Details the ABC theory of psychology

ABC theory is the core of Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET), which is a theory and method of psychotherapy. ABC theory means that emotions are not caused by an inciting event itself, but by the interpretation and evaluation of the event by the individual who has experienced the event.

ABC comes from the first letters of three English words. In the ABC theory, A refers to activating events; B refers to the beliefs (Beliefs) that an individual develops after encountering activating events, that is, his views, explanations and evaluations of this event; C refers to the specific The consequences of individual emotions and behaviors under the situation (Consequences). The ABC theory points out that inducing event A is only an indirect cause of emotional and behavioral reactions; while B - people's beliefs, opinions and explanations about the inducing event - is the more direct cause of emotional and behavioral reactions. If the corresponding belief (B) after the inducing event is an irrational belief or a wrong and unreasonable belief, it will lead to depression and abnormal behavior. People's negative emotions such as depression and pain and their corresponding behaviors are caused by irrational thinking dominated by irrational beliefs. The three elements of Ellis's ABC theory: A, B, and C, respectively represent inducing events, subjective cognition, and reaction results. These three elements form a simple and smooth logical chain. Traditional analysis directly establishes a correlation between A and C, while ignoring the role of B. The role of B is precisely the fundamental difference between humans and ordinary animals, that is, humans have subjective initiative.

The long-term neglect of B is a philosophical loophole. Matter and consciousness are a pair of contradictions. It is the basic proposition of ontology that matter determines consciousness. Matter occupies a primary position and consciousness occupies a secondary position. The primary and secondary status of the two contradictory parties can be transformed under certain conditions. That is, under certain circumstances, consciousness can determine matter. The process from wood to table can be divided into two stages. The first stage is that the wood (matter) triggers the representation (consciousness) of the table. At this stage, the material determines the consciousness; the second stage is the representation (consciousness) of the table. This leads to the construction of the table (matter). At this stage, consciousness determines matter.

It can be said that the ABC theory focuses on the second stage of the creation of things. As far as human cognition is concerned, there are two levels: objective facts and subjective cognition. Objective facts are the A in the ABC theory, and subjective cognition is the B in the ABC theory. The subjective cognition must be derived from the objective facts, but it may not be consistent with the objective facts; but it is very important, because people’s next action is to rely on subjective cognition. And carried out.

This is particularly prominent in the philosophy of history: people believe that the history that happened is more important than the history that actually happened. This is probably the essence of ABC theory. No Bodhi tree, nor stand mirror. There is nothing in the world, so where can we stir up dust? It's all just mediocrity. This Zen poem may be the comfort to the human soul that the ABC theory attempts to achieve. There are difficulties and easy ways to learn in this world. If you do it, it will be easy. If you do it, it will be easy. If you don't do it, it will be easy. It is also the advice of ABC theory to people in the field of learning.

ABC is mainly a logical description of the problem, coupled with the means of emotional regulation, it constitutes the ABCDE theory. D stands for disputing and E stands for effects. A mature person holds the key to his own happiness. He does not expect others to make him happy, but can bring joy and happiness to others. Everyone has a "key to happiness" in their heart, but we often hand it over to others without knowing it. The ABC theory of emotion regulation is an emotion regulation method pioneered by American psychologist Albert Ellis in the 1950s, also known as the ABC personality theory. This theory believes that the generation of human emotions is a process called ABC. A refers to activating events, B refers to the beliefs (Beliefs) generated by an individual after encountering activating events, that is, his views, explanations and evaluations of this event; C refers to the individual’s beliefs under a specific situation. The consequences of emotions and behaviors (Consequence). The usual view is that A causes C, while Ellis believes that A is the indirect cause of C, and the more direct cause is B. In other words, people's different views on things will lead to different behaviors and emotions. Therefore, when we are emotionally troubled, we can regulate our emotions by adjusting our own understanding, and achieve the effect of regulating our emotions by changing our views on things.

This theory believes that people's emotional problems are caused by people's irrational beliefs, and people's thoughts are often the root cause of people's emotions.

(1) Irrational beliefs have three characteristics:

①Absolute requirements: refers to a person taking his own wishes as the starting point and believing that things will definitely happen or not. The belief that it will happen. This idea is usually associated with "must". Connect words like "should" and "must".

