16. Main emotions and specific action tendencies.

To the main reference points of our psyche, I also added the main emotions. Those are:

• anger,
• shame,
• fear, and
• stubbornness.

To add main emotions inspired me Enneagram.

Enneagram distinguishes three main emotions. These are the first three of the above four emotions, namely, anger, shame, and fear.

To these three emotions that we have in Enneagram, I added another one, that is, stubbornness.

Why?

This is because Enneagram is divided into three main areas in which individual emotions work. Whereas, the Mandala is divided into four main areas.

Below, I present the scheme of Enneagram. This diagram shows:
— in which areas we can find particular emotions;
— and what types of Enneagram are located in each area?

As we can see, there are three types in the area of each emotion. So, among Enneagram types:

• shame — dominates in types: 2, 3, and 4;
• fear — dominates in types: 5, 6, and 7,
• anger — dominates in types: 8, 9, and 1.

As I just said, the Mandala of Characters is divided into four main areas. This is because the Mandala is a combination of:

• Ancient Typology—where the main (or classical) Elements and temperaments are distinguished),
• Jung’s “Psychological Types”,
• and Enneagram.

Enneagram is, therefore, one of the main elements of the Mandala. And Enneagram, as we can see above, is divided into three main areas. That is areas of main emotions, which are anger, fear, and shame.

In turn, Ancient Typology and Jung’s “Psychological Types” are divided into four areas. It means:

• Ancient Typology, among others, is based on four Elements, which are:
  — Earth,
  — Air,
  — Fire, and
  — Water,
• Jung’s “Psychological Types” are based on four basic psychological functions, which are:
  — Sensation,
  — Intuition,
  — Thinking, and
  — Feeling.

Therefore:
— Enneagram is divided into three main parts;
— and Ancient Typology and Jung’s “Psychological Types” into four parts.

So, I needed to somehow adapt the Enneagram to Ancient Typology and Jung’s “Psychological Types”. To do this, I added a fourth part to Enneagram. It means I added the fourth main emotion to Enneagram.

I came to the conclusion that this fourth main emotion I need to add in the place where there is SENSATION and the Element of EARTH. And the fourth main emotion I added is the mentioned above—stubbornness.

All in all, we have four main emotions in the Mandala of Characters.

Three of them came from Enneagram.

I added the fourth emotion to adapt Enneagram to Ancient Typology and Jung’s “Psychological Types”.

As I mentioned above, these main emotions are:

1. Shame.
2. Fear.
3. Anger.
4. Stubbornness.

In the figure above, the numbers from 1 to 9 indicate the Enneagram types.

In the lower part, there is an area where the main emotion is—stubbornness, which does not appear in Enneagram.

Enneagram mentions, among others, that given types perceive and have various specific behaviors due to the main emotions that impact them.

Therefore, the main emotions have an impact on our lives. It means, on our behavior, perception, experience, feeling, judging, adapting, decision making, relationships, development, etc.

In addition to the three main emotions, Enneagram also distinguishes three main psychological states, which are.

1. Typical State. That is, the state in which we are most conscious, we identify ourselves with it. This state is the most dominant, and most important. In this state, we can control ourselves the most. And so on.
2. Stress. That is the state in which a given type is under stress and behaves differently than in its typical state. According to the Enneagram, the given type behaves similarly to another type of Enneagram. In other words, the given type moves to another type.
3. Relax (or Comfort). That is the state where the given type is relaxed. Then this type also behaves differently than in its typical state. Also, analogically like in point 2, the given type moves to another type of Enneagram, but different than in point 2.

I think that the use in Enneagram of:
— main emotions, and
— psychological states,

it is the great power of Enneagram.

We have here two ideas that are brilliant in their simplicity.

We all know that our emotions are not constant, but they are constantly changing.

We also know that our psychological or mental states are not always the same. They are constantly changing depending on the situation we are in, and depending on our inner mood. Therefore, according to Enneagram:
— sometimes we behave in a typical way for us,
— sometimes we are stressed,
— and sometimes we are relaxed (or we feel comfortable).

Enneagram uses these two above ideas to describe individual types of Enneagram.

