Stairs are an example of an affordance. They provide “an action possibility available to an agent within an environment.” The action possibility they provide is the ascent or descent of an incline in order to gain access to another floor or level: moving between the sidewalk and a porch, between the first floor and the second floor, between the ground floor and a basement, or in some airports, between the tarmac and a plane.
Stairs to nowhere, however—of which there are more head-scratching examples than you might imagine—suggest an action possibility, but they do not allow access to anything. That makes them a “false” affordance.
As William Graver, who came up with the concept, put it:
A false affordance is an apparent affordance that does not have any real function, meaning that the [agent] perceives nonexistent possibilities for action.
While in many cases you could climb a staircase to nowhere, you would not actually get anywhere by doing so.
In addition to false affordances, Graver also identified what he called “hidden” affordances:
A hidden affordance indicates that there are possibilities for action, but these are not perceived by the [agent].
Graver appears to be talking about alternative uses you are not aware of for objects in the environment. Recently I used pliers to extend my reach so I could lift a chain link over a hook in the ceiling. My first thought was to use a bamboo stick like the ones I stake plants with, but they’re out in the garage. The pliers are in the kitchen. That isn’t really among the tool’s intended uses, but I use pliers for a lot of things so it wasn’t much of a stretch. There may have been other objects I could have used, but any other possibilities for action stayed hidden. If I hadn’t thought of the pliers, that possibility for action would have been hidden, too. Instead, the pliers in this case actually became a “perceptible” affordance.
Perceptible refers to the actions you think an object affords, whether or not those actions were intended and whether or not they are, in fact, available. In A Tale of Two Kitties, I described my cats’ apparent perception that bookcases afford an opportunity for climbing, while my perception is that they are a place to store books, which is what I use them for. (A sturdy staircase to nowhere could afford you the possibility for cardiovascular exercise if you were so inclined and perceived it as such.)
Affordances can—and have been—more extensively categorized. “Real” affordances are another distinction that is sometimes made. But given that affordances are relationships rather than properties of objects in the environment, the categories of false, hidden, and perceptible are sufficient for our discussion.
Creating Transformational Change
If you want to create significant, sustained change—which requires ongoing and repetitive action—you will have a greater chance of success if you find effective affordances to assist you.
As I said in the last post on affordances, everything everywhere is in motion all the time, everything is a process, and everything is an interpretation. You are a process that’s already in progress, on a trajectory with a great deal of momentum behind it. The only way to create change is by modifying your trajectory. And the only way to modify your trajectory is by modifying your mental model, which consists primarily of your beliefs and your operating system. How do you make those modifications? Essentially, how do you change your brain? You change it via the ongoing and repetitive actions you take. That’s neuroplasticity in a nutshell.
The impetus for change is your dissatisfaction with the status quo: an outcome you’re getting that is not the outcome you want. Your desire for change is to a very great extent determined by the level or extent of your dissatisfaction with the outcome in question. Low or moderate dissatisfaction will not motivate you to make significant, sustained change.
What is the most likely source of the outcome you’re getting that you don’t want (or an outcome you want that you’re not getting)?
If you’re like most people, you probably fail to identify the source correctly, which then leads you to look for solutions in all the wrong places. You may believe that if you are not getting the outcomes you want, something is wrong or broken. So you attempt to figure out what is wrong and fix that.
But Nothing Is Wrong
That’s right: nothing is wrong. The source of most problems you’re attempting to solve can be found in your operating system, which is to say that your operating system is working just fine to get you precisely the outcomes you’re getting.
If you want to get a different outcome, you need to determine and undertake a course of action that differs from the autopilot actions you have been taking.
You will most likely gravitate toward actions (solutions) that appeal to your operating system/mental model, but that will only serve to maintain the status quo. It’s a variation on the theme of doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. You may experience some temporary relief of psychological tension just because you’re doing something, but that will almost invariably be followed by a return to the previous behavior once the tension is relieved.
Whatever action you do identify to change your current trajectory and get a different outcome, it won’t be as appealing as the actions you normally take. In fact, it will probably feel contrived, which is why I call such actions—or sets of actions—contrivances.
Contrivances fall into the category of hidden affordances. They afford you the opportunity to modify your mental model and your trajectory and get the outcomes you want. But before they can do that for you, you have to perceive them as such—like I did with the pliers—so they become perceptible.
Third post in a series on affordances. Still to come: the allure of false affordances and our resistance to contrivances.
