How I Think About Behavior
All behavior makes sense.
Where behavior comes from, why it persists, and how regulation capacity develops.
Every thought, feeling, and action serves a function.
Even if we're not aware of it.
Humans are the product of two things: biology and environment, past and present. Behavior emerges from the complex transaction between the two, and what our nervous system learns as a result.
Some of us are biologically hardwired to feel things faster, harder, and longer. And some of us grew up, live, or work, in places that dismiss, doubt, or label these feelings as "too much."
If we weren't taught how to otherwise regulate our nervous system, we turn to whatever behaviors within our reach can help us hide our emotions. These behaviors, once protective, can over time turn into patterns that interfere with our long-term values.
Change efforts must question: what function does this behavior serve, and how can it be interrupted?
Biology
- How quickly emotions arrive
- How intensely they feel
- How long they take to resolve
Invalidating environment
- Inner experience dismissed or doubted
- Hard things oversimplified – "just calm down"
- Disrespect, condescension, being talked over
- Uncertainty, conflict, inconsistency
- Composure rewarded, honesty punished
Each side continually shapes the other.
Behavior reaches for whatever brings relief fastest.
↻ Relief works – briefly – so the pattern repeatsMarsha Linehan developed this biosocial model to explain pervasive emotion dysregulation.
I'm extending the mechanism, not the severity. The same transactions happen in daily life: feeling things quickly, in a context that says the feeling is wrong, then reaching for whatever relieves it fastest.
What happens in the moment.
Perceived threat activates the nervous system. Regulation capacity determines whether that activation becomes protective behavior or valued action.
A conceptual model.
Regulation capacity is the ability to respond in accordance with our values in the moment. To notice what's happening, tolerate discomfort, and choose deliberately rather than automatically. It has three coordinating components.
Modulates intensity – the volume of what you're feeling and where your attention goes. It keeps you mindful of emotions when pressure wants to broadcast them, loudly.
Monitors interpretations and reflective reasoning. It keeps automatic thoughts open to examination when pressure pushes toward rigid, habitual explanations.
Drives values-directed action despite competing impulses. It keeps behavior consistent with what you want long-term, especially when pressure makes the easier thing more appealing.
Protective behavior takes a lot of forms – withdrawing, tightening control, appeasing, pushing back, going quiet. It often functions as avoidance.
Most problems come back to avoidance.
I'm convinced that avoidance is one of our biggest obstacles to building a life worth living. Look closely at almost any problem and you'll find something being avoided – a feeling, a situation, a conversation, a version of the truth. The observed behavior varies – the drink, the scroll, the overwork, the silence in the meeting. All can function to reduce or eliminate contact with something painful.
Avoidance keeps problems alive by providing temporary relief. The moment we decide to avoid, our distress often drops. We learn to choose avoidance the next time it appears.
Shame often sits underneath a lot of avoidant behaviors. It tells us to hide – that we are the problem, and that the safest move is to keep the shameful part of ourselves a secret. The hiding gives shame exactly what it needs to grow.
This is one of the few places where most of psychology agrees. Exposure therapy, acceptance and commitment work, psychoanalysis, behavioral activation – across traditions, treatment works to the degree it helps someone turn toward what they've been moving away from.
The objective is the same in every modality – approach, with support. Do the thing, feel the feeling, confront the discomfort, and find out what actually happens.
My own default is avoidance. I'd much prefer that people read my mind to know what they're doing that annoys me. Yet even as I'm a psychologist, I can't actually read anyone else's mind.
I'm endlessly working on practicing opposite action to my emotion urges and speaking my truth. And what I find is that the more open and authentic I am, the more connected to others I feel.
How regulation capacity is developed.
The four behavioral skills modules that Marsha Linehan created to strengthen it. The fifth – dialectical flexibility – runs through the whole philosophy and holds the other four together.
- 01Mindfulness – noticing what's happening in the present, without attachment or judgment.
- 02Emotion Regulation – understanding and experiencing feelings without letting their intensity or duration decide what happens next.
- 03Distress Tolerance – getting through a hard moment without making it worse.
- 04Interpersonal Effectiveness – saying the hard thing respectfully, factually, and nonjudgmentally.
- 05Dialectical Flexibility – holding two true things at once when everything in you wants to pick one.
See what each one asks for, and what breaks down without it →
Where it breaks down.
Analyses of the same behavior in different moments provide information about patterns you can plan for.
What I assume going in.
These are assumptions about behavior that cannot be proved. And, I choose to believe them because they are what keep me curious.
Given their current regulation capacity, skill level, and environment.
All people want to live satisfying and emotionally fulfilling lives – the capacity to act on it varies.
Doing the best they can with their current skills and needing to develop better ones are not contradictory – they're dialectical.
Effectiveness is defined by ownership of the present – regardless of fault or how problems came to be.
They must be practiced and refined across contexts for generalization.
Behavior is a function of conditions, learning history, and current regulation capacity.
Evaluating and shaming doesn't motivate change. Identifying what contributed to a behavior and figuring out how to respond more effectively next time does.
Where to start.
Strengthening regulation capacity starts with finding your why. Naming your values. Identifying what you actually want.