxious. Indeed, depending on the experiences we’ve had in the past, even transporting ourselves on a public bus or train might feel threatening. After all, we’re not in the driver’s seat, someone else is, and we have no control over how that person might react when facing a life-threatening contradiction.

When searching for reasons why some of us feel apprehensive about using certain modes of transportation, one only has to examine how much control, or the lack thereof, we may feel that we have in relationship to the mode of transportation we’ve chosen.

Elevators can make certain people feel threatened. Many occupants of elevators are aware that they are traveling in a box, often at significant heights, while hanging from a series of cables and little more. They are conscious that if a contradiction occurred (there was an electoral failure, the cable broke, or an earthquake took place), they would have little control over their ultimate destiny, a situation that can easily create many different levels of anxiety.

Perhaps the most immediate and clearest example of that mode of transportation that can make many feel out of control and, therefore, overly anxious can be found where air travel is involved. Being strapped to a smallish seat inside a closed metallic cylinder as it speeds through the air thousands of feet above the Earth can make many feel vulnerable. In truth, those of us who travel by air have absolutely no control whatsoever over any contradiction that might appear and, therefore, have every right to feel apprehensive about this particular mode of transportation. In the end, nevertheless, that which allows air travel to be as popular as it is, is the fact that although others are in control of the passenger’s ultimate destiny, statistics show that it is, by far, the safest way to travel.

Controlling contradiction and mental health

Contradiction is humankind’s worst enemy, yet it forms an inevitable part of life itself, a fact that gives credence to the need for us to build a healthy repertoire of defensive, compensatory, or neutralizing tactics in an attempt to effectively diminish, lessen, or entirely quell contradiction’s destructive nature. Without such a repertoire of defensive tactics at our disposal, we would all stand a good chance of falling victim to insanity.

Interestingly, the only truly effective tool the self has at its disposal for both obtaining confirmation as well as dealing with contradiction, is the amount of relational control it wields over its environment. Indeed, from a psycho-relational perspective, being in control is synonymous with being in power over one’s relational future and over one’s psychological health as well. This being true, and although control is vital to our environmental selves, it is useless to our genetic selves. The ego, or our genetic self, as we’ve seen, only deals with qualitative relational experiences, whereas relationships involving the use of control deal with the quantitative side of our Structure’s relational equation. When the ego is blocked from confirmation, it is often the environmental self that will be called upon to run interference and do whatever is necessary to acquire, for the ego, the confirmation it needs. Remember, whatever affects the self, affects the ego and vice versa.

Confirming the ego

So where does the genetic self or ego go for a good shot in the arm of pure, unadulterated, uncontrolled, non-judgmental confirmation? What sort of relationships fall beyond the environment’s critical eye and allow the ego to follow the same structural imperatives that the environmental self must follow?

In general, virtually any activity that does not involve reflection has the potential of providing the ego with confirming experiences. Nevertheless, there are certain kinds of relational activities that seem to provide more existentially significant confirmations than others.

When we eat or drink, we automatically distance ourselves from our environment and, therefore, from our environmental selves. This is because, during such experiences, we lose much of our self-control as the environment stops being judgmental. Society, or the environment, has no say over behavior that is linked to satisfying any of our natural or physiological needs. Eating and drinking, for example, directly address the existential imperative of continuance (survival) and, therefore, is beyond social relevance.

Love and sickness

The same holds true when we fall in love. Love is one of continuance’s purest representations. (The experience of being in love directly represents the future in its purest form and, therefore, is not relevant to environmental judgment.) Indeed, we humans are supposed to be out of control when we’re in love.

Another area of human behavior where we see a full release from environmental control is when we fall asleep. Here, the environment rarely will criticize our decision to rest, and if we fall ill, it will usually leave us well enough alone as we try to recover. Better yet, when ill, often the environment will pardon us for all our sins and even come to our aid.

Bodily functions like sneezing, sensing pain, urinating, coughing, defecating, yawing, sighing, etc., are equally non-environmentally relevant behaviors that bypass our environment’s critical powers. Others may include contemplating beauty, having an orgasm, stretching, laughing, or crying uncontrollably. These behaviors are not considered environmentally pertinent either and, therefore, are perfect sources for non-threatening confirmation. This is why each time we find an object or event we sense is not susceptible to environmental intervention, we are implicitly attracted to it. All living organisms implicitly (structurally) lust for continuance (survival), and we are no different.

The source of inner conflict and contradiction

As we have already seen, inner psychological conflict is created between the environmental and genetic selves. The genetic self is most psychologically in tune with The Structure, while the environmental self is more in tune with the environment.

For example, our genetic selves are incapable of being the intentional protagonist of damaging self-contradiction. Therefore, if such a contradiction occurs, the subject of that contradiction will be unable to recognize their involvement as the direct cause of the contradiction in question. If apparent self-contradiction does occur, it can’t be because the victim of such a contradiction did so intentionally.

Even though all contradiction causes structural damage and must be eventually dealt with, the direct responsibility for psychological damage and any consequences that damage may produce cannot be felt structurally by the subject as being the subject’s direct responsibility. Not only are we humans bound by structural law to being intentionally self-constructive, not intentionally self-destructive, but since contradiction is categorically contradictory to the existential Structure we are identified with, we are blocked from feeling responsible for something we structurally can’t be. Although our relationship with the environment from which emanates all judgment can make us feel as though we were the cause of contradiction and, therefore, guilty for some contradictions, we also know what is structurally possible and what isn’t.

This does not mean that contradiction cannot cause inner psychological conflict; as such, it is the primary cause of all psychological distress. This just means that it is structurally not possible that the genetic self be identified with self-caused contradiction. From a strictly structural perspective, intentionality is what determines structural responsibility. This is why, when contradiction appears, we are obliged to look elsewhere for its cause and not at ourselves. We are able to feel guilt, remorse, or shame due to something we have done, but only because we are aware that it is our environment that is making us feel responsible for our actions, not The Structure that forms an integral part of who we are.

Take note that the intention of those who commit suicide cannot be to end their lives (man’s maximum contradiction) but rather to either definitively end a specific contradiction, or serve as a call for help.