PSYCH 356 University of Waterloo Self Control Paper

PSYCH 356 University of Waterloo Self Control Paper

1 Client “Sensitive Cat”: traits and tendencies related to the self-control, love, and power 2 Outline Introduction a. Background b. Thesis Outline of “Sensitive Cat” traits and tendencies a. Self-control b. Love c. Sense of power Conclusion References 3 Introduction In “Getting together: Whole Life and the story of personality,” self-control, love, and sense of power feature significantly. People’s perceptions towards the three crucial topics vary greatly. For classical theorists and contemporary researchers, power is critical and without which relationships become meaningless. Neo-analytic theories echo the same by arguing that people must always develop ego-strengths to gain the confidence necessary to accomplish goals, earn esteem, and succeed (Schmidt-Barad & Uziel, 2020). With reference to love, people always feel loved if they enter relationships where they feel accepted, understood, respected, appreciated, reciprocated, open, and authenticated. Ideally, most people want to experience these for them to feel love. Self-control means taking control of situations and according to Freud, conflict related anxiety remains the number one cause of lapses in an individual’s self-control. Client “Sensitive cat” (ELIN number is 648) traits and tendencies related to the self-control, love, and power are explored fully in this paper. Outline of “Sensitive Cat” traits and tendencies Self-control Self-control refers to the overall, ability to regulate and alter responses so as to avoid unwanted behaviors and increased desirable behaviors. Overall, sensitive cat lacks the ability to resist temptations, has trouble concentrating, wishes she had more discipline, and act without thinking through all the alternatives. This has contributed to higher stress (95% percentile), boredom (90% percentile), aggression (87%), aggression (87%), and random responses (87). The client’s low self-control is attributed to factors which include psychological conflict related anxieties which trigger lapses in oneself control. Lapses in the client’s self-control are also attributed to lack of grit, which is highly correlated to selfcontrol; low self-esteem, lack of authenticity, zero conscientiousness, and zero 4 conscientiousness – industriousness. The client portrays a high degree of behavioral inhibition system which has seen him restrict his behaviors using negative emotions such as fear and anxiety. Client wishes he has discipline, and this is in line with SDT theory which argues that when human needs are thwarted by misguided goals, their resilience and resolve wilt. The self-control failure which involves indulgence in unhealthy activities such as failing to take action even when its necessary kills resolve. The reality is that people with self-control have the power to think, stop, when necessary, weigh consequences, and act. Such people, allow emotions to cool from temporarily instabilities brought about by anger, fear, or revenge. This means that these people have less conflicts or have mastered ways to handling conflict whenever they arise. Self-control comes also with one’s ability to learn when to stop, when to seek alternative perspective, and when objectivity is the only way out. As such, the client needs to realize that self-control is captured and cultivated (Vohs et al., 2011). As such, the client’s ability to overcome self-control issues will start when he decides to face conflict head on with a heroic attempt at discipline to attain the desirable level of grit and self-control. Sustaining BIS through effortless self-control also remains the ideal strategy to regain desirable levels of self-control. Arguably, self-control correlates with grit (0.66), authenticity (0.58), and esteem. This means that the client must build grit (the tendency to sustain long term goals), grow his self-esteem, and become authentic. Ideally, authenticity increases one’s confidence, increases problem solving skills, and lowers stress. Love (relationship – anxious attachment) “Sensitive Cat” has taken control in his anxious attachments. He does not worry a lot about relationships, does not worry losing relationships, and does not need reassurance from people that he is loved. He is also not insecure or anxious when in relationship and rarely gets 5 frustrated when people are not around him. As indicated in ELIN 648, the client scores high in Relationship Anxious Attachment (77 percentile) and avoidant-dismissive attachment (78 percentile). Instead of craving love and intimacy, the client is highly wary of relationships and any form of emotional connections. The client typically values freedom and independence and has resorted to independence to a point he feels uncomfortable in closeness that comes with romantic affairs. He is independent and does not feel the need of wanting others. As an independent person, he is content to care for himself alone and does not feel the need