Anxiety and Becoming a Person

By George M. Prince

If the current fever to redesign education were to be informed by an appreciation for the role of anxiety in the child’s development, it would be possible to multiply the thinking skills developed in school. What is needed is not new curricula and new buildings and equipment, but a new relationship between teacher and student in which the adult focuses on nurturing, above all, a realistic self–appreciation. Treated properly, those selves have all the talent required to become outstanding thinkers. If we adults in the teaching system can become clear, within our selves about how to create, first internally and then for our charges, a discount–free process and goal–oriented way of relating and learning, we may be able to provide children and parents with a new more humane and growth friendly model for relating to themselves and each other.

Systematic Limitation of Growth

The present system of child rearing and teaching seem uninformed about the child’s brilliant sensitivity, capability, and willingness to perceive and make meaning. Their combination of dependence and love creates an availability we do not seem to comprehend. With our devotion to punishment and reward to reach our goals for their behavior, we train our children to smother and reject their natural talents for connecting. Being gifted learners, they obediently create an internal field that shackles their thinking processes. They construct a relationship with themselves, modeled on that of their parents, that treats their selves like the enemy. Little wonder that most of us use only 1/20th of our potential.

How I Become a Person

To put our present practices in perspective I need to understand the process I go through to develop from a helpless infant into a whole person; autonomous and differentiated from others and yet capable of close, satisfying relationships. My motives for growth are, first, to make meaning out of the confusions I encounter, and second, to preserve and enhance my integrity. The most fundamental thing I do with what happens to me is to organize it, make meaning of it: I create sense. (Kegan, 1982)

The bedrock basis by which to evaluate any educational practice is the question: does it facilitate my capacity to make meaning?

Developmental Stages

Robert Kegan (1994) maps the developmental stages as I move from infancy and total enmeshment, where I perceive everything as "me", and I can’t distinguish between me and my surroundings, or between feeling and thinking, to the stage of maturity when I clearly differentiate my thinking from my feeling; I become principle–oriented, capable of hearing and evaluating (entertaining) the views of others without getting ‘hooked’ by them. I can listen empathetically to understand without reacting, communicate without antagonizing. My regard of myself is firmly respectful and realistically appreciative.

I have moved from a stage of "First Order Way of organizing experience" (enmeshed in it) to what Kegan terms a "Third or Fourth Order Way" (able to understand and evaluate, and manage my response to an event without getting enmeshed).

An example of First Order thinking is my involvement with bouncing a ball in the house. When I am four, I am ‘bouncing the ball’. I am enmeshed in the activity and when someone takes the ball, it may feel like they have taken a part of me—stopped me from being me. I am not able to clearly differentiate myself from the activity. When I am ten, bouncing the ball is an activity in which I am participating. It is different from being me. I can objectively observe the activity.

The Learning Process

The process of moving from First Order Thinking to Fourth Order depends upon my mastery of the learning process. To evaluate any given practice in child rearing and education, I need to know the minute particulars of how I go about organizing information to create meaning. The following steps were derived from studying thousands of invention sessions in which the objective was to create new ideas. Creating a new idea, where before there was ignorance, is what learning is. Here are the steps:

1. Perceiving/becoming aware

2. More or less confusion

3. Trial connecting—I connect the new perception to something I know,
to create meaning

4. Testing to see if that meaning conforms to reality

5. Adopting that meaning as the ‘truth’ until contrary evidence proves

otherwise

6. Locating it in the proper competence file

Step three, trial connecting, is the pivotal activity in making meaning. It is in this step that I create my options. Any inhibitions placed on this activity will limit my capacity to develop into a whole person.

My early and most important guides, trainers and conditioners are my parents—particularly my mother— my siblings, my teachers and my own programming. Interactions with these fundamental parts of my life govern the formation of my self–system.

The influence of my genetic make–up, and my instincts form an enormously important part of the mix. My assimilation of information—that is, the way I interpret an event to make it useful to me, depends upon how I organize meaning. For example, if I am a pessimist I tend to put a gloomy spin on my interpretations.

