Fear: 3. The organizational entity

Social psychologist Kurt Lewin postulated that behaviour is a function of environment and person. Now, environment is all pervasive, external and internal as well. It surrounds the person, but also exists inside of them. That would mean that influences arising in the environment outside and within the individual psyche would affect their choices. 

Survival of the individual depends on the decision-making capability. And decisions often have to be made between alternatives that seem to be in opposition. Lewin, who was born in 1890 in Germany and had to flee to America to escape the holocaust, held that in any environment, opposing forces were constantly at work. The driving forces push towards action in a certain direction, and the restraining forces prevent the action from taking place.  

An organization functions in ways similar to an organism. It grows, develops and dies like any other living being. It has aspirations and fears that mould its actions. It also has an identity that grows out of the conscious and unconscious aspects of the organizational process. Driving and restraining forces arise in the conscious, everyday macro-world outside the organization, where interactions are with customers and outside agencies. 

 The organization’s internal environment constitutes the organizational unconscious, the customs, legends and best practices held sacrosanct, as well as interpersonal interactions between departments and people within the system. Besides this, individual member of the organization brings to the workplace the principles and values of their socialized upbringing. The micro-level driving and restraining variables add to the strength of the larger forces influencing organizational functioning. In the article “Sense of Fear” The Diva quotes Lewin to say that:

An issue is held in balance by the interaction of two opposing sets of forces - those seeking to promote change (driving forces) and those attempting to maintain the status quo (restraining forces.)

Industrialist, sociologist, economist and philosopher, Vilfredo Pareto, was born in Italy in 1848, about four decades before Lewin. He too witnessed political exile, which may have contributed to his dynamic equilibrium theory of society that change in any one unit necessarily precipitates change in other units as well as the total system. Also, change in the external environment diffuses into each micro-unit of the social organization.

Although better known today for the pareto charts and other statistical contributions to economics, Pareto also postulated a theory to explain “non-logical” human predispositions. He identified two distinctive “residues” in people - that is, their basic drives or innate impulses that motivate action. The sources of individual goal-seeking behaviour are their instincts and sentiments.

Deriving from the Machiavelli’s classification, the residues have been named:

• Foxes – “innovators” - the creative, entrepreneurial tendency to break new ground
• Lions – “consolidators” - the powerful, bureaucratic tendency to consolidate position

‘Foxes’ and ‘lions’ have characteristic patterns of behaviour, and their relationship is of reciprocal dependence. Essentially, they are opposing impulses, encouraging change, or resisting it. Any individual has the capacity of identifying with either the fox-type or the lion-type behaviours throughout their life span, or alternating between them at different times in its course.

The fox and lion characterizations are a useful concept in the formation and development of organizations. The “fox” is the entrepreneurial spirit that has the capacity to imagine and create outside the existing structure. In this beginning, people drawn to the venture are all in touch with their innovative fox-like qualities.

Zetterberg explains:

At startup, the founder spearheads movement, leads a small band of people ... Individuals ... join up with the desire to do better or accomplish more. There is little sense in maintaining formalities so though there is hard work and unusual hours, there is a climate of camaraderie, enthusiasm, task commitments and job satisfaction. At this early stage the future seems full of promise; creative excellence is both encouraged and needed for organizational design – and here the fox psyche thrives. 

However, their “compulsive, effervescent” natures makes foxes poor organizers, because they are always go-getters. New ideas and environments attract them, and the need for integrity and patience to manage the growing pains of the system is discomforting. Beneath their innovativeness is the inherent fear of settling down and submitting to rules and regulations.

The innovators make novel things and interpretations, put their money in stocks, sell fall out shelters, start new ventures, and negotiate deals.

For the organizational system’s structure to take shape, a different character type is needed. The lion has this necessary ability to lead and manage groups. Zetterberg explains that the lion character prefers:

… to hang on to what he has. In today’s society, the consolidators want old-age pensions, life insurance, fallout shelters, job security, tough divorce laws, closed shops; they put their money in savings banks or government bonds, and they are quick to call the police. 