for caring for other. But while, the client thinks he can exist comfortably without intimacy and close relationships, the truth is, he will struggle a lot. Human beings are naturally wired to connect including those with avoidant-dismissive attachments (SchmidtBarad & Uziel, 2020). This explains why the correlation matrix and especially those of insecure attachments (rel-av and rel.anx) have huge negative correlations with the critical resilience related personality traits. Building relationships, understanding have the capacity to foster constructive responses and empathy, especially when feeling down. With love people will tend to feel less insecurities and possibly develop the power, aggression, and meaning necessary to push one above personal preoccupation. Accordingly, relationships and love in particular affect everything, that is why classic neo analytics theories positioned relationship security and belongingness as a major foundation for personality development. Sense of Power With reference to the sense of power, the client portrays a slightly low power in a wider aspect of his life. Even though he gets people to listen to him, he cannot get people to do what he says, he cannot express views in ways that can sway others, his ideas and views are always ignored, and rarely makes decisions. The minimal power force by the client has exposed him to several social disadvantages including low aggression, stress, and long-term depression. What the client failed to note is that occupational and relational connection with 6 people is largely beneficial to the success of both individual and the company. Evidence indicates that people with greater sense of power especially in their relationships reported more satisfaction than those without. Clearly, power dynamic affect individuals, their relationships and overall perception of life. As argued by Adler, people should always harness their power motives so as to foster cooperative business goals. The lack of power often exposes people to issues such as inferiority and superiority complexes. With inferiority complex, one often tends to become self-centered, absent, insecure, and negative. Some people will often opt for superiority complexes to hide their inner insecurities and inner doubts. In order to overcome inferiority and superiority complexes, one must develop personal power. As humans, we are all designed to be natural empathic and social, meaning that the client’s failure to show desire for social interest is wrong and limiting. As reported by Adler, social interest starts with people directing power towards authenticity. With reference to our client, the many social ills such as depression (82nd percentile) anger, boredom, among others are perceived by Alder to arise majorly due to deficits around social interests. The argument is that as soon as people ignore the common good and focus on self-interests, they forget their purposes. As argued by classical theorists, relationships while necessary, are never enough unless one develops the right personal power. According to Freud, any healthy personality must balance love and work. For this client, power will ultimately come when there is vitality, hope, and intrinsic need satisfaction. Intrinsic need satisfaction, hope, and vitality correlated with power at 0.49, 0.41, and 0.51 respectively. More so, power correlates with extraversion – assertiveness (0.49), an indication that power remains the key pillar in healthy personality development. Several factors contribute to an individual’s sense of power namely hope, extraversion-assertiveness, and vitality as they all correlate highly with power. Client’s sense of power can either develop through any of the four orientations namely leaning type, ruling type, and avoiding type. To embrace the avoiding type of power, the 7 client can exist in a world they can control and one which has no social complications. With a strong sense of power, the client will have a strong life negotiating power and can easily secure support from others. Personal power therefore stands as the foundation from which focus, success, and skills stem. For the client to build personal power, he must acknowledge his personal power, build consistency, and avoid self-interest. Conclusion: Improving Personality Resilience In conclusion, a resilient personal is one with a higher degree of self-control and grit, power, and love. Self-control comes with getting more motivation, self-regulation, having the right support system, understanding emotional intelligence, and objective scrutiny of issues. Personal power means taking control of situation, whereas love is having strong affection. As seen through the reading, improving personality resilience starts with having self-control, power, and love. With a good support system, healthy relationships, and good self-image, it becomes easier to navigate through the challenges of life. For family and friends, the goal to the highest level of resilience starts with being kind to oneself, taking care of physical health, seeking support, accepting that setbacks are part of the process, setting realistic goals, nurturing an attitude of gratitude and pursuing self-discovery. Ideally, building mutually beneficial relationships and love optimizes personality resilience, fostering power, and selfcontrol one must organize one’s life properly so that temptations will occur less often. This is because as soon as temptations arise, it is often late for one to act right. With personal power, one grows a deep sense of empowerment and rejuvenates the inner strengths and confidence necessary to overcome some of the toughest times. 