The Fateful Appearance of Anxiety

In my first year I learn to connect an experience, not to the immediately prior event, but to relevant experience. I establish ‘competence files’ and accumulate information in appropriate files. For example, all learning –to– speak information goes into that file, while learning–to–walk goes into its file.(Kegan, 1994; Kegan 1984)

There is one type of information/event that takes precedence over everything else: information that has to do with my survival. There are the well known instinctual reactions of eating, crying when hungry, or in pain, etc. And there is one kind of survival information that is different from all others in its impact on me—it is the experience of anxiety.

Anxiety is an uncanny feeling, akin to awe, dread, loathing, and horror. Unlike hunger or pain, it has no source on which I can focus to alleviate it. (Sullivan, 1953)

The experience of anxiety begins in my first year as early as the third month. It is triggered by two very different classes of event. When my mother is anxious, I catch it from her. For example, if she is anxious when she begins to feed me, even though hungry, I am often too agitated to eat. The other type of event is separation.. When separated from my mother, I do not have the capacity to understand ‘temporary’, nor to imagine her still existing somewhere out of my sight, so when she disappears, my instincts tell me that I am in extreme danger. I am assailed by a powerful, irrational, dreadful apprehension of...I don't know what. But my instincts ‘believe’ that if abandoned, I will cease to be. The signals they send me are as urgent and compelling as Mother Nature can design.

Anxiety Establishes a Direct Route to Reaction

From first days, when I encounter an event, I do a preliminary ‘sort’ to connect the experience with the appropriate file. When I sense anxiety, I stop thinking–to–connect. My self–system urgently mobilizes to initiate immediate action to prevent annihilation. I am dedicated to defense. This direct, solid, instant connection from anxiety to reaction is a significant influence on my behavior far beyond infancy.

My ‘Early Warning’ System: Foresight Function and Anxiety Gradient

In the first months of infancy I develop the ability to anticipate anxiety in emerging situations. This is my foresight function. I also become sensitive to whether my anxiety is increasing or decreasing—aware of my anxiety gradient. In my daily operations of learning—of organizing meaning—when my early warning goes off, the signal is fundamental and gripping. It commands my total attention, not the attention that leads to new connections and learning, but attention to find escape. Everything else is instantly subordinate and because the feeling is not subject to thought, I am impelled to take whatever action promises relief. This automatic avoidance reaction becomes a governing principle in my thinking operations and this has far–reaching consequences for my assimilation of information and development of my potential for thinking.

To a very large extent, any circumstance that I can even remotely connect to threat to my existing, ceasing to be—of being meaningless—will set in motion disproportionate and often, destructive reaction strategies.

Defending My Self

It is widely assumed that as I mature and become more and more capable of reason and analysis, I can discriminate between actions that actually threaten me and those that are not dangerous to my safety. This is true of physical threat; it does not seem to be true of perceived threats to my meaningfulness. Actions that demean or belittle me trigger anxiety and a shot of adrenaline just as though I am in physical danger. I am impelled to actions that are the emotional equivalent of fight or flight.

For the rest of my life, the phenomenon of anxiety will continue to exert a disruptive influence. I invent strategies to defend myself from anxiety. Since I can’t cope, I must avoid. My early warning system is ever on alert, and when it sounds, I have an almost irresistible impulse to go into defensive maneuvers to survive, to preserve my being and my validity. A great many, if not all of my strategies for interacting with others are designed to protect my interpersonal security.

Concealing Anxiety Through Substitution

I develop the astonishing capacity to substitute other, more bearable feelings to mask my anxiety. For example, the flash of anger when someone is rude to me is a substitution. It is my defensive strategy to avoid the unmanageable grip of anxiety. I am allergic to actions that diminish my self–image. I overreact. I could better control myself if I could recognize that these ‘threats’ engage an infantile, vestigial need that is no longer valid. But my adult self–system was organized in infancy to avoid that recognition, as it would defeat my primitive strategies for concealing my anxiety from myself. The substitutions of anger, rejection, impatience, righteous indignation, adversarial response, stonewalling, withdrawal, prejudice, disgust—are designed to reduce the impact of my anxiety, and to protect my self–respect. As a result, there is considerable incentive to be unaware of the true motives that underlie my adversarial reactions. I am in a double bind: I need to conceal awareness of anxiety for my security, and yet I need to be aware of the fallacy of its power so I can deal with the information thoughtfully.

