How to conceptualize stage regression in SD

[Carl-Richard]

This is just some late night speculation so don't expect high quality.

Stage regression seems to break with the linear developmental aspect of SD and seems to be a puzzling phenomena that is not easily explained. How does one systematize/describe the mechanics of regression? One solution could be to view past stages as integrated resources that may be emphasized or de-emphasized depending on the environment.

There are two useful models here: 1. the diathesis-stress model and 2. the model of state-dependent functioning:

1.

Quote

The diathesis–stress model, also known as the vulnerability–stress model, is a psychological theory that attempts to explain a disorder, or its trajectory, as the result of an interaction between a predispositional vulnerability, the diathesis, and a stress caused by life experiences. The term diathesis derives from the Greek term (διάθεσις) for a predisposition, or sensibility. A diathesis can take the form of genetic, psychological, biological, or situational factors. A large range of differences exists among individuals' vulnerabilities to the development of a disorder.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diathesis–stress_model

 

2. Notice the obvious correlations to the developmental levels of SD:

 

Let's treat your personal predispositions (including your SD stage) as "diathesis" and the survival-threatening environmental factors as "stress". Under times of stress, the values expressed within an individual (or groups/societies) shift to become state-dependent rather than stage-dependent. For example, a Stage Green person who experiences a significant life change that threatens their survival may start utilizing resources from lower stages (beige, purple, red).

I started thinking about this while re-watching Breaking Bad. How can a "good man" break bad? Well, there is a diathesis, which can be anything that predisposes you towards a certain behavior (genes, past experiences), and then there is stress. For Walter, the diathesis is arguably some resentment, unfulfilled desires and some dark personality traits, and the stress is his cancer diagnosis and his choice to become a career criminal.

So my explanation here would be that you start out with a Stage Orange Walter White (along with other underlying predispositions) as diathesis, and then you get the stress from cancer and criminal life that turns on state-dependent functioning, pulling him down to lower aspects like Red. But because this is state-dependent functioning, it doesn't mean he has lost Orange forever. He can easily regain that level of functioning again when he shifts back into stage-dependent functioning.

You could also apply the state-dependent x diathesis-stress model to the microcosm of your daily life. Let's say you're thirsty (stress) and want a drink: activate beige state-dependent functioning. Let's say you get cut off in traffic (stress) and feel anger and the desire to dominate: red state-dependent functioning. You have to check your schedule or re-asses your work ethic: blue. You have to close a business deal: orange etc.

You could say that this stuff has already been understood and known intuitively before, but I think it's fun to use other well-established frameworks to test out these assumptions and formalize some of the relationships. Any insights are appreciated.

[Leo Gura]

Yes, threat can certainly require a regression to address it.

But also, most people simply don't have a very deep experience base for any of the stages. Their experience of the stages was never a deep exhaustion or transcendence of the stage, therefore their stage is quite fragile. It hasn't been put to a stress test. It's like a soldier who has never been in the battlefield vs a veteran. To prevent regression the stage has to be deeply explored and exhausted.

[Carl-Richard]

38 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

To prevent regression the stage has to be deeply explored and exhausted.

Yeah. For example, Walter White was supposed to exhaust his Orange at Gray Matter but was cut short and developed it into a wound. (I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes here ?).

What also strikes me about BB is that it's a really good study of ego, of how it gets hurt, rationalizes and lies in order to perpetuate its biases.

[Kshantivadin]

@Carl-Richard Think of it like this. A new, substantially different experience enters the dynamic system (eg psychosis, mystical experience, qualitatively different states of mind). If Blue is not exhausted regarding occult phenomena, that's where it will lock itself in and will interpret it through the lense of Blue.

Spiraling up the stages must be holistic, otherwise it's a house of cards. A person can be "100% Green" with absolutely no shred of the lower stages in familiar experiences, then bam, shit hits the fan, something completely new happens - and the person is not evolved enough to have a Green experience of it.

Edited November 4, 2021 by Kshantivadin

[mememe]

in some sense it would be interesting to perceive the spiral as a potential, which may or may not be supported by the surrounding conditions. access to knowledge like spiral dynamics alone advance the potential for development. if educated in orange or even blue economics for example, green economics might be difficult to access – ideally yellow economics would support grassroot green economics as a source parallel to hybrid versions with greener aims as technological developmental stage. orange or blue would destroy green.

if a person with yellow potential clings to orange theories like for example marketing strategies that person is orange with yellow potential – the regress is often a dynamic which is produced by a collective regress not by the individual. the exhaustion can just be more or less more an collective exhaustion, spiraling up either means taking others with you or doing it alone, same goes for regress.

we also need to accept more orange businesses as long as hybridal structures are not established yet. people have to survive in orange societies, the transcendence from orange to yellow will integrate green as a practical adjustment. we will have to live in hybridal societies for a while.

i can’t see how exhausting toxicity can be transcendence, but yet humans seem to never really exhaust red or even beige even in orange societies, why is that?
 