So, Enneagram differentiates what main emotion among:
— anger,
— fear, and
— shame.
dominates for a given type, when this type is:
— in Typical State,
— under Stress, or
— in Relax (or Comfort).

Besides, Enneagram tells us how our behavior may look like under Stress, Relax, and Typical State. I think this is also an extremely valuable discovery or this personality typology.

In Enneagram it is presented in such a way that the behavior of individual types (in Stress, Relax, or in Typical State) becomes similar to the behavior of other types.

Symbolically, therefore, we can say that a given type moves to another type when its psychological state changes.

Specifically, individual types of Enneagram under Stress and in Relax move as follows:

The names of the types are by Helen Palmer. These names can be found, for example, in her book “Enneagram”, or on the website:
http://www.enneagram.com/enneagram.html

Thus, individual types of Enneagram move along arrows, which we can see in the diagram below.

In the diagram above:
— darker arrows show movement during Stress,
— and lighter arrows show movement during Relax (or Comfort).

In a sense, these arrows together form two two-way roads:
— One way form connections between types 1, 4, 5, 7, and 8.
— The second-way form connections between types 3, 6, and 9. (These three types are called straight or central types).

The above roads also form repetitive cycles. One cycle shows movement during Relax and the other during Stress. Specifically:

• During Relax (or Comfort) these cycles look like this:
  1 → 7 → 5 → 8 → 2 → 4 → 1 →... and so on.
  3 → 6 → 9 → 3 →... and so on.
• During Stress, the cycles look like this:
  1 → 4 → 2 → 8 → 5 → 7 → 1 →... and so on.
  3 → 9 → 6 → 3 →... and so on.

In the Mandala of Characters, I used and developed ideas that are in Enneagram. It means I used and developed ideas:

• Main emotions.
• Psychological (or mental) states.
• A given type is becoming similar (or is moving) to other types when its psychological states and main emotions are changing.

Unlike in Enneagram, in the Mandala of Characters instead of three, we have four psychological states:

1. Conscious State. That is equivalent of Typical State in the Enneagram.
2. Strong Self-Esteem State (or Power State). That is, state of Relax (or Comfort) in the Enneagram.
3. Soft Self-Esteem State (or Vulnerable State). That is the state of Stress in the Enneagram.
4. Unconscious State (or Complementary State), which does not occur in the Enneagram. I added this state to the Mandala of Characters thanks to the inspiration of Jungian psychology.

Above comparison of states in the Mandala of Characters and in Enneagram I also put in the table below:

Here, I remind the model of the psyche that I use in the Mandala of Characters. We can see on it, among others, psychological states. I use the arrows to show the possibilities of moving between them.

How I build this model of the psyche, and how we can move on it, I spoke in a few previous chapters (it means, in chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9).

In both Enneagram and Mandala of Characters,
— each type in each of their psychological states
— is strongly influenced by one of the main emotions.

Specifically, what emotions a given type has, depends on where in the Mandala a given type has its psychological state. It means it depends on where a given type as its own:
— Conscious State,
— Strong Self-Esteem State (or Power State),
— Soft Self-Esteem State (or Vulnerable State), and
— Unconscious State (or Complementary State).

Symbolically, in the Mandala, I present it in such a way that the above square of the psyche has a different position for each type of character. So, each type has its own Mandala.

Simplified individual Mandalas, we can see in one of the previous chapters. That is, in chapter — “11. Position of 12 main types on the Mandala of Characters”.

Besides, I will present complete individual Mandalas in one of the next chapters of this description of the Mandala of Characters construction.

Returning to the main emotions, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that these emotions trigger in us certain behaviors: For example, emotions trigger specific:
— actions and reactions;
— ways of acting;
— strategies;
— ways of thinking, feeling, sensing, predicting, etc.;
— attitude to the environment;
— beliefs;
— and so on.

