equus

I want to share an idea I haven't begun to research yet - I'm not even sure where to start!

We have sayings such as 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread' 'sleep on it' and 'X is getting carried away with...' but I've never really thought about this phenomenum until recently.

I think the above saying refer to something we can all recognise, a first flush of enthusiasm that appears to almost drive itself, times when we know we have got 'carried away...', the awareness afterwards that we had lost all objectivity and while we could feverishly support our notion at the time, our minds selectively home in on only things that support it. Or times when we've seen others act this way.

Here's what I started to wonder:
How is it that (I) with the same brain, same motives, same personality, and often the same information, can be so unobjective in the first flush of an idea and yet be able to reason with the same idea more reasonabley a day later? Sometimes just 'sleeping on it' works so it isn't all down to more thinking time. hy is it that sometimes taking a break from a line of thinking allows us to come back more clearly? And lastly what purpose does that first flush of enthusiasm serve in order for it to be so wide spread - ie to have survived biologically and behaviourally? I can see the downside, yet it is evident so what's the upside? What purpose is served by getting carried away?

For a bit of background, I'm a behaviourist so come from the perspective that for behaviour to survive (be repeated) there must be reward at some level. I also believe that our behavioural adaptability as human beings is in part genetic - in fact I believe it's our ability to adapt and invent that has led to our success as a species.

Taking the latter part of the above assumption - that we are genetically inventive and adaptable I ask myself, theoretically what mechanisms would support that? It would have to be fairly strong as the evidence that we conform with the norm (on the whole - but not entirely) is overwhelming. There is certainly a social cost to new ideas and historically often punishment dealt out to those who had them. So by what means has our inventiveness survived? What mechanism that can be held in our genes could plausibly achieve this?

Here's the idea:
We know our brains release chemicals that can reward us such as endorphins. What if that 'PING' moment of seeing a connection, an idea, something new triggered chemicals which both serve as an instint reward to ensure we tried to have new ideas even if the first one doesn't work AND energised us to feel a compulsion for further investigation, telling someone, even acting on it. In that time (as I am doing now paradoxically!) we risk alot of energy on what could be a dud, and social rejection - the rewards are unlikely to be instant even IF the idea is good.

It seems to me that within a species of group animals that NEED to adapt, that NEED NEW ideas this would work rather well. Because we're group animals we share ideas without always counting the cost - especially NEW ideas, or AHA moments, then others stand more chance of hearing it and the checks and balances of conformity come into play. GREAT!! Like natural selection this means we have plenty of variety with only the best surviving.

In other words what if 'getting carried away', impulsivity, and over enthusiasm serve a group purpose to allow new ideas to be selected?

Okay - if you've got this far you a star and probably wondering what the smeg this has to do with recovery!! Hold on to your seats - it is getting there!

So IF we get a chemical reward released in that 'aha' penny dropping moment, IF that provides us both with pleasure and possibly unrealistic faith in what we have thought (enough to get us to risk the social cost of sharing/acting on it!) that could explain WHY we lose objectivity initially. Once the chemical recedes the calmness and ability to reason reasonably returns - by that time the idea exists in the world OUTSIDE just our own minds, to be selected or not!

Alternatively, there's no chemical involved just 'something' else that we can recognise effects reasoning - so we say 'sleep on it' 'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread' 'Don't get carried away' - something which passes with time and allows us more reflection.

Down to recovery - Acting impulsively, getting obsessed, not to mention how we react to others acts of impulsivity, how we see each other, how we talk to each other, how we percieve situations where we feel frustrated at another not listening - through all of this don't we need to have some understanding of what effects our own minds? Of why our power to reason objectively isn't a constant but fluctuates across time?

My idea could well be barking mad and probably is but it was irresitable to share it - especiall as it was based on how irresistable it is to do nothing with an idea!!

Don't worry though - I'll sleep on it before rattling round trying to find if there is eveidence beyond my theoretical stuff!!

Gabe

Okay Eq...jeeze, yeah?
I think what you're talking about is a compulsive personality.
And research has shown that these personalities basically have trouble stopping at "just one" of anything that gives them a "rush".
Drink, drugs, gambling, food, pornography, lying.
They may be successful at giving up one or all of the things they are "compulsive" about.
More times than not, they are successful at giving up one and then move onto another.
The pathology is the rush behind the compulsion.
The compulsive/addictive personality needs restructuring in order to accomodate for the loss of that rush.
Enter recovery programs.
There also needs to be a healthy replacement of the "rush producing" behavior.
Life changes (behavior modification), recovery programs, therapy and spirituality often work as healthy replacements.
But then (and here's the tricky part) those replacements can become compulsive in nature too.
Take the person who "overdoes" AA.
Or the person who begins to excercise compulsively.
And the person who quits drinking and becomes a religious zealot.
Healthy replacements gone haywire.
They begin to interfere with and affect the persons life in similar ways as addiction did.
I'm gonna suggest that a lot of this could have to do with Adult ADHD.
More on that later.

