Details of Instinctual Pressures
This topic focuses on the psychosocial pressures associated with each Root Level that apply at each Primary Hierarchy level. These pressures create a sense of similarity in identically-numbered levels. The pressures are presumed to emerge from the primitive affective neural systems identified by Jaak Panksepp.
See the Table explained previously.
| L7s |
Willingness-RL7 |
Selflessness
|
|
| L6s |
Purpose-RL6 |
Autonomy
|
|
| L5s |
Communication-RL5 |
Understanding
|
|
| L4s |
Experience-RL4 |
Well-being
|
|
| L3s |
Change-RL3 |
Acceptability
|
|
| L2s |
Inquiry-RL2 |
Certainty
|
|
| L1s |
Action-RL1 |
Performance
|
|
RL1/PH-L1s: Action & Pressures for Performance
General Observations
Babies wave their arms and legs about. Children have a natural desire to skip, crawl and run, and generally do things. The instinct for activity shows up in youth and adulthood in wanting to be busy, getting work, pursuing hobbies, and engaging in sports. People engage with the environment and make things happen. When an activity is started, there is an urge to do it right and continue till it is completed.
PH-L1 elements are similar in that they all about performance, i.e. they operate on a physical reality whose dimensions are time and space. The elements are infused with Action-RL1 that necessarily occurs at a particular time and through time. Notions like timing and urgency are purely psychosocial and characterise activities. Time in psychosocial reality is a valuable resource: if lost or misused, it can never be recovered so there is a pressure of time.
Review
- Making a Movement (in PH1) is commonly seen in terms of performance, timing and speed. (Performance naturally plays a role at higher action functions too because it is a dimension of Action-PH1 in general.)
- Collecting Data (in PH2) is a matter of performance and the timing may be relevant, but this does not usually apply for higher level inquiry functions.
- Introducing a Variation (in PH3) is how change or stability is ensured at a specific moment in time. Performance, timing, duration and speed may all play a part here.
- Enabling a Sensation (in PH4) is sensitive to performance. Previous sensations may interfere with the experience; if adaptation occurs, the sensation ceases; and rapid repetition may alter the effect of a sensation.
- Producing Stimulation (in PH5) is a matter of performance, and subtle performance shifts affect meaning.
- Pursuing Tactical Objectives (in PH6) demands performance to deadlines (time-targets) to be meaningful and useful in practice.
- Repeating Trying (in PH7) is time-based and time-limited performance. It requires a starting time or a schedule for repeat attempts: avoidance appears as procrastination.
RL2/PH-L2s: Inquiry & Pressures for Certainty
General Observations
Biologists suggest that coping with the unexpected is evolutionarily significant. So the attempt to reduce uncertainty has become a basic drive for animals and plays a central role in their behaviour. Humans are often described as endowed with an instinct or drive for knowing. There are urges to discover, to find out, to investigate, to check, to explore. What is "known" to a person is not the same as codified or abstract knowledge which is mostly not known.
Inquiry in PH-L2 elements is about developing certainty in what is known. Even though this is never absolute and error-free knowledge is rare, it is sufficient in practice if inquiry provides sufficient confidence for proceeding. Such inquiry need not be scientific or even systematic: it all depends on what gives a person sufficient certainty. Whatever the approach, if certainty is low, there is a pressure for further inquiry. Certainty provides for control via predictability or repeatability, as well as generating feelings of confidence, competence and power. Uncertainty can be a potent generator of fear.
Review
- Following Procedures (in PH1) is about inquiring to get certainty about what should be done in a situation, and serves to control what actions are taken or provide confidence that they have been taken.
- Defining Concepts (in PH2) is about using inquiry to get certainty in regard to a shared understanding of essentials. It helps control how inquiries are performed and how findings are communicated. (Certainty and confidence are also issues for higher inquiry functions because it is an intrinsic concern of Inquiry-PH2.)
- Specifying Alterations (in PH3) is about using inquiry to get certainty about the essential details of a desired change in a situation, in order to control what happens or at least what should happen.
- Focusing Images (in PH4) requires control over the flow of inner experience. It involves inquiring as to what specific features should be visualized so as to become certain about the image being held in the mind.
- Establishing Signals (in PH5) is about using inquiry to determine what stimuli provide certainty that a specific message can be constructed, sent and received correctly.