As the number of lions taking up organizational membership increases to about 20 percent of the total strength, the structure building around them becomes visible.

The growing organisation requires structures and procedures to provide it with a stable body, to keep the energy and dynamism from dissipating. Once the lions put in appearance, the system begins to take concrete shape and become operationally viable.

Although foxes may still have leadership, the lions are indispensable to for preservation of space and increasing structure. Further increases in the lion complement changes the organizational size, focus and general attitudes to authority in business. Lions believe in control, and their fears are of disorder and spatial displacement. 

Extreme fox-like behaviour is disruptive, causing chaos that destabilizes the system and breaks it apart.  Extreme lion-like behaviour means hierarchical control, and rigid adherence to past practices/traditions that resist change, strangulating innovations. Foxes and lions are wary of one another’s influences.  The increasing numbers of one raises the awareness of vulnerability in the other.

These two forces set up the cycle of change. As the creative energies reach a peak, the organization has to stabilize or else crumble to excessive change. The lions work to hold the system together and give it a proper shape. In the process of the lion group achieving prominence, the cycle begins a downward turn to attenuate the impact of the foxes.

The lion complement reaching about 80 percent forces out the foxes. They leave for new ventures in new pastures, while the organizational ethos assumes a traditional, bureaucratic hierarchy. When consolidation attains maximum effectiveness, the system needs new life. The cycle of change then turns again, towards an exciting new era of foxes. Foxes and lions clearly have little in common, and their interfaces are fraught with conflict, struggle for power and control over resources.

 But each has an organizational role that is crucial:  problem solving by the foxes, and systemic stability by the lions. In theory, the 80:20-ratio triggers change over the lifetime, shifting between the equally important drives of creativity and consolidation. Using Lewin terms, the foxes are the driving forces while the lions are restraining forces. Their dynamic equilibrium determines the health of the organization and its longevity.

Obviously they each require the appropriate space and ambience to flourish or else become inimical to the other. It is necessary to understand the power of these drives/forces and utilize them optimally to initiate and manage change in one’s own life and that of the organization. An interdependent balance gives direction and momentum to action, ensuring survival of the fittest.

References for this post:

1. “Sense of Fear” twmacademy.com The Diva column. TWM Academy. Powered by The Working Manager Ltd. 
2. Zetterberg, Hans L. “Elites: Vilfredo Pareto” European Proponents of Sociology Prior To World War I. Chapter 3 zetterberg.org. Stockholm, Sweden 1993. 

Next…healthcare

Fear: 2. Individual response patterns

Fear is the emotional response to person, place or thing perceived as threatening the integrity of the organism.  Fear is the  “early warning system” alerting the organism to imminent danger. Feelings of personal vulnerability switch on instinctive response patterns.

No contagious disease spreads as fast as fear does into a group. As seen amongst many animal groups in the wild, the high arousal of fear results in flight en mass. Migratory herds used to travelling long distances in search of water and grazing pastures generally stampede at the first hint of danger from predators, depending on their speed and agility to outpace or evade the threat. Responses adopted over generations of existence are activated, as they literally run for their lives. When cornered however, they can turn on the aggression, using horns and hooves to fight their way out or protect their young.

Predators are not immune to fear, but respond differently to its stimulus, generally with focused aggression.  Their running capacities are more limited; they also are incapable of taking on the thundering hooves of stampeding herds. Hence they strategize, deliberately spooking the herds into flight so that the very young, the very old or disabled that invariably fall behind are separated from the rest, and attacked.

Fear thus generally stimulates two types of reactive behaviour – flight or fight. Human beings have also inherited these mechanisms of self-preservation. The emotional mind is tuned to understanding whole body movements, gestures and facial expressions. Time is not lost in questioning motives or assessing alternatives, as individuals or in groups. As in other animals, the responses made are instinctive, animalistic behaviour inherited over ages of species learning. There is an unquestioned following of what others are doing, whether it is running away with the crowd or indulging in mob violence.

