Cognitive requirements of competing neuro-behavioral decision systems: some implications of temporal horizon for managerial behavior in organizations.

Gordon R Foxall

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00184

Abstract

Interpretation of managerial activity in terms of neuroscience is typically concerned with extreme behaviors such as corporate fraud or reckless investment (Peterson, 2007; Wargo et al., 2010a). This paper is concerned to map out the neurophysiological and cognitive mechanisms at work across the spectrum of managerial behaviors encountered in more day-to-day contexts. It proposes that the competing neuro-behavioral decisions systems (CNBDS) hypothesis (Bickel et al., 2012b) captures well the range of managerial behaviors that can be characterized as hyper- or hypo-activity in either the limbically-based impulsive system or the frontal-cortically based executive system with the corresponding level of activity encountered in the alternative brain region. This pattern of neurophysiological responding also features in the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (Damasio, 1994) and in Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST; Gray and McNaughton, 2000; McNaughton and Corr, 2004), which usefully extend the thesis, for example in the direction of personality. In discussing these theories, the paper has three purposes: to clarify the role of cognitive explanation in neuro-behavioral decision theory, to propose picoeconomics (Ainslie, 1992) as the cognitive component of competing neuro-behavioral decision systems theory and to suggest solutions to the problems of imbalanced neurophysiological activity in managerial behavior. The first is accomplished through discussion of the role of picoeconomics in neuro-behavioral decision theory; the second, by consideration of adaptive-innovative cognitive styles (Kirton, 2003) in the construction of managerial teams, a theme that can now be investigated by a dedicated research program that incorporates psychometric analysis of personality types and cognitive styles involved in managerial decision-making and the underlying neurophysiological bases of such decision-making.

Highlights

Organizational dysfunction has numerous outcomes, from the lack of an appropriate fit between the organization and its environment, through the inappropriate composition of taskbased management teams, to the incompatible predispositions and behavioral styles of individual managers
This paper is concerned to map out the neurophysiological and cognitive mechanisms at work across the spectrum of managerial behaviors encountered in more day-to-day contexts. It proposes that the competing neuro-behavioral decisions systems (CNBDS) hypothesis (Bickel et al, 2012b) captures well the range of managerial behaviors that can be characterized as hyper- or hypo-activity in either the limbically-based impulsive system or the frontal-cortically based executive system with the corresponding level of activity encountered in the alternative brain region
The first is conceptual: such accounts conflate cognitive processes with neurophysiological events; the second relates to practical management: such accounts offer little by way of solution to the personal and organizational problems that result from behavior that is motivated by excess influence of either managers’ impulsive systems or their executive systems

Summary

HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE

Cognitive requirements of competing neuro-behavioral decision systems: some implications of temporal horizon for managerial behavior in organizations. It proposes that the competing neuro-behavioral decisions systems (CNBDS) hypothesis (Bickel et al, 2012b) captures well the range of managerial behaviors that can be characterized as hyper- or hypo-activity in either the limbically-based impulsive system or the frontal-cortically based executive system with the corresponding level of activity encountered in the alternative brain region This pattern of neurophysiological responding features in the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (Damasio, 1994) and in Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST; Gray and McNaughton, 2000; McNaughton and Corr, 2004), which usefully extend the thesis, for example in the direction of personality.

INTRODUCTION

COMPETING DECISION SYSTEMS

THE COGNITIVE DIMENSION