[DocWatts]

Another thing worth pointing out is that shifting to an early stage can sometimes be situationally appropriate.

If you've ever known or listened to anyone who had the misfortune of growing up in a rough neighborhood (such as some inner cities in the US), knowing how to activate Red is a key part of being able to Survive in those types of environments.

Sports such as boxing or mixed marital arts are another scenario where being able to activate Red power drives is adaptive.

Edited November 4, 2021 by DocWatts

[Nahm]

@Carl-Richard

How do you regress without conceptualizing yourself? 

How do you conceptualize yourself and not regress? 

(Not at all “zen”)

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Yeah. For example, Walter White was supposed to exhaust his Orange at Gray Matter but was cut short and developed it into a wound. (I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes here ?).

What also strikes me about BB is that it's a really good study of ego, of how it gets hurt, rationalizes and lies in order to perpetuate its biases.

Dude, that's a fictional show and you are treating it as though it were real life. What's next? Why Danny burned King's Landing in GoT according to SD?

[Hello from Russia]

8 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Dude, that's a fictional show and you are treating it as though it were real life. What's next? Why Danny burned King's Landing in GoT according to SD?

Lmao

She was integrating her red before properly moving to blue, all gucci here.

She was definitely SD-aware, man

Edited November 4, 2021 by Hello from Russia

[CuriousityIsKey]

38 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Dude, that's a fictional show and you are treating it as though it were real life. What's next? Why Danny burned King's Landing in GoT according to SD?

You are imagining the difference. What you call life is a fiction of your mind too, isn't what you say yourself?

I really not being sarcastic, I just see that you sometimes say things that go against what you say in general.

[Leo Gura]

SD is a scientific model that models humans. Not written fictional characters.

It's like you're trying to apply Einstein's General Relativity equations to Star Wars and wondering why it don't fit.

That's not how science works.

[Carl-Richard]

On 4.11.2021 at 1:50 PM, Leo Gura said:

Dude, that's a fictional show and you are treating it as though it were real life. 

Lol it's like I'm Jordan Peterson or something ? 

When I think about it, there is a part of my own life that can be described as a regression that is consistent with this interpretation. In fact, during that time I actually saw myself in the bad Walter White . I was more "on his side" and identified with his reasoning. Today I more agree with my Green stepmom who was put off by how much of an asshole he is. Then again, you never get far with a single case study, real or fictional.

[CuriousityIsKey]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

SD is a scientific model that models humans. Not written fictional characters.

It's like you're trying to apply Einstein's General Relativity equations to Star Wars and wondering why it don't fit.

That's not how science works.

Fair point.

[mememe]

@Carl-Richard it might be a gamechanger to understand the difference between eustress and distress, too. a person who is used to positive outcomes in stress situation might be self confident regarding positive feedbackloops and selfenforcement, most of the time that is system-bound or in a sense stage bound. its the same as feeling good in certain environments and insecure in others. as soon as the selfenforcement does not work in the expected way either its possible to solve the problem through eustress, or if the person is not fluid or adaptive to the new situation might be because a lot of negative stress factors with negative enforcement hit in, sth like stagebubblesyndrom, the person is not adequately able to solve the problems with eustress but gets into a distress loop which tackles survival modes and reactions. for example if confronted with negativity (cruelty, brutality, superstition, hate, exploitation) physically and mentally for a long enough timeframe without being able to change the situation into a positive direction, all resources for eustress get used up, because the location of the stress is not an internal stress factor, (even though it can be for example distress from the past) which is why meditation and mindfulness might help in stress situations but not with massive negativity applied or in massive traumatizing events. external feedback factors like positive feedback or solvability are playing a big roll in stress situations.

although your example of the stressfaktor glitch in breaking bad sounds more like a worldview glitch or a sensemaking glitch, which means the stage regression was always a personality trait and not a coating/coaping mechanism.

