Determine this disturbance’s “Effect on the Environment”, and re-run the rest of the model to see how your output could likely be affected.

/in /by

Determine this disturbance’s “Effect on the Environment”, and re-run the rest of the model to see how your output could likely be affected.

  • Next, instead of using a Goal as a “Reference Value”, now substitute this “Threat: you have determined that to avoid any contact with a car, it is best to cross a street when vehicles are at least 100 feet away from you. “ What would be the result of the comparator function? What would be a possible output?
  • Hints to Guide Your Reading
  • Questions for Reflection:
  • What kind of affect occurs when a goal is going well? What type of behavior is likely produced?
  • What kind of emotion occurs when a goal is going poorly? What type of behavior is likely produced?
  • What kind of affect occurs when a threat is going well (is being avoided)? What type of behavior is likely produced?
  • What kind of affect occurs when a threat is going poorly (you are getting closer to the threat value)? What type of behavior is likely produced?
  • In which type of behavior feedback loop are you trying to produce an output that moves you closer to the ideal?
  • In which behavior feedback loop are you trying to produce an output that moves you away from the ideal?
  • How do these cybernetic models indicate when you could or should shift from one reference situation to another. For example, how do you know, according to these models, when to shift from the reference of “spending time with my significant other” to the reference of “earning a 90% on my chemistry exam”?
  • Discussion Group Case Study
  • The goal of this case study is to get you to consider why or how failures in self regulation could occur.
  • Janie, a person with an avoidant temperament approaches you, a clinical psychologist, and indicates that she is having an anxiety problem. Specifically, she suffers from “generalized anxiety” which means that she is chronically anxious and really doesn’t know why. In other words, nothing in her environment triggers anxiety, per se, she just feels anxious all the time.
  • Why should this make sense to you, knowing that she has an avoidant, rather than an approach temperament?
  • You decide to use a cognitive therapy strategy to assist her in alleviating her anxiety. In preparation for your first counseling session, you create a cybernetic behavioral and affective feedback loop that would indicate how an anxiety disorder would occur (NOTE: the KIND of behavior feedback loop you use is critical to understanding this task)
  • So, pick you behavior loop. Next indicate how a malfunction in the components would likely create chronic anxiety that would lead to her anxiety disorder. Look at each component, consider how it should function for a person to have a normal affective life, and then consider how that specific component could work improperly, thereby causing an erroneous affective output.
  • After identifying all of the possible malfunctions, focus in on one and formulate a strategy to help her regain adaptive self regulation that would decrease her anxiety disorder.
  • Discuss your thoughts with your group, then post your collective feedback loop and explanation of the malfunction within the class discussion.