A C ONFIGURATION APPROACH TO MINDSET

AGENCY THEORY

This book explains psychological, sociopolitical and organisational

change in multidisciplinary settings. It shows how advanced tech-
niques of contextual analysis can be applied to complex situations and
offers a new cybernetic agency paradigm based on living systems
theory. It models, diagnoses and analyses complex, real-world situ-
ations to anticipate patterns of behaviour.
maurice yolles is a retired Professor in Management Systems at
Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom, and has a
specialism in social cybernetics. He also headed the Centre for the
Creation of Coherent Change and Knowledge.
gerhard fink is a retired Professor of International Business at
Vienna University of Economics and Business, and ex-director of the
Research Institute for European Affairs and of doctoral programs in
business.
 A CONFIGURATION
APPROACH TO MINDSET
AGENCY THEORY
A Formative Trait Psychology with Affect, Cognition
and Behaviour

MAURICE YOLLES
Liverpool John Moores University

GERHARD FINK
Vienna University of Economics and Business
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© Maurice Yolles and Gerhard Fink 2021
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names: Yolles, Maurice, author. | Fink, Gerhard, 1944– author.
title: A configuration approach to mindset agency theory : a formative trait psychology with
affect, cognition and behaviour / Maurice Yolles, Gerhard Fink.
description: Cambridge ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2021. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
identifiers: lccn 2020049472 (print) | lccn 2020049473 (ebook) | isbn 9781108833325
(hardback) | isbn 9781108974028 (ebook)
subjects: lcsh: Personality – Social aspects. | Agent (Philosophy) | Personality and cognition. |
Affect (Psychology) | Cybernetics. | Organizational change – Psychological aspects. |
Organizational behavior.
classification: lcc bf698.9.S63 y65 2021 (print) | lcc bf698.9.S63 (ebook) |
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 Contents

List of Figures page vii

List of Tables x
Foreword xv

Introduction 1

part i cybernetic sociopsychology and agency 29

1 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 37
2 An Exercise in Configuration 68
3 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 100
4 Normative Personalities 134
5 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 162
Summarising Narrative for Part I 188

part ii from cognition to affect 195

6 Cognition Agency 197
7 Cognition Personality 233
8 Affect Types and Mindset Types 264
9 Affect and Cognition 294
Summarising Narrative for Part II 322

part iii modelling identity types through agency 329

10 Identity as a Component of Personality 335
v
vi Contents
11 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 369
12 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types – the
Case of Theresa May 395
Summarising Narrative for Part III 430

part iv formal possibilities in mindset

agency theory 433
13 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 435
14 Illustrating Psychohistory 470
Summarising Narrative for Part IV 501

part v conclusion 505

15 Overview 507
Appendix A Inventory for Cognition Agency 530
Appendix B Emotion Regulation 544

Notes 547
Glossary 563
References 635
Index 698
 Figures

I.1 Nature of general theory of agency with reflexive page 5

relationship between substructure and superstructure
1.1 Evolution towards Mindset Agency Theory 43
1.2 Values, interests and behaviour of a personality 53
1.3 Viable systems model of the organisation 53
1.4 Distinction between the system schemas and their 58
orientations in the strategic agency indicative of a personality
system.
2.1 Agency Theory schema for an autonomous agency 76
2.2 Living dynamic nature of AT 79
2.3 The S-MBTI aspect of agentic trait psychology as a semantic 92
stream of personality temperament
3.1 Interactive opportunities for integrated development of 112
personality domain of behavioural interests
3.2 Illustration of personality temperament trait space for 119
a ‘personal political’ space showing trait enantypes, with
social enantypes shown in brackets
3.3 An indication of Boje’s representation of the Mindscape 131
Type Space using Knowledge Cybernetic traits and Boje
enantypes and showing four stable Mindscape meta-types as
depicted by Boje (2004)
3.4 Representation of Mindscape Traits as a sociocognitive 132
autonomous attribute within the AT model indicating the
domain enantypes
4.1 Generic model of a collective agency drawing on Hatch and 140
Cunliffe (2006) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), also
showing the operative systems of a connected agency
4.2 Normative personality as a cognitive system with figurative 143
and operative intelligences, seated in the noumenal domain
of the organisational agency
vii
viii List of Figures
4.3 Cultural Agency Theory (CAT) model involving five 148
sociocognitive traits connecting personality with its social
and cultural systems
5.1 Cycle of agency change 181
6.1 Distribution of modes of personality meta-types in a 220
three-dimensional personality trait space, with sociocultural
traits also indicated
7.1 Core concept of a Cognitive Living System 234
7.2 Generic model for a Living System Agency 235
7.3 Mindset Personality Space showing eight Mindset types, 252
where congruencies may occur between them that derive
from trait enantiomer balances
8.1 The Affect Personality System 275
8.2 Affect Agency Space displaying Mindset types 290
9.1 Representation of Gross’ (1998) Model of Emotion 302
Management
9.2 Cognition agency – Generic Cognition Agency model 303
9.3 The Affective Agency 305
9.4 Interaction between cognition and affect personalities of the 308
agency
9.5 Potential for political empowerment interactively relating 312
cultural stability, cultural compliance, and emotional climate
10.1 Basic Personality Model using Cultural Agency 357
Theory (CAT)
10.2 A CAT view of Identity Theory formulated as a Living 361
System, with strategic identities and contextual cultural and
social identities
12.1 Cultural Agency Model with embedded personality and 400
‘process intelligence’ bars indicating possible pathologies/
filters
12.2 A view of DIT formulated as a Living System, with 401
psychological identities (as strategic imperatives for
behaviour) and contextual sociocultural identities
12.3 Personality Mindset Space showing eight Extremal Mindset 407
types, and when two become conjoint, a hybrid Mindset type
emerges, indicated by ∩
13.1 Plural agency as a living psychohistorical inquiry system 436
13.2 Agency Lifeworld Meta-system relevant to sociohistorical 439
inquiry and narrative taken to be communication behaviour
 List of Figures ix
13.3 Elaboration of Frieden’s proposition of creative observation 461
in physics
13.4 Nature of the qualitative inquiry process by a creative 462
observer
13.5 Illustration of the measuring process and its connection with 463
system dynamics using recursion
14.1 Formal psychohistorical inquiry: using EPI to predict agency 471
trait values under change, and hence behaviours from
mindsets
14.2 The development of immanent (trait) dynamics in an 478
autonomous system
14.3 Basis of the immanent dynamics between distinct agency 485
with trait value CԎI and CԎJ
14.4 Relationship between CԎI and CԎJ cognitive orientations and 488
a balanced cognitive orientation
 Tables

2.1 The nature of viable cognitive agents page 80

2.2 Myers-Briggs enantiomers of temperament 86
2.3 Myers-Briggs local personality type attributes with global 89
affiliation, identifying two ‘universal’ orientation conditions
that can affect the other attributes
3.1 Agentic streams of personality each having an attribute 107
structure defined by the domains
3.2 Trait variables and their enantypes for personal political 116
temperament in MBTI trait space and its equivalent social
trait space due to Boje (2004)
3.3 Maruyama’s core epistemological types 121
3.4 Classifications for mindscapes 124
3.5 Dimensional nature of Mindscapes for leaders 128
4.1 Overview of major theory tendencies in personality theories 146
5.1 Agency modes of change 182
6.1 List of personality traits and shaded sociocultural traits 206
belonging to agency and their polar enantiomer orientations
6.2 Summary of the traits and their bipolar enantiomers for an 214
agency from Sagiv–Schwartz
6.3 Relating Maruyama Mindscapes and Sagiv–Schwartzian 217
canonical cognitive mode Mindsets, showing their epistemic
relationship
6.4 Keyword characteristics of Mindset modes, where Iʹ and Hʹ 225
are opposites for the agency as a whole and Sʹ and Gʹ for
culture
7.1 Bipolar traits normative personality traits 241
7.2 Mindset types identified with their enantiomer values and 245
a listing of key epistemic words that relate to them
7.3 Four pairs of contrasting Mindset types 250
7.4 Sociocultural traits and their polar enantiomer values 254
x
 List of Tables xi
7.5 Optimistic, pessimistic, and in-between paradigms related to 256
sustainability
7.6 Broad relationships between Mindset trait enantiomers and 258
susceptibility towards given values
7.7 Relationship between Maruyama and Agency Mindsets for 260
the cultural trait
7.8 Relationship between Maruyama and Agency Mindsets for 261
the social trait
8.1 Bipolar emotional traits of the affect personality 274
8.2 Items of eight combinations of the affect traits of the internal 276
systems of personality
8.3 Semantic comparison of classical temperaments 278
8.4 Eight alternate combinations of affect traits of the personality 280
8.5 Sociocultural traits for cognition and affect agencies 282
8.6 Affect personality traits plus affect sociocultural traits from 283
which affect Mindsets result
8.7 Comparison of stimulation-oriented affect Mindset types 285
with individualistic Mindset types
8.8 Comparison of containment-oriented affect Mindset types 286
with collectivistic Mindset types
9.1 Agency cognition traits and their bipolar types 304
9.2 Agency affect traits and their bipolar types 306
9.3 Relationship between fear and security as indicated by how 313
risk is downgraded or exaggerated
9.4 Distinction between two extremes of cultural compliance 317
10.1 Indicative relationship between personality and contextual 352
sociocultural identities
10.2 Ontologically independent types of identity, giving natural 355
and ontological properties for the multiple types of identity
10.3 Type attributes that underpin MAT that enable personality 358
and sociocultural characteristics to be defined in terms of type
enantiomers
10.4 Cognition personality traits (MAT3 T) and personality plus 364
sociocultural traits (MAT5 T)
10.5 Eight MAT3 T and eight (of up to thirty-two) possible 366
MAT5 T Mindset types for comparison
11.1 MAT3 T class evaluation 387
11.2 MAT5 T class evaluation 389
11.3 Krippendorff alpha 390
12.1 Related personality and contextual identities 399
xii List of Tables
12.2 Trait types and their characteristics, distinguished as 403
personality and context classes
12.3 Comparison of eight possible MAT3 T types with eight of the 406
thirty-two possible MAT5 T types
12.4 List of bipolar trait types, with indication (in bold) of cultural 412
trait influence on personality
12.5 Class evaluation for public identity of Theresa May across ten 416
Mindset types for MAT5 T, where arrows indicate changes
in percentage frequency value during delphi iterations
12.6 Class evaluation for personal identity of Theresa May across 417
eight Mindset types for MAT3 T
12.7 Selected variables in the higher interval for MAT5 T 418
12.8 Resulting combinations of variables for MAT3 T 419
12.9 MAT3 T trait types with their frequencies, where cognitive 419
entities are private identity (MAT3 T) attractors for the traits
12.10 Inferential traits for public identity of Theresa May, with the 423
importance of acceptable variables determined by percentage
appearance in narratives
12.11 The public identity HI(CIR) for Theresa 424
May
12.12 Inferential traits for personal identity of Theresa May, with 425
the importance of acceptable variables determined
by percentage appearance in narratives
12.13 Trait types indicated for Theresa May’s balanced personal 426
identity (hybrid Mindsets HI∩EI)
13.1 Nature of cultural value types 444
13.2 Main characteristics of ideational culture and its decline 448
13.3 Main characteristics of sensate culture and its decline 450
13.4 Main characteristics of idealistic culture 452
13.5 Proposed changes in cultural phase (with sub-phases) of the 457
West
14.1 The ten traits and their meso agent (yin-yang) polar attractors 472
15.1 Trait relationships between affect and cognition Mindsets 509
15.2 Personality cognition Mindset types (set against Maruyama’s 515
Mindscapes)
15.3 Personality affect Mindset types 518
A.1 Agency personality and extended traits 533
A.2 The bipolar personality traits by Sagiv and Schwartz (2007) 534
and their forty-three values
 List of Tables xiii
A.3 Personality questionnaire 535
A.4 Distribution of questions across personality traits 538
A.5 The two agency traits and their keywords 539
A.6 Keywords for affect agency traits 542
 Foreword

Browse the internet and you can find the following cartoon: A slowly
moving line of people approaches a fork in a road. A sign displays their
options. Turn left for answers ‘Simple but Wrong’. Turn right for answers
‘Complex but Right’. Almost everyone turns left. The few brave souls who
turn right pass a bookshelf, pick up reading materials, and begin a lengthy
journey down a winding path that snakes its way slowly towards the
horizon.
The masses who turn left walk straight off a cliff.
There is only one thing wrong with Wiley Miller’s cartoon: its title,
‘Science vs. Everything Else’. Like Sean Parker telling Mark Zuckerberg to
‘drop the “the”’, you want to tell Mr Miller to ‘drop the “vs. Everything
Else”’. In practice, much of science – well, at least much of personality
science, the one most pertinent to this extraordinary new work by Yolles
and Fink – turns to the simple. Here’s an example from the first few years
of this century:
• The most thorough theoretical analysis of personality systems presented
in the first decade of the twenty-first century is complex; I am referring
to the Personality Systems Interaction theory by Julius Kuhl. Kuhl’s major
theoretical work is his 1200-page volume Motivation und Persönlichkeit:
Interaktionen psychischer Systeme. Google Scholar reports that it has been
cited 1100 times (as much as any English-language presentation of this
sophisticated theory; it is not merely ‘a problem of translation’).
• An alternative effort of this era was as simple as can be. ‘A very brief
measure of the big-five personality domains’ told readers how they could
measure a spectrum of personality traits with as few as five questionnaire
items. Google Scholar reports that it has been cited nearly 7000 times.
Fast and simple wins the race?

xv
xvi Foreword
It has seemed so in the past. If today’s field continues to ‘turn left’, the
present volume might not garner the attention it deserves. As you will see
throughout this book, Yolles and Fink aim for ‘complex but right’.
But maybe today’s field – today, right now, start of the century’s third
decade – is different than times past. I hesitate to say so. Scholars com-
monly perceive that their chosen discipline, right at the time at which they
happen to be assessing it, is experiencing a grand ‘renaissance’ of one sort of
another. These perceptions often seem hallucinatory in historical retro-
spect. Yet I’ll risk it and say that things look different today. Here is
a personal reflection. Roughly a quarter-century ago, when considering
how social-cognitive approaches could address the coherence of personal-
ity, it struck me that a valuable conceptual tool could be found in
complexity science. Viewing personality as a complex system enabled
a ‘bottom-up’ explanatory strategy (as the term had been used by the
philosopher Salmon) in which personality coherence is understood as an
emergent property of underlying systems of psychological mechanisms.
This, in turn, circumvented a search for ‘ghost in the machine’ mental
structures that correspond isomorphically to observed consistencies in
overt behaviour. A similar systems viewpoint had just been advanced by
Mischel and Shoda and was implicit in earlier social-cognitive formula-
tions of both Mischel and Bandura. Yet it hardly became ‘the zeitgeist’ of
1990s personality psychology. The field instead enthused over a factor-
analytic trait model in which trait’s (1) development (they were said to be
inherited, with no environmental influence) and (2) functioning (they
were said to influence sociocultural experience but not to be influenced
reciprocally by such experience) had few, if any, of the properties of
a complex system. Those were the days. But look now: systems perspectives
in personality psychology abound today. Investigators studying both
socioculturally acquired cognition and neurobiologically grounded tem-
perament adopt systems frameworks in which psychological systems inter-
act with one another and with the environments in which people function.
Within just the past year, the field has seen handbooks and journal special
issues devoted to the complex dynamics of personality and the ways in
which these dynamics contribute to personality coherence. Multiple inves-
tigators even adopt the ‘bottom-up’ language of scientific explanation.
A recent conversation with a colleague went something like this: ‘People
are agreeing! What do we do now?’
One compelling answer to that last question is provided by Yolles and
Fink. Actually, they provide a whole series of answers to the ‘what now?’
question. Their conception of persons, cultures and the intelligences
 Foreword xvii
through which people adapt to changing contexts goes far beyond the
typical intellectual boundaries of personality psychology. In so doing,
Yolles and Fink remind us not only of the range of intellectual resources
one can deploy to understand persons but also of the range of tasks that
a personality theory can be expected to perform. I will mention just a few of
their distinct advances.
Living Systems. Although theories of human nature are broad intellectual
constructions, they often rest on something even broader: scientific and
metaphysical conceptions of the world at large. This has been true since
antiquity. Plato’s view of human nature reflected his theory of Forms.
Aristotle’s incorporated his partly teleological conception of causality. In
the contemporary era, energy physics and evolutionary biology informed
Freud’s psychoanalysis. Examples could go on and on.
Yolles and Fink succinctly state a conception that informs their person-
ality theory in a paper of theirs from 2014 (one of many pieces of scholar-
ship that culminate in the present volume). ‘That personality can be
represented as a system is not new’, they explain, ‘but representing it as
a living system is’. Once Yolles and Fink say this, one immediately thinks
‘yes, of course!’ (Well, at least I thought this.) A living systems framework
immediately orients one to a holistic conception of the organism rather
than to an alternative that suggests looking for bits of biology that might
relate to isolated traits. Although living systems thinking is found in some
prior writing in personality (e.g., the work of Donald Ford and Richard
Lerner), it remains surprisingly under-represented despite being such
a natural foundation for the analysis of personality systems. This makes
Yolles and Fink’s new contribution to the field all the more significant.
Cybernetics. It is nearly 60 years since Herbert Simon’s ‘The Architecture
of Complexity’ explained how the conceptual framework of cybernetics
could be extended to address, as Simon put it, ‘a rather alarming array of
topics’. He explained that diverse complex systems – physico-chemical,
biological, psychosocial – share basic properties. These include, in particu-
lar, an architecture featuring a hierarchical arrangement of components.
Such cybernetic thinking is fundamental to the personality theory pre-
sented in this book. Yolles and Fink explain that their core theoretical
conception, Mindset Agency Theory, is a cybernetic system. A great virtue
of this approach is that linkages among components of the cybernetic
system enable Yolles and Fink to directly, ‘organically’, address questions
of personality coherence that have become central to the contemporary
field.
xviii Foreword
Agency. You may have noticed the word ‘agency’ in ‘Mindset Agency
Theory’. And you might not have expected it, since cybernetic models can
be applied to systems that do not exhibit ‘agency’ in the sense in which
humans have an agentic capacity. But Yolles and Fink are providing
a cybernetic theory of living systems, which direct their actions towards
ends. The authors are keenly aware of the need to capture the agentic
capacities of people.
It is here (see especially Chapter 4) that Yolles and Fink capitalise on the
Social Cognitive Theory of Bandura, especially his treatment of perceived
self-efficacy. In so doing, they have hit upon the singularly central feature
of Bandura’s approach. Social Cognitive Theory is fundamentally a theory
of human agency. It was formulated in opposition to alternative theoretical
frameworks (e.g., behaviourism, psychoanalysis) that, in Bandura’s view,
underplay the human capacities for self-reflection and forethought and
thereby underestimate people’s ability to agentically shape the course of
their development.
Yolles and Fink’s treatment is not identical to Bandura’s, as they explain.
The variations in part are substantive and in part may stem from the
respective writers assigning subtly different meanings to the same terms.
(In particular, when Bandura critiques ‘trait’ conceptions of personality, as
in a chapter in a volume edited by Yuichi Shoda and me, he uses the word
‘trait’ to refer to constructs that describe behavioural tendencies. Bandura
objects to granting dual functions, both descriptive and causal, to the same
‘trait’ construct. Essentially identical critiques have been made by the
philosopher Rom Harré and by the Australian psychologist Simon Boag.
As you will see, the ‘formative traits’ in this work by Yolles and Fink are
based on enduring values and coalesce into schematic cognitive structures
as individuals interact with their environments and thus are not identical to
the trait constructs Bandura critiques.) Despite such variations, Mindset
Agency Theory fundamentally shares with social-cognitive theories the
goal of understanding the psychological systems and person-situation
interactions that give rise to the capacity for personal agency. In addition
to the material in Chapter 4, readers will find particularly informative
discussions of interactions among personality and cultural systems in
Chapter 7 of this volume.
Case Studies. I will note two other aspects of the book. The latter is of
greater significance, but the former ‘sets it up’.
You will not have guessed it from anything I have said thus far, but Yolles
and Fink provide us with case studies. Chapter 11 contains a case study of
Donald Trump. Coding of qualitative data reveals, in Trump, identity
 Foreword xix
themes involving hierarchy, conventionalism, and an ethics of domination
of the weak.
Chapter 12 presents a second case study, of Theresa May. A similar
analytic strategy yields a different portrait. Specifically, the personal and
the public identities of May vary; she is found to exhibit somewhat
divergent Mindset types.
In presenting these case studies, Yolles and Fink remind us of one
potential product to be delivered by a personality theory: principled,
theoretically driven case studies. In the early days of personality psych-
ology, case studies were common. Today, their rarity does not result merely
from choice; instead, investigators rarely have the option to conduct a case
study. Personality psychology has so thoroughly centred its attention on
variables rather than persons that most investigators lack the conceptual or
methodological tools needed to conduct a case study formally. Once again,
Yolles and Fink’s contribution is thus a major step forward.
At this point you may be asking yourself the following question: How
were they able to conduct these case studies? What was the ‘principled,
theoretically driven’ system of psychological characteristics within which
the personalities of Trump and May were characterised? This question
brings us to the most distinctive feature of Yolles and Fink’s contribution
to personality theory: their conception of ‘mindset types’.
Maruyama Mindscapes and Mindsets. Yolles and Fink capitalise upon the
ideas of the late Japanese scholar Magoroh Maruyama. Maruyama
explained that conceptual schemas can be organised according to different
‘logics’. An Aristotelian logic in which objects are classified into fixed
taxonomies based on their purported essential properties, for example, is
not the only way of conceptualising the world.
The idea that conceptual schemas can vary from one part of the globe to
another is likely familiar to readers from findings in cultural psychology.
Nisbett, Peng and colleagues document cultural variations in the tenden-
cies to think holistically or analytically, and Kitayama and Markus docu-
ment cultural variations in conceptions of self-concept, human action and
the ways in which persons are independent of, or interdependent with,
their social surround. But Maruyama takes two additional steps with which
you might not be familiar. One is to emphasise that conceptual schemas
vary not only between cultures but also between people within cultures;
within any given social or cultural setting, one will find different ‘epis-
temological types’. The other is an empirical claim, namely that although
there may be an indefinitely large number of different logics, four are
found relatively frequently. These are his four primary ‘Mindscape types’.
xx Foreword
Yolles and Fink pick up this ball and run with it. They extend
Maruyama’s ideas, developing them into their Mindset Agency Theory.
One extension is to identify individual differences that are ‘formative’ with
respect to conceptual schemes; that is, those individual differences orient
people to one versus another form of cognition. Another is to expand the
Maruyama typology into a set of eight Mindset types (see, e.g., Table 7.2 or
Figure 7.3 of this volume). This gives Yolles and Fink a taxonomic schema
that is more differentiated than Maruyama’s, yet whose relatively simple
structure makes it useful in practice, as the case studies show.
But the broader point is not merely that one can conduct case studies.
Yolles and Fink pull off one of the ‘great tricks’ of personality psychology.
They centre their analysis on complex systems of psychological mechan-
isms, yet produce a relatively straightforward, structured scheme for con-
ceptualising differences among individuals. If this were easy, it would not
be so unique.
I will close with a few words of ‘warning’ to the reader. You occasionally
will run across technical terms whose meaning differs from the meaning
assigned to those same terms by other writers. Like ‘trait’, ‘mindset’ has
more than one meaning in the scientific literature. More generally, prepare
to be challenged. Unless you are as widely read in cybernetics, epistemol-
ogy, Social Cognitive Theory, living systems biology, Piagetian theory and
Maruyama Universes as the authors – and, with all due respect, you
probably aren’t – their volume will not be an easy read. Major contribu-
tions to scientific fields require effort from the reader. This one is no
exception. For the good of personality science, one can only hope that
readers ‘turn right’. It beats walking off a cliff.

daniel cervone
Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago
 Introduction

Personality psychology studies how psychological systems work together

and, consequently, can act as a resource for unification in the broader
discipline of psychology. Yet personality’s current field-wide organisation
promotes a fragmented view of the person, seen through such competing
theories such as the psychodynamic,1 trait,2 and humanistic.3 There exists
an alternative, systems framework for personality, that focuses on four
topics: Identifying personality, personality’s parts, its organization, and
its development. (Mayer, 2005: 1)

