How to Evolve a Defensive Self: Experience Psychological Threats as Survival Threats

1
How to Evolve a Defensive Self Experience
Psychological Threats as Survival Threats?
Eric Van Lente
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words
will never hurt me Northall, G.F. (1894). One
day, a high ranking official who considered
himself devout and humble, asked the master to
explain Buddhism's teachings on egotism. "What
kind of stupid question is that?" said the master
in a condescending tone. The official became
enraged. "How dare you speak to me that way?," he
shouted angrily. The master then sat back and
smiled. "That, Your Excellency, is egotism."
Adapted from Mark Leary (2005) Stop Defending
Your Ego.
Inner Components of Motivational
Systems

• Discussion and Implications
• What is ego? A deceiving evil nemesis or an
  unfortunate child of the bodys own defense
  system, pointlessly fighting for psychological
  survival, where even a single failed
  self-presentation may end in death i.e. social
  rejection? "Behind many masks, each performer
  tends to wear a single look of one who is
  privately engaged in a difficult, treacherous
  task." (Goffman, pp. 235)
• An evolutionary psychology alternative model?
  Perhaps psychological threats (eg. ostracism)
  really were survival threats. And like contact
  with fire they were painful so as to motivate
  responses to remove the pain (Gilbert, 2001,
  Williams, 2005). Moreover, perhaps there is a
  combined overall defense/security system
  against both bodily and psychological/self
  threats that served survival needs.
• How do we cope with the Defensive Selfs
  excesses? Contextual activation of attachment
  security reduces defensiveness (Mikulincer,
  2005), as does mindfulness e.g. in social
  exclusion and threatened belief contexts (Brown,
  in press) and self-compassion (Neff, 2007 Leary
  2007). Beyond inhibition (Creswell, in press),
  perhaps these processes weaken the self-survival
  threat link. Or perhaps through their promoting
  dis-identification with self, emotion or
  thought (Leary, 2006 Neff, 2007, Ochsner, 2005),
  defense systems simply get activated less often.
• The self-esteem construct is in question
  (Baumeister 2003, Ryan, 2003). Recent
  re-thinkings implicate a role for defensiveness
  (Lambird, 2006, McGregor, 2007). Perhaps self
  esteem partly measures how defended we feel
  against psychological threats, such as the
  efficiency of our defenses (e.g. compensation),
  the weakness of our psychological-survival threat
  link, or our degree of dis-identification with
  threatened aspects of self and emotion?

Outer Components (Sensory/Cognitive)
Outer Components (Cognitive/Motor)
Competitive Attention Bids
-
Negative Affect - Fear, Anxiety
Risk Assessment
Motivational Mechanism
Analog Threat Detection
Motor Pattern Activation
Survival Threat
Fig. 1a
Self Threat Linked to Survival Threat via goals
or mappings
Experienced Self / Psychological -Survival
Threat Link
External Threat
-
Negative Affect Fear, Anxiety
Fig. 1b
Symbolic Threat Detection
Self Threat
Symbolic Motor Pattern Planning and Activation
Background Why do we over-react to seemingly
inconsequential events (i.e. psychological,
social, self or ego-threats) such as that
described above? Why do we worry so much that it
sometimes leads us to desperate measures to
escape ourselves (Baumeister, 1990, 1991 Leary,
2004)? Why do we engage in compensatory defensive
processes in response to psychological threats
such as failure, rejection, uncertainty or
dissonance, by self-aggrandizing,
rejecting/derogating others or engaging in
zealotry (McGregor, in press)? Together these
processes seem to be responsible for much of our
psychological suffering and some of our physical
suffering. But why do we engage in them if they
seem to lead to so much trouble? And if as the
Buddhist master says egotism is responsible
for at least one of these processes, what exactly
is the ego behind egotism? Below I present a
hypothetical three-stage evolutionary model of
the ego which tells one possible story
(Wimsatt, 2007) of why we over-react, worry
excessively and defensively compensate.
-
Fluid Compensation




Not-threat related
Comp. Action
Internal Threats
Spontaneous Threatening Thought
Behavioral Approach Motivation
Worry-induced Threatening Thought
?Action
Fig. 1c
Post-hoc and Preemptive Problem-Solving

