Vandra Attila
Trainer of the Romanian Association of Debates, Oratory and Rhetoric (ARDOR) and Transsylvanian Debate Association (EDE)
vandraattila@rdslink.ro
Introduction: Basic concepts in transactional analysis (TA)
Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is a psychoanalytic theory of psychology, developed by psychiatrist Eric Berne during the late 1950s, (Berne, E. 1957) based on the study of evolution and the pathological functioning of ego states (Várkonyi F. Zsuzsa, 2003). Revising Freud’s concept of the human psyche as composed of the Ego, Superego, and the Id, (Freud, S. 1900, 1977) Berne, E. (1964) postulated instead three “ego states”, the Parent (P), Adult (A) and Child (C) ego states, which were largely shaped through childhood experiences. (Wikipedia, 2006) TA has four parts: the structural analysis, transactional analysis, game analysis and script analysis. (Járó Katalin, editor, 1999)
Eric Berne defined Ego state as a “consistent pattern of feeling and experience directly related to a corresponding consistent pattern of behavior” (In: Parr, J., 2002) Even a grown-up man often behaves childlike, or in other situations might imitate parenteral figures from his childhood, and his behavior can be also as a rational, independent adult’s. In the first case, his behavior is determined by the C ego state, in the second the by the P ego state and in the third case by the A ego state. Berne’s ego state model is a „switch” model: human behavior is influenced always by a single ego state, never more. This radical distinction has his own advantages (Ernst, F. H., 1971), but is also a source of confusion (Eysenk, H. J., 1983, Strauss, J. S. & Hafez, H., 1981, White, T., 1984) These discussions are out of the range of the present analysis.
TA uses two main ego state models. Eric Berne (1964) represents ego states in the so-called PAC, or „snowman” model, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Eric Berne’s ego state model, the “snowman” model, or PAC model
In P ego state, one can behave in two radically different manners: as a Critical Parent (CP) and as a Nurturing Parent (NP). Also in C ego state one can behave as Free Child (FC) and Adaptive Child (AC). So the functional ego state model was born. (Figure 2).
Figure 2. The functional ego state model
We can find different names in TA literature for CP, NP, FC, and AC, each of them having positive and negative manifestations, which have different names in many literature sources (F. Várkonyi Zsuzsa, 2001, Birkenbihl, Vera, F., 2000, Cocorada Elena, 2005, Lassus, René de, 1991). One in C ego state, can also have the Rebel Child (RC) behavior. We can find in literature RC as a negative part of AC (Lassus, René de, 1991), as negative part of FC (Cocorada, Elena, 2005) and as distinctive part of C ego state (F. Várkonyi Zsuzsa, 2001, 2003). My opinion is close to René de Lassus’s, however these discussions are out of the range of the present analysis.
Levine proved by rat experiments René Spitz’s presumptions: stimuli are vital necessities (In: Berne, E. 1964).In his experiment, rats got ill and died, if they were grown up without stimuli and were recovered in the same way getting positive or negative stimuli. The stimuli can be physical ones (caress, pain), communicative stimuli (verbal or non-verbal ones) or actions, which have (positive or negative) consequences for the other. Human actions are part of human interactions and have role in human communication. (Vandra Attila, 2001). Berne, E. (1964) named these: stimuli strokes.
Another important human necessity is time-structuring. Eric Berne (1964) classified human time-structuring in 6 categories: isolation, rituals, pastimes, activities, intimacy and games. Stewart, Ian & Joines, Vann (1998) and English F. (1987) define two other ones: the power plays, respectively the racketeering.
