NURSE 4455 The University of Texas Mod 4 Use of Nursing Process in Guiding Care Discussion How could you use the Nursing Process to address a staff member’

NURSE 4455 The University of Texas Mod 4 Use of Nursing Process in Guiding Care Discussion How could you use the Nursing Process to address a staff member’s performance shortcomings? Cognitive-experiential self-theory
Reference: Epstein, S. (2012). Cognitive-experiential self-theory: An integrative theory of
personality. (In H. Tennen & J. Suls, Eds.). Handbook of Psychology, 2nd ed., Vol.5. Personality
Section. Hoboken, NJ, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory: An Integrative Theory of Personality
Seymour Epstein, Professor Emeritus
Psychology Department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Key words: CEST, cognitive-experiential self-theory, integrative personality theory, adaptive
unconscious, dual-process theory
Author’s Note
This chapter includes material from several of my articles published elsewhere including
in the first edition of the Handbook of Psychology. The research reported here was supported by
a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Research Grant MH 01293 and NIMH Research
Scientist Award 5 KO5 MH 00363.
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Cognitive-experiential self-theory
Abstract
Cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) is a global theory of personality that substitutes
an adaptive unconscious for the Freudian maladaptive unconscious. The unconscious of CEST is
an associative, automatic learning system, mediated by affect, that humans share with other
higher order animals that have adapted successfully with it over millions of years of evolution.
The system is referred to as an “experiential system” because it adapts by empirically learning
from experience. Humans also uniquely process information with a “rational system,” which is
verbal reasoning system. The 2 systems operate by different rules and attributes. They operate in
parallel and are bi-directionally interactive, both simultaneously and sequentially. Although the
systems usually operate in harmony and often synergistically, they also may conflict with each
other and otherwise interfere with each other’s performance.
The influence of the experiential on the rational system can account for the irrationality of
humans particularly when attempting to solve interrelationship problems, both interpersonal and
inter-societal. According to CEST, despite their remarkable intelligence people often do poorly
in solving relationship problems, which fall primarily in the domain of the experiential system,
as their experiential processing biases their rational processing.
This chapter demonstrates that CEST has theoretical and research implications for
elucidating a wide range of psychological issues, including the nature of intuition, the existence
of a global factor of experiential intelligence, psychological sources of physical and emotional
wellbeing, psycho-biography, and the meaning of dreams.
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Cognitive-experiential self-theory
Cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST) is a global theory of personality that integrates
significant aspects of self/phenomenological theory, learning theory, cognitive theory
psychoanalytic theory, and emotions theory. It includes important aspects of
self/phenomenological theory by assuming that everyone automatically constructs an implicit
theory of reality in the course of living because such an implicit theory is rewarding as it is
necessary for effective adaptation. An implicit theory of reality includes sub-theories about the
self, others, the inanimate world, and beliefs regarding their interactions. People’s implicit
theories of reality automatically and effortlessly direct people’s everyday behavior and also
influence their interpretation of events, feelings, and conscious thinking. Thus, people’s implicit
theories of reality determine in large measure their performance and the quality of their lives.
Learning theory plays a critical role in CEST because of the assumption that the implicit
beliefs in people’s theories of reality are acquired by automatically learning from experience
according to the principles and attributes of associative learning. The experiential system in
humans is assumed to be the same system with which non-human animals have successfully
adapted to their environments over millions of years of evolution. The automatic learning of this
system because of its adaptive significance can be assumed to be intrinsically highly compelling,
as life itself has depended on it. It follows that people’s deliberative conscious reasoning cannot
easily over-ride the influence of experiential processing. Learning theory is extended in CEST by
regarding the attributes of associative learning as important as its operating principles in
determining its manner of its operation. The attributes refer to the following kinds of
characteristics of associative learning: it operates in a manner that is automatic, effortless, rapid,
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Cognitive-experiential self-theory
primarily non-verbal, holistic, concrete, minimally demanding of cognitive resources, and it
normally operates outside of awareness. The operating rules of associative learning include
association, contiguity, reinforcement, extinction, and spontaneous recovery..
Although the operating rules and attributes of associative learning evolved because of
their adaptive significance once having evolved, the same principles and attributes can be used
for other purposes than learning from experience by a process referred to in evolutionary theory
as preadaptation. This assumption greatly expands the explanatory power of experiential
processing, as it makes it possible for its rules and attributes to account for responses to entirely
new information as in implicit learning, unconscious pattern identification, and intuitive
responses to situations never before experienced.
Important aspects of cognitive theory are assimilated in CEST by the assumption that
people learn cognitions in the form of internal representations of events, schemas, or implicit
beliefs that are the building blocks of people’s implicit theories of reality. The learning of such
schemas is considered much more important for personal theories of reality than the learning of
behavioral/motor responses. In agreement with cognitive theory and in contrast to Freudian
theory, most information processing is assumed to occur outside of awareness, not because of
repression as Freud believed, but because it is a more efficient, less effortful way of processing
information in everyday life than by conscious reasoning. CEST is also similar to cognitive
science in its views on how schemas, or implicit beliefs, are encoded, stored and retrieved. CEST
differs from cognitive theory by its much greater emphasis on the importance of emotions,
psychodynamics, self/phenomenological concepts, and learning theory.