Fear often influences our choices, activating the unthinking routes of reactive behaviour whereby unprocessed ‘gut feelings’ are acted upon. The instinctive behaviour can, however, be overridden by conscious critical thought. The biological difference that put human beings at the top of the evolutionary tree is the mental capacity of information processing. Emotions and feelings generated unconsciously may be examined, analyzed and evaluated against the present circumstances. The awareness of duty and training, for example, enables fire fighters to rush into burning buildings despite the obvious dangers to the self.

Organized societies have drastically changed the surrounding environments. Human beings are no longer at the mercy of natural forces and predators of the wild as in the remote past. With proliferations of building structures causing natural forests to shrink, survival now is predominantly psychological in the city concrete jungles. Threats are perceived in terms of interpersonal relationships, financial stability and target achievements at work.

Technological advancements have far outpaced human evolution. Unpredictable global change tests their adaptability. Stress is on the rise, with information overload, time pressures and ultimately, poor decision-making. Fear occupies the mind – fear of spaces, fear of public speaking, fear of failure, fear of intimacy, fear of losing out, so on and so forth to fear of fear itself. Eventually, the paralyzing effects of unprocessed fear leads to unthinking behaviour, reactive, instinctive and animalistic. 

Fear in extreme becomes a phobia, whereby the individual is reduced to a blue funk at sight or sound of the stressor. This conditioned response was seen in the classic experiments with “Little Albert”, an infant about eight months old:

Watson wanted to determine if a loud sound would cause a fear response in the child.  He was placed in a room and an experimenter stood behind him and made a loud noise by striking a hammer on a steel bar.  The first time this was done, Albert startled and raised his hands up.  The second time, he began to tremble, and on the third time he was crying and having a fit. 

A couple of months later, psychologist JB Watson experimented with conditioning an emotional response in the child:

He was first presented with a white rat.  When he reached out to touch it, the bar was struck.  The child fell forward, but did not cry.  He reached for the animal again, and the noise was made a second time.  This time little Albert cried.   One week later, he was presented with the rat again.  This time he did not reach for it immediately.  Instead, the rat was placed closer to him.  Then he slowly reached for it, but snatched his hand away before making contact with it.  The rat was presented again and Albert cried at the sight of the rat alone.

Eventually the child’s fearful response extended to all things furry!

Fear is a survival tool that is meant to alert the organism to novel or unexpected influences. However, with emotional conditioning even normally reasonable individuals may become overwhelmed, and triggered by a stressor, behave like deer caught in the headlights. The initial unpleasant experience that caused the conditioning may be forgotten, yet the irrational behavioural responses persist.

To deal with the fear, the source of the sense of vulnerability needs to be realized to enable the person to desensitize to its implications. Unprocessed fears push the making of instinctive choices that tend to be regretted later. The use of reason enables the individual to put feelings and emotions in perspective, and appropriately utilize the energies generated. Else, in the words of Louis E Boone:

The saddest summary of life contains 3 descriptions – could have, might have, should have…

References for this post:

1. Sengupta Biswas, Jharna “Group Contagion” twmacademy.com TWM Academy. Powered by The Working Manager Ltd. 
2. “Sense of Fear” twmacademy.com The Diva column. TWM Academy. Powered by The Working Manager Ltd. 
3. “Little Albert” sbc.

Next...organizational

Fear: 1. ‘Alert’ and ‘ paralyse’

Albeit fanciful, the success of horror films centres on generating terror in viewers. Cine-goers appreciate the vicarious thrill of being in dangerous situations, being terrorized and helpless to resist. The makers of “Phoonk2” a macabre film that released in India recently, claimed nobody could sit through a screening alone and unafraid. A reward was thus offered to anybody able to challenge the claim.

The catch: throughout the viewing at a large-screen theatre, the contestants would be hooked up to EEG machines to monitor changes of their heart rate. The differences in the readings obtained before and after viewing the film would detect fear being generated by the movie content. They would, in other words, have to remain entirely unmoved.  As it happened, those who signed up to prove their valour couldn’t control their heart rates and hence, the reward money remained unclaimed! 

I am reminded of the reliability of lie detector tests. The test administrators pick up changes from resting conditions as signs of subjective guilt. The tests however, are not infallible because they might detect signs of stress with the questioning rather than spot the specific lies they are supposed to. The same must be said about the filmmaker’s test; what it measures is not necessarily abject fear.

