The goal of the REF is to strive for the best performance of the actor in balance with, and collaboration from, the other actors in the ‘drama’. Individuals can’t win Oscars but they can appear authentic, smooth and convincing to participants and onlookers. The REF-director guides each individual towards winning rewards and avoiding losses. If, as Shakespeare viaJaques famously asserts, ‘All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players’, actors must each have an internal director. Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty – how exactly does Psychological Homeostasis work? Firstly, the theory proposes an internal director (a ‘Reset Equilibrium Function’ or ‘REF’) that strives to keep everything ‘cushty’. The General Theory holds that striving for equilibrium is a primary motivation of behaviour, not only pleasure seeking or pain avoidance, as suggested by the Law of Effect. Fifty years later Sigmund Freud copied this idea with the ‘Pleasure Principle’, which has an almost exact equivalent in Cannon’s concept of homeostasis, which in turn has the goal of tension reduction for the sake of maintaining, or restoring, the inner equilibrium (Marks, 2018, p.40). In 1848 German physicist Gustav Fechner used the term Lustprinzip. Yet the construct of Psychological Homeostasis as an analogue of its physiological cousin has never been systematically developed. The General Theory consists of 20 principles and 80 auxiliary propositions that make predictions at individual, social and societal levels.Īdmittedly there is ‘nothing new under the sun’, and the theory has links with other motivational theories, especially Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll, 1989). I explain why this is possible in my new book A General Theory of Behaviour (Marks, 2018). HT2 repairs and ‘resets’ on a routine basis, guiding our behaviour. If we see one that’s already overturned, a situation in need of repair, then we set about repairing it. If we see an apple cart about to turn over, we stop it from happening.
It’s all about preventing and fixing things before there is a breakdown. HT2 is one of those rare, ‘good-news’ stories.
HT2 brings multiple forms of help and healing free at the point of delivery, like an in-built NHS.
Homeostasis isn’t a malevolent force, it’s doing good, making our lives easier. If that sounds a little bit scary, it doesn’t need to be. Yet – I wish to argue – all of our behaviour, thinking, and feelings are ultimately controlled by it. Just as fish don’t know they’re in water, we don’t know we’re in homeostasis. I want to suggest that the HT2 is so indispensably routine that most of us for most of the time simply aren’t aware of its existence. There are several popular idioms about this process: it is said that ‘ we don’t like to rock the boat’, ‘cause waves’, ‘ruffle feathers’ or ‘upset the apple cart’.
HT2 is an innate process built to quietly keep everything ‘cushty’ (as Jamie Oliver might put it). It is designed to keep everything in the surrounding environment ‘ticking over’, not too ‘hot’ and not too ‘cold’. I wish to argue that Psychological Homeostasis is every bit as important as its physiological counterpart. Let’s call this concept ‘Homeostasis Type 2’ or ‘HT2’ for short. What is new and less well established is the idea of a ‘Behavioural Thermostat’, a type of psychological homeostasis striving to control the equilibrium and stability of the external environment. We are also familiar with a process inside the body called ‘physiological homoeostasis’ which controls variables such as our body temperature and fluid balance to keep them within pre-set limits (Cannon, 1929). We are all familiar with the thermostat on the wall that we use to regulate the room temperature. Here I offer one way to take this unification project forward. Psychology’s fragmentation and its separation from the natural sciences can – and must – be repaired. My aim is to persuade you that these ideas have legs. Here I discuss ‘Psychological Homeostasis’, a construct which gives rise to three ‘big ideas’: a new general theory of behaviour an alternative theory of evolution and unifying Psychology as part of natural science. Homeostasis, the state of steady internal conditions, is a well-established principle in living systems.