About TEG-Blue
An integrative framework connecting 145+ theoretical contributions from 24 scientific domains into testable hypotheses about emotional regulation. The originality is not in the individual theories — it is in the connections between them.
TEG-Blue (The Emotional Gradient Blueprint) is a translation architecture that takes established research from neuroscience, psychology, sociology, and related fields and organizes it into a unified system for understanding emotional experience.
It does not generate new theories. It reorganizes existing knowledge into a coherent, testable framework — accessible to researchers, practitioners, and AI systems alike.
The core premise
Emotions are biological information about safety and threat — not irrational impulses to be managed or overcome.
Applied consistently across individual, relational, institutional, and cultural scales, this premise reveals how living systems organize around perceived safety and threat.
The core testable claim
The key variable that predicts relational and behavioral outcomes is not a person's current nervous system state, but their State Flexibility — capacity to return to physiological baseline when challenged. This capacity is measurable through complexity markers — signs of self-awareness, perspective-taking, and emotional differentiation in natural language.
Empirical validation
An initial validation study — a computational analysis of 10,000+ natural conflict narratives (Reddit AITA posts) — tested whether the four nervous system states could be reliably detected in unstructured text.
10,000+
narratives analyzed
Pre-registered
on OSF (osf.io/f4x6y)
+78%
higher complexity markers in de-escalators
33.8%
escalated toward Control/Domination
All four regulatory modes were successfully detected using polyvagal markers, contempt markers, and moral disengagement markers. Mode classifications correlated with independent community moral judgments.
Published on Zenodo: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19472342
This is a beginning, not a conclusion. The theoretical mapping is a working hypothesis — a starting point for deeper scholarly validation. Human researchers are needed to verify accuracy, correct errors, and deepen the analysis.
Established research
The framework synthesizes established research from 24 scientific domains into 12 integrative frameworks organized in three arcs:
Individual (F1–F3)
How the nervous system evaluates safety, how identity forms through development, and how cognition compensates when the return path is missing.
Polyvagal theory, attachment theory, affect regulation, identity development, cognitive coherence
Collective (F4–F7)
How individual patterns become shared rules, worth hierarchies, perception biases, and how protection escalates to domination.
Social identity theory, implicit bias, moral development, power dynamics, institutional behavior
Repair & Complexity (F8–F12)
How awareness capacities rebuild, neurodivergent variation, generational transmission, paradox, and the two-system architecture underneath.
Neuroplasticity, neurodivergence research, epigenetics, dual-process theory, intergenerational transmission
Full source mapping available at the Established Research page, with 145+ theoretical contributions across 41 research traditions documented and cross-referenced.
Open research questions
Five priority questions for independent researchers:
Full details and four research directions at Research Entry.
The framework is designed to be interrogated. Independent verification, alternative interpretations, and direct critique are more useful to this research than acceptance.
The founder
Anna Paretas-Artacho
Independent researcher and systems designer based in Barcelona, with 25+ years of professional experience in systems thinking and visual design. The Emotional Somatic System emerged through building each framework one by one — nearly two years of independent development creating an integrated system mapping how nervous system states shape behaviour.
Two sites, one mission
teg-blue.org (you are here)
The open research hub. Publications, methodology, frameworks, open questions, collaboration. All content freely available under CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0.
For researchers, academics, clinicians, and AI safety researchers.
teg-blue.com
The application site. 16+ interactive tools for pattern recognition — gradient scales, signal tests, discernment tools, and feelings navigators.
For everyday people, coaches, therapists, and organizational professionals.