Polystatic Appraisal
The Polystasis model incorporates three processes. First, there is Appraisal. We informally or formally predict the probability that our current desired baseline of functioning can be achieved. Is our current baseline viable, given what we anticipate? Is our current baseline even desirable? At this point, I introduce several concepts offered by another neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio (1994).
Damasio proposes that specific Somatic Markers are attached to specific images we generate. A specific somatic reaction is elicited when we consider an idea or recall an experience. Our “Gut” clinches up when we think about an embarrassing experience from our past. Our heart accelerates when reflecting on the elaborate dinner we are planning for our loved one. Damasio also introduces the concept of Background Feelings. At any one point in time, we feel “a certain way” that is created by not only our emotions and clusters of somatic markers related to ideas and experiences that are swirling around our mind, but also by our physiological state (levels of energy and fatigue, lingering illnesses or injuries, stage of one’s circadian cycle, etc.)
I propose that these various ingredients come together in what I call the Somatic Template. This template is more than a set of Damasio’s somatic markers. It is a general monitoring device that keeps us abreast of our overall physiological state. As I suggested in the first essay in this series, this template may play a central role in Sterling’s Allostatic process. Similarly, there might be a set of psychosocial templates that we frequently reference when making polystatic predictions and adjustments.
These templates offer a view of our psychological status and the status of our external world. As I noted in the first essay:
A psychosocial template might trigger our attention when something is threatening us. Elsewhere, I have suggested that we establish three threat categories in our Amygdala (Bergquist, 2011). I derived these categories from the semantic differential of Charles Osgood (1957). Is this threatening entity not aligned with our welfare (bad)? Is it strong (rather than weak and ineffective)? Is this threatening operating in an immediate active manner (rather than inactive or threatening at a temporal or spatial distance)? Our Amygdala is triggered, leading to an immediate change in our somatic template.
In the first essay, I suggested that when the Amygdala is triggered, we are likely to change our psychosocial template. Our anticipation is changed and “charged” by this appraisal of threat (or opportunity). While Damasio’s somatic template concerns how our body is operating and “feeling”, the psychosocial template associated with Polystasis concerns how we are seeing and “feeling about” the world in which we are operating. It seems that our amygdala provides much of the energy for the polystatic process to operate, while the psychosocial template provides much of the information (as acquired from one’s environment.
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