8 References Schmidt-Barad, T., & Uziel, L. (2020). When (state and trait) powers collide: Effects of power-incongruence and self-control on prosocial behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 162, 110009. Vohs, K. D., Finkenauer, C., & Baumeister, R. F. (2011). The sum of friends’ and lovers’ selfcontrol scores predicts relationship quality. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(2), 138-145. Assignment 2 (20%) 1500 Word Max. Due date Nov. 10 Instructions Demonstrate your knowledge of week 5-7 material by expertly weaving it into a consulting report for your client (aka, yourself). As in Assignment 1, use the third person to refer to your client by their pseudonym. 1. Begin the report by outlining your client’s current traits and tendencies related to the self-control, love, and power material covered in weeks 5-7. Reference your client’s (approximate) percentile score information to help with this step. (If you do not have percentile scores because you did not complete the surveys, you can estimate how high or low the relevant percentiles would be by looking at the items and scale means in the “Personality Questionnaire and Item Information” document in the “Personality Questionnaires” topic in the LEARN page content). 2. Then describe ways that your client could apply information learned in the Self-Control, Love, and Power weeks to understand the motivational dynamics and hone their personality resilience and effectiveness in specific contexts and relationships. 3. Finally, describe ways your client could use learning from Weeks 5-7 to improve the personality resilience and thriving of one or two specific other people in their life (friend, family member, relationship partner, roommate, co-worker, etc.). Then explain how doing so could further optimize your client’s own personality resilience. To earn top marks, use evidence from the correlation matrix where possible, to support your points. You may also augment your report with especially relevant points from weeks 1-4, but ensure that at least ¾ of the content is drawn from weeks 5-7. From the Syllabus—How to Earn Top Grades “Top grades will be awarded for evidence of comprehensive and deep understanding of course material. To demonstrate this, students will need to accurately describe and apply content related to several key ideas and themes from course material to real life. The assignments are elaborations on the weekly reflection and discussion topics, which revolve around how one could use the course material to help oneself and others thrive.” More Specific Grading Key (Out of 20) 18-20: Clearly and concisely written, at or under the word limit. Integrates relevant foundational knowledge from weeks 1-4. Shows evidence of deep and comprehensive understanding of diverse content across weeks 5-7, demonstrated by thoughtful application to the unique contours of the client’s current personality traits and tendencies. Backed up with specific theoretical and empirical information from the readings and lectures. Uses relevant correlations from the trait correlation matrix to back up claims. 15-18: Same as above, but with a few minor limitations related to: writing quality or amount, some shallowness, gaps in comprehensive coverage across the four weeks, apparent misunderstanding of some material, weak application to the client’s unique personality, vagueness, missing correlation matrix evidence. 10-15: Several minor limitations or a few serious ones. 5-10: Mostly shallow and vague generalities or unsubstantiated and disconnected statements that give little evidence of application or understanding. 