Actividad Disparo (Detonación)

6.3.1 Response inhibition & the process of objectification

It has been argued that while cognition and affect cannot actually be separated

(Storbeck & Clore, 2007), with emotion always dictating the way to reason, alternative conceptions can exist and in plenty of cases individuals do follow them (Frijda, 2010b). In general, it seems that there are two main processes responsible for the production of such reflective actions. On the one hand, it is the ability of human beings to control the emotional impulses through reflective reasoning and conscious deliberation (Damasio, 2012:332). On the other hand, it is the generation of a counter emotional impulse that is able to re-determine someone’s understanding and, consequently, re-define the course of action to be taken (Hume, 2003). The latter argument presupposes the engagement of the affective ego-driven mind in the process of reflection, which leads to the suggestion that along with any cognitive control strageties, a determinant

unconscious “approval” for the inhibition of the initial emotional response is also necessary (Velmans, 2014; also consistent with Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999).

More precisely, Velmans (2014) claims that a conscious “veto” to unconsciously

produced intentions (i.e. Libet, 1985) has its own unconscious antecedents (fig.17: red rhombus). Indeed, according to recent evidence, response inhibition, which includes the phenomenon of emotion regulation, is caused by unconscious processes (i.e. Hughes, Velmans & De Fockert, 2009). The only requirement for the unconscious mind to determine whether or not a “veto” should be put, is a conscious experience (Velmans, 2014) that can be genuinely novel and needs not to have been associated with specific responses in a particular context in the past (Hepler & Albarracin, 2013). In essence, the conscious mind re-broadcasts the act of changing along with the already generated response, which both, then, become inputs to a new cycle of unconscious evaluations

(Carruthers, 2009). In this way, the conscious experience gives a kind of feedback to its own unconscious triggering mechanisms (fig.17: black small arrow) and, thereby, influences, rather indirectly, subsequent thoughts and actions to be taken in response to a faced situation (Young, 2004).

Following the distinction between adaptive and maladaptive implicit emotion regulation (sec. 4.3), it is argued that the re-engaged processes of the unconscious ego- driven mind can produce two different outcomes. In the adaptive scenario, alternative conceptions can be produced though objectification (Nagel, 1989:4), a gradual process which the more it occurs the more the initial ego-attached perspectives tend to become ego-free (objectification: fig.17) and align with the objective reality of the case at hand. As a result, the individual can enter to a potentially perpetual process of reflection, in which he/she revaluates the evidence in the light of the previously produced conception(s) (Nagel, 1989:4) and, thereby, enhances the formulated internal truth by taking into consideration additional perspectives of the same case (Nietzsche in Anderson, 1998). At the same time, though, it is also possible that ego-threatened commitments impact on the appraisal process (Kumar, 2012; Rhine & Severance, 1970) and prevent the process of objectification and thus, reflection from taking place. That is, defensive motivation can inhibit the reflective processesfrom either engaging at all or, if engaged, overriding/suppressing (Carruthers, 2009; Stanovich, 2009) the initial ego-attached understanding and its ego-centric response.

6.3.2 The two ways towards an ego-driven defensive response

Following the arguments in the previous section, it is possible to conceive two distinct, yet similar in their fundamentals, ways according to which defensive responses can be manifested. On the one hand, when the reflective mind does not engage, individuals have no conscious realization of having conducted a defensive appraisal(s) and, thus, become victims of an illusion that wants the formulated perception to be the one and the only objective representation of the faced case (Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 1987:302). This notion of illusionary reality suggests a kind of deception that is based on the notion of cognitive duality and the dominance of the ego-driven intuitive mind

(Carruthers, 2007; Evans, 2010), as well as on the drawn distinction between ego- commitments, which are the ones that entail the necessary “defensive” motivational impulses (sec. 6.2.3), and other goals (Crown & Rosse, 1995). Specifically, given that someone’s ego-identity springs from the unconscious (Schwartz, 2001), leaders could be deceived by consciously realizing the goal of pursuing business improvement, while their cognition and behaviour is actually motivated (unconscious goal pursuit:Custers & Aarts, 2010) by the unconscious desire to preserve their ego “integrity” (Von Hippel & Trivers, 2011; i.e. Bargh, Raymond, Pryor & Strack, 1995). In such cases, then, the individual remains unware of the fact that his/her emotional experience is driven by unconscious defensive appraisals (Andersen, 1995), while at the same time the formulated conscious understanding is underlain by a feeling (see Duncan & Barret, 2007) of coherence and logic (see Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross, 2004).

On the other hand, there can be leaders who objectify their view (Nagel, 1989) and, thereby, manage to formulate a relatively more rational and, thus, non-defensive meaning of the case at hand (Lazarus, 1995b: double logic). The realization of such a meaning does not ensure any conscious awareness of the core processes behind the defensive appraisals, which, similar to the scenario described above, remain in the unconscious (Lazarus, 1991b). However, as long as a second contradictory meaning exists, leaders will not become victims of an illusionary objectivity (Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 1987:302), but will experience a conflict between a relatively subjective

(hot) and a more objective (cold) perception (Nagel, 1989:89) of the very same change issue (Fiol & O'Connor, 2002). In essence, the initial emotional response that serves exclusively the needs of the ego-commitments (defensive) conflicts with a counter emotional response (non-defensive) that serves the needs of the overall system (Berrios,

Totterdell & Kellett, 2014). That is, a conflictual distinction between ego-commitments and business goals (Crown & Rosse, 1995), which is conceptualized as a repulsion for what benefits and/or attraction for what harms the overall system (inspired by Castelfranchi, 2000:97), is made.