Heart rate is just one among the many signs. Besides all cardiac changes are not attributable to that fear syndrome, they could be from other conditions, especially stress of some kind. In normal individuals, the initial change from the resting condition is due to a general arousal in the system. The individual becomes alert; their faculties sharpened to focus on the incoming stimuli. In the theatre showing the horror movie, surround-sound acoustics and larger-than-life visuals would bombard the viewer’s senses – eyes and ears in particular. The physiological change recorded would then be an autonomic response alerting the system to the dramatic sensory input.

Certainly, people caught in threatening situations feel fear that raises their heart rates, along with other noticeable physiological responses like clammy hands, dry mouth, hoarse throat, facial expressions, staring eyes, and so on. Abject fear also causes emotional paralysis and inability to move, like a rabbit on the highway. The several signs measured together would have proved the point conclusively and should indeed have been included in the test.

In every day vocabulary, the word ‘fear’ is connoted to mean something bad, dangerous and threatening. Similarly, ‘stress’, readily associated with negativity and debilitating conditions, invokes images of things that catch people by the throat and need to be avoided. Fact is the words ‘stress’ and ‘fear’, are simply denotative, and can have both positive and negative implications. 

For example, the word ‘stress’ also means ‘to emphasize’ which can be good. To initiate awareness, any incoming sensory stimulus creates a degree of stress. The organism is alerted, to focus attention on new influences. This is eustress, good stress, or to distinguish from the other, “fear 2”. The concomitant physiological changes serve to collect and process data, and eventually to motivate action. When the incoming stimulus is positive, the degree of arousal stays low, serving to sharpen the performance faculties.

Molly Gordon explains the value of fear 2:

• Clarity and purpose
• Stepping out of comfort zone
• Capacity to respond to danger
• Moving forward powerfully

The alerting reaction enables adaptability. Normally, the physical senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, are engaged in monitoring the environment. Any novel stimulus, like an unusual sound heard, or flash seen triggers a general ‘alarm’ or systemic arousal. Immediately other physical and mental resources pitch to locate the source of the stimulus, and determine its importance, implications for individual wellbeing and possible courses of action. 

The choice and motivation to deal with the stimulus is entirely personal. In Zen meditation, for example, the exponent becomes one with the universe. Although every external change evokes an internal awareness, the reaction to it may be controlled. In Yogic meditation, the exponent withdraws attention altogether from the external surroundings, and remains unreceptive and unresponsive to the incoming stimuli.

A stimulus is negative when the possible changes in status quo it will cause are perceived harmful. The system gears up to combat the inputs and resist its influence. If it should succeed, the threat has been confronted and dealt with, and equilibrium returns. When the individual ability to cope is in doubt, the degree of arousal becomes excessive leading to distress, bad stress that can be recorded on several physiological channels, or as some postulate the difference, “fear 1”.

Gordon outlines some negative effects of fear 1:

• Panic and confusion
• Inability to move
• Magnified danger and vulnerability
• Emotional outpourings

The bad stress reaction feeds on itself to become unmanageable. The organism proceeds to exhaustion and displays obvious signs of losing equilibrium. To a large extent, the distress is psychological. Neurobiologist Joseph LeDoux points out that the emotional mind plays a large role in the response to fear. The pathway of neural processing is different in eustress and distress. In the latter, the cascading effect of the stimulus-response loop turns off the higher brain centres. The individual is unable to think clearly, becomes increasingly stereotypical and ineffective in action.

These are the clear signs of terror the genre of scary movies ‘kill’ for. To prove the point about his horror movie, the filmmaker needed to include the other physiological parameters in the test. But perhaps that was not quite the intent. The blanket attribution made to “fear” in every change of heart rate perceived in the test was useful to save the prize money. It also advertised the film, and claimed for it a rating higher than that its content might actually deserve.