- Setting Strategic Objectives (in PH6) is about using inquiry to get certainty on what counts as a suitable outcome; and then getting control of activities by requiring reference to it.
- Questioning Beliefs (in PH7) is about using inquiry to justify holding beliefs and increase certainty in them or alter them. Readiness to expose and explore your beliefs gives you better control of your thinking and activities, and others get more certainty in their dealings with you.
RL3/PH-L3s: Change & Pressures for Acceptability
General Observations
Loss of fit between the self and its environment is actually dangerous. So anxieties arise whenever anything changes. Everyone experiences stranger anxieties, urges for stability and sameness, while desiring improvements in a state of affairs. So there is a judgement as to the acceptability of any change. The herding tendency may be particularly relevant here: it surely plays a role in the drive for conformity. Unexpected undesired change can lead to rage in interpersonal settings, and to riots in group situations.
The necessity for change in PH-L3 elements is associated with their relevance for identity, existence and environmental fit. The pressure that appears to emerge is one of acceptability. Unacceptable ideas or activities activate intense, even violent, rejection. State changes are generally viewed as problematic, even if seemingly desirable because preservation of identity is so valued. In practice, the existing system (state) often needs to be abandoned and a new state developed. There is inevitably a period of tension that must be tolerated as new conditions gel.
Review
- Using Techniques (in PH1) is about improving the quality of results. However, the technique must be socially acceptable or it is rejected regardless of its seeming value.
- Arranging Comparisons (in PH2) enables properties and differences to be highlighted, but as the proverb states: 'comparisons are odious'. Unless the comparison is acceptable, it does not count or will be ignored.
- Determining Improvements (in PH3) represents a new desirable state whose existence is deemed acceptable because it assumes preservation the current identity. (Acceptability is a general factor in Change-PH3, and so it also applies at the other levels of functioning.)
- Containing Emotions (in PH4) handles mental and physiological states that express (and sometimes protect) a current identity. However, acceptability affects use of emotions; and societies typically require certain emotions to be suppressed or even repressed.
- Interpreting Signs or Significance (in PH5) is about fitting a communication into the identity of a particular domain. The acceptability of the interpretation is a crucial factor in its development and communication.
- Installing Priorities (in PH6) enables re-shaping practices via a particular re-disposition of resources (i.e. concrete value). Given the mission always suggests more activities than resources permit, priorities are inevitable and should be accepted, but they are painful. So specific priorities seek social acceptability so as to permit rapid headway.
- Enabling Seeing (in PH7) entails acceptability of the potential for change to a current perspective and identity. When what is plainly evident is unacceptable—as is common in relationships, politics and even business—denial supervenes.
RL4/PH-L4s: Experience & Pressures for Well-being
General Observations
Experience is the basis for formation of a self. The self is used as an interface with (unknowable) objective reality. Survival requires that a person must engage in endeavours. That means being productive and interacting with an unknowable reality. The self uses the mind (mental processes) creatively to master the emotionality and discomforts inherent in this interaction, as well as to engage with and handle endeavours altering objective reality. Personal endeavour is based on use of the human elements codified in THEE.
There appears to be a pleasure instinct leading to urges for comfort and ease, possibly also for congruence between inner and outer states, and for pursuit of other psychosocial instincts
The involvement of experience in PH-L4 elements is associated with the ability to handle ourselves and pursue endeavours that are productive personally and/or socially. Critical in this effort is the drive for well-being i.e. seeking to ameliorate discomfort and distress inherent in endeavours due to inescapable natural and social factors.
The inability to maintain well-being is felt as stress, pain and helplessness which, at the extreme, can produce a breakdown in functioning. Confidence is a key factor in choosing suitable endeavours, and in maintaining well-being at times of stress. The pressure for well-being can have distorting results: e.g. it may lead to avoidance of work, to scapegoating, to substance abuse, to psychopathic attitudes, and more.
Review
- Deploying Responses (in PH1) maximizes the likelihood that a situation will be handled confidently one way or another. This provides for a feeling of well-being. The lack of a suitable response generates feelings of helplessness. At the extreme there is traumatization and the self may be damaged.
- Conforming Measurements (in PH2) is at the heart of confidence in testing, analysis, discovery and innovation. Conformity to a standard unit and a standardized system of units feels right and generates a well-being that underpins cooperation, replication and valuation of systematic inquiry.
