We might, for instance, apply a Recency heuristic. Adjustments are the same as the last time we faced this environmental shift. Polystatic adjustments can also become habitual. A heuristic of Habit is applied. We indiscriminately apply the same monetary policy regardless of the situation being considered. Then there is the matter of Primacy. The first action taken when facing a monetary challenge remains with us. We messed up the first time and learned to avoid this situation at all costs.
Given this potential vulnerability of recency, habit, and primacy, we must ask: How do we adjust to a new or changing baseline? Adjustments will operate differently when we face a critical challenge and when motivations (and anxiety) are high (as they often are when money is involved). We are inclined to think very fast and be especially noncritical when the stakes are high. Emotions are intense. Furthermore, we might always imagine a threat when we are tired or distracted—we indeed become “trigger-happy.” Anxiety becomes a common experience. Retreat and isolation become common polystatic actions.
All of this means that we need to be careful about the assumptions we are making and the heuristics we are applying under specific conditions. Many financial conditions hold the potential of being threatening. It is in these conditions and at these moments that we must be particularly vigilant and reflective. We must ask ourselves: is this situation really like the last one? Can I do a better job this time in coping with this challenging financial situation? If this is truly important, then perhaps I should get some assistance. I might have to open up to differing points of view. Is this genuinely threatening, or am I only imagining that it is threatening? In short, Polystasis might be an essential adaptation given our shifting VUCA-Plus environment. However, this process can also lead us astray. We must indeed be vigilant and reflective.
Conclusions
In essence, I am suggesting that our actions are not based on our ongoing perception of reality: rather, they are based on our ongoing predictions about what is about to happen in our environment, followed by an adjustment in our baseline (desired state). We “construct” an anticipated reality and the anticipated impact of our actions on this environment. Specifically, if we are seeking a state (feeling) of happiness, then we must anticipate how our environment might afford us happiness given specific actions we might take (such as the expenditure of money).
Our baseline regarding happiness may be frequently adjusted as we become “realistic” about the type and amount of happiness we might be able to achieve. Given this adjusted baseline, we adjust and alter the actions we take (expenditure of money), further revise our predictions of conditions required for happiness to be achieved (based on the effectiveness of monetary actions we have just taken), and then further revise our baseline of happiness, etc. etc. This is a dynamic Polystatic process filled with tightly linked money-happiness feedback loops (super-replicators). These loops are incorporated in what is now often titled a Biopsychosocial model of human functioning. Put simply, “if we are to have any hope of choosing wisely, then we must correctly anticipate how much pleasure those dollars will buy us.” (Gilbert, 2006, p. 260).