Such substitutions disguise uncertainty about my meaningfulness. Anxiety becomes grounded in some form of self–doubt.

The Discount/Revenge Syndrome

How do I know that this unlikely and irrational dynamic exists in mature adults? In thousands of videotaped sessions in which small groups of individuals were attempting to collaborate to solve a problem or invent a new product, I began to see a strange sequence: when one member rejected the idea of another, or discounted another, no matter how subtle or indirect the slight, he or she seemed instantly to change his relationship with his ‘attacker’. He would react with the emotional equivalent of fight or flight. This might take the form of an immediate counterattack; other times he would bide his time until the attacker was vulnerable and then undermine him. In other instances he would seem to remove his support and drop out. This reaction persists even when participants are given evidence that it sabotages the purpose of the meeting. The behavior appears to hold true regardless of the seeming maturity of the parties involved. This cycle was so predictable that I began to call it the Discount/Revenge Syndrome. (Prince, 1982)

In an attempt to corroborate the impact of discounts I equipped participants with devices to measure galvanic skin response, a crude measure of perturbation. The effect of a discount was the same as a punch on the arm.

The Disintegrating Effect of Discounting

The Discount/Revenge Syndrome has been much more scientifically observed in the relationship of couples. Psychologist John Gottman (1994) has done extensive research of the impact the transmissions between spouses, measuring physical signals such as blood pressure while videotaping the pair as they deal with each other in various situations. He identified predictors that reliably determine whether a couple will stay together or not. The predictors are actions that either discount or validate. When there is more than one discount to every five validations, there is a 95% certainty that the relationship will disintegrate and the couple will part. Gottman identifies four types of discount that affect couple relationships: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling. Any of these discounting actions tend to produce retaliation in kind.

Sullivan points out that in any relationship when anxiety rises, the harmony disintegrates and is replaced by reactivity.

My Enslavement to Anxiety

The socializing process in our culture is goal–oriented. We want correct answers mad proper behavior and we pay little attention to process. For example, we believe in ‘constructive criticism’. When my answers and actions do not meet standards, my parents and teachers label them wrong and reject them. In my young mind I am identified with my meanings, They are ‘me’. When they are rejected, I experience it as rejection of me and a threat to my meaningfulness. My anxiety rises and I need to act. I have limited options. I can transform the anxiety into anger and rebellion, or I can change my thinking process to make it safer. I experiment with all my options and one that is quite dependable is to avoid commitment. If I feel confusion, I stop thinking in that direction. When it is risky to make a connection to figure something out, I do not make that connection. When my early warning system tells me that I am moving into uncertainty, I avoid it if I can. This has a devastating effect on step 3 in my thinking process: trial connecting. I stop thinking for myself and seek help from an authority or I simply stop pursuing understanding. My anxiety is governing whether I think or not.

The Divorce of My Self

There is such a powerful prejudice against mistakes because, in the grip of our goal–oriented, reward and punishment teaching/learning model, a mistake is wrong—I am taught that I should strive never to make a mistake. When I make one, I am criticized/corrected, and I build this loathing of mistakes into my model for dealing with myself: I not only punish my mistakes, I hold against myself the fact that I continue to make them. I come to believe that my true self is flawed and inferior, and I develop an internal field of unforgiving censure, shame and guilt because of my many failures. When I compare my mistake–prone self, whose flaws I know only too well, to the public, impression–managed selves of my fellows, I am confirmed in my belief that I am below standard. Considering Gottman’s five to one ratio of validations to discount, it is almost inevitable that I ‘divorce’ myself, because my mental model of an ideal person is one who does not make mistakes.