Fragmentation in Personality Psychology

The fragmentation of personality psychology is demonstrated by the many
independent and isolated explorations of the field. This notion is supported by
Magnusson and Torestad (1993) who indicate that it has resulted in a discipline
with distinctive theoretical sectors like perception, cognition, emotion, behav-
iour, genetics, and physiology. Each sector has its own concepts, methods, and
research strategies, and with little or no exchange of ideas between them.
Personality psychology, they say, also suffers from sectorial hostility, rivalry and
incomprehension, and as part of behavioural science it represents a state of
bureaucratic warfare.4 Magnusson and Torestad’s solution is to offer dynamic
personality models that are concerned with how and why the individual is seen
as a total integrated entity that thinks and feels, and where the mind and its
processes are recognised through its behavioural consequences. Mayer’s (2005)
approach is an elaboration of this that seeks to adopt a systems framework for
personality delivering dynamic systemic personality models in which person-
ality is active and informed. In this book we extend such an approach to living
systems – those capable of providing generalised dynamic qualitative
modelling.
Small movement towards an integrated systems theory of personality
has been made. The move by Mischel and Shoda (1995) proposes that

1
2 Introduction
personality must be shown to be susceptible to both social and interper-
sonal situations as well as intrapsychic situations like mood states that
arise in the everyday stream of experience and feeling. They theorise that
when a situation is perceived, the mind creates subjective maps concern-
ing the acquired meaning of situational features for that person. Here,
then, individuals differ in how to focus on these features, how they
categorise and encode them cognitively and emotionally, and how the
encodings activate and interact with other cognitions and affects in
the personality system. This theory can be useful to elaborate on the
processes of internalisation of some situational effect. This is because
internalisation involves: assimilation – where an observed effect is
brought into agency as information through some inherent process of
categorisation and encoding; and accommodation – where the informa-
tion becomes incorporated in agency thereby modifying it in some way as
an adaptive process. In another development, Kaschel and Kuhl (2004)
have proposed their Personality Systems Interactions (PSI) theory which
postulates seven levels of personality functioning. It captures various
areas of personality psychology that act through an architecture of
rationality and intuition operating under the assumptions of positive or
negative affect modulation. They recognise that structure that they have
created makes PSI a complex theory.
While in the early part of the millennium there has been agreement in the
literature that personality psychology is fragmented, very little appears to
have changed. Following Baumert et al. (2017), integration across the field of
personality theory is essential because, with fragmentation, our understand-
ing of the nature of personality and how it functions is inadequate and can
even be misleading. They argue that a move towards integration can occur
by differentiating the field into three domains of personality giving an
increased potential for integrated development. The first is personality struc-
ture, formulated for instance by trait theories which can explain the psycho-
logical states that relate to behaviour, and include thoughts and feelings that
vary with situational contexts. The second is personality processes which
explains concrete behaviour in concrete situations, and should provide
explanation for patterns of variation across situations and individuals. The
third is personality development which provides understanding about endur-
ing changes in individuals across their lifespan, including both normative
changes as well as deviations from norms. However, they conclude by
explaining how future personality psychology should progress towards com-
plete integration, rather than illustrating it through exemplars therefore
guiding the process of defragmentation.
 Introduction 3
Simplifying Complexity
Personality is complex and to explain it one needs theories of complexity
(Cervone et al., 2001). Thus, reflecting on PSI, it would be better as a theory of
complexity rather than a complex theory. The reason is that complex theories
have issues not held by simple theories. This is explained by Bradley (2018)
who identifies four issues that complex theories have: (1) empiricism – there is
evidence that simpler theories are more likely to be true than complex theories;
(2) likelihood – evidence tends to provide greater confirmation for simpler
theories; (3) numerousness – more complex theories have lower prior probabil-
ity (prior referring to the rank order of degree of theoretical complexity); and
(4) bounded asymmetry – there is a simplest theory, but there is no most
complex theory since there is no bound on how complex a theory can be
made. Simple theories are said to satisfy the principle of parsimony, defined as
the most acceptable explanation of an effect (i.e., an occurrence, phenomenon,
object or dynamic event) that is the simplest, minimising the involvement of
entities, assumptions, or changes.5 Bunge (1962) elaborates by distinguishing
simple theory into epistemic and ontological dimensions. Epistemic refers to
the propositional structure delivering a knowledge mosaic from which rational
discourse arises (Bradley, 2018), and ontology to the properties and relation-
ships between schemas that are conceptually diverse (cf. Fu & Li, 2005). It
now makes technical sense to talk of ontological and epistemic parsimony.
Thus, ontological parsimony occurs when theories having elementary compo-
nents do not multiply them beyond that which is necessary, and epistemic
parsimony limits the propositions in such a way that is can still explain the
characteristics of observed effects sufficiently well (cf. Baker, 2004). A theory
having ontological parsimony may become simplistic when its epistemic parsi-
mony has modelling options that are so limited that complexity cannot be
addressed (cf. Joosse & Teisman, 2020). Baker (2004) notes that the principle
of parsimony is also called Occam’s razor, its elementary definition being: the
simplest explanation is usually the best one. Effectively, Occam’s razor is
a principle through which epistemic and ontological structures are normalised
such that a potential for redundancy and contradiction are eliminated.
One way of creating theoretical parsimony is through meta-level rules or
principles that regulate what a theory can do, when it can do it, and under
what conditions, potentially enabling variation in the degree of epistemic
and ontological complexity of a theory. As illustration, if a theory has
a recursive capability, then recursive adjustability allows a change in the
focus of the modelling of an effect, so that drilling-down into a situation
can generate more localised detail about effects. It may also involve an
4 Introduction
expansive capacity of theorisation, this providing a breadth of examination,
creating a capacity to explore more global theoretical extensions connected
with an effect. Both cases are consistent with the creation of theoretical
complexification. Tsoukas (2016) argues that theory complexification is
needed to represent the complexity of observable effects, and that theory
building is needed for this. We shall develop such an approach here by
creating, not a theory with a capacity to express itself in general terms (as
observed by Mayer earlier), but rather as a general theory able to express
itself in a variety of specific terms of reference, together with a capacity for
complexification.

General Theory
Now, theory may be defined as a collection of interconnected systemic ideas
intended to explain in general terms, describe, analyse, or predict – with
a purpose of creating knowledge about observed effects using concepts,
definitions, assumptions, and generalisations. In contrast, general theories
are concerned with a broad range of phenomena, either across several levels
of analysis or by consolidating a variety of theoretical perspectives,
these explaining developmental phenomena and unifying existing theory
(Johnson et al., 2013). General theories have a substructure and
a superstructure (Mahoney, 2004). The terms substructure and superstructure
have been used for around three centuries, for instance, in civil engineering
since 1726 in relation to construction, and by Karl Marx in his economic
theory in the 1860s. To understand them within our context, consider
a general theory of agency (as a living system), and where the meaning of
the word agency is action towards an end (Kelso, 2016: 290). This implies
that as a system, agency has purpose and interest through which an end can
be identified, and behaviour allows it to be acquired. If it has purpose, then
it must have more than just a behavioural system from which behaviour
arises. Looking at the notion of purpose more closely, we see that it refers to
something that is done or created or for which something exists.
Rosenblueth, Weiner, and Bigelow (1943) explain that purpose is
a function of a living system, but this does not need to involve conscious-
ness, supported indirectly by Prigogine and Stengers (1984). Locke (1969)
insists that purpose requires consciousness, but fails in his rationale beyond
some emotive tradition. Indeed in due course it will be explained that there
are at least six levels of consciousness in living systems, the least being its
absence. Purpose is not part of the behavioural system, but is rather part of
a higher meta-system that coincide in some way with regulation. Any
 Introduction 5
general theory concerned with living systems should recognise this. So,
here we shall introduce a general theory of agency, where agency is a living
system with behaviour and a meta-system that provides at least a potential
for affect and cognition.
A general theory of agency needs to model complexity, and as such must be
able to represent dynamic conditions. For Rittel (1972), such modelling
processes require the capability of reflection, i.e., the ability to ‘reflect’ them-
selves (for instance through feedback processes ) in order to capture change.
Hence, both identity and reflection are important to general Agency Theory.
Since agency is set within a general theory, it would need to have the
properties of both a substructure and a superstructure that have a clear
reflexive relationship (see Figure I.1), and since agency is also a living
system it requires a boundary that distinguished between its internal and
external environments. That such a boundary exists constitutes a primitive
form of identity. Non-primitive identity requires some degree of con-
sciousness that might include a sense of being, mental awareness and
reflection (Shanon, 1990). To explain Figure I.1, we need to explore the
natures of substructure and superstructure.
Substructure involves immanent axiomatic foundational causes (or forces)
that are expressed through causal agents and causal mechanisms. A causal agent is
some sub-structural dynamic elements that produces an effect or is responsible
for events that result, and that has properties that explain outcomes and
associations. An example of a causal agent is Piaget’s (1950) intelligences that,
as we shall see later, has the immanent property of ontological process

Superstructure
Theory-building
Propositional. Defined through
conceptualisations and (dynamic)
relationships. Incorporates
configurations. Recognises
internal and external agency
relationships and interactions
Maintains and shapes
Support and shapes substructure through conceptual
superstructure through and relational functionality
causal agents Substructure
Foundational Causes.
Axiomatic. Expressed through
causal agents & mechanisms with
properties that explain outcomes
& associations. Properties of
identity & reflection. Recognises
immanent & adventitious
influences on agency.

Figure I.1 Nature of general theory of agency with reflexive relationship between
substructure and superstructure.
6 Introduction
transformation, permitting external environmental effects to be adventitiously
manifested in different parts of agency’s internal environment through out-
comes like internalisation, learning, and adaptation.6 Another causal agent is
self which inherently involves feedback processes (Kelso, 2016), and where both
immanent and adventitious influences produce outcomes like self-
organisation. Kelso explores the notion of self by recognising, for instance,
that processes of self-organisation are natural to complex dynamic evolutionary
systems. An outcome is viability facilitated through the development of
coordinative structures with functional synergies. While self may be an import-
ant causative agent to a general theory of agency, it only arises with the
emergence of boundary that provides distinction between internal and external
environments, thereby enabling the attribute of autonomy, or self-
determination. With the emergence of consciousness, self becomes elaborated
by degree to perhaps include other properties like non-primitive identity,
a sense of being, awareness, self-realisation, and self-reflection. A causal mech-
anism is linked to empirical analysis through bridging propositions/assump-
tions, and have a flexible nature, providing an argument or description or
formal mechanism that explains the means or process or trajectory of a causal
agent and its effects, and this may include a micro-level explanation for a causal
phenomenon or one that is context dependent. An illustration in Agency
Theory is the idea of hidden regulatory structures for behaviour in complex
systems that create simplexity, and through which processes of self-
organisation are enabled. Another illustration of a causal mechanism is the
influence a causal agent experiences that might result in an adjustment of the
effect it is responsible for. For agency one also needs to be able to differentiate
between internally derived (immanent) influences on its causal agents, and
those (adventitious) influences arriving from an external source.
Consciousness can only emerge if agency has sufficient complexity
(Kahn, 2013). Living system complexification enabling the emergence of
consciousness is an evolutionary process, and Bitbol and Luisi (2004: 105)
have identified five stages for this that involve various degrees of
internalisation.7 That there are five stages eliminates the idea that non-
salient and salient entities are discontinuous and need to be considered in
distinct frameworks. Rather, they may be considered in a single framework
in which complex processes are at work enabling evolutionary processes to
create a consciousness shift. The null stage occurs when agency is devoid of
consciousness, with the fifth stage occurring with a collective consciousness
involving common predictive rules that obey internal closure (i.e., the rules
are not influenced from outside the agent). Seppälä (2019) identifies a sixth
stage that occurs with a radical shift in conscious self-realisation, as agencies
 Introduction 7
no longer automatically internalise every outer experience, and a sense of
self moves beyond the limits of the mind to explore identity beyond the
collective consciousness and its associated conditioning.
So, agency does not require consciousness to be able to have the properties
associated with living. With autonomy, it only requires the ability to continu-
ally change its structures, undergoing renewal while preserving its patterns of
organisation (Burke, 2002: Prigogine & Stengers, 1984). Maturana and Varela
(1973) argued that living is a property of a network of processes that they called
autopoiesis (or self-production). This is a requirement for agency internalisa-
tion of external effects, and which is functionally equivalent to Piaget’s opera-
tive intelligence. Schwarz et al. (1988) argue that autopoiesis is insufficient for
the process of living, and autogenesis (or self-creation) is also required, this
being functionally equivalent to Piaget’s notion of figurative intelligence which
concerns learning or innovation. Learning and innovation result from a history
of interactions, occurring through immanent and adventitious dynamics, and
this can happen when the living system has a primitive identity – that is, no
consciousness. Internalisation via autopoiesis is a sub-structural process that
uses reflexivity to facilitate superstructural assimilation. When actuated
through accommodation, adjusted structures develop that to some degree
modify imperatives for behaviour. Internalisation thus enables processes of
adaptation where a change in behaviour can improve agency viability. An
alternative to adaptation is innovation, this being a process of diversity that
arises from creative learning from which new structures result, giving new
patterns of behaviour.
Superstructure involves theory building which, for our agency, includes com-
mensurable configurations like traits, culture, institutions, identity, and norms.
Each of these named configurations is also a schema. Following DiMaggio
(1977), schemas are structured knowledge frameworks that define a pattern of
thought or behaviour and adopt an organisation of information categories and
relationships representing effects. They maintain propositions about their
characteristics, relationships, and entailments (i.e., deductions or implications),
perhaps with incomplete information. They can refer to simple highly abstract
concepts or complex social phenomena, and include group stereotypes or social
roles, and knowledge scripts.
While configurations may be represented through schemas, they are
more than this. Configurations have inherent coordinative structures that
can respond to the needs of complexity modelling by incorporating con-
necting schemas representing processes of change. A plurality of configur-
ations operates as a complex system of interdependencies, therefore having
core orchestrating themes with identifiable characteristics (Miller, 1996,
8 Introduction
2018). Superstructure that draws on configurations to satisfy particular
modelling purposes or interests creates an improved potential to enhance
theoretical specificity and/or generality. While particular configurations
can respond to specificity by modelling detail, the use of a plurality of
ontologically connected configurations can result in elaborated models
with inherent developmental potential, offering increased superstructural
generalisation. Specificity and generality taken together improves the
modelling ability to respond to complexity. The resulting superstructure,
embracing a constellation of interconnected conceptual and relational
schemas, can enable a complex situation to be better understood as
a whole (cf. Miller, 2018; Fiss et al., 2013). This occurs when ontological
analysis allows conceptual patterns to be produced that makes theoretical
sense, enabling them to epistemically relate.
Superstructural development requires candidate configurations that can
connect recognised properties, relationships, and processes from theoretical
schemas, and these can result in testable theoretical propositions (Greckhamer
et al., 2018; Dauber et al., 2012). Consider the configurations of culture, traits,
and identity. These may be orchestrated by recognising in what way they are
ontologically connected. This might include an argument that traits can be
defined in terms of values that belong to culture, and identity can be defined in
terms of traits. An inherent potential is therefore provided to connect culture
with identity through values and traits. Such ontological connections will be
undertaken during the course of this book. The reflexive interconnection
between the substructure and superstructure can be illustrated in terms of the
examples already provided where, given that the sub-structural Piagetian
process intelligences internalise external effects that are delivered to the super-
structural traits, these can now influence both cognition and affect. The
candidate configurations to be selected may be determined by modelling
context and purpose that need to be satisfies.
To facilitate the introduction of configurations into a superstructure
a meta-analysis is required.8 This examines the inherent nature and charac-
teristics of candidate configurative schemas, and indicates how they relate
to the superstructure. Such a meta-analysis can occur, for example, by
techniques like: epistemic mapping, where the meaning of candidate
schemas is related to existing superstructural schemas; interrogating rele-
vant propositions for consistency with the current context and standing of
the substructure; and seeking legitimate adaptive process to enable the
candidate schema to be suitably related and harmonised. Meta-analysis will
be found in action throughout this book as configurations are introduced.
 Introduction 9
Agency Living System Theory
It has been said that our approach in this book is to adopt Agency Theory as
a general living system theory, with a substructure and superstructure. In the
personality exemplar of Agency Theory to be developed here, configurations
will be anchored to a generic platform for personality psychology that can
represent elements of Meyer’s system set as required. This will provide an
exemplar for the development of general theory to specific areas of applica-
tion. For Fiss et al. (2013), the adoption of configurations comes from the
view that the situation to be modelled as a whole is best understood from
a systemic perspective and should be viewed as a constellation of intercon-
nected elements enabling increased levels of complexity to be accommodated
theoretically and methodologically. Agency Theory conforms to this with an
adaptive capacity to connect different personality schemas as configurations,
the commensurability of which needs to be confirmed through a meta-
analysis. As will be shown in due course and during the development of this
book, Agency Theory can be formulated in terms of formative traits (like the
supertraits of Bandura, 1999b), these forming the basic structure of person-
ality. This approach is able to address at least some of the complex dynamic
situations that arise in personality psychology. Recalling Rittal’s (1972)
comment that dynamic models able to respond to complexity need to
‘reflect’ themselves in order to capture change, such models will involve
information feedback processes that, incidentally, are an integral part of
cybernetics. Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) is such a cybernetic schema
that will inherently have a capability to respond to questions concerning
Meyer’s system set, though there is no intention to specifically respond to
any of the dimensions in that set. MAT involves Mindsets the derivation of
which comes from cultural values, making them significantly different from
another popular approach with a similar name by Dweck (2000) and by
Gollwitzer and Bayer (1999), both of which define mindsets in terms of
motivations through belief.
Agency Theory is a living system in which agencies have a population of
autonomous self-determining adaptable agents that interact. Agencies are
autonomous and are thus self-determining, but they also have other self-
attributes including the ability to be adaptable, proactive, and responsible
for their own behaviour, and as conscious entities that also have properties
of cognition and affect. For Ryan, Kuhl, and Deci (1997), autonomy also
implies self-regulation that is a manifestation of a central tendency towards
the extension, coordination, and integration of function that is a common
property of living things.
10 Introduction
The general living system theory of agency having personality that we
shall develop here shows it to be active, informed and self-regulating, and
provides imperatives for behaviour. The context of agency here is a living
systems theory involving personality psychology, where personality is seen
to be inherently coherent and able to generate generic characteristics that,
under complexity, Cohen and Stewart (1995) have called simplexity and
which Gribbin (2004) refers to as deep simplicity. These terms refer to the
idea that coherence occurs through the creation of a regulative personality
structure that exists between agency macro-behaviour and the complex
fabric of agent behaviours that can create order where random fluctuation
seems otherwise to dominate. Simplexity constitutes a dialectic between
simplicity and complexity, and is a condition in which a set of rules can be
identified that can ‘explain’ a situation through large-scale simplicities that
have developed. This idea of simplexity is essential for complex situations
seen only in terms of behaviour, though it is inherent in studies of
personality psychology, where personality may be a phenomenon belong-
ing to a unitary agency or a plural one.

Simplexity
The idea of simplexity can perhaps be posed less cryptically and hence
be better understood from an alternative perspective. If one considers
agency as a collective with macro-behaviour, then it has a population
of agents with micro behaviours. It also has what we refer to as
a normative personality, i.e., personality attributes that have norma-
tively arisen from its population of agents. This personality constitutes
a meso structure (Dopfer et al., 2004), where simplexity is defined
through a set of generic meso rules resulting from the actions of
whatever are the perceived driving entities of the personality (like
traits) and their mutual interactions (Yolles, 2019). Micro-meso struc-
ture creates control imperatives for agents, while meso-macro struc-
tures create control imperatives for the agency. The use of the term
imperatives highlights that the controls may fail, either because of
internal pathologies that result in contradictory or invalid controls,
or under conditions of action characterised by rapidly changing con-
texts or highly unstable situations. In the theory proposed in this
book, when formative traits take type values that orientate agency to
certain modes of cognition and behaviour, then they form a meso
structure that has a regulatory function for agency.
 Introduction 11
The Dimensions of Personality Psychology
Living systems models are essentially general and holistic, and can be
suitably used to explore personality psychology – an institution embedded
in the discipline of psychology that can naturally promote integrations and
a vision of the whole agency. Personality is an organised developing system
within the individual that has both internal functionality (including per-
sonality and its major subsystems, and the brain with its major neurological
subsystems) and external functionality (including situations and their
relationships and relational meanings, and settings including props,
objects, and organisms). Personality psychology involves the collective
action of an agency’s major psychological subsystems, and to capture all
the subsystems an appropriate generic schema is needed. Mayer (2005)
identifies four personality psychology dimensions that need to be reflected
in an appropriate schema such that the field can be coherent so as to be able
to form a system set, with attributes as follows:
1. Energy lattice: emotion system, including constructed emotions, basic
emotional response, and emotional expressions; motivational system,
including constructive channelling of movies and basic biologically
based and learner motives.
2. Knowledge works: consciousness and attention consisting of pure aware-
ness and its direction; self-Awareness consisting of conscious self-
control, self-attention and self-monitoring, and dynamic re-
evaluations of self; and defence and coping including suppression,
rationalisation, and repression.
3. Social actor: social skills, including strategic self-presentation and acting
ability, social role knowledge, including role knowledge and social
relationship enactment, attachment system, including expectations
and blueprints for interacting with others, and motivational and social
emotional expressions, including extroversion and socialising, domin-
ance and control, and coordination and grace.
4. Conscious executive: models of self, including self-concept, and life story
memory; models of the world, including beliefs, attitudes and attri-
butes, expectancies and predictions, and general knowledge in long-
term memory; cognitive intelligences, including verbal intelligence,
perceptual-organisational intelligence, and spatial intelligence; imagin-
ation including daydreaming and fantasising; hot intelligences, includ-
ing emotional intelligence and social intelligence; and working
memory, including short-term memory and span of apprehension.
12 Introduction
These classifications can feasibly be reorganised to be set within with
Baumert et al.’s (2017), classes of personality structure, process, and develop-
ment. It may be realised they are relevant to both the unitary and plural agency,
enabling us to consider personality psychology for the individual and the social
together. The last two of these dimensions, Knowledge works and Consciousness
executive, are connected to the interests of Thommen and Wettstein (2010),
who are concerned with the relationship between psyche (consciousness)
systems from which personality emerges, and external influences on that
development. They argue that external influences on personality like cultural
phenomena are often specific to certain situations, persons, groups, and times.
This requires a dynamic, evolutionary process-oriented concept of culture from
which the impact on individual and situational variations can be tracked.
Sociocultural psychology can respond to this – with its interests in how cultures
and society are reflected and shape psychological processes, and where psychic
and sociocultural systems coevolve. According to Markus and Hamedani
(2007), it has interest that lies in discovering how socially and culturally
constituted behaviour is driven, this being facilitated by increasing capacities
of how to conceptualise both the cultural and the psychological such that the
nature of their mutual and reciprocal influence can be examined. This is able to
fuel a (simplexity) dynamic of self that mediates and regulates behaviour. The
patterns and processes associated with the social and cultural contexts of
individuals condition their behaviour and create interpretive systems that
organise it. As people participate in their respective contexts, settings, and
environments, they continually create meanings that are reflected in their
actions by building them into products and practices in their environment.
Lehman et al. (2004) note the interaction between culture and psychology
influence thoughts and actions that impact on the cultural norms and practices
that contribute to the maintenance of social collectives. As interactions change,
so culture evolves. For de Pascale (2014) this reflects a complex system-oriented
approach (which she has called ‘post-rationalism’) that is underscored by an
evolutionary epistemology. As an illustration, interactions between individuals
leading to evolving interpersonal relationships embrace processes of emotion
regulation through complex self-organisational processes, leading to adaptive
abilities and the construction of personal meaning.