Crossed Transactions
Taking in account that human communication is not only verbal, we communicate also nonverbaly and by our actions we can say, that stroke change is a communicative action. The elementary unit of human communication is the message. Human communication is a social interaction realized by message change. (Buda Béla, 1994). The receiver of the message reacts obligatory to the stimuli with a feed-back message. The first axiom of communication of the Palo alto school: is impossible not to communicate (to avoid communication). (Watzlawick, P.-Beavin, J. H.-Jackson, D. D. 1967) A message and its feed-back response constitutes of a transaction, which is the elementary unit of human interaction in TA point of view. A transaction consisting of a single stimulus and a single response, verbal or non-verbal, is the unit of social action. (In: Underwood, Mick editor, 2003)
A message can be graphically represented using the ego state models as an arrow, which starts from one of the ego states of the emitter and arrives to one of the ego states of the receiver. A transaction can be represented as a pair of arrows. (Berne, E. 1964).
We can make distinction between overt transactions, which are realized on social level and can be received also by an external person and covert transactions named also ulterior transactions which are realized in psychological level, and are often not received by the environment. The covert transactions are after-word messages. Covert transactions are always accompanied by overt transactions with a different content. Together, overt and covert transactions constitute duplex transactions. According to E. Berne, there are in fact 6597 possibilities, but he assures us that only about 15 are commonly used (In: Underwood, Mick editor, 2003). Classical TA makes difference between two types of overt transactions:
I. Complementary transactions, if the transaction participates in only two ego states. The message and the feed-back answer involving the same ego states. (In: Wikipedia, 2006). Some literature sources use the “parallel transaction” term instead of the “complementary transaction.” (Lassus, René de, 1991). In my opinion it is not a correct name, taking in account that parallels never meet, is a source of confusion. The term “parallel” suggests that a transaction is formed by independent messages, what is not a true affirmation. I use the “parallel” term exactly in this sense. Classical TA literature represents complementary transactions as parallel, contrary arrows. (Berne, E. 1964). I prefer to represent them as double sensed arrows.
On the structural model theoreticaly we can have 3*3 = 9 complementary transactions. Most of complementary transactions can be included in five categories: three symmetrical ones and two unsymmetrical ones.
1. A↔A: eg: activities. („What’s the time?” „Ten past nine”) (Figure 3A)
2.: P↔P (CP↔CP) eg: pastimes (“Youngsters of today…” “When we were of their age…”)
(Figure 3B and Figure 4B2)
3. C↔C (FC↔FC) eg: intimity or proximity (Lassus, René de, 1991): „I like to be with you.”
”Me too”. – Figure 3C)
4. P↔C (CP↔AC): eg: activities, accept of control: „What’s this disorder in your room?” “I
do my room immediately.” (Figure 5A, Figure 6A)
5. C↔P (AC↔ΝP) eg. Nurturing (proximity) („Ouch! My leg!” „Let me bandage you!”)
(Figure 5B, Figure 6B)
Figure 3. Symmetric transactions
A: A↔A
B: P↔P
C: C↔C
The inconvenient of representing the P↔P (CP↔CP) transaction (Figure 3B) on the classical functional model is that the arrow „crosses” the NP, which does not participate in the transaction. Representing the receiver’s ego states rotated 1800 around his vertical ax („in mirror”) resolves the problem. The answering CP „turns” to the CP of the emitter, how humans do while they communicate. Why can not the ego state models be rotated? Why do we have to represent them in only a classical way?
Figure 4. Representation of CP↔CP transaction on the functional ego state model
B1: In classical way
B2: Rotated 1800 around his vertical ax.
Figure 5. A: The P↔C (CP↔AC) transaction. B: The C↔P (AC↔NP) transaction.
If we accept the rotation of classical ego state models in graphic representations, (ego states turn to each other), and the tendency of having the closest position as possible in transactions, we have to rotate the receiver’s ego states in Figure 5A and B with 1800 around his horizontal ax. In this way the classical PAC representation transforms in a CAP one. In this way the arrows, which represent the transactions, will be horizontal.
Figure 6. Representation of
A: the P↔C (CP↔AC)
B: the C↔P (AC↔NP)
transactions on the rotated model. The arrows are horizontal.
In the symmetrical transactions rotation is not necessary, because they are face-to-face on the classical model.