Every stab of anxiety reinforces the disintegration of my self–regard and presses me away from being a learner and toward defensiveness and reactivity.

The Need for a Paradigm Shift

The first step in reclaiming myself is to recognize the pervasive forces that shape the way I deal with myself and comprehend how I collaborate with them to limit my access to my potential. The paradigm that guides parents, teachers and trainers, holds that the optimum field for learning is created by being goal–oriented. The process for keeping my eye on the goal is reward or punishment. Two of the difficulties in understanding the drawbacks of this model are, first, it seems to work—most of us seem to learn and grow up; second, there is no clear alternative model for comparison.

As for ‘it seems to work’, Alfie Kohn (1993) says, "Scores of studies over the last quarter century have shown that when people of any age are offered a reward for doing something, they are likely to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward...another well–replicated finding: Rewards usually reduce the quality of performance..."

Even more disturbing is the fact that many psychologists and brain researchers are convinced that the vast majority of us never develop more than a fraction (1/20th, for example) of our potential for thinking. The violence in our cities and towns and the world–wide tragedy of man pitted against man in irrational struggles, is persuasive evidence that mature, Fourth and Fifth level thinking is rare.

Anxiety—Toxic to Thinking, Learning and Accomplishment

Our interaction practices have created an anxiety–driven culture, which is to say, our traditional way of dealing with each other tends to arouse anxiety and reactivity and reduce thinking. It is accepted (except by the abusers) that early abuse results in later destructive behavior—more than 80% of prison inmates were abused as children. When we apply the goal–oriented, reward and punishment model to the thinking/learning process outlined above, we can see how punishment for ‘wrong’ connections cripples trial connecting. It now seems probable that even well–intentioned criticism is far more damaging than we thought.

Accomplishment always involves a vision, an idea or goal, plus a process for implementation—for making it happen. When I am focused on the end result, the reward, I tend to think of the process of getting there as something to be gotten through.

The self–limiting consequence of this can be more easily seen if we look at non–competitive activities such as skiing, or reading for pleasure. In skiing, or reading a novel, I still have the goals of getting to the bottom of the mountain and finishing the book, but the focus of my attention is very much on my process of getting to those goals. I might even say that when I consider either of those examples, I have multiple goals—my vision is to not only complete the run and the book, it is to fully experience every minute of getting there. This dual focus of attention radically changes the experience of accomplishment, and clarifies the limitations of the traditional reward/punishment model in which mistakes are criticized.

Attention and appreciation are my most important tools in getting the most out of experience. How I focus my attention determines whether or not I will find rewards and meaning in the events of each moment. (Csikszentmihalyi 1990, 1993)

Goal and Process

Kegan speaks of the ideal learning field: "...people grow best where they continuously experience an ingenious blend of support and challenge."(1994, P. 42) If there is too much challenge I get defensive; too much support, I get bored. "Both kids of imbalance lead to withdrawal or dissociation from the context. In contrast, the balance of support and challenge leads to vital engagement."(Ibid)

Kegan’s use of the word challenge is rooted in the competitive, win/lose , reward/punishment paradigm of learning and I believe it is useful to move toward a different model. This is a subtle yet critical point. The issue is not support balanced with challenge. I would substitute opportunity for challenge, and focus on the quality of support. Support does not imply that I make connections for the learner, but that I appreciate his operations toward making connections to create meaning. There cannot, realistically, be too much support. Support for my connection–making is not going to be boring; what generates anxiety and my self–defensive substitution of boredom is approval only for the connecting that is ‘correct’, and disapproval for ‘mistaken’ connecting.

Kagan sees this critical learning field in much the same way: "The infant’s emotional state is affected by his ability or inability to assimilate discrepant events. [One] that can be assimilated after some effort produces excitement, but one that cannot be assimilated produce uncertainty"(1984.P. 38) which is only a short step away from anxiety.

If it were possible to convey to the infant appreciation and approval of his attempts to assimilate—that is, connecting to make meaning, it could make an enormous difference in the infant’s and later the child’s and adult’s ability to learn and move from First Order thinking to Third and Fourth Orders. 