On the Mandala of Characters, four main emotions are arranged like the main Elements (Air, Earth, Fire, and Water) or basic functions (Intuition, Sensation, Thinking, and Feeling). It means:

• Anger—Air and Intuition
• Stubbornness—Earth and Sensation
• Fear—Fire and Thinking
• Shame—Water and Feeling

Let me remind how the above concepts are arranged on the Mandala of Characters:

Inside the diagram, we can see the division into:

• enslaving (divided into anger and stubbornness), and
• rejecting (divided into shame and fear).

This division was created by me during the development of the Mandala of Characters. To create this division also inspired me Enneagram.

Both "rejecting" and "enslaving" consist of two main emotions. It means:

• enslaving, which is divided into:
  — anger—enslaving by an uncertain (unstable) situation, and
  — stubbornness—enslaving by a stable (unchanging) situation (ground),
• rejecting, which is divided into:
  — fear—rejecting by insecurity (unsafety), and
  — shame—rejecting by lack of recognition (unappreciation, low prestige).

For greater clarity, I will put the above division int the table.

I think that we can ask – What exactly can trigger the main emotions. That is, anger, fear, shame, and stubbornness?

Of course, we can say that they can interact in many various ways and that it depends on:
— the given situation,
— the environment in which we are in,
— experience gained previously,
— etc.

However, I think it would be worthwhile to try to show some general tendencies, some essences, places to start, reference points, etc. Reference points that would lead us to the next associations, about how the main emotions can impact us?

In that case, I think that to answer the question, what exactly can cause the main emotions, it is worth looking at at the most basic reactions. Those that have both human and animals.

And here I think we can mention the concepts introduced by Walter B. Cannon in 1915. These concepts create a short phrase—fight or flight.

A lot of emotion-related research has been done since Cannon's research. So, we have rich material to analyze in this area. Personally, my attention was drawn to the term, which in my opinion, is very useful in the Mandala of Characters.

This term is “specific action tendencies”. To explain what it means, I will use the quote:

The above quote is from the book “Self Compassion” written by Kristin Neff. She is one of the pioneers of self-compassion research). The above quote is based on the work of Richard Lazarus. He is one of the researches of emotions. In that case, I will use a quote from one of this author’s book.

I think we can agree here with Richard Lazarus that—“action tendencies help make the emotion embodied and provide the simplest rationale for a common or shared physiological response pattern for each emotion”. If so, I think it is worth using specific action tendencies in the Mandala of Characters.

In the Mandala of Characters, we have four emotions, namely, anger, stubbornness, fear, and shame. Thus, what specific action tendencies can we assign to them?

Using the above quotes, we can say that:

• for anger—the specific action tendency is—to attack,
• for stubbornness— the specific action tendency is—to defend.
• for fear—the specific action tendency is—to escape.
• for shame—the specific action tendency is—to hide,

For greater clarity, I will put the above list in the table.

Above I put the quote from the book “Self Compassion” written by Kristin Neff. She said there: “The evolutionery purpose of negative emotions is to spur actions that will help us survive, eliciting powerful urges known as specific action tendencies”.

Evolution, therefore, is responsible for many of our behaviors and in general for this, what we are now.

The way we are is also largely due to the construction of our body, which evolution has had a great impact on. In our body, one of the most interesting is the construction of our brain, which, simply put, is a combination of the old and new brain.

The “old brain” helped us survive in a natural environment in which we had to deal with various threats. For example, threat by predators, some threatening natural phenomena such as storm, earthquake, etc.

In turn, “new brain” helps us to survive in a given society. Being a member of some community, we must adapt to various laws, rules, regulations, customs, traditions, etc.

I borrow the idea of the old and new brain from Professor Paul Gilbert. Below is an illustration that Professor Gilbert uses in his work.

We can also see Professor Paul Gilbert on the internet, where we can find many of his lectures. For example, on this link, we can see him when he is talking about the old and new brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJdLIUzfDOk

In that case, indeed, it is worth remembering that we are still in the process of evolution. So, we will continue to evolve.

All in all, the fact that evolution has a great impact on us can make us realize o lot. Among others, make us realize the fact that evolution is responsible for many of our behaviors. It is because evolution shaped our brain and the rest of our body in this particular way, which we have now. Also, how our psyche works is to a large extent the result of evolution.