? Enhanced Threat Detection
? Worry/Rumination
Figure 1. Motivational Processes of the Defensive
Self
getting on with the boss might be ultimately
grounded in analog survival needs / ancient
motivational systems through ontogentically/
phylogenetically developed goal hierarchies
(Carver, 1998) I want to get on with the boss
so that I can keep my job, so that I can earn
money, so that I can buy food/survive. Threat
exaggeration may arise when self/social goals,
albeit distally grounded in rudimentary
motivational systems, are treated as if they
themselves are survival goals. ii) Direct
mapping of bodys defense system to SELF
(Leary, 2003). Conceptual Metaphor Theory
(Lakoff, 1999), claims that we think and reason
through metaphors that map from concrete source
domains to more abstract target domains and that
these metaphors determine the types of things we
say. Is it possible that we have a conceptual
metaphor SELF IS A (VULNERABLE) BODY that maps
from some of the sub-cortical motivational
systems above (Caroll, 1999), unto the cortical
domain of SELF. After all, we do say things like
You have to have a thick skin, She feels
vulnerable after he left her, I am broken
hearted, or Dont let your guard down. And is
there other evidence? 1) We apply words like
threat, injury, protect, security, harm
and hurt to both self and body. 2) In the case
of the last word hurt, MacDonald (2005) found
that the word for emotional reactions to
rejection in 13 languages, always translated to
words like hurt, wounded, hit, damaged
which refer to physical harm as much as
emotional. Eisenberger (2005) has found that
similar brain areas respond to social and
physical pain. 3) Psychology commonly uses the
language of attack and defense to describe
self-processes. Take this recent abstract
extract Do close positive relationships
function as a self-bolstering resource, armoring
the self against potentially threatening
information? 4) Even popular spirituality uses
these types of expression Someone says
something to you that is rude or designed to
hurt. Instead of going into unconscious reaction
and negativity, such as attack, defense, or
withdrawal, you let it pass right through you.
Offer no resistance. It is as if there is nobody
there to get hurt anymore. That is forgiveness.
In this way you become invulnerable (Tolle,
1997). No matter how the Selfs Defense System
(Fig. 1b) arises, as long as it indiscriminately
engages ancient motivational mechanisms,
psychological threats may be experienced as if
they are survival threats, explaining some
over-reactions to inconsequential events.
2/ Second Stage Selfs Defense System gains
Autonomy Since the selfs defense system evolves
faster then the bodys defense system (at least
those parts that mostly cortically based and
hence more plastic), its outer processes may gain
a certain degree of autonomy from the bodys
defense system. It may begin to make independent
and even competitive bids for attention and
energy to the risk-assessment process (see Fig.
1a and 1b). 3/ Third Stage Evolution of
Advanced Problem-Solving, Threat Detection and
Negative Affect Regulation Processes (see Fig.
1c). Outer components of the selfs defense
system may also co-opt/develop problem-solving
(McGuire and McGuire, 1991) capacities to cope
with and recover from psychological threats (e.g.
ingratiation) and develop better ways of
detecting and pre-empting (e.g. strategic
self-presentation) potential threats (Leary,
2004, Pickett, 2005, Shaver 2003). Verbalized
worry possibly an abstract form of problem
solving (Watkins, 2005), or an avoidance process
(Borkovec, 2004), may build on rudimentary
emotional cut-off processes (Gilbert, 2001) to
reduce immediate negative affect independently of
threat, but may ultimately increase negative
affect via increased imagined threats (Borkovec,
2004) and distraction from needed problem solving
(Beilock, 2007). Ironically, more efficient
threat detection, combined with increasingly
reinforced worry, may result in increased
quantity and intensity of bids for attention
resulting in excessive self-focused rumination
which may be so difficult to escape (Baumeister,
1990, 1991 Leary, 2006), that it leads in some
cases to direct threats to the body (physical
risk-taking such as rock-climbing, fighting,
self-injury etc.), so as to force attention away
from the self and back to the body. Another form
of direct negative affect reduction associated
with psychological threat is defensive
compensation, in which one compensates for
threats or need discrepancies in one domain (e.g.
self-esteem, uncertainty), by taking actions
(e.g. rejecting others, zealously affirming
valued beliefs) which lead to increases in
another. McGregor (in press) proposes that
activation of behavioral approach motivation
underlies fluid compensation. Common alternative
explanations are that it represents an inherent
need to preserve meaning or self-esteem (Hart,
2005 Heine, 2006 Tesser, 2000). I call the
processes of over-reacting, excessive rumination,
defensive compensation, the Defensive Self,
given that according to the above model they all
result from defending the self against
perceived life-threatening psychological
threats.

• Conclusion
• The Defensive Self evolutionary model claims
  psychological threats may be experienced as if
  they are physical survival threats leading to
  inappropriately excessive negative affect and
  resulting
• - Overreactions to inconsequential events
• - Excessive rumination aimed at coping with and
  preempting threats
• Defensive fluid compensation to cope with
  excess negative affect
• Experiencing self threats as survival threats may
  be a side-effect of evolutionary constraints on
  development of the self or of accidental
  metaphorical mappings - an exaptation (Gould,
  1982) - not necessarily an adaptation.

• A Model of the Ego or Defensive Self
• Background Assumptions The Bodys Physical
  Defense System
• The capacity to have adaptive affective feelings
  is an evolutionary birthright embedded within
  ancient motivational systems in subcortical
  realms known as the extended limbic system.
  These systems may have emerged largely from
  evolutionarily prepared instinctual
  action-generating systems as well as from
  homeostatic, visceral-type interoreceptors.
  (Panksepp, 1998).
• The innermost neural structure of motivational
  systems The integrative motivational mechanisms
  that connect sensory processes (which detect
  threat or need e.g. hunger) with motor processes
  (that attempt to reduce threat or need) change
  very little over evolution. (Adams, 2006).
  Outer sensory/motor processes change most.
• To the extent that (subcortical) affective
  responses to threat/need are closer to the
  innermost neural structures of motivational
  systems, they too will change little over the
  course of evolution.
• Pankepp (1998) and Adams (2006) have
  independently hypothesized
• motivational systems such as defense/FEAR,
  offense/RAGE, PANIC
• (related to attachment Bowlby (1982)?), which
  promote survival. The
• Bodys Defense System model in Fig. 1a includes
  these survival
• systems, and adds two processes to Adams (2006)
  model.
• Negative Affect associated with sensed survival
  threat or need.
• A risk-assessment system that allocates
  attention and energy based on valence of negative
  affect, to the relevant motivational system.

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1/ First Stage of Model - The Selfs
(Psychological) Defense System As the cognitive
self evolved (Leary, 2003), it
integrated/adopted a defense system, derived
from the bodys defense system. How? i) Gradual
layered development of outer motivational
processes. Selection pressures may have driven
the bodys defense systems to adopt increasingly
sophisticated outer layers of motivational
systems, corresponding to increasing cortical
growth and eventual capacity for cognition. End
result Seemingly complex symbolic motives,
such as
I would love to hear your thoughts! Email me at
ejvanlen_at_uchicago.edu