0-5: Incomplete and/or almost completely reads as something that could have been written with little or no thoughtful engagement with course material. Citations and References Citations are not necessary for general ideas that are central to course themes (the grading TA will know what you are talking about). Casual citations are enough and can help ensure the grading TA is clear on what you are talking about if you are referring to specific material in readings or lectures, however. E.g., “The Cunningham et al. experiment in Week 3 showed that even personal ambivalence about social issues caused BIS activation as indicated by increased blood flow to the ACC.” A reference section is not needed in most cases because all content is usually drawn from course readings and lectures. There is no need to cite the weekly reflections if material is copied from them—the weekly reflections can be thought of as rough drafts you will be using to generate ideas to elaborate on in the assignments. Dear Students, I put this sample together quickly today, to give you an idea of what I’m looking for. This sample might get a grade of around 17/20. It covers a good range of topics from the first four weeks, and shows fairly good evidence of having processed the material deeply enough to apply it thoughtfully. It could probably have incorporated a few more well placed bits of relevant info from the course for a better grade, and some of the sentences are a bit loose and long and hard to read, and a few are rambly and maybe a tad confusing. Please note that this is just what came to me when imagining Hermoine Granger’s personality and I did it quickly based on what was on my mind. For top grades, you should probably skim over the chapters and lectures again to remind yourself of all the info as a way to find the best and most relevant bits to your own unique personality. It is ok to be casual with citations like this. I should also say that the first draft had 1900 words. I then went back over it to eliminate unnecessary words or empty phrases, and that got the word count down to just over 1500. A good way to make writing clearer is to eliminate unnecessary words or sentences that don’t really say anything. Good luck with this assignment—try to have fun! Cheers, Ian Assignment 1 Sample The pseudonym of my client, Hermoine Granger, is “Right Angle.” Her sketch focuses on themes related knowing, doing, and being seen as right and good! She resides in the middle tier of accomplishment, rarely acknowledging the lower or upper tiers of her personality. She has dismissed them as confusing and irrelevant complications that get in the way of her determined commitment to fulfilling her practical responsibilities. One exception to this middle-tier focus might be that she is inspired by her upper tier self-image as someone who is excellent and better than others. Praise about this from teachers and parents makes her feel wonderful. She is aware of her reputation as an overly controlled loner, uncomfortable with play. But lower tier indulgences in goofing around with autonomy, affection, and play seem more trouble than they are worth (she secretly wonders if others just pretend to enjoy such things). She mostly loves feeling competent in the tasks on her daily to-do list. Right Angle is high on neurotic-distress. Inside she often feels insecure, rejectionsensitive, and sometimes depressed for no apparent reason. Some neurotic-volatility is also evident in her being easily annoyed by other’s who are less correct and conscientious than she is—pet peeves are people who are late, unreliable, or indecisive. She is slightly introverted due to spending so much time studying, which undermines her opportunity for assertively and enthusiastically engaging with the outside world. Despite her top grades, she is average to low on openness-intellect—she just focuses on practical facts needed to be right and to excel. Getting distracted or confused by abstract ideas is not practical. Her openness-open trait is also on the low side. She focuses mostly on a narrow range of simple pleasures like keeping a routine of sleeping, eating, and working, while occasionally treating herself with chocolate, snuggling her cat, or watching TV. She prefers to doing things how she has always done them, or in established ways that authorities recommend. There are fewer complication that way. She considers herself highly compassionate, but compared to others she is probably low on agreeableness. She is argumentative and easily annoyed by others, which makes her impolite, and she is also often too busy focusing on her goals to attend to others’ needs or feelings (which sometimes just annoy her because they disrupt her plans…she also tends to blame others, thinking that if they had just been more organized and conscientious, like her, they wouldn’t be in trouble). She can accordingly sometimes seem cold. Her cardinal trait is conscientiousness. She is the most logical, orderly, organized and industrious person she knows. She often even amazes herself with how much this super-power can help her get done. Right angle was organized and industrious, even as a child. She suspects a strong heritable component given that traits tend to be around 50% heritable (given the average strength of countervailing environmental influences). Both of Right Angle’s parents are conscientious dentists, so it is tempting to imagine that they nurtured her conscientious, but heredity is more likely given the very small influence of their parents on adults’ big-5 personality traits. Right Angle’s intense focus on competence and success may also arise in part from intentional priorities—nothing feels better to her than the satisfaction she gets from being right and achieving