[Carl-Richard]

@mememe I'm having trouble distilling the point you're trying to make 

[lmfao]

@Carl-Richard Yes I've had such regression(s), to as far back as beige now. Reflexive, primitive, barely able to think or focus. Large anxiety. 

For the past couple months, I've not known whether I exist or not. I now understand what it means to say "All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks". By newton's third law you mean it to be true of yourself. 

Because the self is put out but it may as well be a conceptual nothing for what is within. Rather, that's how it's been understood so far, just now. 

Is it maybe...like the expression of some field"?" 

The self is an infinitesimal form, whose generation is only made aware of when unstable. 

----

> Yet now, forsooth, because Pierre began to see through the first superficiality of the world, he fondly weens he has come to the unlayered substance. But, far as any geologist has yet gone down into the world, it is found to consist of nothing but surface stratified on surface. To its axis, the world being nothing but superinduced superficies. By vast pains we mine into the pyramid; by horrible gropings we come to the central room; with joy we espy the sarcophagus; but we lift the lid — and no body is there! — appallingly vacant as vast is the soul of man

Edited December 1, 2021 by lmfao

[EternalForest]

@Leo Gura A character like Walter White is written so masterfully and true to life I could definitely see him being used in conversation or as an example in a serious philosophical discussion. People do it with Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird all the time.

There are hundreds of deep insights to gain from Breaking Bad and all of its characters

 

[Danioover9000]

On 04/11/2021 at 0:50 PM, Leo Gura said:

Dude, that's a fictional show and you are treating it as though it were real life. What's next? Why Danny burned King's Landing in GoT according to SD?

   So, are we not allowed to give ourselves thought experiments about applications of SD and use fictional examples, because the modal is a scientific study of humans?

   Keeping in mind the OP is speculating about why regression occurs in SD, and regression is not limited to the two modals OP put forth, but regression can occur from traumatizing events, personal or collective. One way of minimizing triggering of trauma is to use fictional examples to explain certain modals. Regression is temporarily an overall negative event, until it gets resolved later. I'm assuming this is why OP refers to BB as a main usable example of SD regression, rather than his/her traumatic experience instead, or other worldy traumatic events 

    And surprisingly some pieces of fiction are partly inspired by SD, like Star Trek, Star Wars, the whole 4D game strategy genre, ect...

[Danioover9000]

@Carl-Richard

8 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

   So, are we not allowed to give ourselves thought experiments about applications of SD and use fictional examples, because the modal is a scientific study of humans?

   Keeping in mind the OP is speculating about why regression occurs in SD, and regression is not limited to the two modals OP put forth, but regression can occur from traumatizing events, personal or collective. One way of minimizing triggering of trauma is to use fictional examples to explain certain modals. Regression is temporarily an overall negative event, until it gets resolved later. I'm assuming this is why OP refers to BB as a main usable example of SD regression, rather than his/her traumatic experience instead, or other worldy traumatic events 

    And surprisingly some pieces of fiction are partly inspired by SD, like Star Trek, Star Wars, the whole 4D game strategy genre, ect...

   Also, as an implication of my post, I'm not saying that OP is mainly using BB as an example to explain SD regression to avoid talking about personal/collective traumas explicitly. I'm saying that to me it's an acceptable choice of example to use despite it's fictional ontology. Most discussions here about SD have a set pool of examples that are mainly derived from the real world, and not so with fiction as much. The main issue with that is not that it eventually gets boring, but when you start referring to real world examples, from recent to historical, personal to collective negative events as an example of regression, then this gives some users the ability to troll and derail the thread in the most clever ways possible, using triggering words and even using the example against the OP as well, which can quickly derail the thread and lead to other things like more mod work and the thread locked early due to heated discussion and even debating.

   As a solution to this, we should consider using some more examples of SD sourcing more from fiction and less from the real world in threads discussing about SD. This way, we minimize against seemingly organic heated debate comig from triggering real world examples and instead use fictional examples. Less triggering leads to less trolling and derailing threads, leads to longer discussions. I mean we already have featured mega thread examples of each SD stage, so it seems fair to me to allow some use of fiction examples for other threads anyways.

[EternalForest]

@Danioover9000 What shocked me about Breaking Bad was how much of Walter I saw in myself. I was rooting for him because I myself have a repressed sense of pride. I also felt wronged by society around me and believe I deserve better yet I could never gather up the courage to take the risks necessary for a better life. So when he did take the risks he took, it felt liberating. Breaking Bad is almost a case study of Spiral Dynamics stage suppression.