The Nature of the Book

This brings us to the nature of this book, which is to show that from cybernetic
Agency Theory which operates under the proposition of complexity, one can
adopt configurations to populate its framework that constitutes a general theory
 Introduction 13
of personality psychology. Consistent with Baumert et al. (2017), it explores
personality in terms of structure, process, and development, but these attributes
are not differentiated as distinct parts of the book, but are rather integrated as it
progresses. Having said this, agency personality structure if defined in terms of
its formative traits, processes are defined in terms of sub-structural process
intelligences and superstructural epistemic attributes, and development in
terms of agency adaptation and epistemic change. Essentially, our schema is
a cybernetic theory of living systems, these having self-attributes that enable
them to explicitly demonstrate how they are able to self-determine their
adaptive processes to changing situations. Earlier it was said that agencies are
macro holistic entities each with a population of interactive micro agents that it
represents. The population may be internal to the agency or external to it. So,
how do these contexts differ for personality psychology? Considering an agent
as a micro agency with its own personality, unitary agencies are individuals
whose population of agents is defined to be external, while agencies with an
internal population of agents are collective or plural agencies. For unitary
agencies, important agents will be intimately connected socially (like family
or significant peers), and are adventitiously influential through interactions
with respect to personality development. For a plural agency the interactions
that occur within its population of agents creates immanent influences, though
adventitious influences also occur. In both cases the agents are important to
agency development. As Mischel and Shoda (1995) have noted, in either case
interpersonal and intrapsychic situations exist and can be recognised as well as
being considered as part of personality analysis.
Whether one is referring to a unitary or plural agency, interactions occur
between agents important to it from which emerge a set of generic rules that
define its meso structure from which both the agency and the agents can be
regulated with respect to its cognitive framing and behaviour. These rules have
embedded within them values that orientate culture, and these can infect
agency’s formative traits. This is because the traits are always subject to dynamic
influences that result in type values. This dynamic influence will be explored in
some depth within the book for the cultural trait, but the same dynamic process
occurs for the other traits. Thus, one can say that the type values acquired by
a trait infects it, and this together with the other traits comes to define the
character of agency and its personality. Interestingly, bringing the traits together
is itself a process of configuration (Shoss & Witt, 2013). It is this that constitutes
a meso structure. Other approaches to create a meso structure also exist, but
with less derivative explanation. As illustration, Doce et al. (2010) argue that
traits from the Five-Factor Model (Costa & McCrae, 1989),9 also called FFM,
can be seen as a regulative structure that influences cognitive processes.
14 Introduction
Complexity, Sociocognitive Theories, and Traits
Now, it has been said that the framework adopted to model personality is
MAT, this deriving from Cultural Agency Theory (CAT). CAT gives MAT
by adopting a formative trait configuration connected with Sagiv and
Schwartz (2007). After Pervin (1994) and Bandura (1999), such traits arise
from durable dispositions towards behaviour that constitute the basic struc-
ture of personality, this expressing itself in consistent patterns of functionality
across a range of situations. Now, if trait theories are to be used to represent
personality, then they need to be stable. FFM is a popular empirically derived
temperament related trait schema that is promoted as trait-stable in that
testing and retesting of given respondents should produce consistent measures
over time of trait type values. This stability is statically determined, but it has
issues as explained by Pervin (1994: 105), who concludes that
emphasis on the aggregate stability of temperament related traits . . . likely
exaggerates the stability of personality. It ignores individual differences in
stability and the potential for even small changes in some elements to result
in dramatic change in the overall organisation of personality functioning. It
ignores non-trait aspects of personality functioning that maintain stability over
time as well as aspects of the environment that maintain consistency and resist
change. Most important, as noted, it fails to address the issue of the factors that
account for stability and change in various aspects of personality functioning.
Unlike such empirically derived trait schemas the formative trait theory we
describe in this book is based on long-lasting values that are essentially
qualitatively stable, and can in principle be used to represent and model
other factors as required. Formative traits create Mindsets, some of these
being closely mapped on to Maruyama’s (1965) Mindscapes. MAT results as
a clearly structured trait theory that responds to the needs of complexity, and
is inherently capable of defining contexts that enable Meyer’s four dimensions
of personality psychology to be represented in some way. As a demonstration
that CAT has this representational capability, two schemas will be considered:
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Maruyama’s Mindscapes. Also, the
unlikely possibility of their union will be explored, this unlikeliness arising
from the contradictory propositions that each have. However, relating the two
schemas provide a useful illustration of the application of meta-analysis and
the possibility of schema change requirements.
MBTI is a very popular schema derived in a differentiated form from the
speculative conceptual temperament theory of Carl Jung, some of which is
empirically supported. It classifies people into types (that can collect into
traits), and purports that each type is inborn and fixed. Besides its stark
 Introduction 15
inability to respond to the needs in sociocultural psychology that allows for
change, according to Pittenger (1993) it is an invalid measure of personality.
Here, one area of concern about MBTI is that the types are not descriptors
of individuals, but are rather stereotypes arising from empirical instru-
ments. While stereotyping is not always bad, it provides broad classifica-
tions that might not correspond to particular personality states. The MBTI
instruments ask individuals to respond to question about their preferences.
However, preferences may not be stable, and may change over time and
with contexts (Warren et al., 2011). Evaluation tests are also unreliable with
a test–retest processes that often demonstrates instability. This invalidates
MBTI as a reliable definitive indicator of personality, while still being
popular – not only because of its basic simplicity, but more importantly for
its successful marketing push (Cunningham, 2013).
The Maruyama (1988) schema referred to above represents a quite different
personality characterisation. It is sociocognitive, based on epistemological
meta-types, and is called Mindscape Theory. In due course such meta-types
will be shown to be configurations of formative traits, these having distinct
epistemic and ontological origins. Consistent with sociocultural psychology,
the Maruyama schema permits personal determinants to operate dynamically
within causal structures. Meta-types are epistemic configurations of traits
based on values which are constituted as elements of human culture, material
objects, or human practice. Mindscape analysis is, for Maruyama, particularly
suitable for complex and multifaceted environments, and can be used to
explore the interrelations among seemingly unrelated aspects of human activ-
ities. While the Mindscape schema comes from an epistemological typology,
its purpose and use lie in interrelating seemingly separate aspects of human
activities. Mindscape modes are numerous and vary from individual to
individual, they cumulate into at least four common and stable types that
may be partly innate and partly learned. They are therefore subject to change,
unlike static MBTI types. Gammack (2002) notes that Maruyama rejects
common simple-minded typologies (like MBTI) in favour of a ‘relationology’
that goes further than temperamental classifications of individual qualities.
Rather, the epistemological basis that it specifies facilitates communicative and
behavioural styles. Cultures are seen to be epistemologically heterogeneous,
and a number of canonical Mindscape modes exist that are each represented
within them in some proportion. These epistemological modes are seen to be
prior to, and transcendent of, nationality and culture (Maruyama, 1988, 2001).
Indeed, Maruyama (1974) explains that these epistemic types are directly
related to personality characteristics and cultural backgrounds. This suggests
an inherent connection to the cultural values study of Shalom Schwartz (1994)
16 Introduction
(summarised in Appendix A) which we will draw on in due course. Maruyama
discovered these traits through the observation of individuals (i.e., Thommen
and Wettstein’s second-order observation) over a number of years, and then
found his schema was consistent with the independent work of Harvey (1966),
who had been giving psychological tests to university students over several
decades. However, Maruyama’s schema has its own issues of a lack of
theoretical transparency, this providing a peg for criticism as shown in the
conversations appended to Maruyama et al. (1980). This sets the scene for
a related schema which adheres to the principles of Mindscape Theory, but is
also very well grounded both empirically and theoretically through cultural
values. That schema is Mindset Agency Theory (MAT).
While personality may be represented as part of cultural psychology,
since culture is dependent on the social, and psychology on cognition,
sociocognitive theory must be an important element. Sociocognitive
approaches provide a coherent view of personality and its assessment
(Cervone et al., 2001; Bandura, 1978, 1999) that differs significantly from
alternative schemas like MBTI or the FFM. For Cervone et al., socio-
cognitive personality theories have three defining features:
1. They have a principle of reciprocal determinism, where persons and
social settings are viewed as reciprocally interacting systems.
Sociocultural environments contribute to the development of person-
ality structures, and personality factors create the lens through which
social environments can be experienced and interpreted.
2. Personality has basic cognitive and affective structures and processes with
mechanisms that underlie skills and social competencies, knowledge
structures to interpret or encode situations, self-reflection to develop
beliefs about themselves and their relation to the social environment,
and self-regulatory processes to establish personal goals, standards for
performance, and to motivate themselves to reach desired ends.
3. Personality is a complex, dynamic system involving dynamic interaction
between sociocognitive and affective processes, and take a sociocognitive
view of self-referential thought and self-regulation, therefore permitting
personality to be viewed as a complex ‘self-system’ through which individ-
uals contribute to their experiences, actions, and development.
Representing personality as a complex system is useful in that it explains
how it can self-organise and give rise to stable patterns of organisation in
the psyche. This can then become an imperative for the formation of stable
patterns of overt behaviour that may be seen as coherent, or in the case of
psyche pathology, incoherent. This reference to pathology brings to mind
 Introduction 17
issues of what Seth et al. (2014) refer to as ‘dark personality traits’ like
Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy. For McAdams (2015)
these would be referred to as ‘local’ traits because they influence how we
interact with others on a daily basis, rather than the formative traits. If
there are dark/negative traits, then might there be competing light/affirma-
tive ones? Thus, the dark traits may be compared to light opposites as
Machiavellianism versus Honourableness; Narcissism versus Relatedness;
Psychopathy versus Saneness. These relationships are drawn from
Fromm’s (1955) consideration of light against dark traits, who not only
identified the opposite for narcissism that we have adopted, but also
identified others that each contain a possibility of healthy or unhealthy
response to situations: (1) creativeness versus destructiveness; (2) brotherli-
ness versus incest; (3) individuality versus herd conformity; and (4) reason
versus irrationality. Gibbs (1979) notes that where affirmative solutions are
blocked, then negative pseudo-solutions emerge, like herd conformity,
obsessions with power or submission, in-group chauvinism, wanton
destructiveness, and rationalising ideology. Paulhus and Williams (2002)
consider that dark traits arise from personality pathologies, and consistent
with this we explain how pathologies that can lead to dark trait potentials can
arise from personality identity conflicts. We also offer a means by which
measures can be made for this that derive from an individual’s formative
personality traits and from which pathologies and their likely severity can be
inferred. Measuring instruments to enable inference of this are provided in
the appendices. The approach is applied empirically to Donald Trump, the
president of the United States during 2019, and Theresa May, the prime
minister of the United Kingdom until July 2019.
Agencies are complex systems with behaviour. Within the MAT con-
text, they should be seen to develop through emergent personality proper-
ties resulting from interactions occurring among the basic elements of the
system as (in the modelling case here) cognitive and affective formative
traits. This is discussed in Part III of this book. As will be seen in due
course, CAT (and therefore MAT) can be represented as a sociocognitive
theory that embraces complexity through its living system structures.

Structure of the Book

The book is in five parts. Part I concerns the fundamentals that underpin
Agency Theory, and formulates a personality theory. Part II is concerned with
identity as part of personality, models identity types, and explores the conse-
quences of identity pathologies. Part III distinguishes between cognitive and
18 Introduction
affective personality, and shows their relationship. Part IV explores a formal
approach associated with MAT. There is a concluding Part V, consisting of
the final chapter, Chapter 15, that offers an overview of the book, creating
a narrative of what has developed. There are also two appendices that provide
measuring instruments relating to Part III of the book.

Description of the Chapters

The book has fifteen chapters and two appendices that list the measuring
instruments indicated in Part III of the book. Part I has four chapters and is
concerned with cultural psychology and the use of agency to define this in
terms of cognition traits. Eight dominant traits are possible, though
dynamic interactions between them are also possible to shape personality.
Part II of the book has four chapters and develops two agency personality
models, one of cognition and the other affect, and their interconnection
shows the different functionality that each has. A new theory is therefore
offered concerning their interactive relationship. Further research would
look for situations that could be empirically explored. The approach could
also be susceptible to computer simulation. Part II has four chapters that
discuss the function of identity within personality, and how identity
pathologies can result in incoherent behaviours, with two empirical illus-
trations provided. An important element in this work originates with
Hofstede (1991) innovative ideas about the nature of culture, though his
theory is perhaps wanting (McSweeney, 2002). Deriving from Schwartz
(1992), Sagiv and Schwartz’s (2007) cultural values study offered an
important development that was linked to Maruyama’s (1974) ideas on
Mindsets, these contributing to the development of MAT. While it will be
shown how MAT trait theory can be used to evaluate personality patholo-
gies by making a content analysis of political narratives, they can also be
applied through questionnaires that are adaptations from the original
Shalom Schwartz measuring instrument of cultural values. Such an adap-
tation is provided in the appendix to the book. Part III of the book also has
three chapters, and creates theory that explores multiple identities and that
it connects personality traits. It also provides a methodology that is able to
investigate analytic pathologies which it then demonstrates can link with
clinical pathologies.
In Part IV of the book, there are two chapters. The first is a general
narrative that discusses sociohistory and psychohistory, and which then
goes on to introduce the reader to a formal approach that is able to explain
the detailed relationship between agency traits.
 Introduction 19
To understand what is meant by a formal approach, in contrast we may
first introduce narrative schemas which use natural language to deliver
narratives that may be imprecise, unstructured, and general. They are used
with syntactic structures and deliver narratives that may lack precision,
thus making it more difficult to validate or verify theoretical arguments
(Evans et al., 1999). By the term schema is meant a set of ideas that may
eventually develop into a theory or indeed any structured representation
involving underlying theory, and it may thus be either a narrative or formal
theory. A formal schema thus consists of propositional statements about
entities and their relations that are described by a set of rules. Formal
schemas may use informal language, involving natural language narratives
formulated propositionally, but they may also use formal language which is
explicit, precise and specific (e.g., mathematics, logic, or chemistry). The
latter may adopt symbolic representation through formulaic expressions –
that is having a fixed form or convention or arrangement to coincide with
very specific meanings. According to Ruiz et al. (1994), formal languages
reduce the vagueness and ambiguity of informal descriptions, and allow for
validation of completeness and consistency through formal proofs.
However, they also suffer from a limit to their practical usefulness, often
not being sufficiently expressive to deal with real-world applications, are
complex and difficult to read, and their construction can be problematic,
error prone, and expensive.
The propositions used in formal schemas define a logic that establishes
a framework of thought and conceptualisation, and propositions that do
not require proof are called axioms. The relationships may be implicit or
explicit, and defined by logical operators that through the terms and
symbols, creates theory. The framework it creates is one of thought
involving a set of conceptualisations that enables organised operations to
occur, and problem situations to be addressed both theoretically and
empirically. Formalisms also facilitate or constrain the way in which
situations can be described by the rules that they uphold. For Kyburg
(1968: 20), a formal structure provides a standard of validity and a means of
assessing validity. Agency Theory has a substructure that represents a set of
formally described cybernetic rules, and a superstructure theory that may
be formal or informal. The theory may be used to resolve real or hypothet-
ical posed problematic issues called situations by using analysis and diag-
nosis. Analysis uses the relationships in the model to distinguish between
a set of interactive parts of the situation, thus enabling easier study.
Diagnosis examines the analysed situations using the theory, in order to
identify situational explanations. In systems science, this is done while
20 Introduction
keeping the whole situation as the frame of reference. Analysis and diag-
nosis are typically more difficult when situations are complex.
Formal theories may be classed as soft or hard (Yolles, 2018). In either
case agents can be described as having tangible attributes that can be
measured (i.e., variables like height, weight, money). However, soft sche-
mas also include intangibles – those which cannot be directly measured
(like consciousness, and individual cognitive competencies such as know-
ledge and capabilities; Canibano, 1999). The involvement of intangibles
indicates limits to any capacity to take meaningful measurements
(Carayannis, 2004). Hard schemas take agents as objects with tangible
attributes in a behavioural system that can be manipulated in some way.
Having said that, if intangibles can be represented in concrete way, then
they are susceptible to schemas that are formal and hard.
Thus, social physics is a formal hard symbolic modelling approach while
psychohistory as part of sociocultural psychology should take a formal
approach that may be soft or hard and symbolic. A move towards the latter
is provided in Part IV of this book using Frieden’s (1999) Information
Theory, and delivers a guideline for the potential development of
a formalised Agency Theory. In the psychology context this has the
capacity to explain how observations of the personality are related to
personality traits.
The description of each chapter is as follows.
Part I Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Chapter 1 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview. This chapter
explains the agency framework, and the idea of Mindscapes and
their relation to Mindsets. At the end of the book its counterpart,
an overview, is also provided.
Chapter 2 An Exercise in Configuration. In this chapter it is explained
that pluralities of personality schemas reside across different
Maruyama universes suggesting incommensurability and isolation.
Schemas may migrate across Maruyama universes given appropriate
means. One of those means arises through Agency Theory, and as
illustration, an adaptive configuration is made to embrace Jungian
theory and its associated MBTI for personality temperament. This
occurs by migrating Jungian theory/MBTI into a sociocognitive
schema by considering its knowledge. MBTI is a type approach that
operates with polar opposites; however, conceptually there is no
reason for it not to be associated with a trait. Supposing that MBTI
has traits at some horizon of meaning, then since traits are responsible
 Introduction 21
for the creation of enduring states, sociocognitive explanations should
be able to explain the stable states of a personality. As a result, this
chapter formulates a link between the MBTI type schema, a trait
space, and a capacity for sociocultural descriptions.
Chapter 3 Mindscapes. In this chapter it is explained that some person-
ality schemas seem to compete with others, but are they really
complementary? Two trait approaches, MBTI and Mindscape the-
ory, which are normally considered to be competitive, will be
migrated into a more complex modelling space and shown to have
a complementary potential. The chapter adopts the meta-framework
of agency theory applied, with part of the relevantial universe identi-
fied by Maruyama, to migrate different theoretical approaches and
relate them. A consequence is the possible development of a more
sophisticated trait theory capable of providing more complex infor-
mation about personality. An outcome is that one can indicate that
current type theories are not necessarily stand-alone, but may be seen
as complementary within a broader conceptual framework. The
chapter adopts MBTI as a schema because of its simplicity and
popularity, rather than because of its suitability as a means of evalu-
ating personality. The approach taken is generic, and can be applied
to other solitary theories like FFM. The chapter leads to the possibil-
ity of improved explanatory power for a type theory than is currently
possible. Very little, if any, comparative work has previously been
done relating representations of MBTI and Mindscape theory. This
also appears to be the first serious direct comparison between
MBTI and Mindscapes. It is shown that it is possible to consider
MBTI adaptations and Mindscape theory as conceptually distinct
and complementary within the context of a known and appropriate
framework, and these can together contribute to a new way of
exploring the field of personality theory.
Chapter 4 Normative Personality. Here it is explained that modelling
the organisation to enable purposeful analysis and diagnosis of its ills
is often problematic. This is illustrated by the unconnected non-
synergistic plurality of organisational models each of which relates
to a particular isolated frame of thought and purpose. A cybernetic
approach is adopted to create a generic psychosocial model for the
organisation that is used to characterise its emergent normative
personality. Organisations are often complex, and seeing them in
terms of their normative personality can reduce the complexity and
enable a better understanding of their pathologies. This chapter does
22 Introduction
two things. The first is to show that it is possible to set up a generic
model of the organisation as an agency, and the second is to show that
this same model can also be represented in the alternative terms of the
emergent normative personality. In order to do this, an understand-
ing of what it is that constitutes generic criteria is required. In
addition, we shall show that organisational and personality theories
can be connected generically. One of the consequences of the theory
is that the patterns of behaviour occur in an agency have underlying
trait control processes. To progress this, a meta-systemic view of the
organisation is adopted through Agency Theory that enables more
flexibility and formality when viewing organisational models. The
chapter develops a formal generic model of the organisation that
should facilitate the exploration of problem situations both theoret-
ically and empirically. An outcome of this formulates the cognitive
processes of normative personality as a feasible way of explaining
organisations and provide a capacity to analyse and predict the likeli-
hood of their behavioural conduct and misconduct. Formulated as
a trait model, agency explains the sociocognitive aspects of self-
organisation and the efficacy of connections between the traits.
These traits control the personality, and inter-trait connections are
Piagetian process intelligences that orient the traits and work through
forms of first- and second-order networks of processes that define
living systems. The development of a typology of pathologies is also
suggested as feasible. While there are previous metaphorical notions
that link agency with traits. Here the metaphor is extended to
produce a formal model for the emergent normative personality.
This is the first time that sociocognitive and trait approaches are
formally linked, as it is the first time that a typology for organisational
pathologies is proposed.
Chapter 5 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour. In Chapter 3
the organisation is modelled as a socio-cognition agency with
a normative personality, where patterns of behaviour occur through
underlying trait control processes, and from which specific behav-
iours can be predicted. However, anticipating behaviour is dependent
upon a stable agency orientation which occurs in normal conditions
of homeostatic equilibrium. Consideration in this chapter is made of
how agency orientations arise, and how they may change. For the
latter, they need to pass from normal equilibrium conditions to post-
normal non-equilibrium ones, where the immanent dynamics of the
 Introduction 23
agency has the potential to change its orientation. This can lead to
a lesser likelihood of successfully predicting behaviour.
Part II From Cognition to Affect
Chapter 6 Cognition Agency. This chapter explains how to formulate
a set of formative traits that define cognition agency that creates
imperatives form its behavioural proclivity. It sets five formative
agency regulating traits. Of these, three belong to personality, and
there are two agency sociocultural traits. Similarly affect agency has
five formative traits. The traits accumulate into a set of Mindsets that
determine the character of the agency. From this there also arises the
idea that two measures can arise, agency orientation and personality
orientation. Later, in Part III of the book, we will show that where
there is a distinction in the orientations that are reflected in identity,
cognitive pathologies arise that impact on behavioural proclivity.
Chapter 7 Cognition Personality. Distinction can be made between
Mindsets belonging to agency (with five traits) and to personality
(with three traits). Extracting the personality Mindsets from the
cognition agency, it is shown how the Mindsets identified can be
formulated into classes of individualism and collectivism. This does
not support the notion that individualism and collectivism are good
ways of distinguishing between agency orientations, but rather the
opposite in that it demonstrates that there are a whole variety, on
a continuous scale, of individual and collectivistic classifications.
Now Maruyama found by observation that there were four dominant
stable Mindscape types, though he neglected to furnish any transpar-
ent explanations to indicate how they arose, whether there might be
more, and what they might be (though he originally proposed a fifth
that was later abandoned it). However, in developing Mindset
Theory it is found that there is close synergy between the four
Maruyama Mindscapes and four Mindsets, though four additional
stable Mindsets are also found.
Chapter 8 Affect Types and Mindset Types. As a development of the last
chapter, we introduce a typology of basic affective and cognitive
orientations within a generic sociocognitive trait theory involving
a ‘plural affect agency’ (i.e., the emotional organisation). Affect
personality is defined in terms of a set of affect traits. These are
defined in terms of epistemically independent bipolar affect types,
which in turn coalesce into a set of Mindset types that can be related
to the classical four temperaments. Different affect types are supposed
to differently regulate the three stages of emotion management. Affect
24 Introduction
types and cognitive types provide mutual contexts, and foster recip-
rocal affect and cognitive orientations. The theory provides guidance
for analysis of cultural differentiation within social systems (societies/
organisations), with reference to identification, elaboration, and exe-
cution of ‘emotion knowledge’ and ‘cognition knowledge’.
Understanding interdependencies between cognition and emotion
regulation is a prerequisite of managerial intelligence and strategic
cultural intelligence, which is in demand for interaction and integra-
tion processes across social systems. From the framework model
linking emotion expression and emotion regulation with cognition
analysis, a typology arises allowing ex ante expectation of typical
patterns of behaviour.
Chapter 9 Affect and Cognition. This chapter is interested in affect/
emotion since personality is not only a function of cognition. Affect is
a very important aspect, but there are very few models in the literature
that show how affect and cognition explicitly interact to create
personality. The chapter develops a generic cultural socio-affect
trait theory of a ‘plural affect agency’ (the emotional individual/
organisation). Interaction between the cognitive and the affective
personality is modelled. James Gross’ (1998) model of Emotion
Regulation is integrated with Normative Personality Theory in the
context of Mindset Agency Theory to enable an explanation of
a cognitive system and an emotion regulating affective system relate
interactively. In a social environment, emotions are expressed
through actions. The results of actions (feedback, goal achievement)
are assessed through affective operative intelligence in the light of
pursued goals. The theory can provide guidance for analysis of
cultural differentiation within social systems (e.g., societies or organ-
isations), with reference to identification, elaboration, and execution
of ‘emotion knowledge’. Understanding interdependencies between
cognition and emotion regulation is a prerequisite of managerial
intelligence and strategic cultural intelligence, in demand for inter-
action and integration processes across social systems. The model
provides finally a framework which links emotion expression and
emotion regulation with cognition analysis.
Part III Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Chapter 10 Identity as a Component of Personality. Identity is an
essential component of personality. With this dependency, if theories
of identity are fragmented, then theories of personality are likely to be
inadequate. Using a literature review it is explained in what way
 Introduction 25
identify theory is fragmented. Using ontological principles,
a coherent schema for multiple identities is proposed, and this is
reflected in Hijmans’ (2003) Dynamic Identity Model. Identity the-
ory can be reduced from seven types of multiple identity that can be
found in the fragmented literature, to five, these being distinguished
between three psychological identities and two contextual ones. The
connection between the two can be explained through Dynamic
Identity Theory, which is then elaborated on using the new schema.
We also build this into agency theory using the MAT personality trait
theory. Two sub-classes of MAT exist, a personality three-trait
(MAT3T) and an agency five-trait (MAT5T), the former being
a theoretical subset of the latter. The agency framework is then used
to integrate personality and identity theory dynamically in order to
create a coherent complex adaptive system model. An agency is
composed of a set of systems with a meta-ontology, and using
principles of recursion from agency theory, it can be shown how
the set of multiple identities fit into these. It will also be shown that
MAT3T and MAT5T can be used to create measures for the multiple
identities. As a result, we present a coherent dynamic theory of
multiple identities, and a direct means of measuring multiple
identities.
Chapter 11 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump. This
builds on theory from the previous chapter, and a relationship is
developed between the strategic multiple identities considered there.
Analytic personality pathologies arise when these identities are not
consistent, and MAT can be used to evaluate them. MAT3T involves
cognition traits, while MAT5T involves sociocultural cognition traits.
These two models are then used to compare personal and public
identities and evaluate whether contradictions between them might
result in pathologies. The technique is applied to Donald Trump’s
personality by examining his psychic contradictions, as discovered in
narrative related to his 2016 US election campaign. Using MAT3T
and MAT5T to explore his personal and public identities, trait items
were sought using content analysis applied to his narratives. It is
found that Trump’s MAT3T and MAT5T evaluations take different
values, this suggesting pathology.
Chapter 12 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types – the Case
of Theresa May. Following on from the previous chapters, Hijmans’
(2003) Dynamic Identity Theory is used to explain the relationship
between the multiple identities which impact on personality creating
26 Introduction
imperatives for behaviour. MAT then connects identity and person-
ality theories, and is elaborated on conceptually to include Dynamic
Identity Theory which explains how identities develop. Developing
identities result in personality adjustments through trait movements.
The resulting theory is then applied to Theresa May, the UK prime
minister in 2017. As in the last chapter for Trump, a selection of her
election narratives is taken, and a summative content analysis is
applied in order to examine her public and personal identities using
MAT. Theresa May’s personal and public identities, while related,
have some differences, suggesting a clinical explanation for her polit-
ical inconsistencies. The approach adopted here is unusual in that it
(1) explains the relationship between personality and identity, and (2)
can evaluate personality using a qualitative-quantitative approach,
undertaking a comparative evaluation of multiple identities to explain
clinical psychological conditions. It is clearly shown that the relation-
ship between affect and cognition agency are characterised in the
same way, through a duality between the psyche and the material.
Part IV Formalising Mindset Agency Theory
Chapter 13 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism. In this chap-
ter we explore the notion of sociohistory and its relation to psycho-
history, and as part of this we examine Sorokin’s meta-theory of
sociohistory. We also discuss its development as a formal means by
which historical and possibly future events can be explored. An
exploration is made of the use of formal structures of inquiry that
are able to predict sociopsychological events under uncertainty.
Formal formulaic structures that adopt mathematical or logical lan-
guage can benefit inquiry because of the deductive and simulation
power that well-constructed theory has. It explains that this formal
approach arises with Roy Frieden’s Extreme Physical Information
(EPI) that operates as configuration schema with MAT.
Chapter 14 Illustrating Psychohistory. This is a formal extension of
Chapter 4 and a natural continuation of the whole book and particu-
larly of Chapter 13. An agency sociocognitive modelled has a normative
personality, where patterns of behaviour occur through underlying trait
control processes, and from which specific behaviours can be predicted.
The formal symbolic/formulaic approach of Frieden’s EPI is harnessed
to explain the immanent dynamics of the agency, and explore the
likelihood of predicting agency behaviour. The propositions so far
adopted currently only constitute an entry into the task of exploring
psychosocial processes with respect to MAT. The extended need for
 Introduction 27
this will be to develop a capability to represent the cognitive processes
of personality such that its potential to create an imperative for behav-
iour in given situations that can be anticipated under uncertainty, even
where the agency has pathologies. Earlier we discussed the differences
between informal and formal theory. Informal theory is more flexible
in that it is able to create different contexts to explain a variety of
situations. Formal theory is more restrictive. Creating a synergy
between the two enables formal symbolic/formulaic structures to be
built in a consistent way to enable different contexts to be explored. As
an illustration, we explore in a general way the non-linear cultural
dynamics of a plural agency to illustrate how a dominant sensate or
ideational culture may emerge.
Part V Conclusion
Chapter 15 Overview. This chapter summarises what has been done in
this book, with some embedded implications of future development.
Appendices
A. This appendix briefly introduces the cultural values inventory of
Shalom Schwartz, explaining its configuration with Sagiv and
Schwartz’s (2007) and Maruyama’s Mindscape theory. The
Schwartz measuring instrument is then provided. It lists the questions
that enabled him to collate the approximately 60,000 respondent
data returns to formulate his theory. Added in are questions that
permit the extended cognition traits of that derive from Shotwell et al.
(1980), and an instrument for the affective agency. It also explores the
inventory need for affect agency.
B. This appendix offers a measuring instrument for James Gross’ Affect
Regulation measuring instrument as indicated in Part III of the book.