II. The second type of overt transactions are found the so called crossed transactions. In the case of the crossed transactions participate in more than two ego states in the transactions, because the feed-back messages are coming from a different ego state than the addressed one, or it is sent to a different ego state, than the original message is coming from. On the classical model are represented by crossing arrows, this phenomena generated their name. They can not be represented as double sense arrows. Theoretically crossed transactions are also of many types, but most of them can be included in three categories.
a. A→A P→C (CP→AC) transactions: are frequently starting transactions in psychological games. („Don’t you know where my watch is?” „I Always have to know where you leave your things, because you are disorderly!”) (Figure 7A and Figure 8A)
b. P→C (CP→AC) A→A transactions: are frequent in antithesis. The person who was provoked to a psychological game refuses to be a partner in the game, gives an Adult an answer. („You fool!” „I see, you are angry with me.”). (Figure 7B and Figure 8B)
c. P→C P→C (CP→AC, CP→AC) transactions are the typical transactions of power plays, racketeering and psychological games („Your idea is a fool idea” „Better you’ll use your mind to understand it!”). (In all cases P has a negative Controlling Parent – Critical Parent – behavior). (Figure 7C and Figure 8C)
Crossed transactions are characteristic in games. There are two different types of games. In the first category the competition games can be enumerated. Players try to win a reward against each other. These games, named also rational games, are studied by mathematical game theory, which tries to find the best strategies to win more or with more probability. Transactional analysts (Stewart, Ian – Joines, Vann, 1998) names them power plays. In the second category are the psychological games (named also irrational games) which are common stereotype sets of interactions involving ulterior motives. (In: Wikipedia, 2006), repetitive, stereotyped human behaviours with a predictable end, following predetermined patterns and rules, and have a pay-off of racketfeelings (Parr, J., 2002, p39)
Figure 7. The classical representation of crossed transactions
A: A→A, P→C (CP→AC) transaction
B: P→C, (CP→AC) A→A transaction
C: P→C, P→C (CP→AC, CP→AC) transaction
The feed-back is coming from a different ego state.
Representing crossed transactions on the rotated models, on which the communicating ego states are face to face, we get the representation showed on Figure 8:
Figure 8. Representation of the crossed transactions on the rotated model. (The active ego states turn to each other)
A: A→A, P→C (CP→AC) transaction
B: P→C, (CP→AC) A→A transaction
C: P→C, P→C (CP→AC, CP→AC) transaction
The representations are parallel arrows starting from different ego states.
On the rotated model, crossed transactions are represented by parallel arrows not by crossing ones! But these arrows are distanced, showing that the content of the message and of its feed-back is not complementary (Figure 8).
The only advantage of the classical representation is the emphasize, that the players’ interests “cross” each other. The question is: why is it necessary to emphasize it? There are not alternative or more important phenomena to represent on the model, which are possible on the rotated model, but not on the classical one?
The present study tries to prove, that the classification of overt transactions in complementary/crossed ones is a Procustes’s bed, trying to improve a new, better classification.
In isolation there are no transactions, in rituals, pastimes, activities, and intimacy are characterized by cooperative behavior. The non-cooperative behavior is characteristic of the rational non-cooperative games and psychological games too. Rational games and psychological games are not independent phenomena. The transformation of rational games into psychological games were described by Vandra Attila (2006). Psychological games can be divided into two rational games (one before and one after the switch). The target of the first rational game is to win an advantage, the reward of the game. The rational game transforms while playing. Game begins as a Prisoner’s Dilemma, (Mérő László, 1996, Rapoport, A., Chammach, A., 1965) continues as a Chicken! Game (Poundstone, 1992, Mérő László, 1996), transforms into a Dollar Auction Game (Shubik, M. 1971, Mérő László 1996), which’s main characteristic is that even who triumphs looses (Mérő László, 1996, Vandra Attila, 2006). (Transactional analysis include Prisoner’s Dilemmas into activities, Chicken! Games into power games, Dollar Auction Games into power games or racketeerings. All these time-structuring can be defined as games, from the mathematical game theory point of view). This is why players lose self-respect while playing. After one of the players concludes that he can not win any more, makes a switch, trying to save disparately his self-respect. This is the key-moment, when a rational game transforms into a psychological game. (Vandra Attila, 2006) Making an effort to save self-respect is also a rational game, but together the first game it is an irrational behavior. The most efficient way he can save self-respect is loosing the first game and provoking the other to make him suffer. Becoming a Victim he can easily transfer the whole responsibility to his opponent: “He is the guilty one, he and nobody else!” saving his positive self-respect. After becoming a Victime he can not loose this game. Apparently the target of the whole game is to suffer, getting negative payoffs (Parr, J. 2002). The reality is that the negative payoffs are never targets of the games, they are only ways to hit the real target, rescuing his self-respect (Vandra Attila, 2006).
