FACTORS AFFECTING SUBJECTS

This model of change – one offered in terms of a set of phases in a change effort and described over the last several postings – designates the next phase to be conflict amelioration.  This phase presupposes a conflict, but such a presupposition is not far-fetched.  This blog has contextualized change as a political activity.  Why?  Because it is, by its nature, an effort to get people to do what they would not do otherwise.  That is an exercise in power; ergo, it’s political and conflictual.

          Conflict is when two or more engaging parties have opposing or incongruent interests relevant to a concern.  This is true even if the general environment in which the conflict occurs is more of a public square.  If that general environment is more of an arena, that tends to intensify any specific conflict that develops within that space.

          If the reader ever worked in a hostile workplace, he/she would probably readily agree with such a general description.  At times, a general environment might even cause specific conflicts to occur or intensify.  Such environments are usually characterized by low levels of trust, comradery, and of people disliking each other.  In such a workplace, people are looking for disagreements.

          Of course, that describes the extreme.  Things usually don’t get that bad.  But to the degree they do, this is one of those landscape conditions of which a change agent need to consciously aware.  Here, the more basic question is:  how does a change agent deal with conflicts as they arise?  This blog addresses the various factors the agent should be prepared to think of and address as he/she encounters the conflicts a change effort will generate.

          The reader is referred to two previous postings for a review of some of the factors this blog has shared in the past and are relevant to this posting.  The titles for those postings are “The Structure and Processes of the Mind” (August 30, 2016) and “The Structure and Processes of the Mind (cont.)” (September 1, 2016).

So, what are these factors?  They are presented below in terms of categories beginning with contextual inheritance.

Contextual Inheritance:  Contextual inheritance is made up of two elements:  social-cultural inheritance and genetic inheritance.  Simply, social-cultural inheritance relates to the cultural tradition in which the individual has been socialized.  These factors can and usually do exert an array of social forces and will affect how the individual will act and even think and feel during a change process.

If the organization exists in an urban space, such as an urban school, it is likely to be a multicultural environment; naturally this will cause that space being affected by various cultural influences. This includes an array of norms, customs, cultural narratives (including ethnic, racial, religious, and national traditions), values, and other cultural legacies that relate to the challenges associated with the change the individual is confronting. 

On the other hand, genetic inheritance includes all those biologically determined forces influencing the individual’s decision-making processes.  For example – and very importantly, – genetically determined level of energy a person brings to life and its challenges will animate or depress the entire motivational outlook a person brings to a demand for change and political challenges that effort entails.[1]

One aspect of this predisposed element of genetics is what in one’s environment draws one’s attention.  According to Daniel Kahneman,[2] the brain is lazy.  That is, people are wired to avoid reflection and to just go along and be satisfied to think in intuitive modes.  When confronted with a challenge, an individual will more likely jump to some solution without thinking about the situation.  He calls this System 1 thinking. 

But obviously, there are times when the mind is engaged, and reflection occurs.  That is, a person delves into long-term memory; the type of memory that is composed of knowledge and beliefs that are retained for more than thirty seconds and is cognitively available to apply to new situations confronting a person.

Meaningful – transformative – change demands is System 2 thinking, the thinking that can be described as reflective.  There is something about certain kinds of situations that spurs the mind to mull over what is being perceived and brings to bear memorized information that can assist in meeting what the situation calls for.  It could be a problem, a delight, a curiosity, or an emotionally inducing image.  Some are genetically determined, and some are culturally determined.

Usually, in such cases, at least initially, there is a surprise element to it.  Apparently, System 2 needs prodding to get going.  Generally, it needs to be activated to be able to arrive at a satisfying result that “resolves” the situation in question, as when it solves a problem, understands a delight, quells a curiosity, or handles an emotion.  At least, those are the types of stimuli that System 2 naturally sets out to address. 

Decision-Making Domains:    The second set of factors is the mental domains that influence the individual in his/her decision-making.  Yes, this is part of the genetic inheritance, but the domains focus on the moment of decision-making.  To begin, there are three domains:  the ideal, the real, and the physiological.

The real consists of what is known or believed to be the actual elements of what exists.  This can be internally, within the individual, or environmentally, what is happening or exists in the world beyond the individual.  Again, the natural tendency is to establish an automatic (System 1) mental disposition in viewing that reality.

But the real is what stirs one to react to a stimulus.  The real domain is, to varying degrees, organized by the mental structures the individual holds.  For a person with a reasonable sense of rationality, that structure consists of theories or models, generalizations, concepts, and factual claims.  This listing ranges mental images from the most abstract to the least abstract. 

 Of course, what is real will deviate to varying degrees from how the mind “knows” the real, even in cases when the perception is stronger than merely a belief and is held as rock-solid knowledge.  One’s ability to “know” the truth is less than perfect; that means, one, ultimately, constructs what he/she considers to be true. 