The Audience
This book is aimed initially at psychologists and social psychologists who
might be interested in personality, but it is much broader than this. It is
also appropriate for management studies (including marketing), because
social psychology is an integral part and able to provide insights into why
organisations behave as they do, how pathologies might be diagnosed and
resolved, and issues concerning the politics of leadership. It offers a general
theory of systems thinking for dynamic agencies operating under complex-
ity, and uses configurations for theory building. This occurs through
cybernetic processes, and the book will be of interest to those wishing to
28 Introduction
understand the nature of third and higher order cybernetics and the utility
that such modelling approaches might have. While it applies this to
personality, this should be considered as an exemplar of the configuration
approach that has validity for other fields. Adopting a different purpose
within a new context will require a different set of configurations.
Examples of such areas are given in Guo et al. (2016) who also note that
Agency Theory acts as a meta-framework that can deliver specific context-
dependent frameworks such that, with purpose and intention, systemic
detail, and evidence of complexity result. The meta-framework adopts
a high level of conceptualisation, and as a result, complexity tends to
become less relevant (Glassman, 1973). Indeed, personality, like its equiva-
lence in management studies, provides strategic structuring, some of which
will be regulative, thereby creating control imperatives for the organisa-
tion. So, it is clear that the book is multidisciplinary, something that is an
essential requirement to deal with complex problems and with appropriate
methodological approaches to respond to them (Yolles, 2020, 2020a).
The book is also a study of living systems theory under complexity, and
is therefore relevant to those interested in complexity. Its study of socio-
cultural dynamics can also have value for those interested in complex
dynamic systems. Other areas include organisational cybernetics, control
theory, and due to the approach adopted, methodology. It is also relevant
to sociologists and political scientists since some of its configurations relate
directly to these fields. In the last part of the book it considers psychohis-
tory, a natural extension of predicting behaviour from a knowledge of
personality psychology. This then moves towards mathematical techniques
of inquiry, and hence the book may be of interest to those in the fields of
mathematics and computing.
There are many courses around the world in universities on personality
psychology as well as all of the other fields of interest indicated. Since the
book is not intended as a course text, but is rather a monograph that is able
to stimulate research processes, it will be of interest to advanced under-
graduate students, post-graduate students, and researchers.
While there are many descriptive books in these above areas, especially
social psychology and personality psychology, there are currently few, if
any, books available that provide an integrated multidisciplinary theory of
personality psychology, especially within the context of complexity and
living systems.
 part i
Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency

A basis for a general theory of personality psychology will be created from

the Knowledge Cybernetics schema, a knowledge-based approach that has
its origin in the third-order cybernetics of Eric Schwarz that explains the
dynamics of complex systems. This establishes a cognitive meta-system
able to drive agency behavioural systems. It is from Knowledge Cybernetics
that Agency Theory arises, and from this that comes Mindset Agency
Theory which is the central theme of this book.
Historically, in the complex topic of personality psychology there is little
likelihood of a single all-embracing theory that will be able to subsume all
other theories. An alternative is a plurality of schemas that each has unique
interests or penchants. However, for this to work, these schemas need to be
configured so that they can work together systemically, and this means that
there is a need for a coherent platform that can offer commensurability.
Schemas have different natures, and Maruyama created a classification
that distinguished between three ‘universes’ into which schemas may fit.
Commensurability between cross universe schemas can only occur when
appropriate configurations can be identified that enable them to be
migrated across universes. His universes are called classificational, rela-
tional, and relevantial, the definitions for which will be provided in due
course. Their distinction, in order, reflects the capacity of schemas that
belong to each universe to deal with complexity. Living systems theories
that respond to complexity extremely well belong the relevantial universe,
while more trivial schemas (with respect to their ability to respond to the
needs of complexity) belong to the classification universe. The relational
universe is intermediately between these. Basically, given a living system
schema, one can reduce it to the other universes by progressively denuding
it of properties that enable it to respond to complexity.
It is during the migration process that schema incommensurability
needs to be identified and responded to, thereby creating the required
coherent platform. This often involves configurative adjustment to some of
29
30 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
the schema assumptions or propositions during the migration process.
Indeed, it will be shown that thematically related schemas, which might
be considered to be separate and competitive even as far as belonging to
different classes of Maruyama universes, may in fact be migrated into
a given frame of reference in a relevantial universe that can represent
complex systems dynamics. The lesser universe in relation to the needs of
complexity is relational in which attributes of schemas can be related, while
the lowest form is the classificational universe which has minimal capacity
to respond to issues of complexity.
In illustrating how to migrate a schema from one Maruyama universe to
another, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is classificational,
will be complexified; i.e., it will be adapted to enable it to better address
complexity. As such it will essentially be migrated to another universe.
During the adaptive migration process we will make a few changes to the
core principles of MBTI:
1. Since MBTI is a type theory operating through four pairs of enantypes,
and it is postulated that these arise from traits – strictly speaking MBTI
is a disposition theory and not a trait theory.
2. Enantypes will be distinguished into primary classifications that deter-
mine the states of personality as self, and non-primary classifications
that relate to social interactions.
3. While MBTI is a static theory of personality, we postulate that it is
capable of change.
4. The traits that arise in the adapted form of MBTI now becomes
a sociocognitive trait theory referred to as S-MBTI, which has the
potential of more explanatory power than is normally attributed to
MBTI.
Through this development of S-MBTI, we will create what might be
considered as agentic trait psychology. As such we will show that
a variation of the McCrae and Costa proposition (that trait theory can be
created to give sociocognitive explanations), is feasible. This permits two
apparently distinct and competitive approaches, S-MBTI and Maruyama’s
Mindscape theory, to be related due to the schema commensurability
developed.
In the complex world of personality a plurality of different personality
schemas can be useful. Such schemas can be described in terms of semantic
streams, and we have defined three of these: kinematic, directional, and
latency personality attributes. While the streams may be thought of as
being analytically independent, they are also highly interactive. As such,
 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency 31
necessarily any semantic stream must reflect attributes of the others. Each
stream interacts with the others in ways that reflect on the personality as
a whole. When they work together as a system, they then richly interact
with purpose delivering the possibility of a balanced personality. When
they interact poorly, perhaps being devoid of purpose, then each stream
acts as an environment for the others. This situation might provide
indications of spastic or disjointed personality. Where connection discon-
tinuities arise, then the personality shows itself to be pathological. Where
the streams are integrated, an integrated personality arises.
Formulating a configuration exercise provides a useful means of dem-
onstration how different schemas can be related if an appropriate rationale
is provided. The divide between Mindscape theory and MBTI can be
reduced if both can be shown to contribute to an understanding of
different aspects of complex personality. Mindscape theory can be seen
to effectively define the kinematics of the personality that can be differen-
tiated within separate contextual spheres. However, S-MBTI can be used
to represent the latency of personality and processes of empowerment.
These two schemas could therefore work hand in hand, systemically, to
contribute towards a more balanced personality.
It is perhaps an understatement to say that we would not advocate
connecting even adapted MBTI with Mindscape theory for anything
more than an exercise since the claims for the former are unrealistic (as
we shall explain in due course) and it would likely impoverish Mindscape
theory. Having said this, since S-MBTI and Mindscape theory have
different (and hopefully commensurable) missions, it is feasible for them
to be connected to better understand personality. However, as long as
S-MBTI is based on unstable belief-based preferences (as opposed to stable
value-based penchants), its empirical evaluation provides no confidence
that it is capable of delivering its promise. Despite this, it does represent
a way of exploring a form of personal political salience where personalities
maintain a self-schema that effectively provides a cognitive process that
enable people to connect their personal experiences to their wider social,
historical, and political contexts, and to providing self-governance in
connection with the interrelation between individual agencies. In contrast,
Mindscapes may be represented as being predictive in nature, and are
related to control, causal explanations, and operating as an instrument to
action. If these representations are in any way correct, then the examin-
ation of personalities would benefit from the use of both schemas.
A general theory of personality that allows for configurative develop-
ment should be able to help us to understand in greater depth the
32 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
relationship between mind and behaviour through the creation of a general
theory of personality. In any such general theory there must also be an
intimate relationship between the modelled ‘analytic’ pathologies and
‘clinical’ personality disorders, and this might include such considerations
as adaptive inflexibility, vicious cycles of maladaptive behaviour, and
emotional instability under stress.1 A general theory of personality might
well be able to map modelled pathologies with such personality disorders.
In Part I of the book a generic platform for the organisation as
a psychosocial agency will be created. As part of this, a generic model of
the emergent normative personality will be useful, but much of the theory
also relates to the individual. The differences between these lie in that the
individual operates through empirical attributes while the collective does
so through normative attributes. The approach we have used extends to
a significant degree the proposition that the collective mind (with its
normative personality) exists. It is a short step further to postulate that
the collective mind with a coherent worldview gets formalised into
a paradigm, and as such maintains a normative personality in which
conscious and preconscious traits operate underpinning personality con-
trol processes.
The agency model we will construct consists of five traits: two sociocul-
tural agency traits and three personality traits that belong to agency. While
Jung originally proposed a ying-yang theory of personality, it would seem
to be novel that traits are seen as subject to shifts that arise from an agency’s
cultural orientations. For the individual agency, there does seem to be
some indication that for cross-cultural migrants, personality changes occur
(Rosenberg, 1990). However, this refers to adventitious influences from
a changing environment that are responsible for personality adjustments.
Another consideration is the immanent dynamics that occur, enabling
a personality to change through its own internal processes. This notion
of trait changes arises from Sorokin’s proposition of sociocultural dynamics
within large-scale culture, where very long-time swings between cultural
types occur. However, in small-scale collectives with durable cultures and
relatively small populations, one would expect shorter time scale move-
ments in agency traits. In other words, speed of cultural change can be
related to some form of cultural inertia that is determined by population
mass.
Traits may take a limited number of type values to create stable person-
alities, and their options include opposing orientations that are represented
by the term enantiomers. Where it is possible to evaluate stable agency
traits, it is possible to predict patterns of behaviour. The theory that we
 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency 33
have developed goes beyond the recognition by van Egeren that traits may
be viewed in terms of self-regulatory propensities or styles affecting how
agencies characteristically pursue their goals. Here, traits are seen as onto-
logically distinct, having different derivative natures. Personality has cog-
nitive, figurative and operative aspects, and a network of processes are
involved in migrating information from one trait to another. The same
idea applies to the sociocultural traits. Thus, while traits arise from a base of
action-related knowledge from which cognitive processes are derived,
environmental orientation also has an embedded trait that is more con-
nected with knowledge about the social and natural environment relating
to the structures observed there, social norms, and indicative behaviours.
Now, agency and its personality characteristics are determined from the
interactive combination of traits, with their type value penchants. The
traits are information providers and filters, and the penchants they have
bias the information they provide, this impacting on the capacity of an
agency to efficaciously service the information processes that determine
behaviour in a balanced way, unless the traits are themselves balanced.
A need in agency analysis is to determine whether the traits, through their
penchants, determine requisite responses (i.e., those necessary to maintain
viability) to adventitious influences (i.e., those arriving from the environ-
ment of agency), or whether responses are influenced by pathologies this
being indicative of agency dysfunction. Another useful attribute is the
analysis of an agency’s cultural and social intelligences, enabling determin-
ation of whether the organisation has an appropriate value penchant set or
not. All forms of intelligences taken together therefore provide a picture of
the preconscious processes by which an agency operates.
Trait theories are all theories of disposition, though not all theories of
disposition are trait theories. While traits may be seen as ‘local’ determiners
of day-to-day behaviour that influences how one interacts with others on
a daily basis, our interest lie in formative traits which determine agency
character. Local traits constitute consistent behavioural tendencies that
result from innate features, or as the generalised result of learning pro-
cesses, delivering stylistic attitude, cognitive schemes (like personal con-
structs, values, and frames), dynamic motives (like the need for
achievement and power motivation), and it may also derive from encoding
strategies, self-regulatory systems and plans, and other cognitive social
learning person variables. They may also result from pathologies or trait
information inconsistencies.
Our interest lies in formative traits, those that shape the character of an
agency. Such traits will be considered to be independent variables that can
34 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
be configured as an interactive collective. The traits are postulated to
separately and independently characterise attributes of agency and its
personality providing predictive capacity for patterns of behaviour.
Mindset types can be characterised through the trait collective delivering
a Mindset orientation resulting from trait penchants. Immanent trait
dynamics operate epistemically and are constrained to develop within
any domain, affecting the states that a trait assumes. The value that
a trait settles to is determined by a conflict between two opposing stable
forces, and the dominant force determines the value that emerges. This
explains trait penchants, arising from an attraction to one or the other
forces, giving it a material or immaterial (e.g., cognitive, ethereal, or
intangible) orientation.
We will be interested in agencies that in normal homeostatic equilib-
rium mode are able to maintain a stable agency orientation, thus providing
access to the possibility of behavioural prediction. However, such agencies
also possess an immanent dynamic through which personality change may
occur under sufficient stimulus. Environmental exigencies may become an
imperative for a reformulation of the immanence resulting in a post-
normal mode of agency orientation as defined by its traits. This leads to
a new balance between type interaction shifts in each trait and the possi-
bility of change in agency orientation. Such situations do not usually
provide access to the possibility of behavioural prediction. The need
then, has been to find a way to explore the immanent agency dynamics
towards an identification of a new stable orientation, and hence the
likelihood of behavioural predication. Towards the end of this book such
an approach will be considered.
The personality is modelled as a living system involving ontologically
distinct trait systems. These include the personality operative, figurative, and
cognitive systems. Beyond personality there are also the agency cultural and
operative systems which create contexts for the personality. The personality
operative trait is contingent on the other two personality traits, and any
immanent dynamic that evolves in respect of the personality able to generate
strategic decisions centres on the operative trait. The recognition that nor-
mative personality traits are influenced by agency’s cultural orientation
provides access to the development of theory that argues for trait immanence.
In other words, agency traits change over time through their internal
dynamics in a way that is not normally perceived for the individual agency.
To observe that this may occur in unitary agencies (e.g., the individual), one
would need to examine changes in the cultural traits that constitute their
environment. In the case of plural agencies norms can be explored. While
 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency 35
agency traits often, and indeed usually, maintain penchants that bias them,
they may also take balanced type values. Balanced trait type values reduce the
perturbing effects of filtered information that is accrued from the environ-
ment, and permits requisite responses to issues requiring attention. However,
traits with penchants accrue perturbed information through filtering effects
that leads to inefficacious and unbalanced behavioural outcomes. A purist
might argue that with respect to balance, this should be seen in the light of
pathological dysfunction. Since most agencies (like organisations or people)
have traits with penchants, this would imply that in some way most
Mindsets are typically dysfunctional with respect to balanced outcomes.
 chapter 1

Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview

1.1 Purpose
This chapter is the antecedent and antithecis of the final overview
chapter of this book. The purpose of an underview is to provide some
basics from which the theoretical framework that we adopt can be
explained. Derivation of this framework will be provided in the follow-
ing chapters. The chapter will initially look as various philosophical
attributes of the thesis explaining its position of critical realism, moving
on to considerations of meta-theory and how Agency Theory connects.
It will then look at the evolutionary development of Mindset Agency
Theory. Culture is a component of the latter, and some propositions for
this will be provided. The chapter will finally explore Agency Theory
modelling and Mindset Agency Theory.

1.2 Philosophy
To better understand the approach being taken in this book, consideration
will be made of its philosophical position in writing about personality
psychology, and this provides a rationale for modelling processes. Since the
work of Piaget in the 1950s, constructivism has come to the forefront of the
field, this embracing epistemological relativism which recognises that learn-
ing, understanding and knowledge are experiential, and that the nature of
reality is internally determined. As an illustration, Bandura, when talking
about efficacy of any description (e.g., self, collective, or personal), peppers
it with the notion of belief – the epitome of the constructivist thought. In
this book we diverge from this tendency, rather adopting constructivist/
critical realism that while still accepting epistemological relativism, also
adheres to and ontological realism (Mason, 2015; Srivasatava, 2009;
Given, 2008), where
37
38 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
• epistemic relativism refers to the idea that valid knowledge is context
specific and enables justification for a given argument;
• ontological realism refers to the idea that at least a part of reality is
ontologically independent of human minds.
Proctor (1998; Bhaskar, 1989: vii) notes that constructivist/critical realism is
a perspective which allows us to reclaim reality for itself … to reclaim it from
philosophical ideologies – such as empiricism or idealism – which have
tacitly or explicitly defined it in terms of some specific human attribute …
I call critical realism.
Proctor (1998; Outhwaite, 1987: 118–19) further notes that
realism is not committed to the adulatory reification of particular existing
sciences … any more than to that of particular theories and methods within
them. Its claim is the weaker but important one that ontological commit-
ments, whether of general epistemologies or of specific scientific theories,
are inescapable and have to be taken seriously.
Critical realism comes from the idea that material effects exist independ-
ently of their being perceived, or independently of our theories about
them. Reality is determined by the structures that create these effects
which exist independently of us, and distinction can be made between
experiences, events and causal mechanisms, epistemic process (for know-
ledge), and ontology (types being) under praxis (practice, rather than
theory). Miller (2002) notes that realism conforms to two general and
macroscopic aspects, existence and independence. The first claim supposes
that effects (as material objects) in the external world (that constitutes
reality) exist independently of their being perceived, and the second claim
asserts that objects in the external world exist independently of what is
thought about them. Most realists argue that causal processes in the mind
mediate, or interpret, directly perceived appearances. Thus, essentially the
effects remain independent, although the causal mechanism may distort,
or even wholly falsify, the individual’s knowledge of them. Scientific
realism is the view that ‘theories refer to real features of the world.
‘Reality’ here refers to whatever it is in the universe (i.e., forces, structures,
and so on) that causes the phenomena we perceive with our senses’
(Schwandt, 1997: 133). More detail is provided by Balick (2014), about
how external world effects are subjectively internalised. Assuming exist-
ence, effects/objects are brought into the subjective agency’s internal world
of the unconscious, becoming an internalised assimilated cognitive effect
ideate (or meta-object;1 Mielkov, 2013) that forms relationships with other
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 39
such ideates and with the agency’s ego. This enables the development of
an internal relational representation of the external world. This internal
fabric is deeply dependent on the agency’s experiences of the external
effect/object. As such, there are mutual influences between the internal
and external worlds. This enables us to distinguish between the external
world of effects/objects, and the internal world of subjects with its
meta-objects, and it leads to the recognition that the object-subject
relationship is directly contingent on the external-internal world rela-
tionship. Bhaskar (2008) notes that our understanding of reality is
determined by the real structures that exist independently of us, and
there is a distinction between (1) experiences, events, and causal mech-
anisms; and (2) epistemic process (for knowledge) and ontology (types
of being) under praxis. For Modell (2007: 3), critical realism ‘has
evolved into a much broader program that stresses issues of agency,
authority, power and emancipation’. Taken as a generic paradigm,
critical realism constitutes a means by which an intermediate position
can be achieved that reflects various relationships between an effect/
object and an observer. For Cupchik (2001), an alternative name for
critical realism is constructivist realism.
That we adopt critical realism will necessarily have some influence on
the definition of the terms we adopt, requiring for instance an adjustment
of Bandura’s notion of efficacy (Chapter 4), or elaborating on the nature of
Piaget’s operative and figurative intelligence due to its fundamental and
rarely recognised importance to living systems theory.