I Am Like a Compass

A compass locates magnetic north by an activity called seeking. If the needle is held at west and released, it swings toward north and goes beyond north a little to the east. It senses the ‘mistake’ and swings back, going a bit to the west. It feels that mistake and swings back going a bit to the east. If we magnify it’s movements, we see that it never settles on north. It seeks back and forth, tiny movements to the left and then to the right, keeping north in between.

My eyes use the same seeking method when I focus on a target. When I begin the connection–making operations of thinking, I do something analogous: I connect with anything that might give me a start on meaning. I trial connect, test, then make a closer, more precise connection. That initial connect, that commitment toward meaning–making, is crucial to purposeful thinking. Good thinkers/learners have conditioned themselves to tolerate the anxiety that accompanies this ‘guessing’.

Learning to Love My Learning Curve

Learning curve is a term used to describe the increase in competence that I achieve as I repeat an operation. For example, as I learn to read. The task seems agonizingly slow and labored at first, and as I gradually work up the learning curve I get more and more expert. The early uncertain effortful steps are often seen by the teacher as something to be gotten through as quickly as possible. To me as the learner it is a mixed sensation: on the one hand is the excitement and satisfaction of each new connection to my ‘how to read file’; on the other is the awareness of my slow and uncertain steps

compared to the impossible perfection of my teacher. Because teacher rewards only correct progress, I may get the idea that my stumbling is a form of mistakenness and come to resent the very ‘seeking’ steps that will move me up the learning curve.

If teacher were consciously to shift from the goal–oriented, reward and punishment model to the ‘double goal, love the learning curve’ model, he would specifically appreciate the seeking steps. Prejudice (foresight function and increasing anxiety) alarms me about reinforcing ‘mistakes’ and I begin to reject this idea, but I tolerate the anxiety and wonder if there is a way to appreciate without misleading. Of course there is. Simple acknowledgment is experienced as appreciation.

Reassurance can be found in the experiments of Georgi Lozanov in Bulgaria who developed a language learning/teaching process called Suggestapedia. He changed the relationship between teacher and student. He systematically removed the criticism aspects of teaching. He moved the learning environment from classroom, with its dominant/subordinate connotations, to a comfortable living–room atmosphere. He asked participants to role–play. Each assumed a temporary identity of a powerful person—a king or warrior or goddess. The purpose of this role was to insulate the real person from feeling anxiety about mispronunciations and other mistakes. He played background music. He introduced vocabulary words using varying tones and emphasis and then ‘passed them around’, Each learner pronouncing the word and the teacher modeling ideal pronunciation when her turn came.

These and many other devices that focused on removing anxiety from the perception, confusion, and trial connecting steps of the learning process produced spectacular results in speeding students up the learning curve. In two months Lozanov’s students learned the equivalent of a full one-year course. (The International Alliance for Learning, 1725 South Hill Street, Oceanside, CA 92054–5319 carries on the work of Dr. Lazonov in this country).

Reframing ‘Mistake’ and ‘Failure’

My assignment, if I am to break out of the severely limiting field of goal/punishment/reward, is to learn to act on the belief that a mistake or failure is not an occasion for punishment, but an opportunity for treasuring and learning from the information my action has evoked.

My early warning system impels me to reject this assignment out of hand.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, Flow, Harper & Row, New York, 1990

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly,The Evolving Self, Harper Collins, New York, 1994

Dewey, John, How We Think, D.C. Heath, Boston, 1933

Gottman, John, with Silver, Nan, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail, Simon and Shuster, New York, 1994

Kagan, Jerome, The Nature of the Child, Basic Books, New York, 1984

Kegan, Robert, In Over Our Heads, The Mental Demands of Modern Life, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA 1994

Kohn, Alfie, Punished by Rewards, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1993

Prince, George M., "Creative Meetings Through Power Sharing", Harvard Business Review, (pp. 47–54) July–August, 1972