References for this post:

1. Gordon Molly “Dealing With Fear and Anxiety: Principle 3 - Discern Two Types of Fear” mollygordon.com HOW TO OVERCOME FEARS AND ANXIETY. Shaboom Inc. 2003-2006 
2. “Sense of Fear” twmacademy.com The Diva Column. TWM Academy. Powered by The Working Manager Ltd. 
3. Sengupta Biswas, Jharna “Stress in modern times” twmacademy.com TWM Academy. Powered by The Working Manager Ltd. 
4. “Types of stress – Some Good Some Bad” stressfocus.com Stressfocus 2010. 

Next…response patterns

Ageing: 7. References

References for Ageing: posts 1-6:

1. “Age influences people's expectations of future happiness”. in.news.yahoo.com. September 12, 2008.
2. Argyris, Chris. “Maturity/Immaturity Theory”. accel-team.com. Human Relations Contributors. Accel Team Development. 2006.
3. Empfield, Dan. “Aging and Performance”. slowtwitch.com. Slowtwitch.com Coach’s corner. CA, USA. 7.23.03.
   
4. “Exercise Reverses Aging In Human Skeletal Muscle”. sciencedaily.com. Science News. Science Daily. Science Daily LLC. May 23, 2007.
5. Hoppmann, Cristiane A, et al. “Linking Possible Selves and Behavior: Do Domain-Specific Hopes and Fears Translate Into Daily Activities in Very Old Age?” Pp 42-49. Volume 65B, Issue 1. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. Life Sciences & Medicine. Oxford Journals. Published by Oxford University Press. 2006.
6. Pushkar, Dolores, et al. “Testing Continuity and Activity Variables as Predictors of Positive and Negative Affect in Retirement”. Pp 104-111. Volume 62, Issue 2. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. Life Sciences & Medicine. Oxford Journals. Published by Oxford University Press. 2009.

Ageing: 6. Flip side of old

In growing older, continuity with past performance standards, even one’s own, is difficult to keep up. In futile attempts to be just as before, older age groups feel compelled to chase the chimera of youth.

The transition to middle adulthood actually begins in the early to mid-forties. The change in era, beginning around age 40 through 65, culminates in ‘senior citizenship’ of their organization, community and society. Elders need to take stock of their self as transitioning in time, and change habits and perspectives in synchrony with their life change.

Studies on ageing have indicated some important correlations:

• Changes in the individual’s activities link to predictable changes in affect. As the number of activities and ability decrease, the negative affect increases. Positive affect becomes higher with increase in activity frequency, ability, ease and future intentions.
• The older the age group, the higher the expectation of happiness and lower the threshold of negative affect and despair with feared outcomes.
• Engaging in “hope-related activities” generates increased positive affect and a higher probability of survival measured over 10-year period.

People tend to overlook the fact that biochemical and metabolic changes occur in the body approaching older age that disprove claims of continuing to be “the same person” over time. With this mindset, habits acquired over years resist change.

Their persisting with past practices in life and work does not repeat earlier successes. Hence, thwarted expectations and ineffective adaptability fuel cycles of negativity and de-motivation. The frustration anger associated with elders is the outcome of the inability to anticipate the onset of ageing, or personally come to terms with its effects.

In issues of health for example, the results of years of neglect begin to show. The body loses its elasticity and energy production is impaired with the decline in the activity of body’s energy-producing “powerhouse”, the cellular mitochondria.

A study conducted to discover the effects of exercise in advancing age obtained dramatic results.

…exercise [in the elderly] resulted in a remarkable reversal of the genetic fingerprint back to levels similar to those seen in the younger adults.

Science Daily reported conclusions by Melov and Tarnopolsky, the scientists who conducted the study at the McMaster University Medical Center in Hamilton, Canada, that exercise (or the lack of it) directly influences the aging process:

The fact that their 'genetic fingerprints' so dramatically reversed course gives credence to the value of exercise, not only as a means of improving health, but of reversing the aging process itself, which is an additional incentive to exercise as you get older.

Yet surveys, conducted on national scale in the US indicate that only about one-third of the elderly exercise regularly. This is less than any other age group, although the benefits of exercise up the age ladder are clearly immense.