1.3 Meta-theory
Returning to the modelling process, this can be especially effective
when it uses a meta-framework that offers a capability of reflecting ‘a
theory of meaning’ through its meta-theory so that it can respond to
both theory-doctrine and problem-based issues (Oakley, 2004), and it is
through the constraining influence of context that a theoretical frame-
work arises. Meta-theory transcends theories by creating context from
which theoretical concepts are embraced, thereby grounding, constrain-
ing, and sustaining theoretical concepts, and related methodologies
having principles that guide processes of inquiry (Overton & Müller,
2012).
Sousa (2010) identifies three distinct philosophical positions to meta-
theories: positivism, postmodernism, and critical realism, and where post-
modern while embracing various forms of escape from positivist
40 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
perspectives, conforms to social constructivism. The distinction between
these three positions within a systemic perspective has been summarised as
follows (Sousa, 2010: 456):
Whereas positivists see the social world as a closed system wherein cause–
effect relations can be readily observed or experienced, postmodernists’
diametrical viewpoint is that the social world is fully socially constructed
by humankind. For critical realists, the social world is an open system whose
existence is largely independent of any knowledge one may have or develop
and social science should be critical concerning the social world that aims to
tentatively describe and explain.
Meta-theory may be also seen as having three actions: (1) it acts to connect
different mid-range theories (Bacharach, 1989); (2) it adopts the principle
of parsimony that accounts for a broader array of phenomena with fewer
constructs than is possible without it (Tybout, 1995; Morgan & Hunt,
1994); and (3) it generates new knowledge (Kaplan, 1964).
The meta-framework it adopts draws us towards considering the needs
of a generic model (Galbraith, 2004; Lane, 1996) that is applicable to a class
of theory, for instance relating to personality traits. Developing on the
notions of Simpson et al. (2005), a generic model should meet five criteria:
1. be connected to the widely recognised fundamental properties and
related processes of an object of attention in a defined area of
applicability;
2. reduce complexity;
3. provide a powerful, extensible construct for modelling that is able to
respond to queries about problem situations, their associated object
states, and processes of change;
4. recognise epistemic distinctions like effects (including objects of
attention and events) and boundaries, the nature of a distinction
being a provider of information, and that only exist through the
distinction;
5. be able to provide structured response to complex problem situations.
Criterion (1) requires the area of applicability to be identified, for instance
for us it is agency within the context of the social psychology of creativity.
Also required is a definition of what properties and processes are necessary
and sufficient. Thus, Amabile (1983), in her study of the social psychology of
creativity, recognises that tasks have intrinsic properties generated by the
motivational state of an individual, and that creative processes involve
cognitive abilities, personality characteristics, and social factors. Also,
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 41
domain-relevant skills (e.g., the domains of playing music or chess),
creativity-relevant skills, and task motivation provide necessary and suffi-
cient components for creativity. In our theory we adopt an ontology in
which domains are defined through adopted configurations that are con-
nected with a class of processes, and together these provide necessary and
sufficient conditions to define a living system.
Criterion (2) seeks a reduction of complexity. This condition makes it
feasible for a theory to deliver generic models for only a given class of
theory. In extension of this proposition, the more that complexity may be
reduced, the narrower the class of organisation theory possible. Thus,
reduction of complexity can go only as far as needed to meet criterion
(1). Thus, in our approach we limit complicating discussions on culture by
defining specific contexts. Two cultural contexts are identified, that of the
unitary agency and of the plural agency. In the former, the origin of culture
is adventitious due to its sociocultural environment, while in the latter its
origin is immanent. This permits a single exploration of culture that can be
applicable to the relevant contexts of both classes of agency.
The generic criterion (3) provides a powerful, extensible construct for
modelling that is able to respond to queries about problem situations (and
their associated object states and dynamics). For a given class of organisa-
tion it should be possible, within the class, to identify similarities and
differences in terms of distributions of unique collections of characteristics.
Thus, it should also be possible to identify similarities and differences
across different classes of organisations. When a quantitative measure of
characteristics can be generated, then means and medians may serve as an
approximation of a sort of ‘normative’ measure. Standard deviations or
quartile distances may serve as measures of accepted or tolerated variability.
In qualitative research common qualitative characteristics (joint narratives,
stories) may serve as illustrations of similarities. Antenarratives (frag-
mented pre-narratives), counter-narratives, or crisis-narratives may serve
as illustrations for variability or differences (Fink & Yolles, 2011).
Criterion (4) apposes epistemic and ontological analysis. Epistemic
analysis delivers knowledge about concepts like boundary and effects
(and how they are distinct from each other),2 while ontological analysis
offers explanations concerning the relationships between these concepts.3
Thus, if concepts underpin configurations, the epistemic analysis can
provide knowledge about the configurations (and their distinction from
other configurations) like culture and personality, while ontological ana-
lysis explains the relationships between them.
42 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
For criterion (5), structure may be taken as a complex elaboration of
a distinction (e.g., a mark is different from the empty space prior to the
appearance of that mark), so that if an effect can be distinguished into
a complex plurality of directly related distinctions that are immediately
relevant to it, then knowledge of that structure provides opportunity for
significant interactive responses with the effect. This applies, for instance,
to the use of recursive modelling as adopted here, where the mark consti-
tutes a point of reference to which recursive structures can be related.
There are a number of meta-frameworks capable of generating generic
models and hence satisfying the five criteria above, like Managerial
Cybernetics (Beer, 1981), Complexity Theory (Prigogine & Stengers,
1984; Hemaspaandra & Ogihara, 2002), and Knowledge Cybernetics
(Yolles, 2006) more recently manifested as Agency Theory. Our interest
here lies in Agency Theory.

1.4 Agency Theory

In the introduction to this book we said that the agency framework to be
used is cybernetic within the context of psychic systems. Cybernetics is the
science of control and communication, and different cybernetic orders
exist. A cybernetic order is the recursive application of cybernetics to itself,
and the order indicated is the number of recursions applied. To understand
this we refer to Thommen and Wettstein (2010) who differentiate
between second and third-order observation, indicating that second-
order observation is that in which an observer views some effect/object,
and a third-order one where researchers make statements regarding an
observation an observer makes about their own psychic system, the system
of a partner, or the cultural system in which they live. This explanation
arises from something that is better known as cybernetic orders (Yolles &
Fink, 2015). While many authors define such orders in terms of observers
since it is conceptually obvious, it is a limiting contextual approach that has
more theoretical power when first and second orders are expressed in terms
of networks of processes. Here then, a third-order cybernetic model has
a second-order network that is influenced by, and influences a first-order
network. This also allows easier transition to higher orders still, and
recognises that the need for such orders is determined by otherwise
unsuccessful attempts to clarify, through the creation of greater relational
detail, important situations of interest.
The evolution of our third-order cybernetic theory of personality is
concerned with complex living systems (Yolles, 2018, 2018a). The
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 43

Marshall(1995)
Stryker (1980) & others Knowledge Types
Mayurama (1980) Hijmans(2003)
Identity Theory
Mindscape Theory Fink and Yolles Dynamic Identity Theory
(2014 & 2015)
Cognition & Affect
Traits
Ashby(1956) DockensIII(2017)
Beer (1966) Identitiy types Mindset Agency Gross (1989)
Jantsch(1980) Theory Emotional regulation
Sorokin
Maturana & Varela (1987) (1962)
Yolles&di Fatta
Prigogine & Stengers(1984) Sociocultural
Identity (2017)
DissipativeDynamic Living Dynamics
Cybernetic Systems Theory Swann, Griffin, Predmore,
&Gaines (1987)Cognition
& Affect
Schwarz etal. (1988) Cultural cross-fire
Schwarz (1990) Agency Theory
Living Cybernetic
Beer (1972) Systems Sagiv& Schwartz (2007)
Management Guo,Yolles,Fink& Schwartz (1990)
Cybernetics Iles(2016) Cultural values study
Marshall(1995)
Information types Social Viable
Systems
Habermas Yolles (2006)
(1979) Yolles (2016)
Three Worlds Piaget (1950)
Yolles (2006) Process Intelligences

Knowledge (Autonomous)
Cybernetics Agency Theory Yolles & Fink (2014)
Management
Systems
Frieden (1998)
Extreme Bandura (1986)
Yolles (1999) Physical Agency
Information Yolles, Fink & Dauber(2011)
Yolles(2016)

Figure 1.1 Evolution towards Mindset Agency Theory.

development of the characteristics that define them is shown in Figure 1.1,

where influences are indicated and stages in theory development are
highlighted. The multiplicity of theories adopted to create Mindset
Agency Theory (MAT) demonstrates the utility and need for
a configuration approach in creating broad and flexible theory.
As illustrated in the figure, the approach really begins with Eric Schwarz
et al. (1988) who adopted and integrated ideas from authors like Ashby
(1956) and Beer (1966) on cybernetics, Jantsch (1980) on self-organising
systems, Maturana and Varela (1987) on living systems, and Prigogine and
Stengers (1984) on complexity. These accumulated into a broad theory of
living cybernetic systems involving complex non-equilibrium dissipative
systems for which adaptive effort is needed if the system is to maintain its
stability and viability. The Schwarz et al. (1988) model explains how living
systems survive under dissipative conditions (where order is lost), and
permits behaviour to be anticipated. Yolles (1999) set this within
a management systems context, which then evolved into a knowledge
context (Yolles, 2006) resulting in Knowledge Cybernetics. During its
development it came to reflect Roy Frieden’s (1998) information theory
44 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
called Extreme Physical Information (EPI), a configuration that is still
under development, but which could act as an alternative and more flexible
approach to that of CAS – otherwise called Complex Adaptive Systems
(Holland, 2006). CAS and EPI are formal theories that use formal lan-
guage, and they can model complex systems in similar ways. However, EPI
is inherently more flexible in part due to its derivation from Fisher
Information, and also with respect to its relatively direct capacity to vary
its propositions according to the qualitative modelling requirements deter-
mined through the configurations of Agency Theory. In addition,
Marshall’s (1995) empirical research (which differentiated between identi-
fication, elaboration, and execution types of knowledge) was important.
Knowledge Cybernetics defines a global context that describes the know-
ledge facility of a social collective. It can be represented principally as a set
of transverse ontological domains that act as a psychic meta-system with
cognitive control capacity of behaviour. It enables system viability to be
discussed in terms of self-organising processes, and it thus took the name
Social Viable Systems (Yolles, 2006).
The agency ideas of Bandura were then configured into the theoretical
framework, this leading to the generic Autonomous Agency Theory
schema, a name applied to differentiate it from other forms of agency
theory (Guo et al., 2016), though within the cybernetic context no confu-
sion will result by reducing the name to Agency Theory. Narrowing the
context by centring on culture, it came to be called Cultural Agency
Theory (CAT), having been influenced by Sorokin’s (1962) theory of
sociocultural dynamics that is concerned with immanent change. Here,
we may note the distinction between immanence and adventitious change,
where the term immanent refers to impulse for change that inherently
derives from the interior of a system, while the term adventitious is indica-
tive of an impulse for change comes from the outside of a system. While
immanent change may arise from purely self-imperatives, it may also be
initiated by adventitious changes. CAT is a sociocultural theory, and where
it adopts personality as one of its elements it may be seen as a psyche CAT.
This is part of cultural psychology through which it is seen that the mind
and culture, while analytically separable, are functionally inseparable and
mutually constitutive. The framework that underlies CAT has the model-
ling capability to selectively embrace the whole of Meyer’s system set of
personality psychology. Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) was developed
from CAT to explain cognitive and affective aspects of personality and
their interactions, and because of the need to both address psychic com-
plexity and to better understand the sociocultural nature of individuals and
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 45
organisations and their behaviours. CAT was formulated as a personality
model, and its MAT derivative is part of personality psychology deriving
from the work of Maruyama’s (1965), Mindscape theory, Schwartz (1997)
and his cultural values study, Gross’ (1998) ideas on emotion regulation,
and the ideas of Swann et al. (1987) on the interaction between cognition
and affect/emotion. Hijmans’ (2003) Dynamic Identity Theory explains
agency coherence between its personality and sociocultural attributes, and
links with Marshall’s (1995) ideas on knowledge types from which types of
action-related information can be obtained. An agency is seen to have
a personality defined in terms of formative traits (that are really Bandura’s,
1999a, supertraits which form the basic structure of personality), taken here
to define a personality system through the type values that they take and
which when stable enables behaviour to be reliably anticipated. These traits
reflect and are reflected in characteristic cognitive, emotional/affective and
behavioural patterns, and they are modelled through MAT. Once the trait
nature of personality was completed, a new track was identified for MAT.
It was to see identity as a part of personality, though there is little published
work to suggest or elaborate on the nature of this connection. Having said
this, Stryker (1987) has noted that values act as the core of personal identity,
this underscoring the idea that formative traits, defined through cultural
values, constitute a core for identity. Agencies may possess more than one
identity, and while there is considerable niche work on multiple identities,
beyond Stryker (2007) there are few attempts to explain how they occur as
agency internalisations and how they function within the context of
personality. Now, personality pathologies are often connected with iden-
tity issues, and this line of thought has drawn on the multiple identity ideas
of Dockens III (2017), whose notions of identity differences arose from his
work on Mindscape Theory (Dockens III, 2009). This resulted in an
approach that was able to explore how agency personality pathologies
occur.
Agency is an entity that has the capacity, condition, or state of acting or
of exerting power. Agency theory is concerned with the relationship
between two or more parties who may act as agencies to each other and
their interactive relationships. It is also concerned with their general
structure, i.e., their meta-structure – where the term meta can be used to
mean something that is characteristically self-referential. Meta-structure
offers an overarching framework which supplies rules regarding the rela-
tionship between meanings within a defined frame of reference. It may be
seen in terms of complex processes through which from collective inter-
active phenomena there may emerge unexpected individual or collective
46 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
behaviours. This take on agency theory has a widely applied theoretical and
empirical framework that can be used with different disciplines and
approaches (Kivisto, 2007). In organisation theory, its purpose has been
to investigate general questions of incomplete information and risk shar-
ing, with interest in analysing and resolving problems that can occur in
agency relationships. The approach to agency taken by Bandura (1986) has
been of interest here, since he was concerned with the field of human
psychology and self-processes that connect with environment and other
agencies in interaction. Autonomous agency theory arises from this,
a complex cybernetic ‘living systems’ framework (Yolles & Fink, 2015)
that redefines Bandura’s conception of the autonomous system approach.
The concept of an autonomous living system as adopted here arises with
the work of Schwarz (1994). This sits on the foundational work by Miller
(1978) whose conceptualisations reduce the putative complexity of the
structure and organisation of living systems. Miller provides a common
framework for analysing the nature, condition, structure, and process of
systems at various levels of complexity. This ability to compress complexity
has been important to living systems theory. Our approach also sits on the
work of Maturana and Varela (1979) who were interested in the biological
basis of living, and created a generic modelling approach that has the
capacity to anticipate future potentials for behaviour.

1.5 Culture
A major influence on the development of Cultural Agency Theory
(CAT) was Sorokin’s (1962) theory of sociocultural dynamics (Yolles,
2006). Culture and cultural change are of fundamental importance not
only to a unitary agent, but also to plural agency composed of
a population of agents. Both have personality, though plural agencies
have normative personality. Culture orients the personality providing
it with stability in its beliefs, values, and norms, and when instability
ensues, personality issues (like for instance psychosis, narcissism, or
bipolar) arise. While Sorokin has discussed only issues of cognition
culture, the principles of his sociocultural dynamic theory relates
equally well to affect theory, creating an intimate relational theory of
thought and emotion when set within a cybernetic agency theory.
Culture is central to CAT and hence MAT, so what is it? It has two
dimensions, one of emotion/affect and the other of cognition. Following
Yolles (2019a) and adding in aspects of affect, we can define aspects of
culture as follows:
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 47
1. Culture is the result of an ‘interpretive struggle’ of social reality
(Maeseele, 2007). It has dimensions of cognition and affect, these
providing fields of influence for agency behaviours.
2. Cognition culture is structurally stable when its values are sufficiently
well ordered, which may occur when it is relatively homogenous or
heterogeneous. A homogeneous value system is inherently ordered
and its different value types are mostly mutually supportive.
A heterogeneity value system is complex with value types being
mixed and mutually unsupportive, resulting in value inconsistencies
and sociocultural confusion (Triandis, 1989). Cognition culture may
be defined through knowledge, beliefs, values, and norms (Archer-
Brown, 2012; Taylor et al., 2015). It may be dynamically stable as when
its trait changes are able to correct its trajectory under perturbation.
3. Affect culture involves emotional climate and affect norms. Its struc-
turally stability is dependent on emotional climate. Its dynamic
stability is dependent on its network of socialisation practices (de
Rivera, 1992). Affect culture can be represented through emotional
values (emotional feelings and how we perceive our mental state of
being) associated with a particular set of environmental interactions
and other attributes (Tagiuri, 1968).
4. Emotional climate, with properties of security and fear, is defined
through predominant collective emotions shared by members of
social groups (Páez, Espinosa & Bobowik, 2010; de Rivera et al.,
2007; de Rivera, 1992) that have been recognised and internalised.
A climate of security implies structural stability, when agents may be
more able to tolerate diverse views and not run any real danger of
fragmentation, and a climate of fear arises from projections of threat
with which comes instability.
5. Affect norms determine what emotions and emotional expressions are
appropriate or not in a given context, thereby creating obligations and
duties that govern emotional arousal, expression, and behaviour, and
imply standards of comparison between experienced and contextually
legitimate feeling (Scheve & Minner, 2015).
6. Culture may be tight or loose – indicating actor complies to cultural
norms. Tight cultures have strong norms and tend to be traditional
and repressive with low tolerance to deviance (Uz, 2014); they main-
tain homogeneous beliefs, so that members of a social broadly agree
with and abide by normative patterns of (usually beneficial) behav-
iour. Loose cultures have weak norms and an emotionally high
48 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
tolerance to deviant behaviour, with few rules or standards; beliefs are
relatively heterogeneous, and thus not widely shared (Odor, 2018).
7. Beliefs are a state of mind in which something is thought to be the
case (Churchland & Churchland, 2013), independent of any empir-
ical evidence. They are influenced by emotions by creating beliefs
where none existed, facilitating changes in beliefs, or enhancing or
decreasing the strength of beliefs (Frijda & Mesquita, 2000).
8. Beliefs develop into values when they are seen to be important and
a commitment is made to them (Immigration Advisory Authority,
2018).
9. Values are stable long-lasting beliefs about what is important
in situations (McShane & Glinow, 2003). They are desirable individ-
ual or commonly shared conceptions (Morris, 1956), and are associ-
ated with actualisation and the emergence of spontaneous order
(Zetterberg, 1997). Values are reflected in behaviour where there is
a collective agreement about them in an activity system, when they
determine what is right and wrong (the domain of ethics), and where
to behave ethically is to behave in a manner consistent with what is
right or moral and in relation to the values held (Cowings, 2002).
10. Norms are shared beliefs composed as informal rules that emerge from
social interactive processes (Frese, 2015) when they become internal-
ised. They apply to members of a culture, exercising social compliance
(Zetterberg, 1997), conditioning conduct by guiding cognition
through cognition norms and indicating emotion through affect
norms (Cialdini et al., 1990; Zetterberg, 1997). They are belief derived
concepts, and the use of one may activate others perceived to be
semantically close (Cialdini et al., 1990). They provide standards
defining what people should do or feel or say in a given situation
(Burnes, 1992: 155), shape behaviour in relation to common values or
desirable states of affairs, vary in the degree to which they are func-
tionally related to important values, are enforced by the behaviour of
others, vary according to the boundaries of the culture, and vary in
supporting a range of permissible behaviour (Secord & Backman,
1964: 463).
11. Cognition norms determine what cognitive representations (for dis-
course) and cognitive expression (as behaviour) are legitimate in given
contexts, thereby creating obligations and duties that govern modes of
thought, expression, and behaviour.
12. Values and norms are related through more obvious behaviours
(Smith, 2002) and through community (Dempsey et al., 2011), both
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 49
involving interpersonal relationships, a supportive sense of safety and
well-being, a sense of self-worth, and empowerment.
13. Both values and norms are dichotomous. The value system has two
cultural forces (Sensate-Ideational; Sorokin, 1962) that are epistemic-
ally and ontologically distinct,4 interactive, opposing, and mutual
auxiliaries one to the other. The normative system has two epistemic-
ally similar but opposing regulatory forces (tight-loose; Pelto, 1968;
Gelfand et al., 2011) that are opposing but not mutual auxiliaries to
each other or mutually interactive. Norms interact with attitudes (to
determine behaviour) and the two shape each other (Gibson, 1983;
Butler, 2013).
14. Knowledge is constructed through beliefs and values and is mani-
fested as the sharable objects of attitudes and the primary bearers of
truth and falsity (McGrath & Frank, 2018).
15. While values and norms are interactively embedded in knowledge,
they are also independent since they act in ontologically distinct
spaces. Values operate culturally and are responsible for the formative
traits that underpin personality, while norms operate cognitively and
behaviourally to constrain or facilitate behaviours.
It is important here to differentiate between the cultural attributes of value
and belief in a living system that is necessarily always under dynamic
change, and which may be structurally stable or unstable. Cultural values
define the structure of the cultural system from which behaviour arises,
while norms condition an agency through identity, cognitions, emotions,
perceptions, and behaviour. It is therefore through values that one can
determine whether a culture is structurally stable. Structural stability is
a fundamental property of a qualitative dynamical system in which the
qualitative behaviour of the system itself is unaffected by small perturbations
(Náprstek, 2015). Consider that a cultural value system that varies in its
dynamic movement between sensate and ideational states has become
subject to internally or externally derived perturbations. These value states
are epistemically independent, and culture may achieve a mix of both
during its dynamic change processes – i.e., values that relate to sensate
and ideational cultural states might coexist. Given that agency culture
experiences perturbations, these will in general limit the recognised poten-
tial of agency itself to respond. The structural stability of a culture is
endangered when its homogeneous set of values become susceptible to
small changes in its parts, resulting in a qualitatively distinct change in its
value structure that pushes it towards value heterogeneity and hence
50 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
instability. When a cultural value system loses its stability, this impacts on
the survival of its belief system represented through its social norms.
While values are immanent (I live my own values), norms are adventi-
tious (I conform to norms in my environment). Social norms arise from a
cultural belief system, and may vary in theiir degree of cultural compliance,
this referring to permissible normative deviation. Strong norms are
a function of tight cultures, and weak norms of loose cultures, the two
being epistemically dependent – tight culture having a strong normative
belief system with no tolerance to deviance, and loose culture having
a relatively weak normative belief system with a liberal tolerance to devi-
ance (Gelfand et al., 2011). While compliance cannot enable both tight and
loose cultures to exist simultaneously due to the epistemic dependence of
the nature of these terms, the degree of necessary compliance may vary.
When considering change in cultural compliance, one also needs to
examine the dynamic stability of the norms. In examining this it needs
to be recognised that strong norms are undermined when private senti-
ments shift away from them while weak norms are not (Michaeli & Spiro,
2014). In other words, in tight cultures norms are more susceptible to loss
of dynamic stability than are loose cultures, since any increase of exceptions
is of greater significance – making the former inherently dynamically
unstable. Another factor in dynamic stability is the speed of change in
cultural compliance (Yang, 2015). When social change is fast and norms are
abruptly perturbed, a cultural state can arise where, under dynamic
instability, norm trajectories embrace sudden anomie (a Durkheim notion
indicating a diminution of social or ethical standards) that, when coupled
with a set of expectations, allows the emergence of deviant behaviour (like
suicide, homicide, and drug addiction; Heckert & Heckert, 2004) more
likely (Durkheim, 1966; Scott & Turner, 1965).
Náprstek (2014) explains that a structurally stable culture produces
a coherent society in which purposes and interests can become clear, and
the means by which they can be satisfied can be relatively certain and
deterministic. As illustration, this determinism was historically represented
as the period of enlightenment which included a range of ideas centred on
reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy. It was replaced in
the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by modernism which arose at
the end of colonial invasion and global expansion and during the latter part
of the western industrial revolution, and which refers to the re-evaluation
of the solid attributes of socioculture in the light of dramatic change.
Modernity may be described through a number of characteristics that
include: individual subjectivity; a decline of the significance of religious
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 51
worldviews; scientific explanation and rationalisation; rapid urbanisation;
the emergence of bureaucracy; the rise of the nation-state; intensification of
processes of communication; and accelerated financial exchange (Snyder,
2020). It was then replaced by post-modernism after World War II, in
which relativism rose to smite positivist views or reality, becoming a period
that saw-in the onset of sociocultural uncertainty. This has transformed
into Bauman’s (2008) notions of liquidity, in which social uncertainty is
a dominant feature. So, the shift from modernity to post-modernity is an
entry into a period of cultural instability. It has since then developed into
the social liquidity of complexity and uncertainty. Here then, we see
movement from the solid certainties of modernity to the full-blown
uncertainties of liquidity through the transition of post-modernism.
Bauman describes very clearly the state of modern society though his
concept of liquid society, which indicates social responses to endemic
conditions of cultural uncertainty, but it does not provide any causal
factors for this condition. Long-term explanations are provided by
Sorokin (1957) from his theory of sociocultural dynamics. Medium term
explanations are provided by Ionescu (1975). The distinction between
Sorokin’s paradigm and that of Bauman is considered by Kaufmann
et al. (2004). So, while Sorokin has developed a theory of sociocultural
change that centres on causative cultural factors from which certain social-
economic and political structures arise, Bauman has taken a more philo-
sophical route, and has been more interested in the socioeconomic and
political structures and the cognitive and emotional impact on individuals.
However, the two paradigms are closely related, with Bauman creating
a snapshot of attributes that arise from Sorokin’s theory.