How the individual will respond when hot-defensive (first-order) and cold-rational

(second-order) appraisals collide, has rarely been discussed by appraisal theorists (de Sousa, 2013). However, researchers from other disciplines have been based on dual theories, and more precisely on the notion of conflict between the two systems (see Lieberman, et al. 2002; Stanovich, 2009), in order to explain human behaviour in various contexts. For instance, Moore & Loewenstein (2004) utilized the logic that wants the actions of an individual to depend on which system is in dominance (Martin, Sirakaya-Turn & Woodside, 2011:54), in orderto explain why someone’s self-interests

(automatic processing) take precedence over ethical responsibilities for the common benefit (thoughtful processing). Commencing from a similar conflictual logic, Wang & Murnighan (2011) go a step further to suggest that both greedy (aka exclusively ego- driven) and socially moral (aka towards gnosis-driven) behaviours emanate from the unconscious mind, with the former simply having “a split second edge” over the latter. Here it is argued that any conflict of this kind is underlain by the common phenomenon of contradictory motivational valences (fig.17: blue dashed lines in core affect), which occurs in emotional experiences with mixed feelings (see Shuman, et al. 2013) that serve opposing goals (Berrios, et al. 2014). For example, the leader can enter into an ambivalent state, in which the understanding of the need to procced with the transformational change is accompanied by a feeling that the loss of ego and status from such a change is too much to deal with (Piderit, 2000). Ultimately, despite any differences with the extreme case of illusionary objectivity (Pyszczynski, & Greenberg, 1987:302), the problem, as the current research considers it, is again the unconscious impact of ego-driven defensive mechanisms on the change process.

6.3.3 Defence in the reflective state: Rationalizing the discrepancy

Consistent with the notion of cognitive duality that characterizes the reflective state,

Madrigal (2008) has argued that in case of discrepant evidence (negative valence), the expected negative emotion (Roseman, et al. 1996; Roseman, 2013: motive inconsistency) is better predicted by appraisals (table 16: ego-driven appraisals) rather than attributions (table 16: gnosis-driven evaluations). In this work’s terms, the

inconsistency and its subsequent ego-threat enhance, through stressful emotionality, the hot ego-driven system (Mischel & Shoda, 1999:204), and, thereby, make its intuitive appraisals “potentially” incompatible with what the relatively objective and ego-free gnosis-driven system (sec. 6.1.3) would have appraised if it operated in isolation (conflict between hot and cold systems: see Fiol, & O'Connor, 2002). That is, the increased personal involvement doesn’t deteriorate attribution’s ability to predict emotion, but rather enhances intuitive appraisals which in their turn dominate the process and drive its outcome (Leon & Hernandez, 1998). In this sense, the response of the leader to the threatening evidence depends on how the mechanism of implicit emotion regulation (adaptively or maladeptively) will respond to the increased stress

(Arnold, 1970:170; Parrott, 1995) that is, nevertheless, necessary for change to occur

(i.e. Losch & Cacioppo, 1990 on attitude change).

In particular, when regulation is adaptive leaders face the increased stressful emotionality that enhanced the hot ego-driven system (Mischel & Shoda, 1999:204), without repressing the necessary emotional vigilance (Koole, & Jostmann, 2004)

regarding the need to change, and by balancing between ego-commitments and general environmental needs within which the emotional transaction occurs (Lazarus, 1990:6). In this way, the individual who might, or might not, formulate an initial intuitive ego- centric evaluation, can engage in the process of objectification (Nagel. 1989) and eventually realize the need to act (see Scherer, 2011 on rationality). On the other hand, maladaptive regulation drives leaders to avoid their negatively charged emotional experiences, by engaging in the process of motivational reasoning (see the impact of ego-commitments on the appraisal process in sec 4.2), in which egocentric evaluations

(Parrott, 1995) try to defend irrationally the honour of the attacked ego-commitments

(Westen, Blagov, Harenski, Kilts & Hamann, 2006).

Expressed in terms of appraisal, leaders who respond defensively during the reflective state utilize the regulatory mechanism of cognitive change (Gross & Barrett, 2011). Unlike selective attention (automatic state: sec. 5.1.3), defences that are based on this paradigm reinterpret a case’s meaning so that the ongoing emotional response can be regulated (spectrum in Ochsner & Gross, 2005) in favour of the attacked ego (Westen, et al. 2006). That is, leaders rationalize the discrepancy (sec. 3.2.2) by interpreting it as being in favour of their schemas-mental models (Fiske & Taylor, 1991:150). Indeed, schemas (schematic ego-driven processes: see Berzonsky in White & Jones, 1996) can

regulate leaders’ interpretation processes and thereby, given the subjective reality in which leaders operate (Chaffee, 1985: interpretive strategy), play a significant role in their interpretation of and the concomitant response to the compelling evidence (Daft & Weick, 1984). For instance, Barr & Huff (1997) demonstrated that an event, which objectively had impact for every organization in a specific industry, was interpreted differently and, therefore, didn’t lead to action in every case.