Ageing involves passage from one stage of life into another. There is a new reality to adapt to on physical, mental and emotional planes. As in the other developmental phases of the lifespan, the transition can be turbulent. From the developmental viewpoint however, the middle-adult years are the times for consolidation of interests, goals and commitments.

Author Empfield writes about the positive side to ageing, from the viewpoint of a professional sportsperson:

My endurance capacity hasn't markedly fallen off. I've got more patience and wisdom to leverage across training and racing. Most of all, I've got an accumulation of technical and motor expertise that I didn't have as a younger man.

In the t20 cricket league, IPL 3 currently underway in India, for example, players of the old school, regarded as legends of the game, show the way to the youngsters struggling to find their feet in international company. Within the teams that have clicked together, age is not perceived as a barrier across different cultures, origins and nationalities.

The acceptance of this new stage and structure of life enables a new level of stability. Ageing should lead to active changes in roles, like moving from being solely specialist to being a wider-spanned generalist. The older age groups can become strong, motivational forces guiding and nurturing the development of younger, less experienced co-workers, conceptualizing and designing efficient policy, providing thought leadership, i.e., giving direction and sagacious counsel to channelize group efforts.

During this later period in lifespan, qualities such as wisdom, breadth of perspective, judiciousness and compassion also emerge. These are the strengths of age, and the ingredients of effective, fulfilling mentorship that ageing individuals need to prepare for.

Giving back to society the nurturance they may (or even may not) have received in earlier years win them a place in the future as respected role models for the next generation of adults. For the process of self-renewal in the new avatar to be effective, there is need to widen horizon and think outside the box. Expending creative energy in new directions generates wellbeing not only for themselves, but also for the society at large.

Maturity in ageing is to discover the self in others. The change includes taking on greater responsibility for work processes. The conceptual expertise that evolves from experience and knowledge now focuses on mentoring collective performance. The continuity sought in standards is forged across generations, like a bridge that connects the past and the future.

This requires as much objective planning and dedication as might any organizational venture, with implementations in a slow, cautious, and graded fashion. In the critical aspects of ageing performance, self-directed motivation is key. The step-by-step approach to attaining new goal sets would include at each point, the systematic discarding of old, dysfunctional habits or ways of behaving, along with learning and inculcating more effective replacements.

Next…references

Ageing: 5. The established standards

Individuals unite to form groups or organizations with the purpose of winning the fight for survival. In metropolitan societies of the world today, survival is in psychological or economic sense rather than in plain physical terms.

In the process of organizational living, people develop “locus of control” – that is, assumptions about responsibility for events. A person, who has an internal locus of control, operates on the premise that they are personally able to maximize good outcomes and to minimize the bad. Individuals exhibit an external locus of control with the belief that they are at the mercy of fate, authority and other uncontrollable outside forces.

These attributions of responsibility provide momentum to people’s life motivations. The infusion of creative energy enables the achievement of goals generally perceived impossible. Equally, the impetus may fall by the wayside with doubts about individual competencies.

During the last century, dramatic improvements in life expectancy have been achieved in many countries around the world. On the average, longevity has moved from the 40s to the 60s or more. Reasons for the phenomenon, referred to by experts as the ‘age wave’, is improvements in healthcare and living standards.

However, although people are having longer life spans, they are less likely to be constructively involved in work during the later years. In addition, the habits that people tend to carry with them into older age - where their cumulative impact becomes noticeable - have been classified as ‘unhealthy’.

Thus, in middle and late adulthood, people tend to become increasingly unproductive as well as illness-prone (increased risk of heart disease, cancer, high blood pressure, depression, bone fractures, diabetes, arthritis, unfitness, etc). Slowly but surely, people appear to give up on life with advancing age.

Many if not most people associate the word ‘old’ with ‘useless’. Having reached a particular age milestone, there is a social expectation of redundancy that leave few options open. Some attempt to extend the visual perceptions of ‘youth’ through surgery and hormone replacement therapies; the majority succumbs to the collective expectation.

The negative mindset on ageing performance is active in standards 'falling' across generations. Within organizations, measures are set against established standards. The ageing individual’s present performance may be of quality by itself, but when compared to these ‘standards’ they may appear to be coming up short.