Analyzing games from point of view of mathematical game theory we can conclude, that all transactions in games are non-cooperative ones. All rational games (and as it was shown in psychological ones too) begin with a Prisoner’s Dilemma type situation (Vandra Attila, 2006). In Prisoner’s Dilemma, players have to choose between an adaptive (cooperative) and a non-cooperative (defecting, non-adaptive) move (Mérő László, 1996). If one of them chooses the adaptive (cooperative) move, the game ends immediately. If both chose the non-cooperative move Prisoner’s Dilemma transforms into a Chicken! Game and can degenerate into a Dollar Auction Game both characterized by non-cooperative moves (Vandra Attila, 2006). Who makes a cooperative move, gives up the game and looses. The cooperative transactions are excluded in rational games, so in psychological games too, because they are formed of two rational games. Also not all rational games transform into a psychological one. If one gives up before the switch the game ends as a rational game.
In rational games each player tries to improve his own interest, so tries to lead the communication in the direction of resolving his own interest. So each player will try to communicate about his problem, his rules, his point of view, his value system: “That is the problem that we can resolve (first).” The attempt to discuss about different things, leads to the parallel communication: dialog transforms into two independent monologues.
We can find many transactions, which on the classical representation are represented by not-crossing arrows, but they are not cooperative ones, they are typical game transactions:
„Youngsters of today…” “When we were of their age…” is a typical P↔P (CP↔CP) complementary transaction (time-spending). But the next one, between two mother-in-laws, is only formal is the same. „Your daughter is lazy!” „And your sun is a saint?” They are discussing about different youngsters, not as in the first example. It is a CP→CP, CP→CP transaction (Figure 9A)
„Let’s go to left!” „Better to right” apparently is a typical A↔A transaction. The continuing too. „To the left, because…” „To the right because…” First transaction is an informational change. The second is a reasoning one. But why aren’t we surprised by the continuation?: „We always proceed as you want to!” (CP→AC). The last message is a typical one in psychological games. The first player switched to accuse the other. The switch is a direct consequence of the first transactions. (The first transaction is Prisoner’s dilemma, the second one, the Dollar Auction Game. The Chicken! Game is present only in a moment of waiting the other’s decision between the two transactions). It was not an activity; it was a power play, a competition from from the first moment. (Figure 9B.)
When the child tries to get forgiveness from his punishing parent it is a similar transaction. „You are punished!” „Please, don’t punish me!” The continuing: “You deserve it!” „I’ll never do it again!” Both are P→C, C→P (P↔C?) transactions, but in this case we can recognize, that the AC sends his response not to the CP who addressed him the message, but to the NP: is a CP→AC AC→NP transaction, which is not a typical crossed transaction. The competition is present also in this example: Who convinces who? (Figure 9C). The parent refuses to answer from the NP ego state, if he would, (“I understand you!”) he would risk to loose.
