The Meta-States model of Dr L Michael Hall and the Cognitive Psychology concepts of Cogntive Labelling Theory and the Cognitive Triad naturally complement each other in providing insight and understanding as to how beliefs and belief structures are formed. However, the models do need to be linked to provide the fuller picture.
The linking mechanism is provided by the vMEMES of Spiral Dynamics. For some people, their temperamental Dimensions of Personality may also be of importance.
When he first publicised the Meta-States concept in 1994, Michael Hall pretty much took the world of NLP by storm. Meta-stating, more than anything before that had gone before, provided a structure for understanding how belief systems built up - either positively or negatively.
In the Meta-States concept, we take in information from our five senses. This produces a 'primary state'. The primary state itself is best understood through the Cognitive Labelling Theory of Stanley Schachter & Jerome Singer. According to this, we can have quite different cognitive interpretations of the same set of physiological symptoms. Eg: the physiological symptoms of acute fear - fast breathing, pumping heart, pounding temples, dry mouth, tight stomach, etc - can be very similar to those in the build-up to intense sexual excitment. What makes the difference is the basic meaning we apply to the raw physiological state - ie: fear or excitement.
Usually we apply further meaning to the primary state from a governing frame of reference - eg: "I'm fightened to death of flying insects" or "Women find me incredibly sexy". This creates a first level meta-state - our thoughts and feelings about our initial thoughts and feelings. We then abstract further (usually through that same frame of reference) - effectively interpreting the first level meta-state - to create a second-level meta-state. Now we're thinking and feeling about the thoughts and feelings our initial thoughts and feelings generated! From that second-level meta-state, we tend to abstract on and on, to create more and more levels of meta-stating - all further removed from the initial sensory input.
Belief systems can be either healthy or unhealthy - in that they enable people to cope successfully with life or else inhibit people from leading fulfilling lives.
Michael Hall and a number of other leading NLPers have devised therapeutic strategies for undermining and collapsing unhelpful meta-states and building enabling chains of meta-states.
The Cognitive Triad
Although it is more commonly associated with Dr Aaron T Beck, the Cognitive Triad was first brought to life by the work of Lynne V Abramson, Martin P Seligman & John Teasdale in the mid-1970s.
They developed their ideas from studying people who were overwhelmed by ther problems and felt helpless to improve their lot - a condition Seligman had earlier characterised as 'Learned Helplessness'.
Abramson, Seligman & Teasdale identified that people tend to either:-
# attribute failure to themselves and success due to sheer luck or the efforts of others; or people attribute success due to their own efforts and blame failure on others
# attribute success or failure with either timeless (never-ending) or timebound (it will end) properties
# attribute success or failure as either being global (all encompassing) or specific (one-off) events
This is represented in the graphic below:
Aaron Beck
It was Aaron Beck who popularised the Cognitive Triad as a means of analysing depressive schemas. A Failure Internal/Timebound/Global attribution is vulnerable to Depression. Someone with a Failure External/Timebound/Specific attributional style is more likely to believe both in their own ability to succeed and their likelihood of success.
Beck has spent much of his working life devising interventions to correct maladaptive schemas.
However, what Beck calls a depressive or maladaptive schema is, in Michael Hall's language, an unhelpful meta-stating pattern. The very act of attribution moves the level of experience upwards in the meta-stating process.
Usually we apply further meaning to the primary state from a governing frame of reference - eg: "I'm fightened to death of flying insects" or "Women find me incredibly sexy". This creates a first level meta-state - our thoughts and feelings about our initial thoughts and feelings. We then abstract further (usually through that same frame of reference) - effectively interpreting the first level meta-state - to create a second-level meta-state. Now we're thinking and feeling about the thoughts and feelings our initial thoughts and feelings generated! From that second-level meta-state, we tend to abstract on and on, to create more and more levels of meta-stating - all further removed from the initial sensory input and the primary state.
Meta-stating processes can create new frames of reference, depending on the (external) memes involved in the creation of the primary state, the (internal) schemas referenced in the meta-stating processes and the structure of the current vMEME stack.
The example in the graphic below shows a man creating a chain of meta-states from the simple primary state of the woman not looking at him.
