Kellermann-Plutchik Theory Of Emotions

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-18 02:26

The theory was developed in the form of a monograph in 1962. It received international recognition and was used to reveal the structure of group processes, allowed to form an idea of intrapersonal processes and mechanisms of psychological defense.

Currently, the main postulates of the theory are included in the well-known psychotherapeutic directions and psychodiagnostic systems.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE THEORY OF EMOTIONS STATED BY SIX POSTULATES

1. Emotions are mechanisms of communication and survival based on evolutionary adaptation. They persist in functionally equivalent forms across all phylogenetic levels. Communication occurs through eight basic adaptive responses, which are prototypes of eight basic emotions:

• Incorporation - eating food or accepting favorable irritants inside the body. This psychological mechanism is also known as introjection.
• Rejection - ridding the body of something unusable that was perceived earlier.
• Protection - behavior designed to ensure the avoidance of danger or harm. This includes fleeing and any other action that increases the distance between the body and the source of danger.
• Destruction - behavior designed to destroy the barrier that prevents the satisfaction of an important need.
• Reproduction - reproductive behavior, which can be defined in terms of approximation, tendency to maintain contact and mixing of genetic materials.
• Reintegration - a behavioral reaction to the loss of something important that you have or enjoy. Its function is to regain custody.
• Orientation - behavioral reaction to contact with an unknown, new or uncertain object.
• Study - behavior that provides the individual with a schematic representation of the given environment.

2. Emotions have a genetic basis.

3. Emotions are hypothetical constructions based on obvious phenomena of various classes. Hypothetical models are shown in Table 1:

Table 1. Stimulus - effect

4. Emotions are chains of events with stabilizing feedbacks that maintain behavioral homeostasis. Events occurring in the environment are subjected to cognitive assessment, as a result of the assessment, experiences (emotions) arise, accompanied by physiological changes. In response, the body carries out behavior designed to have an effect on the stimulus (Table 1).

5. Relationships between emotions can be represented as a three-dimensional (spatial) structural model. The vertical vector reflects the intensity of emotions, from left to right - the vector of similarity of emotions, and the front-to-back axis characterizes the polarity of opposite emotions. The same postulate includes the provision that some emotions are primary, while others are their derivatives or mixed (see diagram 1).

Scheme 1. Three-dimensional model of PLUTCHER's emotions

6. Emotions are associated with certain character traits or typologies. Diagnostic terms such as depression, manic, and paranoia are seen as extreme expressions of emotions such as sadness, joy, and rejection (Table 2).

CLASSIFICATION OF EMOTIONS

Table 2. Emotions and their derivatives

The structural model of emotions is the basis for constructing a theoretical model of psychological defenses.

The model of psychological defense mechanisms was developed by Robert Plutchik in collaboration with G. Kellerman and H. Comte in 1979.

HENRY KELLERMAN'S STRUCTURAL THEORY OF PERSONALITY

THE SECURITY MODEL INCLUDES FIVE PRINCIPLES

1. Specific defenses are formed to deal with specific emotions.
2. There are eight basic defense mechanisms that develop to cope with the eight basic emotions.
3. Eight basic defense mechanisms have properties of both similarity and polarity.
4. Certain types of personality diagnoses are based on characteristic defensive styles.
5. An individual can use any combination of defense mechanisms.

On the way to consciousness, information undesirable for the psyche is distorted. Distortion of reality through defenses can occur as follows:

• ignored or not perceived;
• being perceived, to be forgotten;
• in the case of admission into consciousness and memorization, interpreted in a way convenient for the individual.

The manifestation of defense mechanisms depends on age-related development and the characteristics of cognitive processes. In general, they form a scale of primitiveness-maturity.

• The first to arise are mechanisms based on perceptual processes (sensation, perception and attention). It is perception that is responsible for the protection associated with ignorance, misunderstanding of information. These include denial and regression, which are the most primitive and characterize the "abusing" person as emotionally immature.
• Further, there are protections associated with memory, namely, forgetting information - this is repression and suppression.
• As the processes of thinking and imagination develop, the most complex and mature types of defenses associated with the processing and reevaluation of information are formed - this is rationalization.

FOUR GROUPS OF BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL PROTECTIONS

1. protection with no processing of content: denial, repression, suppression.
2. protection with the transformation or distortion of the content of thoughts, feelings, behavior: rationalization, projection, alienation, substitution, reactive education, compensation.
3. protection with the discharge of negative emotional stress: implementation in action, somatization of anxiety, sublimation.
4. protection of the manipulative type: regression, fantasy, withdrawal into illness or the formation of symptoms.

The psycho-evolutionary theory of emotions by Robert Plutchik and the structural theory of personality by Henry Kellerman resulted in the Kellermann-Plutchik psychodiagnostic system, which formed the basis of the psychodiagnostic technique Life Style Index.

The system is based on the theory that in every personality there is a disposition (hereditary predisposition) to a certain mental disorder. The mechanism of psychological defense plays the role of a regulator of intrapersonal balance by extinguishing the dominant emotion (Scheme 2).

Scheme 2. The system of dispositions according to Kellerman and Plutchik

According to the psychodiagnostic system, the analysis of the leading dispositions characterizes the personality traits of the subject.