success. She accordingly arranges her days, weeks, and life around middle-level competence as a kind of restorative niche to keep her in good spirits when life gets difficult. When she needs a boost she leans into her conscientiousness for reliable BAS activation. She would probably also grant that her somewhat imbalanced over-emphasis on being good and right is not completely a conscious choice. It may also be a non-consciously-mediated defense mechanism that helps her ignore the vulnerable domains of her personality in which she feels uncertain and shame-prone. Why does she tend to get ignored, socially? Why can’t she relax? Why is she so moody? Is there something wrong with her? Or even more bewilderingly—what is the point of everything—what is it all for if she is just going to feel blah about it all anyway, and will just be working all the time. What else would she do if she wasn’t working all the time?! Such self-doubts bend Right Angle into weird shapes and make her want to block them all out by throwing herself into focus on meeting responsibilities and accomplishing success. Right Angle could benefit from easing off on her need for order. Her conscientiousness is clearly a resilience resource that she can draw comfort from, and conscientiousness is also a huge predictor of many positive life outcomes—in marriage, career, and even longevity. But her combination of neuroticism and extremely high orderliness puts her at risk for obsessive compulsive personality disorder (as per the DeYoung et al, 2016 study on Slides 19 and 21 of Week 2). Her extreme conscientiousness may also contribute to her disagreeableness (annoyed by others’ foibles) and introversion (always working), both of which could be contributing to her neuroticism—they are both significantly correlated with neuroticism-related traits in the course correlation matrix (CCM). If her extreme conscientiousness is a defense against vulnerability and uncertainty, she might consider experimenting with safe ways to lean in to mildly uncertain and vulnerable circumstances to become more comfortable with uncertainty (uncertainty aversion is significantly correlated with both neuroticism and the conscientiousness-order in the CCM). She could create if-then contingencies to allow herself to relinquish control in some specific circumstances (e.g., if in a conversation, then focus on being friendly and humble instead of right). She could expose herself to the uncertainties of social situations that focus on lower-tier need satisfaction with her friends, Harry and Ron. She might even try to brave a conversation with Luna Lovegood. Based on Fleeson’s whole trait theory, persistently acting in ways that were less militantly focused on order and her aversion to uncertainty would, over time, make Right Angle’s personality become less extremely conscientious-orderly and also less neurotic. Getting used to uncertainty and vulnerability and seeing it as not horrible and punishing could be fun, and also reduce her neuroticism by decreasing her ACC reactivity (based on Hajcak’s work showing that fear of punishment increases ACC-ERN amplitudes). It could also help satisfy nonconscious goals arising from her basic needs, thereby increasing her BAS and muting her BIS, making her feel less neurotic (and more extraverted, vital, open, and empathic as well—need satisfaction correlates with all these traits in the CCM). Meeting these basic needs could also soften her extreme conscientiousness, because she would no longer need it to goal-shield the promptings and agitation arising from unmet, lower-tier needs. She could also benefit physiologically from getting out of her head to make eye-contact and smile and laugh more, playing and even touching others (kiss Ron already!!). Doing so could activate her opioid system, to help directly mute her BIS. It could also activate oxytocin to mute her BIS-linked ACC activity and thereby make her more trusting, agreeable, empathic, and less anxious around others, to reduce her social anxieties and rejection-sensitivity. Excessive ACCBIS activity, as indexed by larger ERN amplitudes, has been implicated in a wide range of anxiety/neuroticism linked traits and pathologies. Indeed, in the CCM having personal projects focused on connecting with others (the PPintimacy variable) correlates significantly with less stress and depression, and with more conscientiousness, efficacy, power, self-esteem, and BASlinked traits overall, and in personal projects. Leaning into relationships more could accordingly provide benefits of reducing neuroticism, and increasing extraversion and agreeableness, without undermining (and perhaps even augmenting) her grit and conscientiousness. In sum, Right Angle’s conscientiousness superpower may be a kind of neurotic, obsessive passion, that goal-shields her uncertainties and vulnerabilities but also alienates her from a whole range of basic, lower tier needs. Estrangement from these goal-shielded aspects of her personality may be part of