- Ensuring Sustenance (in PH3) accords with the desire that everyone has for continuity, especially during periods of turmoil or during resource shortage. Sustainability generates well-being and provides a confident base when handling any change. Deprivation is especially distressing, especially if it threatens continuity of the self-image.
- Embracing Ideas (in PH4) is about finding your bearings in any situation and so enabling both reflection and action. A flow of ideas, new and old, generates a sense of well-being, while a blank mind reduces confidence. (Well-being is also relevant at other levels of experience, because this is an inherent aspect of Experience-PH4.)
- Appreciating Symbols (in PH5) enables the provision and exploration of meaning to any stimulus or mental product, even highly idiosyncratic dream images, disturbing natural events or icons (religious or patriotic). This provision of meaning, often viewed sceptically or even ridiculed, generates well-being, sometimes vital to survival within a painful reality.
- Owning Principal Objects (in PH6) provides for the survival of a project despite the vicissitudes of the environment. The sustenance of these goals depends on how members feel. The self provides energies and resources to nurture what it owns, but once the objects cease to generate well-being, the project is abandoned.
- Welcoming Participation (in PH7) is about entering and staying in the game while still feeling good about it. It is never possible to have full control of any situation, group, or relationship, and so accepting frustration and compromises are inevitable. However, gratification and satisfaction must be sufficient to provide a basic level of well-being.
RL5/PH-L5s: Communication & Pressures for Understanding
General Observations
Young children have the capacity to speak whatever language is in their environment. They actively do so and operate an untaught universal grammar. If parent speak a pragmatic pidgin, their children spontaneously create a creole with standard grammatical features. Psychosocially, language leads to group formation and to understanding that is fostered and permitted by the group.
Communication is the method by which we construct reality i.e. the illusion within which we function, and language enables us to share, confirm and even explore and alter this reality. The pressure for understanding pushes us to develop a satisfactory illusion. An unsatisfactory construction leads to a feeling of confusion which is unpleasant and frightening.
In the PH-L5 elements, the dominant input from communication-RL5 allows for an approach to some undefinable totality and provides a pressure to understand it in a relevant and useful way.
Review
- Devising Interventions (in PH1) involves construing a particular field of action so as to understand what is going on and what the effects of action will be.
- Constructing Relations (in PH2) involves construing some field of inquiry. Although prediction is scientifically sufficient for proof of a relation and may lead to a model, we experience a pressure to understand that relation.
- Organising Adaptation (in PH3) involves construing the field of change so as to understand what changes follow from whatever is unavoidable and uncontrollable, so as to permit coexistence and possibly co-evolution.
- Developing Intuitions (in PH4) is about construing an unusual, tricky or new personal situation. Starting from a gut feel, it develops from a pressure to understand in some relevant fashion.
- Agreeing Names (in PH5) involves discriminating things that require reference. This allows you to understand what you are saying and enables people to understand each other. (Understanding is a general aspect of communication and so also applies at other levels within Communication-PH5, implicitly or explicitly.)
- Sharing Social Values (in PH6) is about construing communal living by understanding what each and all need and view as important.
- Tolerating Risks (in PH7) is about readiness to participate in an unpredictable undertaking with open eyes, and this is based on understanding what disappointments or disasters may eventuate.
RL6/PH-L6s: Purpose & Pressures for Autonomy
General Observations
Purposive behaviour is inseparable from the development of values i.e. notions of good and bad, with aims to avoid or remove what is bad. The presence of autonomy is intrinsic to the notion of a life governed by value and goals.
Purposes require creation and the dominance of purpose in PH-L6 elements is associated with the creative and quintessentially humane-personal aspect of psychosocial reality. However, pursuit of purposes and sustaining a creative drive require self-control and self-awareness, and this feature emerges strongly in the elements. The pressure here is directed towards autonomy. It generates endless debates about free will i.e. the freedom to have and pursue purposes of your own creation.
Review
- Determining Choices (in PH1) is the most basic expression of autonomy and is the focus for argument about free will. While higher mammals and primates make choices, these choices are not based on the superstructure of pressures described here. They probably never commit themselves to overcome basic biological instincts in the future and lack a diversity of choice options open to humans.