Don W

I've had problems with that, gabe also. equus, reminded me of how easy I can over do most anything. I'm really bad at collecting projects. Not so much collecting them as finishing one before starting another. Including SR, I can over do recovery also. In fact someone told me at one time this is why companies got involved with trying to help employees with alcohol problems. In many cases, the ones with the problem were their best saleman, best worker, best manager etc. For years they'd just fire them. The person sometimes would get help and go on to be the best at another company. Sometime a competitor. I've enjoyed the new desire to read I have. I even will go from one book to another. After 10 books, I sick of it and don't read another for 6 months.
equus, Am I correct getting this from what you're talking about. Can anyone identify?
Or have others noticed even here on line with SR. Hidden behind the wall of addictions are very smart people that we get surprised when they end up telling us about advanced jobs they get. You should have seen the surprise on the face of bartender when I'd tell them I worked in an Operating Room. They couldn't picture the person they had to shut off or made an ass of himself doing an important job. Next time at a rehab or meeting asked or listen to the jobs people used to have. I used to say many time and still do. How can they have a great job like that and have a problem?

susane1408

Out of my depth here but what's been said so far on this thread sparks the thought that; taken to the nth degree this is the human reaction that results in Genius when channelled one way and self-destruction when channelled another way. Many acknowledged genius' walk a fine line with respect to the described behaviour.
Chemical reward reactions sound plausible to me.
As I said; out of my depth in so far as putting my thoughts in print

equus

Join the club - this is still just a baby thought and I haven't done any reading around it yet!!

I was thinking more in terms that most abnormal psychology is evident to a lesser degree in normal psychology - mostly it's an exageration of what we all can relate too (mostly!!).

It's not only in the realm of abnormality - contracts have a cooling off period, we use expressions like getting carried away to refer to perfectly healthy people but who are behaving in a less reasoned way.

My feeling is that our powers of reasoning are MEANT to fluctuate, that it's an experience we share and must serve some function. It becomes an illness when those changes are taken to an extreme that interferes with a persons life.

I also think it would make sense for us to have a inate variation in how much we 'got carried away'. A coloney would need a few radical souls for new ideas but if everyone was like that it'd be chaos!

I did find some experiments on rats but they were based around a chemical released during food seeking behaviour etc. I'm wondering as a species which has evolved beyond animals in sharing 'ideas' 'philosophy' 'art' whether we have some chemical reward in us for being the producer. If there is a chemical reward, if there is a need for a variety in levels of it's production (to avoid a whole coloney of determined inventors!!) then there would be extremes at either end of the bell curve. Massive, huge PERHAPS this is related to abnormal psychology - compulsion, inpulsivity, mania, or just plain pig headedness!

Anyone else out there find thinking new things strangely enjoyable? Why?

Gabe

"Chemical reward reactions" is an interesting concept.
It takes into account positive and negative payoffs.
I've only recently come to understand "negative payoffs".
They explain why someone would persist in a behavior that is perceived to be "negative".
It follows along with the precept that we are always motivated to do things.
Therefore, there must be some sort of "negative payoff" for people who persist in negative behaviors.
The chronic liar, for instance, while not understood by the general public, persists in his deception because of some "internal payoff" that only he/she can understand.
I think a basic premise of behavior modification is to change what the "rewards" are in order to mold behavior into more healthy/socially acceptable patterns.

equus

Gabe I might be confusing your use of the word negative with behavioural terms like postitive and negative reinforcers. I don't know if I'm reading what you've written wrongly.

A chemical reward like endorphins is a positive reinforcer. The removal of craving by using the substance craved is a negative reinforcer - the reward is not in something added, it's in the relief from discomfort. For example if you are given your favourite food that is a positive reinforcer - you get something and are rewarded. But when you're wearing painful shoes and finally get to take them off, you are losing something (pian), the reward for the bahaviour of taking the shoes off is the 'ahhhhhh' feeling (a sound I've heard frequently when D would drink his first pint!). Because pain is removed rather than somethng added removing uncomfortable shoes is a negative reinforcer. Negative reinforcers are VERY powerful in increasing the likelyhodd of the behaviour being repeated - arguabley MORE powerful than positive reinforcers, BOTH are rewards.

An aversive is something which reduces the likelyhood of the behaviour being repeated. Children learn not to snatch despite gaining the object they wanted because of the aversives applied by those around them when they do. Those with new ideas might face ridicule, be seen as trouble makers and socially excluded - those are all highly aversive. They also often forgo the rewards on offer for fitting in, they don't always gain from their ideas - and yet we are a species who's success relies of adaptation. What sets us apart from animals is ideas, or more to the point the way we share and deal with ideas - art, philosophy, debate, etc.

The mechanisms which genetically underly this in human beings is what caught my interest - I had a hunch they would be connected to understanding 'getting carried away' and our normal fluctuations of reasoning. IF it's a shared experience that we become less objectively reasoned at times then that could help in understanding extremes where those fluctuations are causing damage to our lives. If we know or understand the FUNCTION served by being 'single minded' we can find alternatives.

Behaviourism uses something called 'functional analysis' to understand behaviour - you study what the results of the behaviour are to determine it's function. But behaviourism as an area of science has a culture of keeping itself to itself - stick to what you can observe etc. Just as I left working in Applied Behavioural Analysis that isolation from other areas that looked inwards at the unobservable triggers and rewards had (I think) begun to soften. Certainly I was sent some Journal articles that seemed to reflect some changes - behaviourists getting their fingers sticky in Artificial Intelligence and neural net models.