what is causing her to feel so strangely depressed at times, despite her impressive record of accomplishments, leading to a downward spiral of ill-being and defensive repression. Right Angle might benefit from starting a journal to keep track of patterns of times she felt fully alive, vital, resilient, and open to other people. She could use this experiential awareness of basic affects, mediated by Von Economo neurons from her salience network, together with her impressive book-knowledge about self-determination theory, to help hone her interoceptive accuracy. She might thereby notice that, in addition to the testosterone and dopamine-based boosts she relies on from overcoming challenges and accomplishments (wanting-system-based) she could be more resilient and effective (and happy) if she at least occasionally indulged her creaturely needs for simple pleasures (opiod liking system in contrast to the dopaminergic wanting system). More warm connection with others that included cooperative play, eye-contact, smiles, and touch could also help with this and via oxytocin release. She was surprised how good she felt after some of the simple, goofy interpersonal exercises in her dark arts class. Such simple social wins felt as good or better than the accomplishments driven by her obsessive perfectionism (perfectionism is highly correlated in the CCM with conscientiousness and neuroticism). The simple social wins left her feeling more energized, less tired, and even more enthusiastic about learning (because they activate BAS and mute BIS as per Corr’s joint subsystems hypothesis, as supported by the CCM). Psych 356 Assignment 2 Suggestions and Example Suggestion for how to go about composing your assignments (this is what I did). 1. Write out a skeleton draft with just the main ideas based on recall of ideas you liked, your notes, and previous reflections from week’s 5-7. 2. Add percentile score info (get from excel sheet). 2. Skim the chapters and lecture slides to remind yourself of import specific points and details from the chapters to back up the arguments you want to make. 3. Add in some info from the correlation matrix excel sheet to back up some of your points. 4. Write it to around 2000 words, and then edit it down to 1500 by deleting unnecessarily wordy parts that do little to demonstrate your knowledge and ability to apply course material. 5. As in Assignment 1, lengths between 1520 and 1600 words will be penalized by 1 mark, between 1601-1700 by 2 marks, and over 1701 by 3 marks. Citations 1. When talking about correlations between variables that are in the course correlation matrix there is no need to formally cite anything. In the context of this assignment it will be obvious. 2. Same with percentile scores—no need to cite anything. Just say, e.g., “78%ile.” 3. To cite content from readings or slides use this simple format (Wk6p.10 or Wk7Slide9), or if you want to reference a specific theorist or researcher/author use this format (Adler.Wk7p.15 or Nash.Wk4Slide4). For the purposes of this assignment just list the first author if there are several. If the citation is to multiple different sets of authors that get at the same thing, then just list the first in each set, separated by periods (Mikulincer.VanKleef.CoanWk6.p.13). Use no spaces in your citations, as above, so they will only use up one word in your word count. Using the Example Below I am providing this sample assignment primarily to give you an example of format and flow of ideas, and a ballpark number of correlations and citations to include. The specifics of content are just what seemed relevant to Harry Potter and friends. It represents only a small fraction of the ideas you could focus on across the three weeks—there is a lot in there. So, do not take this sample as a guide to what content is most important or that you should include. Instead, use your own specific applications to guide your choices of what information you choose to use from weeks 5-7. Harry Potter Example Traits and Tendencies Potter’s self-control traits are mixed. His need satisfaction is currently low (35%ile) because his parents lock him in a closet, thwart his needs, and devalue his wizard potential. This causes chronic, BIS-activating frustration which can cause low self-control in three ways (Wk5Slide10). He withdraws and becomes sullen (79%ile depression, 84%ile dropout), remains in BIS- activated exasperation (88%ile boredom, 73%stress, high BIS/BISnew/rumination/neuroticism), and impulsively activates RAM by breaking rules, losing temper, and sneaking around in his invisibility cloak (82%ile anger, 12%ile self-control). Potter’s high BIS-related traits, but also high BAS-related traits (e.g., narcissism 87th%ile, efficacy 68%ile) incline him toward RAM because the BIS-states/traits make RAM appealing for relief and the BAS-traits make RAM intuitive (JonasWk7p.12; depression/dropout/boredom/stress/BIS/rumination/neuroticism are all negatively correlated with self-control around -.4; BAS traits