2 An overarching Theory of Well-Being
2.1 Needs & Cybernetics
One way to think of Maslow’s basic needs is that evolution selected for certain goals that ensured reproduction and evolutionary fitness. From this point of view, it makes perfect sense that humans tend to prioritize food, shelter and a stable place in the tribe over reaching personal enlightenment. This aligns perfectly with Colin DeYoung’s Cybernetic Big 5 Theory (CB5T)1. Cybernetic is just a fancy word for goal-directed systems that self-regulate via feedback. A common example of a cybernetic system is a thermostat. Its goal is to regulate the temperature of a room. If it detects (feedback) a temperature above baseline, then the AC turns on (strategy) until the temperature drops back to desired levels (feedback). If the temperature is below baseline, then the heaters kick in. In short, cybernetics is the art of steering2 complex systems.
Of course, human beings are not as simple as a thermostat. We have more than one goal resulting in many strategies operating under a plurality of feedback sources. The tricky part is that these goals often contradict each other or at least are in a trade off relationship3. Pursuing one goal almost always comes at the expense of another4. “When the whole person is well-integrated, all of their basic needs are not merely met but work together to facilitate growth toward realizing their highest goals and values.”5
We have good reason to believe that our brain is constantly running a model of the world and making predictions6. Consequently, the brain optimizes the model by minimizing the prediction error (the distance between the prediction and the sensory feedback). In simple terms, our brain is constantly trying to minimize surprise7. “Model accuracy with respect to the realization of preferred outcomes is equivalent to expected utility, or opportunities for realizing the so-called extrinsic value of preference satisfaction (i.e., achieving goals).” “In other words, having more accurate models of the world is important from an evolutionary perspective only because it increases the success of achieving goals that increase fitness.”8
There are two ways to minimize prediction-error. The first is to change our goals (predictions/expectations) to match our perception of the incoming stimuli. Perhaps playing in the NBA is not a useful goal for someone who is 5 feet tall. Their energy would be better spent elsewhere. Perhaps playing basketball recreationally will be enough to scratch the itch. Without getting rid of a goal entirely, one can lower the importance of that goal. Unfortunately, playing in the NBA or any other elite achievement requires the pursuit of one goal at the expense of most others. The second strategy is to attempt to change the world through action to match our expectations. Fetching water is a reasonable way to move towards the “not being thirsty” goal. Wisdom resides in the ability to know which strategy to employ for a specific goal in a specific context. The stoic serenity prayer brilliantly captures the challenge in one sentence. Strategy 1 (adjusting our expectations) is more useful when it comes to outcomes outside our locus of control. Strategy 2 (taking action) is best suited for pursuits with a high a degree of influence.
2.2 Cybernetic Big Five Theory (CB5T)
The original idea behind the five factor model of personality was to reduce the complex array of human behaviours and tendencies into as few independent dimensions as possible. It turns out that some of the factors correlated with one another as depicted in Figure Figure 2.1. The two meta traits of stability and plasticity are analogous to Maslow’s deficiency and growth needs9.
The breakthrough with DeYoung’s CB5T is that personality traits, especially the metatraits, are best thought as tuning parameters for the cybernetic system that we are. “Within CB5T, the metatrait of Stability corresponds to the protection of goals, interpretations, and strategies from disruption by impulses, and the metatrait of Plasticity corresponds to exploration and the creation of new goals, interpretations, and strategies.”10 Of course, both stability and plasticity are essential to “steer” our sailboat through the vast ocean that is life. Although, they do exist in a trade off relationship, they often complement each other. Bowlby’s attachment theory suggests that “if you want your children to grow up to be healthy and independent, you should hold them, hug them, cuddle them, and love them. Give them a secure base and they will explore and then conquer the world on their own.”11 Saffron and DeYoung would surely agree. “Indeed, a capacity for plasticity must evolve to enable stability (via enhanced adaptability) in changing and unpredictable environments (Grossberg, 2013). Stability provides a secure foundation for plastic exploration, and plasticity is necessary to update characteristic adaptations so that the person can continue stable goal pursuit in changing circumstances. Nonetheless, the metatraits are in dynamic tension with each other because high levels of plasticity may pose a challenge for stability and vice versa.”12
The relationship between stability and plasticity is a classic example of the exploration-exploitation dilemma. Ideally, we could live in our little bubble and completely dominate our environment13. Unfortunately (or fortunately), life (the second law of thermodynamics) forces us out of our niche and propels us to grow in order to expand our niche territory. This also partly explains the exploratory instincts of a child and the common rigidity (lack of updating) of elders. This is inline with the concept of fluid and crystallized intelligence. In a relatively stable environment such as retirement, it makes sense to exploit “good enough” mental models and ride on cruise control. Learning is metabolically costly14.
It’s the dance between the two strategies that globally minimizes to prediction-error of the model. We occasionally need to introduce uncertainty in the system (learning) to increase certainty in the long haul. We need to operate in Lev Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Optimal challenges tend to result in experiences of Flow and meaning. Perhaps these powerful experiences evolved to point us in the right direction. They are in an indication that we’re doing what we’re meant to be doing.
This aligns with Joseph’s Campbell’s advice to “follow your bliss” and his notion of the hero’s journey. The archetypal narrative goes something like:
The hero is comfortable in the ordinary world (known/order/certainty) and bathes in environmental mastery.
Something unexpected happens which thrusts the hero in a state of psychological entropy (unknown/disorder/uncertainty).
The hero eventually responds to this “call to adventure” and voluntarily confronts the unknown.
If successful, the hero learns in the process and expands his domain of competence as a result. Furthermore, he’s able to better help others with his stronger sense of stability and more accurate models.
It’d make sense that the most common and gripping narrative structure reflects the dynamic of the fundamental level of our personality. Another possible explanation is that the metatraits of stability and plasticity show up in research because we projected them onto the psychometric literature. Regardless, we’ve already learned that some models are better at moving us towards our cybernetic goals. It appears that the hero’s journey describes an effective strategy and perhaps the archetypal strategy.
2.3 Cybernetic Value Fulfillment Theory (CVFT)
“All models are wrong, some are useful.” - George Box
DeYoung teamed up with Valerie Tiberius to produce the Cybernetic Value Fulfillment Theory (CVFT)15. “By joining VFT and CB5T, [they] produce a cybernetic value fulfillment theory in which [they argue that well-being is best conceived as the fulfillment of psychologically integrated values. Well-being is the effective pursuit of a set of nonconflicting values that are emotionally, motivationally, and cognitively suitable to the person.” “This integration yields a theory in which well-being is defined in relation to people’s ability to pursue their many goals effectively, without undermining any of their important goals (with goals defined broadly to include motives, needs, and ideals).” “[They] define well-being in the present moment as a combination of how well one is progressing toward the fulfillment of one’s persistently valued goals and whether those goals are well integrated (not conflicting) and hence appropriate.”
“What are values? Intuitively, values are things we care about, things that are important to us, and things we organize and plan our lives around. This intuitive notion is more or less what VFT means by a value. Values are the projects, activities, relationships, ideals, outcomes, and modes of being that we value in a persistent manner. They are representations of states of the world, or components of those states, that we consistently wish to have in existence.”“From the perspective of CB5T, all desires, however fleeting, are goals, but values are goals that count as traits or characteristic adaptations because they are stable, recurring frequently in the course of a person’s life (in contrast, goals that are adopted only once and not stored in memory are adaptations to a given situation, but they are not characteristic because they are not stable enough to characterize the individual over time and hence to be part of personality). Values must also be goals that are desired, at least in part, for their own sake, not merely as instrumental to some other goal—although they can also be desired, in part, because they further other goals.”
“[Cybernetic Value Fulfillment Theory (CVFT)] highlights a perennial problem for theories of well-being: How does one know where to stop when creating the list of intrinsic goods? [CVFT] circumvents this problem. Rather than simply adding an additional entry to the list of intrinsic goods, we propose that there are different lists of intrinsic goods for different individuals and that what is intrinsically good for people, most fundamentally, is achieving the goods on their own lists.”
This framework also resolves age-old contradictions and loop holes from other theories. “Imagine, for example, people who engage in a principled hunger strike for something they perceive to be an important, just cause. Such people are risking their own health, likely even risking death, and yet according to our theory, they could potentially maintain a high level of well-being if they have successfully deprioritized all other values than the one toward which they are making progress.”
It’s easier said that done to successfully overwrite a basic need such as hunger or belonging. Not many people are able to deprioritize enough to happily live in the woods as a hermit despite the romanticism of independence. Just consider the movie Into the Wild where the main character Christopher McCandless scribbled the words “happiness only real when shared” above Doctor Zhivago’s passage: “And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness…”16. Oliver Burkeman reached a similar conclusion in Four Thousand Weeks arguing that the vast majority of digital nomads are miserable. My own experience validates this. I start to feel disconnected without sufficient social interactions and synchronicity. “People who have not deprioritized their other values to such an extent as in our example may sacrifice their own interest for a moral cause, and this would entail some decline in well-being (cf. Heathwood, 2011.)”
Along the same vein, there’s a famous story of Warren Buffet reading financial reports and robotically walked past his son who was sprawled in the staircase to get his attention17. People at the extremes of any field nearly always have to sacrifice all other goals in the pursuit of their dreams. We often fall prey to the illusion that we can pick and choose the best aspects of top performers. Trying to play other people’s games is a fool errand. Odds are that you do not share the same values, life circumstances, and set of skills. Why play by someone else’s rules?
Unfortunately, trade off relationships are built into the fabric of our existence. We are finite beings. It is impossible to simultaneously be the best parent, the best spouse, the best in your field, the most spiritual person, the person who volunteers the most, in the best shape possible, etc. We can’t fit all the big rocks into the jar. We have to decide18 and let go of some of the things we value to increase the coherence between our values and our probability of moving towards them.
Another advantage of CVFT is that “[in] contrast to theories that make well-being dependent on traits, [CVFT] asserts that well-being is primarily dependent on characteristic adaptations because people can adjust their characteristic adaptations (including their values) to accommodate or compensate for traits that pose challenges for well-being.”19
2.3.1 Redefining Psychopathology
Colin DeYoung’s explain how the cybernetic lens can be helpful to describe psychopathology which is the other side of the well-being coin in this podcast episode. In short, they define psychopathology as the pervasive inability to bring about the desired state from the current state. Cybernetic dysfunction is characterized by living in a perpetual state of psychological entropy (unknown/prediction-error). It’s about chasing maladaptive goals, having conflicting goals, or employing maladaptive strategies to meet our needs. There are unhealthy ways to meet a healthy need.
2.3.2 Limitations of CVFT
Many will oppose to the model claiming that it suggests a selfish view of human nature. This is a straw man criticism, however. Human beings are one of the few ultra-social species20. For us, flourishing can’t happen in a vacuum. Machiavellian zero-sum strategies don’t tend to work in the long haul and at scale. The Darwinian notion of competition is being updated the more we learn about nature. Trees, for example, support each other in various ways to create a healthy environment. Forests are best thought of as a super-organism made up of many organisms competing while working working together to “selfishly” optimize their chance of survival and reproduction. We are complex beings capable of both altruistic and self-centered behaviour. We can “selfishly” move towards our values of generosity and kindness.
A valid criticism of cybernetic value fulfillment theory is that well-being is more difficult to quantify than in other typical approach such as the Ryff or PERMA models (see previous chapter). Below are some quotes from their 2022 paper. “Our theory identifies three basic questions we need to answer to measure a person’s well-being: What are the per- son’s values? To what degree is the person making progress toward fulfilling them? And how well integrated are they?”“For example, to understand a person’s value system, we need to understand how their values are prioritized; to ascertain degrees of fulfillment, we need to know how success is interpreted.”“Little’s (2006, 2015) Personal Projects Analysis (PPA) is the existing assessment system that comes closest to what we have in mind for measuring well-being directly (Bedford- Petersen et al., 2019).”“The major downside of interview-based measures is that they are resource-intensive. Even idiographic self-report measures like PPA are quite time-consuming. Well-being researchers are often interested in studying very large samples using brief measures. Hence, we are currently developing a brief questionnaire measure of value fulfillment.”
In the meantime, we’ll have to use habit tracking data, affect and sleep as proxies for well-being. The Ryff questionnaire is also relevant since I value each factor.
You can read the full article on Colin G. DeYoung’s website.↩︎
The word originated from the Greek word kybernetikes, meaning “steersman”.↩︎
See Jonathan Haidt’s The Happiness Hypothesis on the divided self.↩︎
Oliver Burkeman explains in his book Four Thousand Weeks that we are by definition always procrastinating. Since we can’t multitask in any significant way, we have to decide which goal to pursue and which goals to leave aside. The Latin origins of the word “decide” is to “cut off”. In a sense, every decision we make necessarily cuts off branches of the multiverse tree. Burkeman urges us to embrace our finitude. It’s counterproductive for the steersman to grieve the road he didn’t take.↩︎
See Sean Carroll’s podcast episode with Karl Friston and his episode with Lisa Feldman Barrett↩︎
Karl Friston coined this process: minimizing the free energy of the cybernetic system.↩︎
Read DeYoung’s integration of the Cyberntetic Big Five Theory with the Free Energy Principle in his paper with Adam Safron.↩︎
Deficiency is related to stability while growth is related to plasticity. See Kaufman’s sailboat metaphor for more on growth and deficiency needs.↩︎
I learned about this in Jonathan Haidt’s book: The Happiness Hypothesis↩︎
See DeYoung and Saffron’s paper. It’s also noteworthy to consider the ressemblance between stability and conservatives and between plasticity and liberals. The two inclinations need to be in a constant productive dialogue for a society to operate optimally.↩︎
I first read about environmental dominance in The Molecule of More↩︎
See Lisa Feldman Barrett’s How Emotions Are Made or her appearance on the Huberman Lab podcast.↩︎
All the quotes below are taken from their 2022 paper.↩︎
See the Tim Ferris Show episode with Morgan Housel. They think it comes from The Making of an American Capitalist.↩︎
The etymology of the word decide is interesting for our purposes.↩︎
Read more about characteristic adaptations and free-traits in Brian Little’s Me, Myself, and Us.↩︎
See Jonathan Haidt’s Happiness Hypothesis for more on this.↩︎