When interacting with a stimulus, experiences characteristic of a particular disposition arise in the form of emotions. The leading emotion creates a need that does not always fit into the framework of acceptable functioning. To maintain adaptation, a defense mechanism is triggered to extinguish the unacceptable emotion, and the individual experiences an unconscious impulse that makes him overestimate the stimulus. Personal balance is achieved through the formation of defensive behavior.

DISPOSITION CHARACTERISTICS

Mania disposition.

Leading emotion - joy, the need for an excess of pleasant stimuli - hedonism. Protection - reactive education by suppressing the attractiveness of pleasant stimuli with the help of "Super - Ego". The development of the mechanism is associated with the final assimilation of the "higher social values" by the individual. Pulse - reverse it. Reassessment of incentive: "Everything connected with this is disgusting."

Protective behavior is normal: strong feelings about violations of the "personal space", an emphasized desire to comply with generally accepted standards of behavior, relevance, concern for "decent" appearance, politeness, courtesy, disinterestedness, sociability. Rejection of everything that is associated with the functioning of the body and the relationship of the sexes.

Disposition of hysteria.

Leading emotion - Adoption. Protection - denial. Developed to contain the emotion of acceptance of others if they show emotional indifference or rejection. Excessive acceptance is compensated by the denial of those moments that "do not like" the mind. The stream of positive qualities of the perceived object makes the hysteric idealize it (for example, hysterics often fall in love). Pulse - don't notice it. Reassessment of incentive does not happen, the stimulus is not noticed.

Protective behavior is normal: sociability, desire to be the center of attention, thirst for recognition, arrogance, optimism, ease, bragging, self-pity, courtesy, affective demeanor, pathos, easy tolerance of criticism and lack of self-criticism.

Aggressive disposition.

Leading emotion - anger. Protection - substitution. It develops to restrain the emotion of anger at a stronger, older or more significant subject, acting as a frustrator. Substitution can be directed both outward, forming destructive behavior, and inward, in the form of auto-aggression. Pulse- attack something to replace it. Reassessment of incentive: "This is who is to blame."

Protective behavior is normal: impulsiveness, irritability, irascibility, exactingness to others, protest reactions in response to criticism, lack of guilt.

Disposition of psychopathy.

Leading emotion - astonishment. Protection - regression. Developed in early childhood to contain feelings of self-doubt and fear of failure associated with taking initiative. As a rule, it is encouraged by adults who have an attitude towards emotional symbiosis and infantilization of the child. Pulse - cry about it. Reassessment of incentive: "You have to help me."

Protective behavior is normal: impulsiveness, weak character, lack of deep interests, susceptibility to the influence of others, suggestibility, inability to complete the work begun, a slight change of mood, the ability to easily establish superficial contacts. Tendency to mysticism and superstition, intolerance to loneliness, the need for stimulation, control, encouragement, consolation, search for new experiences. In an exquisite situation - increased sleepiness and excessive appetite, manipulation of small objects, involuntary actions (rubbing hands, twisting buttons, etc.), specific "childish" facial expressions and speech.

Depressive disposition

Leading emotion - sadness. Protection - compensation, compensates for the lack of self-esteem, which allows the individual to cope with the state of depression. Pulse - try to get it. Reassessment of incentive: "But I … Anyway I … Someday I …".

Defensive behavior is normal: constant suffering due to the loss of an imaginary object and loss of self-esteem. Behavior conditioned by the attitude towards serious and methodical work on oneself, finding and correcting one's own shortcomings, achieving high results in activity; serious sports, collecting, striving for originality.

Paranoid disposition

Leading emotion - disgust (rejection). Protection - projection. It develops as a result of emotional rejection in early childhood by significant persons. Projection allows you to transfer your own inferiority to others. Pulse - blame it. Reassessment of incentive: "All people are wicked."

Protective behavior is normal: control, lack of suggestibility, increased criticality, pride, self-esteem, selfishness, rancor, heightened sense of justice, arrogance, suspicion, jealousy, hostility, stubbornness, intractability, intolerance to objections, isolation, pessimism, increased sensitivity, to criticism and remarks and others, striving to achieve high performance in any kind of activity.

Passive disposition

Leading emotion - fear. Protection - suppression (displacement). It develops to contain the emotion of fear, the manifestations of which are unacceptable for positive self-perception and threaten to become directly dependent on the aggressor. Pulse - I don't remember that. Reassessment of incentive: "This is unfamiliar to me."

Protective behavior is normal: inertia and passivity, withdrawal, lack of initiative, a tendency to be dependent on someone, careful avoidance of situations that can become problematic and cause fear, humility, timidity, forgetfulness, fear of new acquaintances.

Obsessive disposition

Leading emotion - expectation. Protection - rationalization (intellectualization and sublimation). It develops in early adolescence to contain the emotion of expectation or anticipate the fear of experiencing disappointment, failure and lack of confidence in competing with peers. Impulse - redefine, rethink it. Overestimating the incentive: "Everything is understandable."

Protective behavior is normal: increased control, which does not allow recognizing the emotions of others, a tendency to analysis and introspection, responsibility, conscientiousness, thoroughness, love of order, uncharacteristic bad habits, prudence, discipline, individualism, the desire to adhere to the middle in everything.

Literature

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