②Overgeneralization: This is a way of thinking that is overgeneralized and is caused by a person's unreasonable evaluation of himself.

Using this way of thinking to evaluate oneself often causes anxiety or depression. If used to evaluate others, it will lead to unreasonable evaluations of others, leading to blind blaming of others and the generation of hostility, contempt, anger and other emotions.

③ Extremely bad. That is to say, if something happens that you don’t want it to happen, it will definitely be very terrible, very bad, very unfortunate, or even catastrophic, causing you to fall into an extremely bad emotional experience and be unable to extricate yourself. This belief can cause individuals to fall into serious negative emotional experiences, such as shame, self-blame, self-guilt, anxiety, pessimism, depression, etc.

(2) Ellis proposed 10 irrational beliefs, believing that these irrational beliefs often exist in people with emotional distress or maladaptation, as follows:

① People should be loved and praised by all the people who are important to them in life

② A valuable person should be better than others in all aspects.

③Everything should develop according to your own wishes, otherwise it will be very bad.

④A person should worry about disasters that may happen at any time.

⑤ Emotions are controlled by the outside world and there is nothing you can do about it.

⑥ Past history dominates the present, and the influence of the past cannot be eliminated.

⑦Any question should have a correct and complete answer. Failure to find the correct answer is intolerable.

⑧ Those who make mistakes should be severely blamed and punished.

⑨It is much easier to avoid difficulties, challenges and responsibilities than to face them.

⑩You need someone who is stronger than yourself to back you up.

(3) Mersby’s five criteria for distinguishing reasonable and irrational beliefs:

① Reasonable beliefs are mostly based on some known objective facts; unreasonable beliefs are mostly based on known objective facts; Beliefs contain more subjective elements.

② Reasonable beliefs enable people to protect themselves and strive to live happily; unreasonable beliefs can cause emotional distress.

③Reasonable beliefs help people achieve their goals faster; unreasonable beliefs do the opposite.

④ Reasonable beliefs can prevent people from getting involved in other people's troubles; unreasonable beliefs make it difficult to do this.

⑤ Reasonable beliefs enable people to prevent or quickly eliminate emotional conflicts; unreasonable beliefs can cause emotional distress to last for a long time and cause adverse consequences. 1) The basic viewpoint of Ellis’s ABC theory

The ABC theory believes that people’s emotions are not caused by a certain inducing event itself, but by the reaction of the person who experienced the event to the event. caused by the interpretation and evaluation [3]. In the ABC theoretical model, A refers to activating events (Activating

events); B refers to the individual’s corresponding beliefs (Beliefs) after encountering the activating event, that is, his view of the event. , explanation and evaluation; C refers to the result (Consequence) of an individual's emotions and behavior in a specific situation. Usually people think that people's emotional behavioral responses are directly caused by the inducing event A, that is, A causes C. The ABC theory points out that inducing event A is only an indirect cause of emotional and behavioral responses, while people's beliefs and opinions about the inducing event are the more direct causes of people's emotional and behavioral responses. That is to say, a person's emotions are mainly rooted in his own beliefs and his evaluation and interpretation of life situations.

Therefore, in the application of this theory, the core content is that people must debate with unreasonable information, find unreasonable emotions, and challenge and analyze unreasonable information. Under normal circumstances, people often think that A caused C, that is, A → C, and ignore the process of B. In fact, according to Ellis's point of view, it should be A→B→C, because emotions are produced along with thinking, and emotional or psychological distress is caused by unreasonable and illogical thinking in link B.

(2) New understanding of Ellis’s ABC theory

First of all, it should be noted that the use of language is a human characteristic, and human thinking is often internalized. Language Progression, Our Artificial Mood Disorders are the result of repeating irrational beliefs using internalized language. People's own internalized language is acquired through externalization. Therefore, when bad emotions occur, they should try to avoid contact with literary, film and television art works that have the same emotional color at that time, such as sad music and negative language descriptions. Because these words will strengthen negative emotions, not only will they not eliminate the negative emotions, but they will solidify them in the mind. It can be seen that the persistence of bad emotions is actually manifested by those internalized languages, or even the result of the continued effect of irrational thinking that has been consolidated and deepened.