- Justifying Judgements (in PH2) ideally operates without random or systematic biases and applies goals and values relevant to the inquiry. However, the pressure for autonomy shows up in our readiness to be affected by personal bias. That is why those with evident conflicts of interest are often excluded.
- Generating Representations (in PH3) is about identifying and structuring reality in a particular way, and this is subject to a massive and largely unconscious pressure for autonomy. Each feels a right and compulsion to apply their own perspective and this can result in major divergences. There may also be small differences in accounts of situations.
- Integrating Identifications (in PH4) is about handling experiences of others so as consciously use spontaneous tendencies to identify with them. The integration of an identification builds the self and only if there is autonomy will the result feel genuine. Autonomy allows us to seek out suitable models and be responsible for who we become.
- Assigning Meanings (in PH5) is about embedding something in communication that makes sense. Generating meaning is a personal affair because there is an inherent pressure for autonomy. Meanings have to be made your own in order to function effectively within you.
- Adhering to Value Systems (in PH6) is about believing specific ideas and paradigms or theories that order understanding. Socialization and indoctrination attempt to over-ride personal autonomy. The inherent pressure for autonomy is the only possibility for re-evaluation, modification and/or abandonment of embedded and accepted ideas. (Autonomy is a characteristic pressure for values and objectives at other purpose levels, because it is intrinsic to Purpose-PH6.)
- Valuing Learning (in PH7) is about a readiness to acquire knowledge and skills despite difficulties. It requires autonomy because learning is highly personal , distracts from pleasures and duties, and consumes energy.
RL7/PH-L7s: Willingness & Pressures for Selflessness
General Observations
At its simplest form, many things are done everyday for others without thought of self. In a more sophisticated form, a transcendence tendency leads us get beyond our everyday existence and move away from a solipsistic-egocentric frame of reference more generally. This inner urge to go beyond what exists and enter a mysterious realm that is holy ('utterly other') or sacred appears to have been present since the dawn of humanity. States of awe, like the search for personal enlightenment and selflessness itself, do not depend on religion or its doctrines.
PH-L7 entities present themselves as transpersonal. They enable anyone to tap into the creative spirit of the particular primary hierarchy: however that requires willingness. Closely allied, as a psychosocial pressure, is selflessness. This pressure, long promoted within religion, is used by charismatics of all sorts.
Review
- Allowing Spontaneity (in PH1) is about forgetting yourself and simply acting from an unknown core and without trying to know what will eventuate. This selflessness often shows as rescuing or helping in emergencies without thinking.
- Releasing Wonder (in PH2) is about releasing the spirit of curiosity and allowing surprising answers to emerge, often in symbolic form. It is the only way forward when practical inquiry has become bogged down. Selflessness is necessary to enable unexpected or undesirable findings.
- Envisaging Transformation (in PH3) is about a readiness to abandon a present identity and reality for a new identity-reality which is, by definition, non-self. Any urge to cling to past benefits and glories reveals unwillingness. The nature and implications of something wholly new can never be known.
- Using Imagination (in PH4) is about directing yourself to infinite possibilities of experience. The force of personal history and wishes for repetition, intrinsic to intuition, need to be transcended to enable the new. Selflessness is a pre-requisite for imagination to allow emergence of counter-intuitive ideas.
- Sustaining Openness (in PH5) is about maintaining the potential for receiving and sending meaningful communications. It is wholly prevented by egocentric and self-centred states. Selflessness permits a transcendence of superficialities and awareness of a hidden communications that would otherwise (or conventionally) remain unnoticed e.g. psychoanalysis depends on it.
- Activating Ultimate Values (in PH6) are about experiencing what has been universally and at all times viewed as good (or evil). They exist to take one beyond selfish concerns, beyond dogmatic philosophies, and beyond political realities. Selflessness opens the door to enlightened endeavours that paradoxically promote self-interest.
- Extending Trust (in PH7) moves from habitually trusting a narrow circle of family or intimates to assuming a beneficence in the universe. It includes taking trust to deeper levels in particular situations or relationships. Selflessness is most needed when extending trust to outsiders or those conventionally feared. (Selflessness is a feature of willingness at other levels, because it is intrinsic to Willingness-PH7.)
Initially posted: 2-Aug-2013. Last updated: 8-Jan-2023. "Change" items altered Apr-2024.