1.6 Agency Modelling

Returning to Agency Theory, agency as a living system has already been
said to involve a substructure and a superstructure. This substructure is
constructed as a generic framework of cybernetic axioms that include
agency boundary, autonomy, and self, the latter enabling self-production
and self-creation. The substructure has a superstructure that arises through
configurations that propositionally enrich substructure and define its char-
acteristics. The outcome is that agency has various dynamic properties that
facilitate an adaptive potential for maintaining viability.
In agency modelling, recursion is feasible due to a viability proposition
adapted from Beer (1979) and consistent with Simon (1962) proposition of
system hierarchy, that any viable living system has recursive viable living
52 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
systems within it. However, this feasibility has a caveat, that the recursion
must appropriately respond to the context defined by the system in which
it is embedded. Change the context and the nature and meaning of the
recursion changes. As a strategic model, agency has three domains that
together represent a general information supported strategic capacity,
where each domain constitutes ontological distinctions with their own
epistemic (knowledge related) nature that is a reflection of their properties.
When expressed as systems, this not only embraces the domain properties,
but also their functionality. Together the three systems are ontologically
orthogonal, and exist in a cybernetic hierarchy in which the interactive
functionality of one system is at a higher order that that of the others.
Thus, for instance, the cognitive system has overall cognitive orienting
control in the agency, and the figurative system plays an instrumental role
that has orienting control for the figurative schemas to be manifested
operatively in operative structures. The operative system maintains struc-
tures with operative attributes that call on competences. The connective
relationship between these systems in the hierarchy is said to be transitive.
The interactive nature of the hierarchy is indicated by feed-forward and
feedback relationships.
Agency as a whole can be described as a meta-ontology having three
classes of context-independent ontology arranged essentially in a system
hierarchy, where each systemic context in the assembly is ontologically
independent and has a set of mutually interactive relationships. One
attribute of this nature is semantic-good that satisfies systemic function
need, examples of which are types of knowledge, like conceptual, tacit,
and explicit (Nonaka, Toyama & Konno, 2000); information, like identi-
fying, elaborating, and executing (Marshall, 1995; Paris et al., 1998); and
data, like data types, processed data, and raw data (Stillerman et al., 1997).
A semantic-good is a service utility which facilitates meaning and which
creates inputs to the production of lifeworld processes (Schutz &
Luckmann, 1974),5 like communications.
Where the living system is a conscious entity, it can be described as in
Figure 1.3, with three ontologically distinct systems. This considers that our
interests influence our behaviour and our behaviour leads to outcomes as
observable phenomena. In turn, reflection on these outcomes can influence
thinking. Thus, interests are affected by outcomes of action and self-
reflection (thinking) about these outcomes. Our values condition our
thinking and behaviour. But, when given values do not lead to desired
outcomes, our interests induce change in values. In that sense, values are
conditioned by interests which may ‘drive’ values.
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 53
These basic insights were further developed by Yolles and Iles (2006)
and converted into a more elaborate ‘scientific’ language: A cultural agency
is a dynamic, adaptive, self-organising, proactive, self-regulating, socio-
cognitive autonomous plural actor that interacts with its (social) environ-
ments. Thoughts are determinants for patterns of behaviour that develop
from personality. Normative personality is the result of a culturally derived
‘collective mind’ (Yolles & Fink, 2009) which has both cognitive and
affective states, uses information to guide thinking and actions, and is
able to monitor and discriminate its own and others’ feelings/emotions.
At this point it is important to note that Figure 1.2 and its development
as given in Figure 1.3 do not show environments of the personality.
Basically, one can distinguish two aspects of an environment: a ‘social
environment’ or, as it was called by Dauber, Fink, and Yolles (2012), a ‘task

Conditions

Influences

Behaviour
Values Interests
(Doing, Action
(Believing, Knowledge) (Thinking, Information) outcomes, Empirical
Data)

Is affected by

Is conditioned by

Figure 1.2 Values, interests, and behaviour of a personality.

Figurative intelligence/
Operative intelligence/
Autogenesis and thematic
Autopoiesis and the
principles of strategy that
manifestation of task-related
recognise the nature of
behaviour
situations

Structures and related

Epistemically
Subjective learning actions that result from
relativistic noumenon
Existential Domain experiences
Noumenal Domain
Phenomenal Domain

Figurative intelligence/
Autogenesis and regeneration of Operative intelligence/Autopoiesis
evaluative perceived experience and regeneration of network of
decision processes through
phenomenal experience feedback
adjusting network of processes

Figure 1.3 Viable systems model of the organisation (Yolles & Fink, 2009).
54 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
environment’, and a ‘cultural environment’. The task environment is that
part of the general environment, where the personality promotes agency
action in pursuit of its goals. Of course, personality as an ‘acting system’
does not only need to define and act in pursuit of its goals, but also needs to
be able to screen its goal achievement by being an ‘observing system’
(Nechansky, 2006), consistent with notions of second-order cybernetics.
Through observation, knowledge about the degree of goal achievement
feeds back into the personality, triggering repeated action or changed
action or adaptation of goals relating to what is achievable.
Moving on from Figure 1.3, Schwarz (2002) was interested in exploring
viability within the context of autopoiesis (self-production). He argued
that for autopoiesis to be a core element of a living system, it requires three
ontological attributes. For him, what we refer to as the existential domain is
holistic and constitutes ‘the whole’, the noumenal domain is one of
relations, and the phenomenal domain is one of structured objects.
Interestingly, Yolles and Fink (2011) in their development of this model
recognised that the existential domain is an attractor for states that appear
in instrumental systems. The terms autopoiesis (Maturana & Varela, 1979)
and autogenesis (Schwarz, 1994) are used to label the processes in the model.
As noted in the introduction to this book, these terms are equivalent to
Piaget’s theoretical intelligences (Piaget, 1950). In the 1920s he was com-
missioned to explore intelligence, and developed the theme of ‘generic
epistemology’ relevant to studying how children learn. His research drew
him away from the more usual concept of intelligence to define two types
of ‘process intelligences’. With agency consciousness, the functionality of
Piaget’s operative intelligence turns out to be equivalent to autopoiesis
(self-production), and figurative intelligence is equivalent to autogenesis
(self-creation).
The intelligence is a network of process through which an agency can
appreciate and harness its own knowledge as information about its envir-
onment, to construct new knowledge converted from information about
its experiences, and based on that information to pursue its goals effectively
and efficiently (when devoid of pathologies), i.e., to display appropriate
behaviour and take appropriate context related action. The upper level
arrows in the figure from left to right indicate the action-oriented feed-
forward processes, and lower level arrows from right to left indicate
adaptive or innovative learning processes. In this figure, the domains
refer to ontologically distinct ‘natures of being’, this as opposed to systems
which are part of a domain with functionality. The term existential is
adopted in the sense of Kierkegaard (2009) who was concerned with
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 55
knowledge and meaning, and sees truth to be subjective and existentialised,
since it relates individuals and their bearing towards their existence. As
such, individuals concretely exist as human, and are not just ‘knowing
subjects’. The use of the term existential domain adopted here therefore
refers to the subjective knowledge of an individual that is a function of
learning experiences. The term noumenal refers to a critical realist repre-
sentation of Kant’s notion of the noumenon which recognises ontological
realism, but also embraces epistemological relativism (Yolles, Fink, &
Frieden, 2012). The term phenomenal refers to structure and behaviour
that is phenomenological (related to experiences), rather than phenomen-
ology which rather refers to the structures of consciousness as experienced
from a singular perspective under intentionality (Smith, 2013). Systems can
reside in each of the domains indicated in Figure 1.3, and we shall consider
these domains further throughout the book. For our purposes here, we
shall take the existential domain to be composed of a cognitive system, the
noumenal domain to be composed of the figurative system, and the
phenomenal domain to be composed of the operative system, though as
will be seen in due course (e.g., Figure 9.4), greater variation is possible.
The Cognitive System: This maintains selected context sensitive identifi-
cation information manifested from the cultural system. It facilitates cogni-
tive schemas of self-identity through which information patterns arise from
mental dispositions and states in the agency. This is connected with the
creation of patterns of recognition related to existential cognitive interest
which can be related to a given context. In complex situations agencies
respond to a large number of events that sometimes unfold rapidly and
often unexpectedly. Time constraints may be tight, and there may be an
urgent need to identify aspects of a situational context that need to be
prioritised. Identification is definitive in that it holds normative character-
istics that influence the plural agency overall. It relates to situation aware-
ness (from which arises cognitive interests), needed to inform controls that
may in due course be applied repeatedly in tactical settings. Effective
identification involves recognising a context by focusing on the particular
configuration of features that are present in it. Identification information
occurs as patterns that construct attitudes through a field of influence that
vectors the orientation of the agency. This is reflected in cognitive schemas
that either implicitly or explicitly promote strategic ‘attitude’ represented
by, for instance, policy and futures/development initiatives. This informa-
tion embraces at least the following functionalities: Inference, which iden-
tifies likely consequences of experience. It is a deductive feature that has
importance for understanding the nature of situations, as well as creating
56 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
an anticipatory capacity for the future. The deductive feature enables
a process of reasoning in which a conclusion follows from a set of deter-
mined premises that are conceptually connected. Inference is the ability to
apply collected strategic information to a relevant situation and from
which conclusions may be drawn. Self-referencing, which enables
a position or identity to be recognised. It is through referential position
that one can differentiate oneself from an environment. Strategic identity
enables this differentiation to occur in different ways. Self-awareness, which
includes the ability to reflect on and ultimately communicate about at least
some of one’s own internal processes and explain an individual’s actions,
decisions, or conclusions. Self-awareness is the ability to be aware of one’s
own internal cognitive processes, thereby providing rational or inferential
explanations about the processes or behaviours that one is engaged in. It
may also be a prerequisite for self-consciousness, defined (Yolles, 1999) as
the ability to interact with descriptions of self. These characteristics can be
consolidated into a variety of capabilities, like the ability to generalise,
resolve anomalies, learn from experience, deal with situations under con-
ditions of uncertainty, and be able to improve future performance. They
can also be represented in terms of other capabilities, like adaptation. One
of the features of the cognitive system is that, just as in Lewin’s (1935) field
theory which explains that an individual’s psychological state influences
their social field, the cognitive system creates a field of influence that
normally orientates the figurative and operative systems.
The Figurative System: This maintains selected elaboration information
that is influenced by manifestations from the cultural system and the
strategic cognitive system. It is connected with the development of figura-
tive schemas relating to particular figurative purposes determined by situ-
ational context. Agencies need to elaborate their understanding and
interpretation of the context and the development of regulations specified
as the figurative schemas. These schemas can be understood as espoused
strategic options, from which operative system imperative strategy options
arise. In so doing they call on experience that is manifested from the
cognitive system to assist in schema maintenance or the creation of new
context related schemas. Some of the elaboration may be related to critical
thinking skills. Elaboration enables the summarisation of experiences. It
facilitates the creation of figurative schemas, where the espoused strategies
will include coordination and integration in relation to situational con-
texts. Effective elaboration enables reliable and acceptable hypotheses to be
formulated with regard to contextual purpose. Elaboration creates personal
agency information (like ideological, ethical, and self) figurative schemas
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 57
that are tied to posited policy and futures/strategic development, and it
anticipates operative processes of decision-making. The functionality of
this system is concerned with rational response, identified through figura-
tive schemas that respond to demands, which require action for a specific
situation, that action being consistent with a response that is considered
normal to that situation it is responding to. Rationality is therefore
a relative thing, and may depend upon what different individuals perceive
as normal behaviour. It is also a group thing, because what is construed as
normal must be normatively agreed by a sufficiently large peer group.
Rationality is manifested from the existential domain that underpin per-
spectives and activities of coordination and integration/control processes.
This system can also be associated with the seat of the consciousness (Guo
et al., 2016).
The Operative System: This involves execution information. Execution
information provides direction for structuring through decision role spe-
cifications and related operative activities, and any decision related rules
that may be required to guide operative processes. It is concerned with the
development of phenomenal structures (like decision-making role assign-
ment) and processes. It centres on the nature of operative decision-making
from elaboration information and rationality, and figurative identification
schemas like ethical or ideological policy outlines, which conform to
espoused strategies. It includes a distribution of forms of information
and structuring through operative schemas that create structural imperatives
that specifically relate to internal and external environments emanating
originally from personality states, perhaps including operative activities.
Arising from personality dispositions, one might find longer term struc-
turing like role specifications and any decision rules that may be required to
guide such operative processes. These schemas facilitate operative intention,
embracing a decision-making structure and actions resulting that apply to
social contexts.
We have referred to the strategic agency in terms of its schemas. These
generate orientations that together with the types of information it holds
influences their functionality, as indicated in Figure 1.4, which also consti-
tutes an outline model for personality (adapted from Guo et al., 2016). This
model involves the dynamic that explores the processes of life and death.
The nature of self-production that arises conceptually from Maturana and
Varela (1979) as a network of manifesting processes is central to the
autonomous agency creating the instrumental couple. Self-creation is
also a network of processes that facilitates learning in the autonomous
system, and controls the instrumental couple. The relationship between
58 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Figurative intelligence as self- Operative intelligence as self-
creation through a network of production &the manifestation of
processes operative behaviour

Cognitive Figurative Operative

System System System
The whole, cognitive Relations, figurative schemas Operative schemas like
schemas like like goals, strategic structures, operative
self-identification. elaboration. execution.
Self-referencing Self-regulation Self-organisation

Operative intelligence through evaluated

Figurative intelligence and regeneration of operative experience
conceptual identification through
evaluated experience

Figure 1.4 Distinction between the system schemas and their orientations in the
strategic agency indicative of a personality system.

each system and the process intelligences that connect them is explained in
some detail by Yolles and Fink (2015).
Agencies have expectations, as illustrated by their future planning
(Yolles & Dubois, 2001). These derive from the figurative system due
to the images of phenomenal reality that they hold there. Expectations
are also susceptible to perturbation due to the environment, its inter-
pretation, or to internal pathologies. Intelligent agencies attempt to
address these fluctuations where they are not consistent with expectation.
They can do this through self-moderation of behaviour by strengthening
the appearance of existing structural constraints and cognitive interests,
thus appealing to individuals to undertake their own moderation. Self-
moderation when formally instituted occurs because of the ability for an
autonomous community to undertake self-organisation. However,
autonomy is limited in an instrumental agency due to its lack of learning
capacity.
Operative and figurative intelligence in Figure 1.4 are not arbitrary
terms, but are agents of viability. Thus, the ability of an autonomous
agency to be viable and therefore durably survive in a complex environ-
ment may be seen as a function of operative intelligence and its second-
order cybernetic process associated with figurative intelligence. The
notions of viability for autonomous systems achieved prominence
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 59
through the work of Beer (1979). A viable system is autonomous (self-
determining) and can maintain stable states of behaviour as it adapts to
unanticipated perturbations from the environment (cf. Argyris, 1976;
Yolles, 1999).
Operative intelligence is a fundamental first-order cybernetic pro-
cess that defines living. To explore operative intelligence, we can refer
to Austin’s (2005) explanation of Piaget’s (1950) theory of child
development as posited by Demetriou et al. (1998), also noting that
Yolles (2006) argues that Piaget’s ideas can be extended from the
individual to the collective autonomous systems. This assumes that
in collectives, cultural structures arising from normative inputs can
occur because the symbolic forms that create it can have a meaning
that is to some extent shared by individuals within it. The coherence
of the culture is ultimately determined by the strength of the capacity
to so share. Piaget’s theory describes intelligence within the context of
cognitive development that frames how the world is understood and
represented. Operative intelligence is dynamic and intimately con-
nected to understanding. It is responsible for the representation and
manipulation of the transformational aspects of reality. It involves all
actions that are undertaken so as to anticipate, follow, or recover the
transformations of the objects or persons of interest. Operative intel-
ligence is said by Piaget to be responsible for the representation and
manipulation of the transformational aspects of reality, and as such it
may be constituted in terms of operative processes that enable an
organisation to maintain stable operations.
Piaget assigns the name figurative intelligence to (second-order
cybernetic) reflections of operative intelligence.6 It is responsible for
the representation of attributes of reality. It involves any means of
representation used to keep in mind the states that intervene between
transformations i.e., it involves perception, drawing, mental imagery,
language, and imitation. Because states cannot exist independently
from the transformations that interconnect them, it is the case that
the figurative aspects of intelligence derive their meaning from the
operative aspects of intelligence. Figurative intelligence provides pre-
cise information about states of reality, and involves all means of
representation used to keep in mind the states that intervene between
transformations, i.e., it involves perception, drawing, mental imagery,
language, and imitation (Montangero & Maurice-Naville, 1997;
Piaget, 1950; Piaget & Inhelder, 1969). Figurative intelligence will
thus be a reflection of patterns of knowledge and cognitive
60 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
orientation. It provides figurative imagery and patterns of informa-
tion. In terms of the organisation’s paradigm the figurative base is
composed of models, which entail structured relationships and both
epistemic and informational properties. Figurative intelligence con-
siders operative adjustment imperatives in the light of own strategic
interests and of own values and identity. It indicates whether cogni-
tive orientation should remain the same or rather be amended.
Figurative intelligence is constituted as a means of mental representa-
tion for the states that intervene between transformations. It would
therefore be expected to have both informational and knowledge
attributes. For our purposes, it is useful to identify two attributes of
figurative intelligence: figurative imagery in which information-rich
constructs are reflections of operative intelligence, and figurative
knowledge in which thematic patterns of knowledge are constructed
to provide meaning.
We have already noted the Piaget proposition that the process of
understanding change involves the two basic functions: assimilation
and accommodation. Assimilation refers to the active transformation of
information so that it may be integrated into already available mental
schemes. Sternberg (1996) notes that accommodation refers to the active
transformation of the mental schemes so that the particularities of what-
ever the individual is interacting with may be taken into account. For
Piaget intelligence is active in that it depends on the actions carried out by
the individual in order to construct and reconstruct his or her models of
the world. It is also constructive because mental actions are coordinated
into more inclusive and cohesive systems and in this way are raised to
more stable and effective levels of functioning. When one function
dominates over the other, they generate representations belonging to
figurative intelligence.

1.7 Mindset Agency Theory

The core of this book is Mindset Agency Theory. Here, Mindset refers
to a particular well-defined structure, but elsewhere the term mindset
has been adopted in a more limited way. There is a significant differ-
ence between the two that need explanation, which we shall now
provide. Gollwitzer and Kinney (1989), Gollwitzer (1990), and
Gollwitzer and Bayer (1999) adopted the term mindset to discuss the
motivational state of mind that people adopt when they are in a pre-
decisional or post-decisional phase in their lives. It is a disposition that
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 61
influences the way they process information about themselves and the
world. When people are in a pre-decisional phase, they adopt
a deliberative mindset to make the best decision possible between
competing goals and wishes. In contrast, once a decision is made,
people adopt an implemental mindset to plan the steps needed to
achieve their chosen goal. So, in this theory mindsets are mobile
attributes that vary according to decisional attributes. This work has
been explored further, for instance by Faby et al. (2004) to consider
how people may regulate their esteem needs about their relationships
and still function effectively, without risking later regret and disap-
pointment. Other areas of work on mindsets include Nenkov (2012)
who is interested in psychological distance and how the persuasive
impact of messages can be developed. Then, Dweck (2000) was inter-
ested in people’s implicit theories about the malleability of personal
characteristics, like intelligence, motivation, and personality, and how
the motivational beliefs and goals that people hold affect their atten-
tional processes, cognitive strategies, and intellectual performance.
Dweck’s (2000) theories centre on what she refers to as ‘basic’ traits,
like intelligence, though she makes no attempt to define intelligence,
and one must assume she means general intelligence: a broad mental
capacity that influences performance through cognitive ability. The
distinctions between motivational mindsets and our Mindset theory,
as given below, indicate that motivational mindsets and our Mindsets
only coincide with respect to the potential for developmental agency:
1. Dweck defines mindsets (which one supposes constitute a broad
mental capacity from which cognitive ability arises) as motivational
entities. There are two types each defined in terms of basic traits of
perception: fixed intelligence which cannot be developed, and incre-
mental intelligence that can be developed through education.
2. Dweck’s notion that intelligence is that it is a fixed trait that is
susceptible change through belief adjustment, but this does not have
the flexibility of Piaget’s conceptualisation that such change is
a function of cognitive development as a process of maturation
through interaction with the environment. In contrast, Mindset
theory adopts the Piagetian view.
3. While the two Dweck mindsets may be activated through belief. For
us Mindset properties are potentially infinitely variable and arise from
combinations of the eight identifiable Mindset types that arise from
combinations of five formative traits.
62 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
4. Dweck’s mindsets impact on people’s self-worth, self-esteem, and
motivation. Their self-view is also mindset dependent and creates
a continual need for self-validation that detrimentally replaces
a desire to learn. Our Mindset theory allows a wide variety of
self-properties to be manifested that can include self-view, self-
worth, self-esteem, self-reflection, self-organisation and so on, and
can be characterised by the many self-properties discussed by
Bandura (1999).
5. Through belief and learning a mindset can be changed to
improve intelligence. This is because mindsets create a field of
influence that impacts on cognitive capability and hence on
collaboration, innovation, and ethical behaviour. In contrast,
our Mindsets are cognitive maps that predict patterns of behav-
iour and are derived from formative traits that bias our percep-
tions and filter information, though balancing Mindsets can
address such biases.
6. Gollwitzer and Dweck mindsets are essentially strategic, providing
a motivational plan of action for an agency to achieve determinable
ends. Our Mindsets are concerned with adaptation – the ability of
agency to change to enable improved survivability.
7. The mindsets are deterministic strategic qualities and a consequence of
equilibrium processes where there is certainty. In contrast Mindsets result
from formative traits that in general change non-deterministically
through non-equilibrium processes under uncertainty.
8. Dweck’s general intelligence is variable, and depends on the mindset
of a unitary agency. In contrast, Mindsets operate through Piaget’s
notion of process intelligence, and any general intelligence is due to
the capacity of Mindset traits to transform information and create
biases while functioning stably. Instabilities result in personality
pathologies like the ‘dark traits’ or bipolarity.
9. There is a dependency issue: strategic change is belief dependent
underpinning mindsets and determining motivation and attitude.
In contrast agency adaptation involves the use of information pro-
vided by value dependent Mindset formative traits. This aspect rec-
ognises the distinction between belief-based mindsets and value-based
Mindsets.
10. While mindsets schemas are important for motivational processes,
they cannot be harnessed for personality evaluation. In contrast
Mindsets provide stable representations of personality and can be so
harnessed.
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 63
The basis of our Mindset approach comes from Maruyama’s (1988)
Mindscape theory in which traits are implicit (Boje, 2004). It offers
a powerful a sociocognitive theory that is constituted as a schema of
epistemological meta-types,7 and from which an agency’s patterns of
behaviour and demands can be anticipated. In other words, a Mindset is
a stable cognitive schematic construct that is responsible for coherent sets
of behaviour when they occur (Yolles & Fink, 2013). This lies in contrast to
less robust schemas like that of Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Pittenger,
2005).
Maruyama’s Mindscape theory has been adopted as the basis of our
new Mindset theory that for differentiation we refer to as Mindset
Agency Theory (MAT). MAT is a trait theory of personality, and the
traits determine its characteristics. The traits are formative, and consti-
tute innate features that arise from value/type orientations that impact
on behavioural tendencies. MAT traits involve strategic personality
attributes that impact on behaviour arising from Sagiv and Schwartz
(2007), and its sociocultural traits arising respectively from Sorokin
(1962) and Shotwell et al. (1980). While being based on principles of
Mindscape Theory (Maruyama, 1988), MAT was developed to create
greater transparency for Mindscape types.
There are two ontic varieties of MAT models, one concerned with
cognition and the other with affect. These represent distinct aspects of
personality that interact. Their relationship is intimate for the personality,
and the nature of this relationship has been discussed by various authors.
Perhaps a more fundamental discourse on this comes from Mischel and
Shoda (1995), who have proposed a theory intended to the reconcile the
paradoxical findings on the invariance of personality that explains how
behaviour varies with situation. To create the theory, they made two
assumptions. The first is that individuals differ in the accessibility of
cognitive-affective mediating units that include information encoding,
the creation of expectancies and beliefs, affects, and goals. The second is
that there is an organisation of relationships through which these units
interact both with each other and with the psychological features of
situations. Their theory accounts for individual differences in predictable
patterns of variability across situations as well as for overall average levels of
behaviour as behavioural signatures of an underlying personality system.
This theory elaborates on concepts of internalisation within which agents
observe effects through the information that they extract from them, and
then creates an ideate (a mental model) which then determines how they
will behave in relation to that effect. It also underpins the relationship
64 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
between cognition and affect. The process of internalisation has been
referred to as social cognition (Dykas, 2006), where the acquisition and
processes of interpretation of social information enables meaning to be
given to social effects (like the actions of others). Agency then adopts the
ideate formed to develop and maintain inter-effect (like interpersonal)
relationships.
Mischel and Shoda explain that effects have features that activate a set of
agency internal reactions that are both cognitive and experiential. The
features are not only encountered in the external environment, but are also
a function of cognition encompassing social, interpersonal, and intrap-
sychic attributes that include mood states and in the everyday stream of
experience and feeling. What it is that defines an effect for an agent is
therefore a function of their internalised constructs and subjective maps
that determines personalised acquired meaning of the features of an effect.
Individuals therefore differ in how they selectively focus on the different
perceived features, how they classify and encode them cognitively and
emotionally, and how those encodings activate and interact with other
cognitions and affects in the personality system. The characteristics that are
involved as defined by Mischel and Shoda and which have implied func-
tionality in the process of internalisation of observed effects, and how these
result in behaviours. Their features can be summarised as follows:
• Encodings: Constructs for self, others, and effects that include events and
situations.
• Expectancies and beliefs: Concerns the of relationship between effects and
their consequences, these including the social world, outcomes for
behaviour in particular situations, and self-efficacy (a belief about how
well one can execute courses of action needed to respond to effects).
• Affects: Feelings, emotions, and affective responses that include physio-
logical reactions.
• Goals and values: Desirable and aversive outcomes and affective states,
goals, values, and life projects.
• Competencies and self-regulatory plans: Potential behaviours and scripts
that one can do, and plans and strategies for organising action and for
affecting outcomes and one’s own behaviour and internal states.
The theory proposed that encompasses these ideas considers that personality is
characterised by not only its accessible cognitions and affects, but also the
organisation of interrelationships between them and the psychological features
of situations. The organisation guides and constrains the activation of the
specific cognitions, affects, and potential behaviours when an agent processes
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 65
features of an effect, and constitutes the basic structure of personality that
reflect agent uniqueness. This organisation is assumed to be not only unique,
but also stable, reflecting differences between agents through the interaction
between cognition and affect and the responses induced. The theory explains
how genuine personality facets can arise in a personality that are deemed to be
inconsistent, and are due to the network of relations among cognitions and
affects through which psychological organisation develops.
There are not only two ontic varieties of the MAT model, there are also
two trait varieties. One is a three-trait model (MAT3 T) that represents on
the personality traits, and the other is a five-trait model (MAT5 T) that
involves both personality and sociocultural traits. The dependency rela-
tionship between these two is explained by Hijmans’ (2003) Dynamic
Identity Model that will be explored later in this book. This relationship
provides the basis for distinguishing between the multiple identities pos-
sessed by an agent.
The multiple identities have been considered by Onorato and
Turner (2004). They noted that the salience of social identity can
inhibit that of personal identity, just as the salience of personal identity
can inhibit social identity. However, due to the interactive nature the
other types of identity, this is mediated by private, public, and indeed
cultural identity. Of interest is also Mohr’s (2002) recognition that
personal identity is consistent with the internalisation of experiences,
adopting the proposition that full internalisation occurs in private
identity, it interacts with public identity – defined as the way in
which individuals externally express their experiences. For Mordacci
(2014), this involves cognitive processes that are capable of being
integrated in the body of knowledge that the individual can use during
the framing of personal identity.
It is from these beginnings that a theory of cleavage between multiple
identities can arise that are indicative of trait instabilities and personality
pathologies.