„Kiss me!” „How beautiful the sunset is!” is a C→C C→C (FC→FC, FC→FC ≠ FC↔FC) transaction: in this example the most striking is that we have two parallel monologues, not a dialog. The boy invites the girl to a sexual game, the girl wants to watch the sunset, and invites the boy to do the same. The girl’s answer can be a refuse (“I don’t want to kiss you!” – covert transaction) or only a request for waiting (“Let’s admire it two minutes, after the sunset I’m yours”). Is not important what the girl’s motivation is, is not a cooperative transaction, however it is formal, because it involves only two ego states (Figure 9D).
Figure 9. False complementary transactions
A: CP→CP, CP→CP transaction
B: A→A, A→A transaction
C: CP→AC, AC→NP transaction
D: FC→FC, FC→FC transaction
Let us verify that in the other three examples, the parallel monologue phenomena.
While in the typical complementary transaction both discussed about “the youngsters”, one of the mother-in-laws communicated about her daughter-in-law, the other about her sun-in-law.
Both tried to have a discussion about their own idea, neglecting the others.
The PC tried to have a discussion about the conformation, the AC about understanding.
In all false complementary transactions, it is a competition, not cooperation. Both have a defecting behavior, not an adaptive one, they do not accept to have a discussion about the other’s problem. Mathematical game theory analysis on Prisoner’s Dilemma situations had shown, that a reciprocal defecting (non-adaptive) behavior lead to competition, while the condition of cooperation is a reciprocal adaptive behavior. (Mathematical game theory bibliography sources use the “cooperative” term instead of “adaptive”. I prefer the last one. In my opinion cooperation is a common action between two players; adaptation is only an attempt for cooperation. If one has an adaptive, the other a defecting strategy, the first one looses, the second triumphs, which is not a real cooperation – Rapoport, A., Chammach, A. 1965). Let us see how the transactions would be in case of adaptive behavior, without loosing the game.
„Your daughter is lazy! „Yes, she should do more. But neither your sun is an example of assiduity.”. „You are also right. These youngsters…” They had affirmations about two different persons, but first they accepted that the other’s affirmation is real, closing the transaction, only after that they began to change the subject, beginning another transaction. In this way they had a common discussion about the youngsters.
„Let’s go to left!” ”I understand your opinion, but I should go to right!” “I know, what you want, but I have arguments to do so” “I learned about them, but please take in account my arguments too” “Ok, how shall we proceed taking in account both opinions?” This is a competition, but not a rough one, like in the original story. They try to find a solution to leave together the competition, trying to find a compromise, a common solution.
„You are punished!” „I understand, that you are angry with me, I realize that I deserve the punishment, but I want to ask you, to forgive me”. „I understand that you want to avoid-l the punishment, but it is very important to me, to give you a lesson”. „I know, that this is your aim, but I promise, that I will never do it again”. Neither did the two different problems disappear. But in either cases, they do not change the subject before giving an adaptive answer. To the typical CP→AC message (“You are punished!”) the child gives an answer which has two parts. The beginning is an AC→CP one, (“I realize I deserve it”) which closes the CP↔AC complementary transaction. The second part is an A→A answer, beginning a new transaction, which gets another A→A feed-back, (A↔A transaction). This is not a CP→AC, A→A “crossed” transaction, (“parallel” transaction). There are two independent complementary transactions.
„Kiss me!” „Immediately! Let’s admire the sunset two minutes, after which I’m yours. Do you see how beautiful it is?” The girl’s answer also two parts: 1. Conditional adapting. 2. Changing the subject. Conditional adapting (‘Immediately”) closes the first transaction, in this way the second part of the answer does not “cross” the boy’s request. It is not a parallel answer, it is another one.
In typical “crossed” transactions it is also observable the parallel monologues. In example “a”, the first person requested an information about his watch, the answer was a judgment about his behavior. In example “b” to the judgment about the second person recieves an answer about the feelings of the first one. In the “C” example the first person characterized the second person’s idea, the answer was an judgment about the first person.
Thomas Gordon (1991) described 12 communication barrages. Communication barrages are phenomena, which transform cooperative communication into games. His observation was that, while all communication barrages, participants try to resolve their own problems, and are communicating about the other person trying to convince him to give up his own position. Grammatically, this leads to messages in which the subject is the other person, so he called them “you-messages”. Because “you” is a different person from point of view of the two participants this leads to a parallel communication, to parallel transactions.
