A New View of Behavior
(Page Updated 7/31/21)
I want you to clear out the clutter of your understanding of behavior and untangle the mystery of why we behave the way we do. (Roy)
The solution to our educational problem, teacher-student relation, presented here in optimabowling.com, requires a working understanding of perceptual control theory (PCT). It is probably the most crucial element of one’s learning-creating life-quest movement through teaching, knowing, understanding, and creating. It is the essence of the coach-athlete relation. Both coaches and athletes need to move beyond the behavioral control paradigm and implement perceptual control.
With “A New View of Behavior,” Shelley A.W. Roy brings us an everyday, everywhere, down-to-earth, and simplified perspective of perceptual control theory.
Quotes from, “A New View of Behavior”
Presented by Shelley A.W. Roy (2018)
http://becreating.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-new-view-of-behavior.html
I want you to clear out the clutter of your understanding of behavior and untangle the mystery of why we behave the way we do. When technology became more advanced and scientists began to observe things they couldn't explain, they had to pack up their old ideas and throw them away. They had to open their minds and explore new theories to explain what they were observing.
[She sites: Fritjof Capra “The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems”]
Chaos theory, wave theory, nested hierarchies of webs, circular causation, and a whole lot more have become the working vocabulary of today's scientists. Just as we needed a new vocabulary and thinking to describe the new sciences we need a new way of thinking and speaking about behavior.
This new way of thinking explains why we can't be sure exactly what will happen when we try something. Doing A doesn't always get you B. It also, leads to one of my favorite truths about living systems; we can produce the same results by taking different actions. We are amazing creatures.
I'm hoping that by better understanding Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), you'll find that even when you're dog-tired, your frustrated and ready to scream, your actions will be more effective at bringing about the desired results.
The success of The Secret, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and the movie Avatar released in 2009, offer strong evidence that everywhere and in every way people are realizing that our planet is composed of interconnected systems of energy and consciousness that extend far beyond the connections that we imagined in the past. At the center of this new understanding is the idea that every thought and everything is a bundle of potential energy, and that thoughts can become things.
Unfortunately, this new understanding does not extend to our insights into human behavior. Today's managers, parents and other authority figures have not yet let go of their archaic cause-and-effect ways of thinking about human behavior. Thinking which leads people to boxing and labeling, diagnosing, treating and quick fixing techniques for influencing the behavior of others. While managers have developed the understanding that stimuli such as needs and desires are inside of us, they have not moved away from stimulus-response thinking. Few have embraced a different way of understanding human behavior known as Perceptual Control Theory, PCT for short. PCT is the human behavior corollary to systems thinking about and understanding of the world around us.
In the late 1950's, William T. Powers recognized that our increasing skill at building mechanical control systems really revealed a deeper understanding of the ins and outs of human behavior. Control systems thinkers realized that a person was, in fact, a closed negative feedback loop system. These thinkers defined behavior as the control of perception. This revolutionary concept has yet to gain widespread understanding and acceptance, and it has yet to lead to a change in thinking about how we manage ourselves and others. Once we understand human behavior through this different paradigm, we recognize that punishments, rewards, threats, guilt, praise, shaming, and bullying are forms of coercion that will not work long term and often create severe damage along the way to the individuals involved, to the relationships between or among them, to the organization of which they are members, and to society as a whole.
Control is a simple process involving action, perception and comparison. Action results when many internal signals trigger the firing of neurons that affect muscles and glands. Typing (which is the action I am taking right now) is created when billions of neurons fire and signal muscles which create movement in my fingers. The only evidence I have that this internal signaling and firing is happening is the perception of letters that form words appearing on the screen. I am controlling for specific letter combinations to appear on the screen in front of me. To know if I am accomplishing this result, I am constantly comparing the letters I see to the letters I desire. I am in a relationship with my environment at all times. I am attempting to create the world I want.
The complexity and interconnection of the system reaches beyond 'me and the environment;' it extends to multiple levels inside of me. On one level I am controlling for specific letter combinations, on a higher level I am control for grammar, punctuation and spelling, and on a higher level yet I am controlling for a message. Just as the roots of a tree interact with the environment in which they are embedded, I interact with the world around me. Moreover, like the tree whose roots are in relationship with the wood, the bark, the branches and the leaves, my system has multiple layers of relationships and interconnections. What at first seems simple becomes more complex, and beyond the complexity, there remains one simple answer to the question: why we do what we do. We do it because at that moment what we want and what we perceive do not match. Conscious awareness of what we want and how we perceive the world are essential ingredients in understanding ourselves and others.
Here is the author's excellent, simplified view of the 11-levels of perception.
Important notes from the video:
- When learning, build from the bottom up. Experience comes first, label second.
- When you live your life, start at the highest level possible.
- Bumping it up means to not be on the stage, to not be in the audience. But to take a balcony view of your life and take a step back.
- Focusing on the higher levels of your beliefs and principles will help you live a mindful life.
Interesting thought I had while watching the video. The relationship level includes the objective world perception of "harmony." In the context of the wish for a world in perfect harmony, harmony is perceived as natural, concrete, and holistic. Not an abstract fragmented ideal, as harmony occurs prior to the first subjective world perception level, category.
I am just saying.
Link to Video: “Levels of Perception”
Research Resource: “A Connected School” by E. Perry Good , Jeff
Grumley, Shelley Roy (2003)
Research Resource: “People Primer” by Shelly A.W. Roy (2008)
See More: Researching Perceptual Control Theory (PCT)
See More: What is PCT?