correlate significantly with anger, which also correlates negatively with self-control). Despite these orientations, Potter has high Grit (83%ile) and personal project grit (94%ile)—he is determined to defeat Voldemort and become a highly generative (87%ile) wizard. At school hs high BASdrive (75%ile) and needsupportive mentors/friends (Hermoine/Ron/Hagrid/Dumbledore/McGonagall/Sirius/Weasleys) may foster his grit by liberating healthy BAS and muting BIS there (need satisfaction and grit each correlate around .4 with BAS traits and -.4 with BIS traits). Potter’s love-related traits are also mixed. He is around 60%ile on both relationship anxiety and avoidance, perhaps in part due to his birth parents being exceptionally loving but foster parents exceptionally abusive—leading to residual dismissive-avoidance tendencies from childhood into adulthood (Wk6Slide10). His current environment, which accounts for most of adult attachment style (Wk6Slide10) is mixed with relatedness needs blocked by his abusive parents in summer, but met by aforementioned friends and mentors at school. Potter is exceptionally high on empathy (91%ile) and agreeableness.compassion (82%ile) which bode well for his relatedness capacity. Both correlate at around -.3 with avoidance. Potter’s most prevalent power-related traits are his efficacy (90%ile) and healthy narcissism (75%ile; the Slytherin-related dark side of his Narcissism is perhaps held in check by his empathy and positive combination of power and social interest (Adler.Wk7p.3). The huge amount of autonomy Harry is granted at Hogwarts, and the secure relatedness provided by peers and mentors there, give him courage to explore (Bowlby.Wk6p.4) and develop his special abilities (e.g., in Quidich, wizarding, fighting Voldemort and the death-eaters) to become “socially useful” (Adler.Wk7.p3) and generative (80%ile). Generativity correlates positively with agreeableness, empathy, power (.40), and narcissism (.57). Honing Resilience and Effectiveness Harry struggles with self-control. He could reduce his BIS activation by living elsewhere in summers so his needs wouldn’t be thwarted with chronic BIS from his indifferent and abusive parents (Horney.Wk6p.2). Need satisfaction correlates negatively with traits related to BIS and positively with traits related to self-control. Reflecting more on his birth parents could also help. Secure attachments, even if recalled, can make relationship insecure people less depressed and hostile, and better self-controlled, presumably by priming lower tier relatedness need-satisfaction to mute ambient BIS (MikulincerWk6.p11). Harry’s parents’ selfless love inspires Harry and activates his BAS at an abstract level (idealistic promotion-focus correlates around .6 with BAS variables). Indeed, a stag-shaped “Patronis” appears when Harry thinks about the love of his parents. This Patronis illustrates the abstract-goal-shielding that can arise from BAS activated by focus on ideals (Wk5Slide24). Harry could further tap this kind of power for even more effortless self-control (Gillebart.Wk5p.11). It already shields him against distress and dysfunction around the Dementors, and his ability to say Voldemort’s name out loud. To prime this inspiring ideal of love more regularly, he could keep pictures and other reminders of his parents around his house, talk to his friends about it, and also intentionally reflect on other markers of their inspiring sacrifice—like the scar on his forehead. Primes can activate goals nonconsciously (Bargh.Wk4.Slide5). Meeting more with Dumbledore could also foster prosocial idealistic power. As with Adler, Kohut, and Kernberg, Dumbledore’s empowering receptiveness and example of compassionate generativity could be emulated and integrated by Harry as an ideal (Wk7p.7). Such generative ideals are good counterbalance to keep Narcissistic tendencies linked to “social interest” to prevent an antisocial superiority complex (Adler.Wk7p.2). Already, Harry is at risk of what Horney and Rogers referred to “splitting” (Wk7p.6) between his despised self vs. his ideal self (introverted and insecure boy with silly name, locked in closet by dim-witted muggle parents vs. heroic savior of wizarding world). Intentional orientation toward prosocial ideals could help keep his power viable and prevent the power paradox (Keltner.Wk7p.16). Helping Hermoine, Ron, and Draco Hermoine can be anxious, aloof, and prickly. When frustrated or uncertain, she becomes irritable and a solitary workaholic, disconnected from others (Vos.Wk7.p13, money/power callous independence). Hermoine uses “risk-regulation” after social uncertainties by derogating/distancing her friends (Murray.Wk6Slide11). She uses her BAS-linked perfectionism/narcissism (correlations over .3) to mute her BIS (but perfectionism also correlates positively with BIS-traits, so is maladaptive). Harry could affirm her interpersonal qualities (loyal friend, helpful expert; Giacomin.Mikulincer.Wk7p15) to quell her perfectionism/narcissism and