Therefore, it is often not our fault that we feel a certain emotion and that we have a tendency to specific reactions and behaviors.

Similarly, we can say that it is not our fault that we have this and not different character, and we tend to have a specific way of being. Personalities are also not a characteristic feature only for people. Animals also have personalities, which is easy to observe. For example, it can be seen by those of us who have pets. Or those of us who at least sometimes have some contact with animals. In general, when we think about animals, it is also worth to remember that they, like us, are evolving as well.

So, the human character results from both the old and new brain. Therefore, when we are analyzing characters, it will be very helpful to take into account the main emotions and specific action tendencies, which are associated mainly with old brain. Indirectly, however, they also have a strong impact on the new brain.

One of the basic reactions that are deeply encoded in us is the "fight or flight" response described by Walter B. Cannon. I mentioned it earlier.

I think the idea of the fight-or-flight response is, in fact, very accurate. For this reason, I needed to use these responses in the Mandala of Characters.

In that case, we may ask how the fight-or-flight response would be represented on the Mandala?

These reactions we can interpret as follows:

• To the “fight response” matches the following main emotions and action tendencies:
  — anger / attack,
  — stubbornness / defend.
• To the “flight response” matches the following main emotions and action tendencies:
  — fear / escape,
  — shame / hide.

In other words, when it comes to the “fight response”, it can be triggered by:
— anger that will drive us to carry out the attack, or
— stubbornness that will drive us to defend ourselves.

As for the “flight response”, it can be triggered by:
— fear that will push us to escape, or
— shame that will urge us to hide.

To better illustrate the above emotions and action tendencies, I will add them to the table and the diagram, which I used earlier.

During the development of the Mandala of Characters, I used the emotion “sorrow” (or “sadness”) for a long time instead of “stubbornness”. I write more about it in update 1.31.

In short, I did it mainly for the following two reasons:

1. I think that “stubbornness” better than “sorrow” emphasizes opposition to the “anger”, which we can find on the other side of Mandala. There is also some feedback loop between these two emotions. It means:
   • “anger” in us can be triggered by someone who is “stubborn” towards us,
   • and “stubbornness” in us can be triggered by someone who is “angry” at us.
2. Above all, however, the following argument convinced me to replace "sorrow" with "stubbornness". It means, "stubbornness" is better suited to the "defend" action tendency than "sorrow". It is because to defend ourselves stubbornness is very helpful. Stubbornness also triggers a response in us, which is defending.
   So, the action tendency—“defend”, led me to discover that powerful impact of our psyche has “stubbornness”.

So, above I have shown how looks like the specific action tendencies and main emotions. Then, I will add them to the diagram of our four main reference points in our psyche. All in all, these four reference points will now look as follows:

Then, in the Mandala of Characters, I distinguished, among others:
— 4 main emotions, and
— 4 specific action tendencies.

Of course, there are more emotions and action tendencies. However, I think, those that are on the Mandala we can consider as the main four reference points.

I believe it is enough because the basis for my reflections on emotions is Enneagram. And in Enneagram we have just three main emotions. As I mentioned above, I took from Enneagram to the Mandala: anger, fear, and shame. Enneagram, using only these three main emotions as three main reference points, is very good at characterizing individual types of Enneagram. Personally, I think that types of Enneagram are more expressive and characteristic than in other currently popular personality typologies. This expressiveness of Enneagram types is because the descriptions of these types are based to a large extent on the main emotions.

Since Enneagram owes a lot to the main emotions, I think that in the Mandala of Characters, emotions should also play one of the main roles.

As we can see on the diagram above, next to the main emotions, I also added the corresponding specific action tendencies. I think that thanks to emotions and action tendencies, it will be easier to catch and understand the impact of emotions on individual types of characters.

All in all, the emotions and action tendencies are fascinating and useful elements of the Mandala of Characters.

The above diagram of the four main reference points of our psyche shows the current version of my description of these points. Thus, this chapter is the end of my description of these four points.

In the next few chapters, I will describe four more reference points that I also highlighted in the Mandala of Characters. Then, in total, we have eight reference points on the Mandala. That is four main, and four auxiliary.

References: