There’s definitely some prediction there about depression being horrifyingly trivially easy to induce in (eg) young children, who—due to a difficult home life, or the cruelty of children, or a neurodivergence—end up with thoughts very slightly negatively biased in valence… and then the snowball’s off and away down the mountainside.
I don’t understand what you have in mind here. Why would a slight negative bias turn into a big negative bias? What causes the snowball? Sometimes I feel kinda lousy, and then the next day I feel great, right?
Here’s another thing you didn’t note that Valence theory gets right—it predicts irritability as a major symptom of depression, especially irritability towards otherwise valence-neutral randos. You, An Depressive, are a tiny bit skewed valence-negative towards everything, and that means your thoughts about the randos you encounter are skewed a tiny bit valence-negative. But on the margin, that turns valence-neutral randos into that fucking asshole who won’t get out of the way in the grocery store.
I’m not sure; that’s not so obvious to me. You seem to be referring to irritability and anger, which are different from valence. They’re “moods”, I guess?
Anger is not especially associated with negative-valence thoughts in the moment, at least the way I’m using the term “valence”. Kinda the opposite. See Post 1—valence is more about motivation than pleasantness, and angry people can be very motivated! (E.g. motivated to punch someone in the face.) In fact, righteous indignation arguably involves both motivation and pleasantness!!
Irritability is, umm, I guess low-level anger, and/or being quick to anger?
I guess it’s possible that thinking about someone you dislike (in the Post 4 sense) automatically triggers low-level anger, because the brain just happens to be built with a reaction circuit that does that. But if so, I think that would be kinda an interesting side-effect of the valence story, as opposed to being core to what valence means by definition.
(I don’t have much opinion or knowledge about “moods” in any detail.)
I don’t understand what you have in mind here. Why would a slight negative bias turn into a big negative bias? What causes the snowball? Sometimes I feel kinda lousy, and then the next day I feel great, right?
Sure, but if you’re a little kid, I predict that your spread of valences is larger than for an adult, and if anything prone to some polarization; additionally, you might not yet even think you should distinguish “things are going poorly for me” from “I am bad”. Additionally—you end up thinking about yourself in the context of the negative-valenced thing, and your self-concept takes a hit. (I predict that it’s probably equally easy in principle to make a little kid enduringly manic, but that world conditions and the greater ease of finding suffering over pleasure means you get depression more often.)
I’m not sure; that’s not so obvious to me. You seem to be referring to irritability and anger, which are different from valence. They’re “moods”, I guess?
I think I’ve been misunderstood here. I’m talking about having someone blocking the aisle in a grocery store if you’re negative-biased vs positive-biased on valence. If you’re positive-biased, oh well, whatever, you’ll find another way around, or even maybe take the risk of asking them politely to move. If you’re negative-biased, though, screw this, screw this whole situation, screw that inconsiderate jerk for blocking the one aisle I need to get at, no I’m not going to go ask them to move—they have no reason to listen to me—have you lost your mind?
Rather than, say, bursting into rage, which I agree is not something negative valence would predict.
Irritability is, umm, I guess low-level anger, and/or being quick to anger?
Not really how I’m trying to use that here. I’m trying to gesture at the downstream effects of having a mind that experiences negatively-biased valences—being quicker to reject a situation, or to give up, or to permit contagious negative valences to spread to entities only sort of involved with whatever’s going on.
Sure, but if you’re a little kid, I predict that your spread of valences is larger than for an adult, and if anything prone to some polarization; additionally, you might not yet even think you should distinguish “things are going poorly for me” from “I am bad”. Additionally—you end up thinking about yourself in the context of the negative-valenced thing, and your self-concept takes a hit. (I predict that it’s probably equally easy in principle to make a little kid enduringly manic, but that world conditions and the greater ease of finding suffering over pleasure means you get depression more often.)
For one thing, insofar as we observe a correlation between miserable childhoods and miserable adulthoods, there’s an obvious confounder that personality (e.g. being prone to anxiety or anger) is somewhat persistent through a person’s lifetime. And there’s another obvious confounder from the fact that most people grow up with close genetic relatives like parents, so e.g. if someone has parents with anger issues, then they’re probably going to have a crappy home life as a child, and then later they’re probably going to grow up into adults with anger issues, but not necessarily because of the crappy childhood, but because they have similar genes as their parents.
And behavioral genetics shows that there’s relatively weak if any lifetime effects of childhood upbringing that remain after you account for those things, under normal circumstances. (As usual, I have a post on that.)
For another thing, plenty of people have crap childhoods but wind up as well-adjusted adults and vice-versa. And people can be severely depressed and bedridden for 6 months, and then happy and well-adjusted (or even manic) a year after that. Indeed, somebody can be severely depressed and bedridden, then take ketamine, or go 24 hours without sleep, and then they’re happy and energetic (temporarily).
So it seems wrong to say that “negative valence begets negative valence” in a persistent way, nor vice-versa.