1.8 Chapter in Brief

• Personality psychology is the study of how the different parts of the

mind work together, and how they can do so in a unified way.
• Personality psychology is fragmented – this work represents provides
a means by which integration into an understandable whole can
develop.
66 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
• The approach used is to recognise the complexity of the field by
developing an overarching narrative that can both be stated generally
and which allows for detailed exploration of sub-points relevant to the
present context.
• Key to this narrative is the concept of agency which refers to action
towards an end.
• Agency has the demonstrable ability to process and react to complexity.
• Agency as an entity may be conscious or non-conscious.
• Agency can develop through the use of configurations to process and
react to complexity.
• Configurations are named patterns regarding behaviours and effects,
and can be represented as schemas that have coordinative structures.
• By examining patterns of configurations through meta-analysis,
a collection of narratives can be set into recurrent contexts which agents
refer to when considering potential actions.
• Conscious agencies have the added ability to summon these contexts
while making use of them retrospectively. The resulting reflection
(reflexivity) allows for mindful feedback to alter both the narratives
told and the configurations subsequently summoned.
• Agencies have a population of autonomous self-determining adaptable
interactive agents, and can self-regulate.
• Self-regulative structures can be variously called simplexity, deep sim-
plicity, or meso structures of generic rules, these intended to both
constrain and facilitate the behaviours of agency and its population of
agents.
• Agency is core to Agency Theory, which is a general living system theory
with a substructure and superstructure: the substructure embeds the
generic rules that enable it to function as a living system, while the
superstructure anchors the configurations that define it.
• When Agency are deemed to operate through formative traits, Agency
Theory is converted to Mindset Agency Theory.
• Mindset Agency Theory is a cybernetic theory of living that is closely
associated with Maruyama’s Mindscapes, and which can explore the
interrelations among seemingly unrelated aspects of agency activity.
• Personality is a complex system that, as with any living system, can self-
organise and give rise to stable patterns of organisation that create the
psyche. With the rise of pathologies, the psyche and its organisation may
lose stability that may challenge perceptions of its coherence.
• Personality and agency can both be modelled through Mindset Agency
Theory. The former involves personality traits and can be related to
 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview 67
personal identity, while the latter involves both personality and socio-
cultural traits and can be related to public identity.
• There are two dimensions of Mindset Agency Theory, one concerned
with cognition and the other with affect. They represent distinct
autonomous aspects of personality that interact and together create
imperatives for behaviour.
 chapter 2

An Exercise in Configuration

2.1 Introduction
Here we shall formulate some basics that enable an exercise in configur-
ations to be developed. This will differentiate between normal and post-
normal situations, the former representing equilibrium and the latter non-
equilibrium conditions. This is important to understand since it can help
determine why certain schemas might work or not. This is elaborated on by
distinguishing between classifications of domains or ‘universes’ that deter-
mine the broad characteristics that represent different types of schema. This
is expanded on by discussing schemas and theoretical structures and their
interconnectability. Following this, Agency Theory is introduced as
a general framework into which different configurative schemas can be
introduced, and its capacity to represent complexity. Then, it is explained
how Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), taken as a theoretical configur-
ation, can be connected into Agency Theory superstructure.
To begin with, it is perhaps worth recalling that human agency is
complex, and modelling its effective functionality requires theoretical
pluralism (Bandura, 2008). Here, this is undertaken through configur-
ations. The case has already been made, underscored by Carver (2005), that
the plurality of personality schemas that coexist creates an uncertain
fragmented horizon of schemas that are uncoordinated, competitive, and
together demonstrate an undeveloped theoretical understanding of the
nature of personality (e.g., Sharpley, 2006). For instance, Bandura’s
(1999: 229) sociocognitive theory is a dynamic self-schema of personality
that sees the individual as an autonomous system that interacts dynamic-
ally with its social environments. In contrast, there are trait schemas of
personality like the Five-Factor Model1 (FFM) that tend to be devoid of
contextual connection and have a static rather than dynamic nature
(Bandura, 1986).
68
 An Exercise in Configuration 69
To deal with this historically derived fragmentation, some have sought
a ‘magic bullet’ unique schema that can explain everything, and applying
some ideas from Boje (2004), this might be explained as a monistic horizon
offering a single (monophonic) general narrative capable of delivering at
least one story. Others seek synergistic theoretical and methodological
pluralism (a ‘horses for courses’ perspective), which again using Boje’s
(2004) terminology would be described in terms of a plural horizon that
is polyphonic since it offers many narratives each telling its own story.
These narratives often have no point of interconnection, and while their
stories may be on a similar theme, their content maintains no relationship.
Reflecting on such monism/pluralism and commenting on the distinctive
natures of the Five-Factor Method and sociocognitive theory, Cervone
et al. (2001: 36) note that
if five-factor and sociocognitive theories of personality were closely related
and could easily be integrated, then there would be no need for a unique
sociocognitive theory of personality assessment in the first place.
Sociocognitive principles could simply be subsumed under the theoretical
umbrella of five-factor theory, as McCrae and Costa (1996) have explicitly
proposed. A distinct theory of personality assessment is required only if the
personality theories differ fundamentally, and they do.
It would appear that here the word distinctive refers to a coherent and
embracing theory, though not necessarily all-embracing. But however
fundamentally different the two approaches are, might a variation of the
McCrae and Costa proposition have some validity: that trait theory can be
created to have sociocognitive explanations? This chapter will ultimately
show that a variation of the McCrae and Costa proposition is quite feasible.
The underlying problem is that personality is complex, and normal
science (Manuel-Navarrete, 2001) approaches are inadequate to represent
it. Normal science operates through schemas that use isolated partitions of
knowledge that use their patterns to create narratives and tell stories. The
schemas provide an underlying organisational pattern, structure, or con-
ceptual framework of knowledge, and the patterns are an ordered experi-
ential stock of knowledge that provides cognitive relevance for narrative.
There are three interactive classes of relevance (Schutz & Luckmann, 1974:
228): thematic relevance occurs when a narrative (with its own subject
characteristics) can be expressed and determines the constituents of an
experience; interpretative relevance occurs when the narrative can create
direction by the selection of relevant aspects of a stock of knowledge; and
motivational relevance occurs when consideration of the narrative causes
70 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
a local conclusion through action. Schemas may begin through thematic
relevance as simple conceptual classifications that can arise from qualitative
or quantitative observation but, by engaging with interpretive and motiv-
ational relevance, can develop into theories with predictive capability and
even paradigms (where there exist adequate normative modes of practice).
In contrast to normal science, post-normal science is concerned with
complexity and has interests that relate to uncertainty, assigned values,
and a plurality of legitimately argued perspectives. Within the context of
narrative theory, these attributes suggest the occurrence of antenarratives
(Boje, 2001), from which narratives may arise, and where a plural collective
co-construction of multiple voices develop, each with a narrative fragment
and none with an overarching conception of the story that is becoming.
Where a plurality of narratives is unable to account for the whole of
a thematic reality, the use of normal science is likely to be inadequate in the
social sciences (Manuel-Navarrete, 2001). This also appears to be the
situation in the thematic domain of personality research, where each
schema operates as a distinct and unconnected narrative resulting in
a cacophony of storytelling.
The paradigm of Knowledge Cybernetics (KC) provides one entry into
post-normal science, with cybernetic meta-rules that can seek and manifest
an implicit orchestration in pluralities of knowledge. The creation of
a comparative examination of different theories requires that they can be
expressed in relatable terms of reference. Here, KC acts as a comparative
platform for different schemas capable of contributing to the exploration
personality. The methodological constraints for doing this are well
explored (Yolles, 1999). KC is a theoretical platform that arises from
principles of cybernetics and knowledge processes and is formulated as
a theory of context, using context-forming knowledge that leaves open
a capacity to create formal understandings about distinct situations. It
explores knowledge formation and its relationship to information and
provides a critical view of individual, social knowledge, and processes of
communication and associated semantics.
The intention in this chapter is to adopt KC as the basis for Agency
Theory (to be discussed shortly) as a platform to explore the configuration
approach that enables Jungian/Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to be
modelled as Agency and to show that it can be expressed in sociocognitive
terms. To do this, it will need to alter the Jungian/MBTI narrative while
maintaining and extending the core story. Such an approach suggests that
it may well be possible to address the current distinctions between different
classifications of personality theory and their competitive positions. This
 An Exercise in Configuration 71
study will be extended in the next chapter by exploring the configurative
possible relationship between MBTI and Maruyama’s (2001) sociocogni-
tive Mindscape theory, the two approaches not normally considered to be
commensurable.

2.2 Distinguishing Classes of Schema

There are a variety of ways of distinguishing between different schemas.
For instance, Cervone et al. (2001) discuss temporal (Aristotelian static and
Galilean dynamic) and structural (top-down/hierarchical and bottom-up)
schemas. An alternative is offered by Maruyama Universes which, unlike
the discontinuity of the orthogonal temporal and structural typography,
provide a classificational continuity through which to explore distinctions
between personality schemas. To satisfy our variation of the McCrae and
Costa proposition referred to earlier, we shall show that the migration of
schemas can occur from one Maruyama Universe to another. The tools to
do this come from general theories, and so we shall also consider the
relationship between domain-specific and general schemas.

2.2.1 Maruyama Universes

Maruyama Universes can be used to classify schemas and the information
that they generate. Maruyama (1965, 1972) posits three types of universe,
classificational, relational, and relevantial, and they each have distinct
natures:
1. The classificational universe is static, consists of substances classifiable
into mutually exclusive categories and is organised into a hierarchical
structure of superdivisions and subdivisions (lonesco, 1989). Members
of the universe are substances (material, spiritual, etc.) that are usually
discrete and mutually exclusive, which can be classified into categories
that can be combined or divided in a way that leads from the general to
the specific and invites ranking (Meyer, 2003). A schema in this
universe generates classificational information, the purpose of which
is to specify categories as narrowly as possible. Stein (2007) sees that it is
also object oriented and Judge (2006) suggests that it operates through
complex paired connections that are seen through objective epistemol-
ogy. FFM provides an illustration of a schema that belongs to this
universe. It arises from the five factors or dimensions of personality that
were discovered through empirical research (Goldberg, 1993);
72 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
a descriptive schema of personality that has not yet reached the status of
a theory, it is supported through inadequate post hoc propositions that
neither explain personality nor operate statistically in ways that satisfy
some critics.2 Research indicates that there are some important rela-
tionships between its personality factors and job performance, but even
so, there is a need to find hard evidence that any such approaches have
any real validity (McKenna et al., 2002). Another example is Eysenck’s
(1957) factor analysis study of political temperament. Also, the MBTI
schema that identifies a number of personality states may belong to this
universe, when the cognitive dynamics as envisaged by Jung are not
made a part of its narrative.
2. The relational universe is event oriented (Ionesco, 1989), being con-
cerned with events and their interconnections rather than substances
(Huchingson, 2001), with relational linkages and effects that are of
importance (Stein, 2007). Since it is event and occurrence oriented, it
drives the basic question of how they relate to others (Meyers, 2003). It
also maintains complex paired connections that adhere to a subjective
epistemology (Judge, 2006). Jungian personality temperament theory
may be seen as having an implicit relational nature.
3. The relevantial universe for Maruyama (1965) is existential and dynamic
in nature. It is socially connected in that it concerns individuals with
shared needs and desires and consists of individuals’ concern, about
themselves, about others, about situations and relations and about
existence (Meyers, 2003). It is also interpretation oriented, maintaining
a meta-view of phenomena and able to identify redundancies and
variety for a system in which there are self-organisation and adaptive
capabilities (Stein, 2007). Here, patterns of change are represented as
well as how adaptation to them can occur. Cognitively complex, it
provides for both subjective and objective epistemological perspectives
(Judge, 2006), where the latter presumably result from a normative
consolidation of subjective perspectives. An illustration of a personality
theory that resides here comes from Jung, who sees personality is
a living system that is self-organising, self-maintaining, self-
transcending, and self-renewing. Bandura’s sociocognitive self-theory
is also part of this universe because of its existential nature.
Schemas that exist in different Maruyama Universes tend to have different
frames of reference. Thus, for example, in the specific domain of personal-
ity theory, the agentic sociocognitive has no connection with FFM
(Bandura, 1986) and similarly appears to have little connection with
 An Exercise in Configuration 73
MBTI. Such a fragmentation of theory illustrates a lack of a deep under-
standing of personality. To address this, might there be a way of relating
schemas across different Maruyama Universes for greater schema synergy?

2.2.2 General and Domain-Specific Schemas

Schemas may be domain specific and tightly connected to a given theme,
or general when they are seen to operate across domains. There are
a number of schemas in the domain-specific area of personality (Carver,
2005), and by their very nature, they do not have access to general
principles available in cross-domain general theories. Two successful gen-
eral theories are Complexity Theory (e.g., Kauffman, 1993) and General
Systems Theory (e.g., Bertalanffy, 1951; Weinberg, 1975), the latter related
to Cybernetic Theory (Wiener, 1948; Beer, 1959, 1966; Schwarz, 1997,
2002). Some sociocognitive theory has been influenced by Complexity
Theory (e.g., Cervone et al., 2001), and while there is a recognition of the
influence of cybernetics (Cliffe, 1984), there seems to be no modern
application of Cybernetic Theory.
Some general theories have an explicit capacity to assimilate a plurality
of related domain-specific schemas, amplifying or honing their attributes
and then reactivating them in the specific domain. Such approaches are
often post-normal and post-modern, where complexity in the real world is
responded to through theoretical and methodological pluralism in contrast
to domain-specific schemas that are more limited (Francis, 2006; Midgley,
2003; Manuel-Navarrete, 2001; Sellamna, 1999; Funtowicz & Ravetz, 1992,
1993, 1994). So, there is often a need to attempt to relate the horizon of
fragmented schemas using constructivist approaches that establish inclu-
sive capabilities of knowledge production. Sellamna (1999) argues that
theoretical and methodological pluralism is an essential requirement that
rejects the hegemony of any single mode of knowledge production.
One boundary which personality research tends not to cross is the post-
modern theoretical pluralism that sees the individual itself as a plurality of
social constructions ‘none of which has a unique claim to truth’ (Bandura,
2008: 21), an idea put more generally by Dempster (1999).
The ability to migrate domain-specific schemas to general ones
requires not only an appropriate means but also that the general and
domain-specific schemas are not, as Kuhn (1970) might have put it,
incommensurable. Incommensurability between two theories occurs
when they are either non-coextensive and/or qualitatively dissimilar
(Yolles, 1999). Coextensivity occurs when two theories occupy the
74 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
same spaces of conceptual extension and have empirical referents that
can be measured on a common platform. Qualitative similarity refers to
the capacity to create measurements of empirical referents for concepts
that are qualitatively similar, when they can be measured on the same
scale of values. As an illustration of this, consider for instance Bandura’s
sociocognitive personality theory of self, which most inquirers would
consider to be incommensurable with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
schema.
The linking of two specific theoretical frameworks can only occur when
an intermediary framework is used with at least implicitly coextensive
propositions, i.e., when there are no explicit conceptual contradictions.
Such an intermediary framework is often a general theory that has well-
defined propositions. In other words, where there are limitations in the
domain-specific theory because its terms of reference have not addressed
certain types of conceptual extension, the general theory can often provide
conditions that can enhance aspects of the specific theory. We refer to the
creation of such conditions as theory migration, a process that occurs when
the symbolic capacity of a domain-specific schema can be manifested in
another, more general one. The migration process can result in the devel-
opment of new domain-specific theory that will need an exploration of
qualitative similarity. An extended argument supporting this view is pro-
vided by Wong et al. (2008).

2.3 Knowledge Cybernetics as an Agency Theory

Knowledge Cybernetics (KC) has a philosophical base with the follow-
ing constructionist axioms (Yolles, 2006): (1) knowledge is the result of
cognitive processes; (2) cognition is an adaptive process that enhances
the viability of behaviour for a given environment; (3) experience
becomes meaningful through cognitive processes; (4) knowing is cre-
ated through biological/neurological as well as social, cultural, and
language-based interactions; (5) autonomous cognitive entities have
their own cognitive processes and maintain distinct ontological top-
ologies; (6) autonomous cognitive entities create local knowledge; (7)
local knowledge cannot be transferred between two autonomous cog-
nitive entities; a communication topologically translates signs and
symbols from one to the other that catalyses the creation of local
knowledge.
It operates through an ontological hierarchy that involves three domains
of Being. These are as follows:
 An Exercise in Configuration 75
1. Phenomenal, involving structured objects or events in interaction, the
perception of which is conditioned by a cognition knowledge-based
frame of reference. It is locally cognitive. Phenomena (as opposed to
noumena) are truthfully experienced.
2. Noumenal, involving rational, symbolic, or logical relational images
that are constituted by coordinated, unintegrated images or systems of
thought that relate to phenomenal reality and connect with purpose-
fulness; it is local to the experiences of the perceiver and involves
interpretative rightness; images of value and belief are maintained,
partly represented through ethics and ideology. The domain is condi-
tioned by a cognition knowledge-based frame of reference.
3. Existential, involving beliefs and concepts and their patterns held in
worldviews. They establish a frame of reference and determine what is
known and their related meanings; these condition the figurative
noumenal images, provide substance for them, and support the sensory
capturing of phenomena.
KC can be represented as a cognitive geometry that is context forming
(see Bellinger, 1996; cited in Yolles, 2006) using metaphor as a means of
development. There is always a possibility of connecting it with relatable
commensurable approaches, or at least those approaches that maintain at
least implicitly commensurable conceptual extensions. It can operate
a theory of contexts by creating a recursive modelling process able to
represent fractal situations, an illustration of which we shall provide in
due course.
An illustration of the geometric nature of KC is provided in Figure 2.1
when it is manifested as an Agency Theory (AT) meta-model. This is
a generalisation of KC, which occurs when the agencies in AT are taken to
represent a population of autonomous agents, however an agent is defined.
AT is a meta-systemic approach to living processes. Within the context of
social psychology, the agents can be individuals as living systems them-
selves, and within the context of psychology, AT can represent both
corporate personality and individual psychology depending on need. For
the former, corporate personality develops through agent interactions from
which norms arise. In the latter context, personality develops as
a consequence of the internalised representation of agents in the social
environment (van Lieshout, 2000; Piaget, 1950).
Agencies, like the agents that define them through a given population,
are autonomous living systems with their own purposes and processes of
self (like self-determination, self-organisation, and self-identification). The
76 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Autogenesis (network of principles) Autopoiesis (network of processes)
from a knowledge-related cultural explaining the manifestation of
normative coherence structures that imply behaviour
dynamic

Existential domain Phenomenal domain

Noumenal domain
Influence-creating system Interest-orienting system
Worldview/paradigm
Mindedness – a system of
Knowledge based, thought & ideate images
Unconscious
Subconscious
Cultural state/disposition Superego
Jing energy
Chi energy
Purpose-orienting system
Structures that facilitate or
constrain behaviour and
its interactive objects
Consciousness
Structure-residing ego
Shen energy

Autogenesis and
regeneration of unconscious (e.g., Autopoiesis and the regeneration
preconscious knowledge or unconscious of subconscious Ideate images
impulse for motivation) through
evaluative perceived experience

Figure 2.1 Agency Theory schema for an autonomous agency.