False complementary transactions are in reality duplex ones, because being competitive ones, the social level overt transactions always are accompanied by a covert (CP→AC, CP→AC) transaction (“Give up!” “Give up you!”) in the psychological level.
Social level (overt transaction): „Let’s go to left!” „It is better to right!”
Psychological level (covert transaction): „Give up! Let it be as I want to!” „You give up
Social level (overt transaction): 1. A→A, A→A 2. …
Psychological level (covert transaction):: 1. CP→AC, CP→AC 2. …
(Figure 10)
The distinction between real complementary (cooperative) transactions and false complementary (parallel) transactions can be made on both (classical and rotated) models, representing cooperative transactions as double sense arrows, and parallel transactions as parallel, contrary simple sense arrows. The advantage of the new (rotated) model is that the representation of false complementary (competitive) transactions is similar to the representation of typical competitive (“crossed”) transactions, showing the relationship between them.
Figure 10. Representation of the covert transactions in the false complementary A→A, A→A transaction A. On the classical model B. On the rotated model. The overt transactions are represented by continue, the covert ones by dashed arrows.
The examples of false complementary transactions try to prove, that is more important to make a distinction between cooperative (real complementary) transactions and competitive (parallel) transactions than between crossed and not crossed ones. The proposed distinction makes the difference between game or not game phenomena.
Because psychological games can be divided in two rational games (one before and other one after the switch), and because rational games often degenerate into psychological games mathematical game theory conclusions can be useful in TA. (Vandra Attila, 2006) On the rotated model rational games are more visible phenomena.
However the existence/absence of covert transactions make the difference between real and false complementary transactions easier to recognize the difference between them focusing attention to existence/absence of parallel communication. The proposed model and focusing attention to parallel transactions will make easier the distinction between game and not game phenomena not only for patients but also for TA specialists.
Focusing to rational games is important in the starting points of games (rational games often degenerate to psychological games, or are good opportunities to play psychological games) and for studying possibilities to avoid or to quit psychological games. In moments, when one of the players does not want to play, it is crucial to understand the laws which guide rational games, because the attempt to quit the psychological game is a typical rational game: “Let’s play a psychological game!” “I do not want to!” “Give up, quitting playing!” “Give up the game!” are the typical covert parallel transactions of these moments, it is a typical competition between the person who wants to play, and the other, who wants to quit. Understanding laws of mathematical game theory will help those, who want to quit the game. Closing possibilities to hit the negative payoff is not enough for quitting games, if we do not take in account the laws of competitions.
Not all rational games end degenerating in psychological ones. The distinction between to win and to triumph is the most important contribution of mathematical game theory for avoiding degeneration in psychological games. The proposed model, and distinction between cooperative and competitive transactions will help to understand in an easier way how to avoid rational game degeneration.
Conclusions
In my opinion “crossed transactions” are no more than a graphical phenomenon. The proposed new classification (cooperative/non-cooperative as well as complementary/parallel transactions) is more anchored to reality, to the phenomenon that we have to focus to. The proposed rotated model makes it easier to understand the distinction between cooperation and competition, making a necessary bridge between the two game theories, the mathematical and psychological ones.
On the proposed model it is important to make a clear graphical distinction between cooperative (real complementary) transactions and competitive, parallel ones, representing cooperative (complementary) transactions by double sense arrows, and with two different arrows the parallel ones.
Because in TA studies is frequently used the term of “parallel” transactions instead of complementary ones, and this study uses the “parallel” transaction instead of competitive transaction to avoid misunderstandings, it is better to use the “competitive” transaction term, or the “parallel communication” one.
There is no contradiction between classical TA, and the proposed model and the new classification. The new classification can be used instead the classical one to understand game phenomena, or as an alternative, in this way this can be complementary to classical TA.
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