Important aspects of psychoanalytic theory are incorporated into CEST by the importance
attributed to unconscious processing, psychodynamics, and transference reactions, which are
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Cognitive-experiential self-theory
viewed more generally in CEST in terms of generalization. CEST differs from psychoanalytic
theory by its view of unconscious processing, by its de-emphasis on psychosexual stages, and by
its assumption that unconscious rather than conscious processing is primarily (not exclusively)
the default condition in everyday life. A particularly important difference between the two
theories is that CEST replaces the Freudian maladaptive unconscious, which is indefensible from
an evolutionary perspective, with an adaptive unconscious that is consistent with evolutionary
principles.
Affect and emotion occupy are is considered to be significant aspect of almost all, if not
all, associative networks in the experiential system. According to CEST they are particularly
important because of their critical role in reinforcement and motivation and therefore of the
acquisition of the implicit beliefs and networks in the experiential system. They are also
important as they provide a royal road to the identification of the schemas in people’s implicit
theories of reality
In the remainder of this chapter, I review the basic assumptions of CEST and summarize
the research my associates and I have conducted to test and extend its assumptions. I further
consider the implications of CEST for elucidating a few topics of particular interest, such as the
nature of intuition, an evaluation of the accuracy and value of the concept of, emotional
intelligence and the relation of the operation of the experiential system to physical disease,
psycho-biography, and the meaning of dreams.
The Existence of Two Information Processing Systems
According to CEST, people process information with two information-processing
systems, rational and experiential. The two systems are assumed to operate in parallel and to
interact bi-directionally simultaneously and sequentially. CEST has nothing new to say about the
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Cognitive-experiential self-theory
rational system, other than to emphasize the degree to which it is influenced outside of awareness
by experiential processing. CEST does have a great deal to say about the experiential system. In
effect, CEST introduces a new system of unconscious processing in its proposal of an
experiential adaptive system that is scientifically defensible in ways in which the Freudian
unconscious system is not.
Before proceeding further, a caveat is in order about the term “rational” as referred to in
the rational system of CEST. Unfortunately the word “rational” has two meanings. One meaning
is “reasonable,” whereas the other refers to a logical process of reasoning. According to CEST a
logical manner of reasoning can only occur in the rational system as it is dependent on the use of
grammatical language. Experiential processing can never be rational as the term is used in CEST,
but it can be reasonable and therefore rational according to the alternative meaning of rational.
As previously noted, according to CEST everyone automatically constructs an implicit
personal theory of reality that includes sub-theories concerning the self, others, and the inanimate
world, as well as beliefs about their interactions. Personal theories of reality consist of a
hierarchical organization of schemas, or implicit beliefs, that are organized into cognitiveaffective networks. Toward the apex of the organization are highly general implicit beliefs, such
as that the self is worthy, people are generally trustworthy, and the world is mainly orderly and
benevolent. Because of their high level of generality these beliefs and networks of beliefs have
widespread connections with other schemas and cognitive-affective networks. As a result, they
are normally highly stable and not easily invalidated. However, should they be invalidated, it
would tend to destabilize the overall conceptual system. Evidence that such destabilization
actually occurs is provided by the profound disorganization following unassimilable experiences
in acute schizophrenic reactions (e.g., Bleuler, 1978; Bowers, 1974; Epstein, 1979a; Kaplan,
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Cognitive-experiential self-theory
1964; Perry, 1974). At the opposite end of the hierarchy are narrow, situation-specific schemas.
The narrower schemas are readily susceptible to change, and their changes have little effect on
the overall stability of the organization of the conceptual system. Thus, the hierarchic structure of
implicit personal theories of reality allows the theory to be stable in the vicinity of its apex and
flexible at the more specific levels. It is important to recognize, in this respect, that the
experiential system is an organized, adaptive system, rather than a collection of unrelated
implicit cognitions and networks, like tools in a cognitive tool box as some have proposed (e.g.,
Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). As it is assumed in CEST that the experiential system in humans is
essentially the same system with which nonhuman animals adapt to their environments, it
follows that nonhuman animals also have an organized model of the world that is subject to
disorganization. Support for this assumption is provided by the widespread dysfunctional
behavior exhibited in animals exposed to emotionally significant unassimilable stimuli (e.g.,
Pavlov, 1941).
Unlike nonhuman animals, humans in addition to having an implicit experiential system
also have an explicit rational system. The degree to which people’s implicit and explicit theories
of reality are discrepant is considered in CEST to be an important source of stress and
psychopathology.
The Operating Principles of the Two Systems
The experiential system adapts to reality by empirically learning from experience in a
manner that is automatic, preconscious, rapid, effortless, holistic, concrete, associative, primarily
nonverbal, and minimally demanding of cognitive resources. It encodes information in two ways:
as memories of specific events, particularly those that were emotionally arousing, and in an
abstract, more general way. The abstract representations are in the form of generalizations,
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prototypes, and as complex other representations that often include a significant, subordinate
rational component as in metaphors, narratives, and scripts.
