Polystatic Appraisal: The Polystasis model incorporates three processes. First, there is Appraisal. As Peter Sterling has noted, there is an ongoing need to monitor the environment in which we operate to determine if a new baseline (desired outcomes) is required. We informally or formally predict the probability that our current desired baseline of functioning can be achieved. Is it even desirable? At this point, I introduce a concept offered by another neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio (2005). Damasio proposed that a somatic template continually provides information regarding our bodily state. Perhaps, this template plays a central role in Sterling’s Allostatic process. Similarly, there might be a set of psychosocial templates that we frequently reference when making polystatic predictions and adjustments. These templates offer a view of our psychological status and the status of our external world (including our relationship with money).
A psychosocial template might trigger our attention when something is threatening us. Elsewhere, I have suggested that we establish three threat categories in our Amygdala (Bergquist, 2011). I derived these categories from the semantic differential of Charles Osgood (1957). Is this threatening entity not aligned with our welfare (bad)? Is it strong (rather than weak and ineffective)? Is this threatening operating in an immediate active manner (rather than inactive or threatening at a temporal or spatial distance)? Our Amygdala is triggered, leading to an immediate change in our somatic template. This soon leads to a change in our psychosocial template as we better understand (correctly or incorrectly) the nature and scope of the threat.
This threat will sometimes (perhaps often) relate to the matter of money. It could be our own money or the money owned by another person. A threat concerning our own money might relate to our potential loss of money that we have already acquired or the potential failure to acquire new money. The threat will be great if there is a prevailing (strong) and imminent (active) possibility of loss or failure to win. Either loss or failure to win would certainly not be in our best interests (bad). When the threat relates to another person, we confront the possibility that someone powerful (strong), imminent (active). and not well-intended (bad) might be taking money away from us (“your money or your life”) or withholding money from us.
Alternatively, the psychosocial template is triggered when something slightly “different” occurs in our psyche or in the world we inhabit. The “new” template doesn’t match the template that existed a few minutes before, or with some relatively stable baseline template we have built during our lifetime. It is a “deviant” template that draws our attention and impacts our polystatic process. While this deviance might be associated with a monetary threat, it can also be associated with a monetary opportunity. Something in our world seems to be changing—and we might take advantage of this change. We invest in a new stock, start a business, or simply buy something that is suddenly on sale. One of the most important factors determining financial success might be the framing of deviance as an opportunity rather than a threat. Rather than fearing loss, we fear regret in not having availed ourselves of the opportunity.
