We use similar tactics to control the level of cognitive stimulation. Even the best of students periodically gazes out the window, blocking out the teacher, shutting off the flow of new data from that source. Even voracious readers sometimes go through periods when they cannot bear to pick up a book or magazine.
Why, during a gregarious evening at a friend's house, does one person in the group refuse to learn a new card game while others urge her on? Many factors play a part: the selfesteem of the individual, the fear of seeming foolish, and so on. But one overlooked factor affecting willingness to learn may well be the general level of cognitive stimulation in the individual's life at the time. 'Don't bother me with new facts!' is a phrase usually uttered in jest. But the joke often disguises a real wish to avoid being pressed too hard by new data.
This accounts in part for our specific choices of entertainment – of leisure-time reading, movies or television programs. Sometimes we seek a high novelty ratio, a rich flow of information. At other moments we actively resist cognitive stimulation and reach for 'light' entertainment. The typical detective yarn, for example, provides a trace of unpredictability – who-dunnit? – within a carefully structured ritual framework, a set of non- novel, hence easily predictable relationships. In this way, we employ entertainment as a device to raise or lower stimulation, adjusting our intake rates so as not to overload our capacities.
By making more conscious use of such tactics, we can 'fine-tune' our microenvironment. We can also cut down on unwanted stimulation by acting to lighten our cognitive burdens. 'Trying to remember too many things is certainly one of the major sources of psychologic stress,' writes Selye. 'I make a conscious effort to forget immediately all that is unimportant and to jot down data of possible value ... This technique can help anyone to accomplish the greatest simplicity compatible with the degree of complexity of his intellectual life.'
We also act to regulate the flow of decisioning. We postpone decisions or delegate them to others when we are suffering from decision overload. Sometimes we 'freeze up' decisionally. I have seen a woman sociologist, just returned from a crowded, highly stimulating professional conference, sit down in a restaurant and absolutely refuse to make any decisions whatever about her meal. 'What would you like?' her husband asked. 'You decide for me,' she replied. When pressed to choose between specific alternatives, she still explicitly refused, insisting angrily that she lacked the 'energy' to make the decision.
Through such methods we attempt, as best we can, to regulate the flow of sensory, cognitive and decisional stimulation, perhaps also attempting in some complicated and as yet unknown way to balance them with one another. But we have stronger ways of coping with the threat of overstimulation. These involve attempts to control the rates of transience, novelty and diversity in our milieu.
The rate of turnover in our lives, for example, can be influenced by conscious decisions. We can, for example, cut down on change and stimulation by consciously maintaining longerterm relationships with the various elements of our physical environment. Thus, we can refuse to purchase throw-away products. We can hang onto the old jacket for another season; we can stoutly refuse to follow the latest fashion trend; we can resist when the salesman tells us it's time to trade in our automobile. In this way, we reduce the need to make and break ties with the physical objects around us.
We can use the same tactic with respect to people and the other dimensions of experience. There are times when even the most gregarious person feels anti-social and refuses invitations to parties or other events that call for social interaction. We consciously disconnect. In the same way, we can minimize travel. We can resist pointless reorganizations in our company, church, fraternal or community groups. In making important decisions, we can consciously weigh the hidden costs of change against the benefits.
None of this is to suggest that change can or should be stopped. Nothing is less sensible than the advice of the Duke of Cambridge who is said to have harumphed: 'Any change, at any time, for any reason is to be deplored.' The theory of the adaptive range suggests that, despite its physical costs, some level of change is as vital to health as too much change is damaging.
Some people, for reasons still not clear, are pitched at a much higher level of stimulus hunger than others. They seem to crave change even when others are reeling from it. A new house, a new car, another trip, another crisis on the job, more house guests, visits, financial adventures and misadventures – they seem to accept all these and more without apparent ill effect.
Yet close analysis of such people often reveals the existence of what might be called 'stability zones' in their lives – certain enduring relationships that are carefully maintained despite all kinds of other changes.
One man I know has run through a series of love affairs, a divorce and remarriage – all within a very short span of time. He thrives on change, enjoys travel, new foods, new ideas, new movies, plays and books. He has a high intellect and a low 'boring point,' is impatient with tradition and restlessly eager for novelty. Ostensibly, he is a walking exemplar of change.When we look more closely, however, we find that he has stayed on the same job for ten years. He drives a battered, seven-year-old automobile. His clothes are several years out of style. His closest friends are long-time professional associates and even a few old college buddies.
Another case involves a man who has changed jobs at a mind-staggering rate, has moved his family thirteen times in eighteen years, travels extensively, rents cars, uses throwaway products, prides himself on leading the neighborhood in trying out new gadgets, and generally lives in a restless whirl of transience, newness and diversity. Once more, however, a second look reveals significant stability zones in his life: a good, tightly woven relationship with his wife of nineteen years; continuing ties with his parents; old college friends interspersed with the new acquaintances.
A different form of stability zone is the habit pattern that goes with the person wherever he travels, no matter what other changes alter his life. A professor who has moved seven times in ten years, who travels constantly in the United States, South America, Europe and Africa, who has changed jobs repeatedly, pursues the same daily regimen wherever he is. He reads between eight and nine in the morning, takes forty-five minutes for exercise at lunch time, and then catches a half-hour cat-nap before plunging into work that keeps him busy until 10:00 P.M.
The problem is not, therefore, to suppress change, which cannot be done, but to manage it. If we opt for rapid change in certain sectors of life, we can consciously attempt to build stability zones elsewhere. A divorce, perhaps, should not be too closely followed by a job transfer. Since the birth of a child alters all the human ties within a family, it ought not, perhaps, be followed too closely by a relocation which causes tremendous turnover in human ties outside the family. The recent widow should not, perhaps, rush to sell her house.
To design workable stability zones, however, to alter the larger patterns of life, we need far more potent tools. We need, first of all, a radically new orientation toward the future. Ultimately, to manage change we must anticipate it. However, the notion that one's personal future can be, to some extent, anticipated, flies in the face of persistent folk prejudice. Most people, deep down, believe that the future is a blank. Yet the truth is that we
We can, for example, predict with certainty that unless death intervenes, we shall grow older; that our children, our relatives and friends will also grow older; and that after a certain point our health will begin to deteriorate. Obvious as this may seem, we can, as a result of this simple statement, infer a great deal about our lives one, five or ten years hence, and about the amount of change we will have to absorb in the interim.
Few individuals or families plan ahead systematically. When they do, it is usually in terms of a budget. Yet we can forecast and influence our expenditure of time and emotion as well as money. Thus it is possible to gain revealing glimpses of one's own future, and to estimate the gross level of change lying ahead, by periodically preparing what might be called a Time and Emotion Forecast. This is an attempt to assess the percentage of time and emotional energy invested in various important aspects of life – and to see how this might change over the years.
One can, for example, list in a column those sectors of life that seem most important to us: Health, Occupation, Leisure, Marital Relations, Parental Relations, Filial Relations, etc. It is then possible to jot down next to each item a 'guesstimate' of the amount of time we presently allocate to that sector. By way of illustration: given a nine-to-five job, a half-hour commute, and the usual vacations and holidays, a man employing this method would find that he devotes approximately 25 percent of his time to work. Although it is, of course, much more difficult, he can also make a subjective assessment of the percentage of his emotional energy invested in the job. If he is bored and secure, he may invest very little – there being no necessary correlation between time devoted and emotion invested.
If he performs this exercise for each of the important sectors of his life, forcing himself to write in a