Rather, I would say: if your thoughts are mostly negative valence right now, then there’s a probably a reason that your thoughts are mostly negative valence right now. Maybe you’re being tortured, maybe you’re in a bad mood, maybe you’re wracked by anxiety and OCD, who knows. But whatever that reason is, that very same reason may well still be present, and still be causing your thoughts to be mostly negative valence, in 5 minutes, or a week, or 20 years.
But that’s different than negative valence itself snowballing, right? I don’t see any strong mechanism by which negative valence now would beget negative valence in the future—even if we’re talking about 10 seconds into the future, forget about decades.
you might not yet even think you should distinguish “things are going poorly for me” from “I am bad”.
I disagree; I think there’s abundant evidence from everyday experience that all children from toddlers to teenagers are very capable—indeed, virtuosic—at blaming other people when bad things happen to them. :)
I don’t understand what you have in mind here. Why would a slight negative bias turn into a big negative bias? What causes the snowball? Sometimes I feel kinda lousy, and then the next day I feel great, right?
I’m not sure; that’s not so obvious to me. You seem to be referring to irritability and anger, which are different from valence. They’re “moods”, I guess?
Anger is not especially associated with negative-valence thoughts in the moment, at least the way I’m using the term “valence”. Kinda the opposite. See Post 1—valence is more about motivation than pleasantness, and angry people can be very motivated! (E.g. motivated to punch someone in the face.) In fact, righteous indignation arguably involves both motivation and pleasantness!!
Irritability is, umm, I guess low-level anger, and/or being quick to anger?
I guess it’s possible that thinking about someone you dislike (in the Post 4 sense) automatically triggers low-level anger, because the brain just happens to be built with a reaction circuit that does that. But if so, I think that would be kinda an interesting side-effect of the valence story, as opposed to being core to what valence means by definition.
(I don’t have much opinion or knowledge about “moods” in any detail.)
Sure, but if you’re a little kid, I predict that your spread of valences is larger than for an adult, and if anything prone to some polarization; additionally, you might not yet even think you should distinguish “things are going poorly for me” from “I am bad”. Additionally—you end up thinking about yourself in the context of the negative-valenced thing, and your self-concept takes a hit. (I predict that it’s probably equally easy in principle to make a little kid enduringly manic, but that world conditions and the greater ease of finding suffering over pleasure means you get depression more often.)
I think I’ve been misunderstood here. I’m talking about having someone blocking the aisle in a grocery store if you’re negative-biased vs positive-biased on valence. If you’re positive-biased, oh well, whatever, you’ll find another way around, or even maybe take the risk of asking them politely to move. If you’re negative-biased, though, screw this, screw this whole situation, screw that inconsiderate jerk for blocking the one aisle I need to get at, no I’m not going to go ask them to move—they have no reason to listen to me—have you lost your mind?
Rather than, say, bursting into rage, which I agree is not something negative valence would predict.
Not really how I’m trying to use that here. I’m trying to gesture at the downstream effects of having a mind that experiences negatively-biased valences—being quicker to reject a situation, or to give up, or to permit contagious negative valences to spread to entities only sort of involved with whatever’s going on.
For one thing, insofar as we observe a correlation between miserable childhoods and miserable adulthoods, there’s an obvious confounder that personality (e.g. being prone to anxiety or anger) is somewhat persistent through a person’s lifetime. And there’s another obvious confounder from the fact that most people grow up with close genetic relatives like parents, so e.g. if someone has parents with anger issues, then they’re probably going to have a crappy home life as a child, and then later they’re probably going to grow up into adults with anger issues, but not necessarily because of the crappy childhood, but because they have similar genes as their parents.
And behavioral genetics shows that there’s relatively weak if any lifetime effects of childhood upbringing that remain after you account for those things, under normal circumstances. (As usual, I have a post on that.)
For another thing, plenty of people have crap childhoods but wind up as well-adjusted adults and vice-versa. And people can be severely depressed and bedridden for 6 months, and then happy and well-adjusted (or even manic) a year after that. Indeed, somebody can be severely depressed and bedridden, then take ketamine, or go 24 hours without sleep, and then they’re happy and energetic (temporarily).
So it seems wrong to say that “negative valence begets negative valence” in a persistent way, nor vice-versa.
Rather, I would say: if your thoughts are mostly negative valence right now, then there’s a probably a reason that your thoughts are mostly negative valence right now. Maybe you’re being tortured, maybe you’re in a bad mood, maybe you’re wracked by anxiety and OCD, who knows. But whatever that reason is, that very same reason may well still be present, and still be causing your thoughts to be mostly negative valence, in 5 minutes, or a week, or 20 years.
But that’s different than negative valence itself snowballing, right? I don’t see any strong mechanism by which negative valence now would beget negative valence in the future—even if we’re talking about 10 seconds into the future, forget about decades.
I disagree; I think there’s abundant evidence from everyday experience that all children from toddlers to teenagers are very capable—indeed, virtuosic—at blaming other people when bad things happen to them. :)