Our current understanding and appreciation for human motivation, attention and behavior isn’t what it used to be. While for a long time we tended to view human beings as well-oiled machines that sought out a state of rest, we now view human beings as energetic organisms that seek out activity as a way to experience competence and achievement (Maslow, 2014; White, 1959). A primary desire to remain in or return to a state of rest is to be found only among those who are depressed or addicted to some mind and body altering drug. Rest is sought only when we are tired and seek out restoration of energy so that we might once again be active achievers.
We have similarly found that human being normally do not seek return to a state of homeostasis. Rather, as Peter Sterling (2020) has recently proposed, we are constantly shifting the baseline of our desired physiological state based on the changing environment we encounter from moment to moment. I have proposed that Sterling’s model of Allostasis can be extended to a model of what I have labeled Polystasis. The polystatic process concerns the shifting way in which we establish a desired psychosocial baseline as we interact with a social environment that is constantly shifting. The polystatic process enables us to constantly adjust our motivation, attention and behavior based on a dynamic
In this set of essays, I have offered yet another way in which human motivation, attention and behavior can be viewed. I have suggested that we operate not in the current state of our environment; rather, we are operating in the environment we anticipate will be present several moments in the future. We live in our near future as vital, competence seeking beings who are constantly adjusting their desired psychosocial baseline in anticipation of an always emerging environment.
I turn first to Emotions and then to the closely related matter of neurobiology and self-organizing systems as they impact the polystatic process of anticipation. Our emotions constitute the element in the “polystatic” process that provides most of the energy and some of the information needed to engage this dynamic, adaptive psychic process.
Having considered some of the operations involved in applying Emotions to the polystatic process of appraisal, adjustment, and action, I turn to the agency of the human psyche that is most closely associated with our Emotions. This agency is our neurobiological system, with its many levels of functioning, and a surprising lack of any central coordinating unit. As a self-organizing, highly adaptive system, our brain and its many adjunct parts provide ample resources for our successful engagement in a complex, feedback-based process of Polystasis (contrasting with the traditional model of homeostasis).
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