Secondly, on the one hand, because human memory will be affected by time and other factors, the relatively reasonable emotional cognitive process A→B→C that people have formed will change with other things over time. On the other hand, other A events of the same nature may occur anytime, anywhere, or even bad situations may occur repeatedly, such as seeing photos of the deceased, walking past a date with a past lover places, etc., many things are unexpected by people, so in order to consolidate the original reasonable understanding when encountering this situation, the B process in A→B→C must be repeated to achieve the effect.

Therefore, to use Ellis’s ABC theory to deal with negative emotions, what people have to do is to debate, challenge, and analyze the unreasonable beliefs in their minds, replace unreasonable thinking with reasonable thinking, and replace unreasonable thinking with reasonable thinking. Internal language replaces unreasonable internal language and mainly helps oneself by changing cognition. This also provides an entry point for us to build an individual emotion regulation system for college students.

4. The process of constructing the individual control system of college students

The first step: individuals must understand that the current way of thinking and beliefs are unreasonable, and find out the occurrence of these unreasonable events Source, awareness of the relationship between irrational beliefs and emotional distress.

Step 2: Individuals must understand that they are responsible for the irrational emotions that cause emotional confusion, and at the same time they have the ability to change irrational beliefs.

Step 3: List the irrational beliefs, analyze and refute them one by one, find out the roots of the irrational emotions, replace the irrational beliefs with reasonable beliefs, and ultimately achieve cognitive changes. This is the most important link in an individual's emotional regulation system and requires more time and energy to think about. Even negative emotions may recur, irrational beliefs may come back at any time, and new irrational beliefs may arise. Therefore, individuals must be mentally prepared and can usually use the help of others at this stage.

Step 4: Change the unreasonable belief based on multi-factor analysis of the unreasonable belief.

Step 5: Use new reasonable beliefs to think about the problem, and form the automation and formulation of thinking, forming a conditioned reflex to regulate emotions. Soldiers will stop you, and water will cover you. Once irrational emotions rear their head, they can be eliminated in the shortest time, so that they will no longer affect the individual's study, life and work until they fully recover.

Looking at these five steps, it is not difficult for college students with higher education to master the principles and operating methods of Ellis’s ABC theory through training or self-study. This also provides a basis for the development of college students’ individual control systems. Construction offers possibilities.

5. Factors affecting the formation of reasonable beliefs in link B

In the ABC theory, link B is the link that determines whether reasonable cognitive beliefs can be formed, and therefore it is also the link that determines whether individual college students can successfully construct them. The core link of the individual emotion regulation system, the factors that affect the formation of reasonable beliefs in link B mainly include:

(1) Social environmental factors

College students themselves are members of the social environment. , and also a member of the small campus society. The formation of their world outlook, outlook on life and values ??is deeply influenced by the social environment. For example, "What is the purpose of studying? When treating scores, is it 60 points or should we do our best? Should respecting teachers be based on treating guests and giving gifts, or should we be humble and serious? Do you have everything if you have money? Is making friends achieved through eating, drinking, having fun, or building friendships? On the basis of sincerity? When college students fall in love, do they seek true love in a mutually agreeable manner, or do they follow a herd mentality, or even just want to find a companion?" and so on. The attitudes of society and campus towards these issues directly affect the value orientation of college students.

(2) Factors in the dormitory environment

From the moment you first step onto campus, people who have a close relationship with individual college students will generally be among your classmates, fellow students, and roommates. Because of the special environment of the dormitory, roommates are the most likely targets for individual college students to express their emotions, talk to, and seek help. What needs to be emphasized here is that the roommate's helping style, positive attitude, attribution style, cognitive level, etc. will have an important impact on the help seeker. For example, for guidance on emotional issues, some positive ones include "There is no grass anywhere in the world", "Conflict is the driving force for the development of things, and quarrels are not necessarily a bad thing, and can allow both parties to understand each other more deeply" and so on. Negative advice includes "spend more money, treat guests to dinner, send flowers, kneel down to court", "use all methods, and you won't believe that you can't catch up" and so on. Some psychologists have said, "Actually, the environments around us are essentially neutral. We add positive or negative values ??to them. The key lies in which one you tend to choose." All this tells us that for Mental health education for individual college students is based on strengthening a harmonious mental health environment at a macro level.

