Having explored an Essence approach to contemporary issues (Bergquist, 2024b, Bergquist, 2024c) and begun a consideration of how this approach might be applied to the Essence of Trust Bergquist, 2024d), we are now ready to begin identifying ways in which to best manage polarities associated with Trust. Barry Johnson (1992/1996; 2020) writes about the “optimization” of polarities.
As part of this optimization, Johnson warns that we must not try to maximize the appeal of any one side; rather we must carefully optimize the degree to which we are inclined toward one side or the other as well as the duration of our stay with consideration and enactment of this side. How serious are we about focusing on this one side and how long are we going to sustain this focus? Optimizing means that we must find a reasonable and perhaps flexible set-point as we act in favor of one side or another. Finding these acceptable optimum responses and repeatedly redefining them is the key to polarity management.
Polystasis and Optimization
I find that this polarity management strategy is aligned with a concept and strategy that I introduced previously in this series of essays (Bergquist, 2024a). This is a concept and strategy that I have called Polystasis. This process differs from the traditional concept of homeostasis, in that the baseline is shifting as an assessment of one’s current environment is adjusted. By contrast, homeostasis leads one back to a stable baseline. As in the case of allostasis [a process described by Peter Sterling (2020) to account for the dynamics operating in the human body], Polystasis involves an ongoing, dynamic interplay between an individual (or group) (or society) with regarding to desired state, prediction and action. Under conditions of Polystasis, we are constantly making predictions regarding what will happen if we take specific actions. This prediction, in turn, leads to modification in the desired state to which we hope our actions will take us.
Much as Miller, Galanter and Pribram (1960) did in their presentation of a cybernetic model of human behavior, Polystasis is centered on ongoing feedback coming from one’s environment and the agile adjustment of expectations and desired outcomes based on this feedback. While traditional behavioral perspectives begin with the assumption that human beings (and all sentient animals) seek to return to a state of satiation, the Polystatic perspective is more closely aligned with the 21st Century perspectives offered by neo-cognitive psychologists, many neurobiologists and those in the positive psychology camp.
Human beings (and most other sentient beings) are inherently curious and playful–seeking to actively engage in and learn from interactions with their environment. In our interactions, we gain valuable information that enables us to make better Polystatic predictions. In that sense, Polystasis serves a highly adaptive function. One final point, Polystasis is aligned with a theory of motivation that incorporates so-called auto-telic (self-motivating) properties—such as the joy inherent in playful behavior and the experience of competence (White, 1959) and the experience of Flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
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