The implicit beliefs in a personal theory of reality are assumed always to be associated
with affect, which may vary from negligible to intense. As previously noted, affect is extremely
important in CEST as it plays critical important roles in reinforcement in learning, in affectdriven motivation, and in providing a royal road to identifying the beliefs in people’s implicit
theories of reality. It follows that CEST is as much an emotional as a cognitive theory, as without
affect there would be no associative learning and therefore no experiential system. The primary
motive of the experiential system is to operate according to the hedonic principle. It is
noteworthy that although emotions and affect are often sources of irrational behavior in humans
because of the biasing influence of experiential on rational processing, affect also serves a
critically important function in the development of an implicit model of reality. Thus, by
pursuing positive affect and avoiding negative affect organisms, including humans, automatically
empirically construct an adaptive working theory of reality.
In contrast to the experiential system, the rational system is an inferential reasoning
system that operates according to an individual’s understanding of the rules of reasoning
including the importance and evaluation of evidence. The rational system operates in a manner
that is conscious, primarily verbal, analytic, effortful, relatively slow, affect-free, and demanding
of cognitive resources. Unlike the experiential system, the rational system has a very brief
evolutionary history. The primary motive of the rational system is to operate according to the
reality principle, the desire to be realistic and logical. A comparison of the operation of the two
systems is provided in Table 1.
Which system is superior? At first thought, it might seem that it must be the rational
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Cognitive-experiential self-theory
system. After all, with its ability to solve problems with the use of grammatical language the
rational system is a recent very high level of evolutionary development that is unique to the
human species. It is capable of much higher levels of abstract thinking and complexity than the
experiential system, and it makes possible planning, long-term delay of gratification, crosssituational, conceptually determined generalizations, high levels of stimulus and response
discrimination, comprehension of cause-and-effect relations, and communication over great
distances and across generations. These attributes of the rational system have made it possible
for the remarkable accomplishments of humans in science, technology, mathematics, medicine,
and the arts.
The experiential system has important virtues, some never before recognized, which will
be discussed shortly. For now, it will suffice to note that it’s most important ability is one that no
animal, including humans, could live without, namely the ability to effortlessly, rapidly, and
efficiently direct everyday behavior.
The widespread belief in the superiority of the rational-analytical is supported by research
that examines people’s ability to solve normative problems. However, increasing evidence is
emerging that the experiential system is superior to the rational system in several other ways
(e.g., Norris & Epstein, in press; Wilson, 2002) and even in some kinds of complex informationprocessing (e.g., Dijksterhuis, 2004; Reber, 1993). Research my associates and I have conducted
has identified several important previously unrecognized ways in which the experiential system
is superior to the rational system. For example, in a study by Norris and Epstein (in press) it was
found that the experiential system is more strongly associated than the rational system with
creativity, empathy, favorable interpersonal relationships, intuition, sense of humor, and
aesthetic judgment. A more detailed comparison of the virtues and limitations of the two systems
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will be presented in the section on research.
Returning to the question of which system is superior, the only reasonable conclusion is
that neither system is generally superior as each has equally important advantages and
limitations. It is therefore encouraging to realize that since the two systems are independent,
improvement in one does not have to be obtained at the expense of improvement in the other. It
is therefore to people’s advantage to cultivate the desirable attributes of both systems. Moreover,
even if people wished to suppress the operation of the experiential system in order to become
more rational, it would no more be possible to accomplish this than to stop breathing because the
air is polluted. Rather than attempting in vain to suppress its influence, the only way to
effectively to control the experiential system it is to identify, understand, and influence its
operation, particularly with regard to its biasing influence on rational processing (Epstein,
1998a).
How the Experiential System Operates
As previously noted, the operation of the experiential system is intimately associated with
affect in the form of “vibes” as well as emotions. Vibes refer to vague feelings that are
experienced only dimly, if at all, in a person’s consciousness. Stating that vibes often operate
outside of awareness is not meant to imply that people cannot become aware of them, but only
that people usually make no attempt to do so. Examples of negative vibes are unarticulated
feelings of agitation, irritation, tension, disquietude, and apprehension. Examples of positive
vibes are unarticulated feelings of wellbeing, affection, gratification, positive anticipation,
calmness, and light-heartedness.
When a person responds to an emotionally arousing event, the sequence of reactions is
assumed normally to occur as follows: The experiential system automatically and
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instantaneously searches its memory banks for related events. If the memories are pleasant, the
person has thoughts, images, and impulses that promote behaving in ways anticipated to
reproduce the feelings. If the memories are unpleasant, the person has thoughts, images, and
impulses to behave in ways anticipated to avoid experiencing the feelings. As this sequence of
events occurs automatically, people are usually unaware of its operation. Seeking consciously to
understand their behavior, people under the influence of the hedonic principle of the experiential
system construct the most favorable explanation they can think of within acceptable reality limits
in their rational system. In other words they rationalize, meaning according to CEST that they
attribute primarily experientially determined behavior to a rational cause. According to CEST,
such rationalization is a routine process that occurs far more often than is recognized and helps to
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