help her notice/accept her feelings to stay aware of basic needs for playfulness, affection, and relationships (see interoceptive awareness, Wk3p16). Ron has an inferiority complex with low explicit self-esteem, uncertainty, and conflicted (all BIS-related) which undermine his capacity to do well at school (ego-depletion research shows BIS causes giving up and deceases performance on cognitive tasks; Alquist.Wk5p.6). Ron also resorts to concrete RAM (e.g., candy, anger; see reactions to uncertainty during York strike, McGregor.Wk4Slide20) to palliate his BIS with impulsive BAS. Harry could help Ron discover his personal power through getting good at anything via growth-mindset focus on mastery (not performance) goals (Dweck.Wk4p16; Adler.Wk7p4). Ron also feels he doesn’t belong at Hogwarts due to his poor Muggle family. Harry could help Ron know he belonged by emphasizing his own Muggle heritage and providing evidence that even purebloods struggle at first at Hogwarts. Belongingness affirmations that normalize struggle raised GPAs of Stanford students’ from historically excluded groups (Walton.Wk6.p.13). Harry could also help Ron to give some thought to his values for effortless self-control from idealistic RAM—idealism mediates personal project approach and grit (Jonas.SelfControlSlide25) and idealistic variables (meaning, eudaimonia, pp.integrity, generativity) correlate highly with power and self-control variables. Elevating Ron’s feelings of power and efficacy in these ways could fortify his BASbolstered foundation for resilient, courageous, and effective growth (Hartmann.White.Wk7p.5). Harry’s loyal friendships with Ron and Hermoine could provide more relatedness-need support if he could lean more toward compassionate goals with them (Crocker.Wk4p.15) and by being more affectionate, mirroring their states, and responding warmly to bids for connection (Wk6p.11-14). Harry’s moods are volatile and he takes things personally when disappointed or frustrated. He should approach his friends with good will after arguments/misunderstandings, rather than risk-regulating in jealousy, grudge, or distancing (Impett.MurrayWk6p.9). Hostility is contagious—hurt people hurt people (Ren.Wk6p.10). This approach orientation would make his relationships better, and help them all more securely attached (LaGuardia.Wk6.p7) and better at perspective-taking (Todd.Wk6p.10) with less ACCBIS and social pain (e.g., Coan.Wk6p.14). Draco Malfoy is narcissistic, Machiavellian, low honesty-humility, social dominance orientated, high RWA, disagreeable, and aggressive. Draco’s father is a death-eater and sociopath. His mother’s name is Narcissa! Draco’s antisocial traits are likely masking low implicit/ high explicit self-esteem, and a dismissive avoidant attachment style that will follow him through adult life (Wk6Slide10; from invasive and nonresponsive parents). The Malfoy high social status and arrogance (rich/famous “pure blood” wizarding family who disdained “mudbloods” like Harry and his friends) likely contributed to Draco’s “split” self. He feels empty and anxious because parents ignore him, while also being proud of his assumed superiority (Kohut.Kernberg.Wk7p.6-7). Harry is a threat to Draco’s veneer of superiority because Harry is more famous and powerful (and better at Quidich) despite Muggle roots and associations. Draco’s family money and power made him less empathic and considerate of others’ perspectives (Vohs.VanKleef.GalinskyWk7p.13-15), which makes him unlikable and treated poorly. Narcissistic people like Malfoy are also especially likely to react to social frustration or rejection with rigid extremes or anger (Jordan.McGregor.WilliamsWk7p.10,12.). Efforts to exclude or humiliate Draco would backfire, because threats make people like Draco more aggressive and extreme in personal convictions and reactions against disliked others and groups (like Gryffindor and Muggles) with the “pleasure of revenge” (Chester.Wk7p.11). Harry could affirm Malfoy’s communal strengths, like his school spirit or leadership at Slytherin (communal affirmations mute narcissistic tendencies, Giacomin.Wk7p.15). Adler contended people climb down from superiority complexes once they find a way to exercise useful, prosocial power with social interest (Wk7.p3). Harry could look for a way to help Malfoy stretch his Narcissistic ideals about his own (and Slytherin’s) superiority and dominance, to a more inclusive ideal that included the four Hogwarts houses with Muggle and Wizard students. Maybe an all-Hogwarts Quidich team playing against other schools? He could also help Malfoy make better friends than Crabbe and Goyle, who are selfishly unable to care for Malfoy. Malfoy had wanted to be Harry’s friend originally but Harry rejected him, and Harry regards and addresses Malfoy with disdain and delights in humiliating him. Respectful treatment for Malfoy, with the above tweaks, and even friendly inclusion gestures, might help Draco become less dependent on antisocial power for muting BIS.