The ideal is those aspects of one’s thinking that relates to what the individual believes should be.  Each person has a set of beliefs that makes claims on what that person holds to be good and what is bad according to ideals the individual espouses to oneself and/or to others.  Elements of the ideal do not dictate behavior – people do “sin” – but they can and often do influence behavior.  This is what makes up what this blog has called an espoused theory.

The third domain is the physiological.  This is that portion of one’s thoughts that correspond to the genetic inheritance one has and was described above.  One’s genetic reaction to a deprivation of food, for example, becomes cognitively recorded as hunger.  Hunger motivates one to eat.  This is a relatively simple example, but physiological mental elements can be less than readily perceived.[3]

Emotional Dispositions:  The third set of factors is the emotional dispositional filter.  This mental orientation is not a product of reality, but of feelings.  Such emotions as anger, love, loyalty, trust, humor, comradery, and the like will be significantly influential in the decisions one makes, including those that are political in nature.  At times reactions by-pass a person’s decision-making capacities and due to emotions, are purely reflexive.  Here the portion of the brain, the amygdala, plays the determining role.[4]

Of particular importance is whatever emotions are brought to the fore will lead to one of several dispositions.  These include a solo disposition, an allying disposition, and/or an antagonistic disposition.  The overall disposition a person feels in reacting to a confrontation, itself, can be based on one of these options or the possibility that the individual makes no choice in this regard.  That is, a disposition that is indifferent to these choices.  And, in addition, a person might react one way today and another way tomorrow – it’s hard to predict.

A political theory holds that when a party is in a weakened position, he/she/they will seek alliances.  If the party is in a strong/er position, he/she/they will try to isolate the participants in a conflict arena; i.e., discourage others from participating.  That is why those who represent the powerful demean or avoid alliances – as “outside agitators” – and those who represent the weaker parties, actively seek alliances.[5] 

Action Modes:  The fourth set of factors is the intended mode of action chosen by the individual.  This is the simplest of the factors; there are only two possibilities.  A person, when confronted with a change situation and its political nature, can either demand something politically and/or support someone or something politically.  These act as a factor in that given the limitation of the choice, it affects how the subject sees the situation.[6]

But if applied to emotional dispositions and other factors, this leads to four optional types as a party offers support or proposes demands.  They can be short or long-term interests and they be individual or collective self-interests.  As one combines these options, four possibilities are formed:  an individual acts in pursuing immediate self-interest, an individual acts in pursuing long-term self-interest, a collective acts in pursuing immediate self-interest, or a collective acts pursuing a long term self-interest. 

While there are shades among these options – an option can be intermediate self-interest – the general thinking, planning, and intent is to either be immediate – what is good for the party now – or have long term self-interest – what is good for the party, say, a year from now.  In this sense, action modes set parameters on available behavior options.

Interactive Tenor:  And the fifth and last factor affecting the decision of an individual – which will affect the consequences of whatever action is taken – is the interactive tenor one adopts.  Here, the choices come directly from transactional analysis and they are a “parent” interactive tenor, an “adult” interactive tenor, or a “child” interactive tenor.  Again, the factor is that there are psychological dispositions that result in which tenor the subject takes.[7]

The “parent” tenor is demanding and authoritative.  The “adult” is reasonable and calculating.  The “child” is feel-good seeking and immediate.  Each of these is more complex, but these short descriptions give one a good sense of what each tenor generates in the form of behavior.

Admittedly, these descriptions are oversimplified accounts of what goes on within a subject when faced with a change proposal or a change condition.  This model indicates what the dynamics are when these factors are in “action” in a “change episode.”  By reviewing them, adopting them as qualities, an agent can look for them and react in ways suitable to his/her purposes.  Also, one would benefit from understanding what consequences are likely when each of these factors are “doing their thing” in actual confrontations.

A word on the role subconscious or nonconscious mental “thoughts” have on one’s decision-making follows.  That is, that many, if not most, of these images are channeled within the mind that bypasses reflection.  They inform System 1 thinking and leads to the intuitive responses that thinking produces.  For example, one who sees a traffic accident might attribute blame more readily to intoxication if that person had an alcoholic parent.  As this blog describes it:  it’s a rumble in the jungle of the mind.

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[1] See Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave:  The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (New York, NY:  Penguin Press, 2017).  This source is an excellent and thorough review of the biological makeup of the brain and how its various elements affect behavior, especially in terms to what is considered good or bad behavior.

[2] Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast, and Slow, (New York, NY:  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2011).

[3] Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave:  The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.

[4] Ibid.

[5] E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People:  A Realist’s View of Democracy in America (New York:  Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960).

[6] A whole approach to the study of politics is known as political systems and the initial source of this thinking is David Easton, The Political System (New York, NY:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1953).  Easton identifies supports and demands as the two forms of inputs – emanating from the domestic population or from sources in other nations – which the political system responds to in forming policy.

[7] Thomas Anthony Harris, I’m Ok, You’re Ok (New York, NY:  Avon Books, 1967).