(3) Cognitive factors

Emotions can be changed, and the key to change is to change the individual's cognitive perspective on the problem. Thinking about the same problem from different perspectives will lead to different emotional experiences. At present, many college students are confused by their unreasonable cognition of many things, which is mainly reflected in the confusion caused by the perception and thinking of realistic situations such as learning, interpersonal relationships, emotional relationships, and career choices [4].

The first is learning confusion. First, some college students are not interested in their majors, or think that their majors are of little use in society, but they have to bite the bullet and study. As a result, they learn passively and painfully, and they don’t know what to do. This creates cognitive confusion. Second, some college students are accustomed to the "indoctrination" learning in high school and cannot adapt to the independent and creative learning in college. As a result, they work hard but their grades fail to improve, resulting in severe self-frustration.

The second is confusion in interpersonal communication. Interpersonal relationships are one of the most confusing issues for contemporary college students. They are often distressed, hesitant or at a loss because of the difficult interpersonal relationships between classmates, friends and between people. Once again, there is confusion about emotional relationships. It has long been common for college students to fall in love.

However, when you are in love, you are also in love. Losing love is when the psychological balance of love is broken and the emotional unity between lovers is disintegrated. Young college students often fall into deep emotional confusion.

There is also confusion about choosing a career. Today's society is full of competition. Most college students have no idea where to go after graduation and feel very confused. What they have learned is theoretical knowledge, they rarely get involved in society, and they lack social experience and practical ability. Under such a situation, college students do not know how to determine their appropriate position in life and are prone to fall into cognitive confusion about career choices.

(4) Attribution factors

Academic success and failure are often encountered by college students in their learning activities. Different attribution tendencies will cause different expectations and emotional experiences. This of course produces different learning behaviors. Therefore, when constructing the individual emotion regulation system of college students, we must pay attention to attribution, especially establishing a positive attribution model. According to Weiner's three-dimensional attribution theory, we mainly want to guide college students to attribute success to their own internal factors, so that they can experience a sense of success and competence, and further enhance their information about taking on and completing tasks in the future; failure will be Attributed to unstable factors such as insufficient effort, college students will believe that it is possible to change future failures, and their expectations for success will increase. At the same time, college students should be prevented from attributing failure to stable and uncontrollable factors such as poor ability and too difficult tasks, because this attribution method will seriously dampen college students' enthusiasm and self-confidence; college students should also be prevented from attributing success to luck and uncontrollable factors. External factors such as low difficulty.

(5) Factors of significant others

The concept of significant others (significant of hers) was coined by the American sociologist Mills (C.W.) in Mead (C.H.) It is proposed on the basis of self-development theory and refers to specific people who have an important influence on the socialization process of individuals. The principle of "social support" of social psychologists can be used as a basis. If the relationship between people is good, a person's various social activities will be supported by people. Even if there is an unfavorable situation or crisis, he will be supported. You will receive people's understanding and care, and you will be given enthusiastic help to tide over the difficulties. People living in society cannot do without the support and help of other people in society, especially when encountering adversity. If the classmates, colleagues, relatives, teachers, and friends around you express concern, condolences, encouragement, and support, it will make you feel warm. and strength. Among these people there will be important others who have a great influence on them. At the turning point in life, the advice of important others is particularly important. Encouragement is like a panacea, giving us inspiration and turnaround when we are at a loss, and mustering up the courage to meet new challenges. When we encounter failure, the encouragement of important others is like a wisp of spring breeze and spring rain, which nourishes and revives our frustrated soul; when we lack confidence and hesitate to move forward, mother's eyes, father's big hands, and teacher's smile will make us unable to stop. Fear of failure and keep moving forward.

The above factors will affect whether a reasonable concept can be established in link B in A→B→C, and in turn affect the success or failure of college students in building an individual emotion regulation system. Therefore, individual college students themselves and psychological counseling workers should attach great importance to it and find out the problem from the perspective of factor analysis.