For people who have grown within the system, the standard references frequently are their own records set in younger days. The lack of appropriate generational role models for the ageing and the unavailability of precedence also factor in the decreasing performance recorded.

It is true that athletes and other sportspersons, for example, show comparatively diminishing speed, ability to recuperate and physiological responses to training with age. That said, it is also true that patience, wisdom and technical expertise that are more crystallized with age, rarely show up in the tests.

Cross-sectional comparisons or even evaluations against one’s own earlier work may actually de-motivate present performance. The individual tends to lose confidence on being compared, believing that despite their unstinted efforts, their present outputs will never be rated good enough.

Some researchers challenge test inferences that differences recorded between age groups are solely the result of ageing. Younger subjects may score higher than middle-aged subjects not because they are more intelligent, but because of such variables as more formal education, better nutrition and greater childhood exposure to television and new technology.

Besides, younger people have more relevant experience of standardized test taking. The higher scores they obtain may then represent generational or cohort effects as opposed to specific effects of ageing. Thus, organizational standards that depend on perceptions of youth and standardized learning, fail to appreciate increased maturity.

Next…flip side

Ageing: 4. Nurture and nature in behaviour

A person’s individuality or their degree of maturity does not develop in isolation or solely because of genetic inheritances. They also require the appropriate environment (system, community, family, organization or group) with which to identify and set standards of behaviour. The nature versus nurture debate on the determinants of behaviour is of course, as yet unresolved.

People’s behaviours are regulated by certain implicit theories of action created and carried in mind. Individual propensities may in fact be modified or altered in the presence of others in the life space, and because of beliefs and attitudes formed in the process of growing up.

The social reinforcements may be positive, that is, pleasure-giving like the ‘carrot’. Or negative that, like the ‘stick’, is fear instilling. One acquires knowledge by observing or entering the social drama, recognizing the rules, and the roles others play; playing by rules and enacting roles others can recognize.

Although theory and action are related, their interrelationship is by no means direct each time. Two differing theories may contribute to a particular action occurring in a particular situation:

• First, the theory-in-use that comprises tacit structures governing actual behaviour. They contain assumptions about self, others and environment built through experience.
• Second, the espoused theory providing the justification of action through the words we use to convey what we do, or what we would like others to think we do.

In fact, there is generally a split between theory (what people say) and activity (what they do) in response to the pressures of social norms.

In the 1980s, Costa and McCrae created the Big Five model of personality traits, also known simply as the acronym OCEAN, which could explain the dynamic interplay. From effects identified in several behavioural actions, the “big five” are:

1. Openness to experience (or openness to ideas or culture): People who score high on this factor tend to be curious, speculative, imaginative and sometimes unrealistic. People who score low on this factor tend down-to-earth, practical and sometimes resistant to change.

2. Conscientiousness: People who score high on this factor are usually structure orientated: disciplined, single tasking and conventionally productive. People who score low on this factor may be more flexible, inventive, and comfortable with multitasking.

3. Extraversion: People who score high on this factor are gregarious, materialistic, and practical; take initiative in social action and in excitement seeking. People who score low on this factor prefer individual work, may be perceived as distant, unapproachable, even eccentric.

4. Agreeableness: Those who score high on this factor are usually people-orientated, cooperative, submissive, and concerned with the well being of others. People who score low on this factor can be challenging, competitive, and also argumentative.

5. Neuroticism (or inversely emotional stability): People who score high on this factor are alert, but tend to think too much of impending danger, with feelings of insecurity and unresolved conflicts, proneness to anxiety, worry, stress, strain and guilt. People who score low on this factor usually think rationally but appear so calm and relaxed as to be perceived as lazy and unserious.

Studies indicate that these dispositional tendencies may significantly change in different circumstances, and thus influence behaviour. They may motivate improving work through learning, affect performance or dominance in social groups, and even contribute to the degree of accident proneness.

The enduring characteristic of personality is not that people behave in the same way in every situation, but that there is a degree of consistency in their approach to situations and contexts.

Next…standards