agents that constitute a population mutually interact. From a complexity

of these interactions a set of generic rules may emerge that both guide the
population of agents and hence the agency. These rules create what may be
called an administrative hierarchy3 that enables, if it is devoid of patholo-
gies, the population of agents to function as a coherent representative
agency through those supported rules. This can be represented as
a cybernetic living system that involves processes of internal control and
communication. That an agency, like each of the agents in its population,
may be seen as a living system in its own right is a realisation due to Simon’s
(1962) notions of system hierarchy – defined as a recursive structure occur-
ring in a complex system composed of interrelated subsystems. Simon
argued that higher orders of autonomous living systems can easily emerge
at still higher levels of organisation if they are systemically hierarchic in
nature: that is, a system has a system hierarchy defined by a sequence of
focal levels, where at a lower level focus to the system a set of interrelated
autonomous subsystems exist, each itself having at a still lower focal level
autonomous sub-subsystems, and so on. Koestler (1967) noted that
a system with such a sequence of embedded focal levels functions as a self-
contained whole in relation to its component parts/subsystems, while itself
being dependent on a higher level supersystem. Thus, the system can never
 An Exercise in Configuration 77
be completely isolated from its network of system hierarchy relationships,
where healthy systems at a higher focus inherently constrain and facilitate
operational options of systems at a lower focus. An implication of this is
that agents may collect together to form a meta-agent (a higher order agent
forming a non-arbitrary coherent collective) that develops collective norms
that define its self (Guo et al., 2016). Consistent with Simon, for any
population, the highest immediate order of agent in a population is the
agency itself.
The three domains of the AT schema are analytically distinct classifi-
cations of being, and they each have properties that are manifestations of
knowledge (Yolles, 2006). Originally set up for socials, the basis for this
model is explained by Guo et al. (2016; Yolles & Guo, 2003). Expressed
in terms of Schutz and Luckmann’s (1974) classes of relevance, the
existential domain has thematic relevance that determines the constitu-
ents of an experience; the noumenal domain creates direction through
the selection of relevant aspects of a stock of knowledge to formulate
a system of thought, and it could be made enhanced by involving
feeling; and the phenomenal domain is associated with action. The
notions of conscious, subconscious, and unconscious derive from
Freudian psychology, are connected to the ideas of Wollheim (1999),
and are also related to the ideas of organisational psychology as pro-
moted, for instance, by Kets de Vries (1991) resulting in a psychology of
the collective, and by Bridges (1992), who talks about the organisational
character as a representative of a social personality. Yolles (2006) also
discusses the relationship between the individual and social, and notes
that a social can develop a collective psyche that operates through
normative processes. As such we can adapt the Bandura terminology,
and refer to agentic psychology, with broad consistency in approach for
individual and social psychology. The idea of influence arises from
patterns of knowledge that drive understanding, interest relates to infor-
mation processes and ideate models of thought, and purpose relates to
empirical action.
In Figure 2.1 we have also referred to the Jing-Qi-Shen (from Chinese
Taoism) which separates between three types of energy available to human
and material systems. These are the Jing-Qi-Shen energies4 that theorise
and explain the human physiological system and the fundamentals for all
facets of life and its many variations (Liang & Wu, 2001). Normally, Jing is
taken as the essence of material-life and is a coarse physical energy, Qi (or
Chi) is an energy that we may see as psycho-physical in nature, and Shen is
78 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
the spiritual life force energy. As such the Jing, Qi, and Shen are insepar-
ably linked with each other.
The living dynamic nature of AT arises from Schwarz (1997, 2001, 2002,
2003), as noted by Yolles and di Fatta (2017). Schwarz (2002) identifies a set
of principles absorbed into AT that identify three inseparable primal
categories present in all systems: (1) there is a connection between objects,
relations, and wholes; (2) every dynamic system consists of a dual principle
governing change, a drift towards disorder, and a capacity to increase order
(and complexity) through self-organisation; (3) as the complexity of the
system increases and operational closure5 develops that can lead successively
to autonomy in durable (viable) systems and a variety of self-functionalities
like self-organisation, self-production (autopoiesis), self-reference. Self-
organisation is the source of morphogenesis within which structures
change, autopoiesis is the source of the overall coherence of the living
organisms, and self-reference is at the root of consciousness.
AT concerns viable systems that should be seen as complex and adaptive,
and able to maintain a separate existence within the confines of its existen-
tial or other constraints. Viable systems should have at least potential
independence in their ‘self-processes’ for regulation, organisation, produc-
tion, and cognition. Schwarz notes that viable systems can pass through
processes of emergence and evolution towards complexity and autonomy,
though autonomy does not mean that there is no interactive influence from
its environment. This occurs through the development of: patterns of self-
organisation that accommodate phenomenal change through morphogen-
esis and new forms of complexity; patterns for long-term evolution towards
autonomy; and patterns that lead to systems functioning viably through
their capacity to create variety and indeed necessary of requisite variety that
enables the system to respond adequately to its environment (Ashby, 1956).
An indication of the living dynamic nature of AT is shown in Figure 2.2
and explored in Table 2.1, and is based on the work of Schwarz (1997).
Autopoiesis is a network of processes that facilitates life through processes
of self-production (Maturana & Varela, 1973; Mingers, 1995). Autogenesis
is a second-order network of processes that facilitates life through self-
creation and processes of learning. Both autopoiesis and autogenesis can
also be expressed in terms of Piaget’s notion of operative and figurative
intelligence (Piaget, 1950, 1977; Yolles, 2008), especially useful when AT is
applied to contexts of cognition and personality.
The three domains indicted in Figure 2.2 may have distinct referents,
depending on their context. For instance, given the context of
a behavioural system that interacts empirically with its environment, the
 An Exercise in Configuration 79

Existential Domain: Being

self-reference
object image
referential drift
Pattern creating social
elaborator knowledge
figurative intelligence

self-creation
(autogenesis)
through a second-
Noumenal domain: Relations
order network of
cognitive
in self-regulation, out processes
homeostasis/morphostasis

information drift

Aoutopietic dialogue creating

operative intelligence
self-production
(autopoiesis)
Phenomenal domain: through a network
Structured objects of cognitive
processes
self-organisation
morphogenesis

phenomenal social/environmental
exchanges with self

Figure 2.2 Living dynamic nature of AT (adapted from Schwarz, 1997).

phenomenal domain may be data related, the noumenal domain informa-

tion related, and the existential domain knowledge related. However, if the
context is a personality that has cognitive processes that are information
related, then the phenomenal domain may be connected with information
structures that have been created through decision, the noumenal domain
may be connected with information-based models, and the existential
domain with collections of information.
80 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Table 2.1 The nature of viable cognitive agents
Domain activity/
ontological relation
Phenomenal activity
Ontological relation
(autopoiesis) creating
operative intelligence
Noumenal activity
Conceptual
occurrence Interpretation
Structure Agent self-organisation produced
through relational networks, social
interconnections, objects and
tokens, fluxes of energy phenomena.
Morphogenesis Emergence, replication, regeneration,
transformation, evolution of
destruction of cognitive structures.
This is indicated by the autopoietic
loop and within the energetic
constraints. Positive feedback is
especially important. Relationship
between phenomenal impact and
social/environmental responses
highlighted. It connects to the flow
of time, entropic drift, global trends
towards the probable, and to
internal and external dissipation.
Phenomenal This represents the cognitive
exchange metabolism, energy fluxes, matter,
recycling and signals ensuring physical
processes, and social perennity and
stability.
Feed-forward Production of cognitive/psychic
autopoiesis structures and behaviour, from
cognitive networks, and networks
of structured information and
misinformation.
Feedback An autopoietic dialogue can create
autopoiesis operative intelligence, and is
a reflection of the capacity to reflect
decision models images
phenomenally. Regeneration of the
relational networks through agent
behaviour, influenced by (1)
motivational pressures satisfying
cognitive need (like rituals, power,
honour, money), (2) social/
environmental pressures.
Networks Logical relations that ultimately define
cognitive structures and
perceptions of social structures.
These are constituted as figurative
information-based images that
create self-perceptions of
phenomenal activity.
 An Exercise in Configuration 81
Table 2.1 (cont.)

Domain activity/ Conceptual

ontological relation occurrence Interpretation

Homeostatic Complex organisation of logical

loops
Ontological relation Feed-forward
(autogenesis) creating
figurative intelligence
Feedback
Existential activity Being
relations defining the cognitive
being as a functional unit.
Globally homeostatic cycles and
hypercycles creating viable co-
evolution between agent
behaviour and the corresponding
relational network like the
pattern of myths.
Patterns of social elaborator
autogenesis knowledge (Yolles, 2006) exist
that create what Piaget called
figurative intelligence, and can be
used to project identity. In the
cognition personality, the
knowledge is constituted as
patterned coherence in
information gathering. The
nature of figurative intelligence
may be extended to include the
meta-coupling that occurs
between cognitive being and the
autopoietic dialogue. It is
responsible for the influence that
is created by the network of
cognitive processes that define ‘I’
and result in the agent’s own
rules of production.
Figurative intelligence involves the
autogenesis meta-coupling between the
autopoietic dialogue (creating
operative intelligence) and the
cognitive outcome of the dialogue.
Personality creation, regeneration,
evolution, or cognitive
transformation can continuously
develop affecting figurative and
operative intelligence.
Cognitive being as an existing whole.
Its degrees of autonomy, coherence,
and identity (teleonomy) increase
with its complexity.
82 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Table 2.1 (cont.)

Domain activity/ Conceptual

ontological relation occurrence Interpretation

Self-referential The cognitive entity emerging from

loop the dialogue between its
phenomenal self and its own image
through its operative intelligence.
The closer the phenomenal
structures (objects) are to the
images, the greater its harmony and
autonomy. This is like saying that
an agentic personality is more
balanced if its own perception of
self is consistent with that of others.

Autopoiesis contributes to the control necessary for living systems to

survive through the production of components of self. Autogenesis
enables autopoiesis through self-creation through such attributes as
knowledge acquisition through learning. It also connects identity with
self-processes, a notion indirectly supported by Markus and Nurius
(1986) who proposed a theory of ‘possible selves’ which explains how
the individual develops a connection between present self, motivation,
behaviour, and possible or future self. Also relevant is Identity Process
theory (Breakwell, 1986, 1988; Sullivan, 2000; Twigger-Ross et al., 2003),
where the conceptualisation of identity is seen to involve four distinct
principles (self-esteem, self-efficacy, distinctiveness, and continuity) that
together enable the maintenance of a positive self-view.
The nature of tropic drift is explained by its entropic, information, and
referential dimensions. With entropic drift there is a movement towards
uniformity, with the development of a stabilising cycle through which arise
vortices and a process of phenomenal recycling. It contributes to the
creative cycle of self-organisation and morphogenesis. With information
drift towards complexity, the formation of a stabilising cycle of self-
regulation leads to homeostasis. It contributes to a creative cycle of self-
production through autopoiesis. Referential drift intensifies self-reference
and integrates differences. With the creation of identity and the emergence
of consciousness, this results in existential drift towards being. It has
a stabilising cycle of existential self-reference, and a creative cycle of self-
creation through autogenesis. In his theory of knowledge, Piaget (1977) was
 An Exercise in Configuration 83
concerned with operative and figurative aspects of child development. As
such the terms operative and figurative intelligence have arisen (Demetriou
et al., 1998), with which autopoiesis and autogenesis can be connected.6
According to Piaget, operative intelligence frames how the world is under-
stood, and where understanding is unsuccessful, operative intelligence
changes. Operative intelligence is concerned with the representation and
manipulation of the transformational aspects of reality, and involves all
actions that are undertaken so as to anticipate, follow, or recover the
phenomenal transformations. It also refers to highly integrated and gener-
alised sets of actions that are adaptive in nature (Schoenfeld, 1986). It can
thus be thought of as the effective capacity to create a cycle of activity that
manifests figurative images phenomenally. In contrast, figurative intelli-
gence involves any means of representation used to keep in mind the states
that intervene between transformations that inform perception and mental
imagery. Figurative intelligence is responsible for the representation of
reality, and derives meaning from its operative counterpart. It is concerned
with the past. It is related to operative intelligence which rather refers to the
present and future. Hence, figurative intelligence refers substantively to the
patterns of knowledge that drive autogenetic processes. Agencies are able to
maintain their viability so long sufficient efficacy occurs within its opera-
tive and figurative intelligences.
AT can be useful in exploring the nature of personality. This is because
given that an agency is a living system, AT is capable of representing meta-
system attributes that are a function of consciousness. To enter into
a demonstration of this, we shall consider one of the more well-known
schemas for personality, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and then relate it
to AT.

2.4 Understanding Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

Jung developed his model of personality temperament in the early 1920s. In
this, personality differences that naturally occur are constituted as tem-
perament types. According to Ryckman (2004), Jung’s theory models
personality as a dynamic and organised set of characteristics possessed by
a person that uniquely influences his or her cognitions, motivations, and
behaviours in various situations. By cognitions are meant the capacity for
information processing through an individual’s set of psychological ‘func-
tions’ and/or their related conceptual connections, and by behaviour is
meant the actions or reactions of cognitive individuals in relation to what
they perceive within their environment. The behaviour may be conscious–
84 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
unconscious, overt–covert, or voluntary–involuntary. Temperament the-
orists (like Myers et al., 1998) who refer to behaviour in this context are
often interested in decision-making behaviour that connect with the
mental function of judging that leads to overt behaviour. Here, seemingly
random variation in individual behaviours is seen as orderly and consistent
due to distinctions in the ways they prefer to use their perception and
judgement. Other theoretical approaches like those of trait theorists
(Heinström, 2003) or cognitive theorists (Baron, 1982) often tend to be
concerned directly with overt behaviour where judgement is not part of
their consideration.
In developing the explicatory framework, Jung (1923) articulates
a number of propositions: (1) past experience and expectations about the
future influence behaviour and personality; (2) individuals are capable of
constant and creative development; and (3) personality is an open system
which is receptive to inputs and exchanges. He considers behaviour to be
a sub-system of personality, which can change as a result of inputs from,
and interactions with, the external environment of the individual. Thus,
the influence of others can have a significant impact on an individual’s
behaviour.
Jung’s (1923) theory of personality temperament postulates two attitu-
dinal orientations and four basic psychological functions. The attitudinal
orientations comprise introversion and extraversion, which relate to the
focus of attention and flow of psychic energy of an individual. Attitudes
and functions are often presented through the three dimensions of human
psyche:
1. extroversion and introversion having attitude functionality;
2. sensing and intuition as perception functions;
3. thinking and feeling as judgement functions (Andersen, 2000).
These have been adopted into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI),
but it further elaborates on Jung’s ideas (Coetzee, 2005) to include the
functions of judging and perceiving. According to McKenna et al. (2002),
this extension requires additional evidencing. The MBTI characteristics
are as shown in Table 2.2.
MBTI is a type approach, an empirical instrument that measures
dichotomous preferences rather than continuous traits (Beuke et al.,
2006). The distinction between the two is that types are polar positions
that may be associated with traits, but in MBTI the traits are never
identified. So, what might be the traits that can be associated with
MBTI? The schema arises from Jung’s model of personality, when he
 An Exercise in Configuration 85
identified four ‘mental functions’ and conceived of them as comprising the
dimensions of a psychological space (Fudjack, 1999). To explain these
functions, Jung used the term enantiomodria,7 and like the notions of yin-
yang that he later preferred to this word, they may be seen as interactive
states. To enable their interactive dynamics proposed by Jung, they might
be seen in terms of a recursive application of Jing-Qi-Shen energies (Figure
2.1) following Yolles (2007). So, what are the traits?
A trait is usually seen as a distinguishing feature, characteristic, or quality
of a personality. Traits arise from an interaction between personality and
situation (Chapman et al., 2000), resulting for instance in the interaction
model of personality (Stevens & Rodin, 2001).8 In biology the term trait
has associated with it a phenotype – this being the state of a trait (e.g., the
trait eye colour has the phenotypes blue and green).9 Goldberg (1993) has
used biological terminology, and refers to phenotypic personality traits in
considering FFM. However, the term pheno implies a biological origin
rather than a nurtured one – something which raises significant questions
about the nature of personality (Maruyama, 2001). Even if this were
a legitimate word to use, a phenotype is the state of a trait, not the trait
itself. Recalling that the mental functions of MBTI are paired enantiodro-
mia states, to be consistent with the biological term phenotypes, we shall
refer to these functions as enantypes (Table 2.2) without having to consider
whether they arise through nature or nurture.
In Table 2.2 the MBTI paired enantypes are shown across the rows, and
it must be supposed that they derive from traits. The traits should be
represented in the cognitive attribute column, but they clearly do not
constitute traits as such. While Jung did not appear to have defined the
traits from which his enantypes arise, an attempt has been made by Boje
(2004) to do this, and it will be referred to again in the next chapter. It may
be noted that given that appropriate traits can be found for MBTI, then it
is feasible that alternative enantypes than those suggested by Jung and
Myers-Briggs are possible. This could well result in an alternative model
that operates with different enantypes, as will be illustrated in due the next
chapter.

2.5 Migrating MBTI into Agency Theory

A purpose of MBTI is to make the theory of psychological types described
by Jung understandable and useful (Myers et al., 1998). The theory
purports that seemingly random variation in behaviour is actually quite
orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the way individuals
 Table 2.2 Myers-Briggs enantiomers of temperament

Cognitive
attribute Domain Enantypes Nature Enantypes Nature

Gathering Existential Sensing Oriented towards sensing relating to Intuition Connected to the unconscious.
information (gathering the tangible and manifest. Comes from complex integration
information) Concerned with data that are of large amounts of information.
literal and concrete. Noticing that Consequence is to see the bigger
an object exists without its pre- picture, focusing on the structured
evaluation. relationships and connection
between facts and finding patterns.
Tends to accommodate the
abstract and conceptual from
information that is gathered.
Connected to possibilities,
patterns, and inherent meaning in
an object.
Making Elaborator Thinking Involves logical and rationality. Feeling Involves evaluating information, and
Decisions (decision Impartial based on normatively is associated with emotional
modelling) based ethical and ideologically responses. Connects with purely
based belief formulated by pre- subjective perspective of
defined rules. situations, and oriented towards
personal values. Involves
subjective processes based on
personal, ethical, and ideological
grounds.
Structure Executor Judging Relates to planned processes and Perceiving Are flexible in a spontaneous way,
relating (structure regulation. Highly structured, seeking to experience and
relating) adhering to plans. Requires understand phenomena rather
neatness, orderliness, and pre- than to control them. Energised by
established structures, and resourcefulness. More interested
settlement. Normative standards in their surroundings than by their
essential. own intentions. Looks for the
open-ended.
World oriented Temperament Introvert Focus on the inner world of ideas and Extrovert Focus on the external world and
orientation experiences, reflecting on participatory activities and actions
thoughts, memories, and feelings. within it. It is based on the internal
world.

Note. They are related to AT Domains, and distinguish between primary and non-primary (shaded) enantypes.
88 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
prefer to use their perception and judgement, ultimately influencing
behaviour. Perception involves ways of becoming aware cognitively and
phenomenally. Judgement involves ways of concluding about what is
perceived. If individuals differ systematically in what they perceive and in
how they reach conclusions, then the rationale underpinning MBTI
purports that they will correspondingly differ in their interests, reactions,
values, motivations, and skills. The aim of the MBTI is to identify through
its measuring instrument, the basic preferences of people in regard to
perception and judgement. The notion is that the effects of each prefer-
ence, singly and in combination, can be established by research and put
into practical use, especially in relation to decision-making behaviour.
The Jungian enantypes of thinking/feeling have an interesting place in
the broader theory of personality. This is noted when one considers for
instance, Carver’s (2005) review of personality theory, when he relates two
modes of experiencing reality to each other. In one mode, decisions are
made quickly and without deliberation, and in the other mode, decisions
are thought through more effort. This reasoning, he suggests, provides
a basis for the distinction between impulse and restraint in behaviour.
Impulsive behaviour dominates to the extent that the person responds
through the fast system. Constraint dominates to the extent that the person
responds through the slower, more deliberative system. The impulse/
constraint dichotomy depends on which mode is dominant in the person’s
functioning, either situationally or by disposition. However, in discussing
trait approaches Carver only refers to the Five-Factor Model and not to the
more theory laden MBTI. One wonders, therefore, about seeing restraint/
impulse as enantypes and whether they might have a relationship to
thinking/feeling.
While Jung’s exploration of the theory of personality is contained in
Jung (1957–79), the attributes of the model have been simply represented
by Myers-Briggs (2000: 9) and Caroll (2003), and explored by Higgs (2001)
with a summary given in Table 2.3. In order to establish the MBTI model
systemically, we need to distinguish between primary and non-primary
enantypes. The primary enantypes are assigned to domains in KC that
indicate states of Being (shown as unshaded rows), while the shaded row is
termed temperamental orientation and represents extroversion/introver-
sion as non-primary attributes of personality that connect self to objects in
the social environment. The nature of primary and non-primary enantypes
is necessarily different.
The enantypes of Table 2.2 are also represented geometrically through
the model in Figure 2.3, and we refer to this model as Sociocognitive MBTI
 Table 2.3 Myers-Briggs local personality type attributes with global affiliation, identifying two ‘universal’ orientation
conditions that can affect the other attributes

Personality type enantiomers

Attributes Attribute type Nature Attribute type Nature

Existential Sensing Involves perception rather than
judging information. Oriented
towards sensing relating to the
tangible and manifest.
Elaborator Thinking Involves logical consequences for
choices of action. Connects to
judging rather than intake of
simple information.
Executor Judging Need planned processes and
regulation. Highly structured
lives, adhering to plans.
Intuition Connected to the unconscious. Comes
from complex integration of large
amounts of information. Consequence
is to see the bigger picture, focusing on
the structured relationships and
connection between facts and finding
patterns. Tends to accommodate the
abstract and conceptual.
Feeling Involves evaluating information, and is
associated with emotional responses.
Connects with purely subjective
perspective of situations, and oriented
towards personal values.
Perceiving Are flexible in a spontaneous way, seeking
to experience and understand
phenomena rather than to control
them. Energised by resourcefulness.
More interested in their surroundings
than by their own intentions.
Table 2.3 (cont.)

Personality type enantiomers

Attributes Attribute type Nature Attribute type Nature

Personality Introvert Focus on the inner world of ideas and Extrovert Focus on the external world and
orientation experiences, reflecting on participatory activities and actions
thoughts, memories, and feelings. within it. It is based on the internal
world.
 An Exercise in Configuration 91
(S-MBTI). It constitutes a new sociocognitive model of personality built
on the foundations of MBTI enantypes. As required in sociocognitive
models, it centres on information availability, processing, and structures.
It defines a sociocognitive agent to have an autonomous operative system
that explains how the enantypes adopted by a personality can change
dynamically according to sociocognitive processes. The capacity to make
such changes will, as in MBTI, be restricted to the sixteen stable personality
states (arranged in four patterns of four stable states) that are deemed
feasible in MBTI, and we shall comment on this again shortly.
It is possible to configure AT such that an agency representation of
MBTI can result. MBTI in its usual mode of operation exists in
a classificational universe, and interest here is to develop it into
a relevantial universe. This can be done by representing MBTI within
a frame of reference provided by AT. Jung sees behaviour as a part of
personality. This relationship can also be seen as an operative one (see
Piaget, 1977), where, personality and (decision-making) behaviour are
always effectively independent but (normally) intimately linked cyberne-
tically through an ‘autopoietic’ (Maturana & Varela, 1973; Schwarz, 1997)
connection that operates through a network of internal processes. The
linkages, however, are always susceptible to analytical pathological breaks,
and it is the nature of these breaks that determines the resulting behaviour
that develops. These analytical pathologies are theoretical as opposed to
experiential. They may also be seen transitive pathologies because they
occur along the ontological connection between the different systems that
indicate the ‘living’ nature of the agency. The relationship between deci-
sion-making and overt behaviour is determined by an ontological relation-
ship with the environmental that is conditioned by introvert/extrovert
processes of personality. The outcome is a model of agentic trait psychology
as shown in Figure 2.3 where personality is seen to be a recursion (with its
attendant figurative system and cognitive system) within the social system.
According to this model, therefore, personality plays the Freudian role,
together with all the other personalities that exist with it, of a social
subconscious. The model has relevance to both individual and collective-
social contexts, even though modelling differences arise within each of the
different contexts. It also services the base schema for MBTI, but with the
enrichment of providing sociocognitive explanations of self for the rise of
the enantype stable combinations that are argued to represent personality
states, and which will be referred to in Part II of this chapter.
The rise of these combinations has empirical evidence, but no socio-
cognitive explanation. However, such an explanation is feasible in this
 Autogenesis: context defining
Existential domain principles to make sense of the
of the social collective collective Being

Autopoiesis: network of (decision-

Noumenal Domain making) processes that formulate
of the social collective an Introvert/ Extravert behavioural
orientation

Autogenesis: processesto
make sense of Autopoiesis: Phenomenal
Being network of processes that domain
underpins the imperativefor of the social
behaviour collective
Figurative System Operative System
Cognitive System Introvert/extravert
Feeling/Thinking
Perceiving/Judging interactive decision-
Sensing/Intuition
based behaviour
(Monism/Pluaralism &
(Transactional/ (participatory/ affecting other
objectifying/subjectifying}
Transformational) authoritarian) agents in a bounded
social environment

Autopoiesis: impulses for

agentic behavioural
adjustment

Figure 2.3 The S-MBTI aspect of agentic trait psychology as a semantic stream of personality temperament.
 An Exercise in Configuration 93
model. This is entailed within the detailed relationship between the paired
enantypes within the KC frame of reference (Yolles, 2007). The internal
dynamics of the paired enantypes for each aspect of personality is con-
strained by the dynamics of the others, through autopoiesis and autogen-
esis as shown in Figure 2.3. However, interactions between each of the
paired enantypes explaining how one achieves dominance over the other in
the personality can be modelled in a similar way to the sensate/ideational
enantypes of sociocultural dynamics explained in Yolles and Frieden
(2005), Yolles (2006), and Yolles et al. (2008). To discuss the approach
will, however, take more space than is available here.

2.6 The Sociocognitive Trait Dynamics of Personalities

Figure 2.3 is a systemic model of personality temperament having person-
ality attributes represented cybernetically using the broader ontological
schema developed by Yolles and Guo (2003). It has phenomenal, nou-
menal, and existential domains of Being. The phenomenal domain is
concerned with structures as they occur in the system and any structure
related interactions that occur with it, the noumenal with ideate attributes
that occur in the figurative system, and the existential with the imperative
nature of an autonomous entity that is constituted as the cognitive system.
This model leads to a three-dimensional frame of reference within which
the three primary paired enantypes are represented. In practice, each
personality will display only a dominant enantype, which arises in
a patterned combination with other enantypes.
The S-MBTI model has two levels of logic, called foci of examination.
The upper focus is constituted as the interaction between personality
temperament as a noumenal attribute of the agent, and the phenomenal
social collective with its social structure providing a potential to displaying
behaviour. At this upper focus the interaction between the personality and
the social that develops through an autopoietic connection between the
agent and its social environment. This is constituted as a network of
decisions that are implemented through behavioural orientation. The
operative system is constituted through the primary enantypes, while the
social system involves the personality’s non-primary (introvert/extrovert)
enantypes. It may be noted that the transitive grey bars that cut across the
ontological connectors in Figure 2.3 illustrate the possibility for a potential
for malfunctioning or analytical pathological processes (Yolles, 2007a).
A brief exploration of this is model is now appropriate.
94 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Personality temperament is modelled as three ontologically connected
transitive sub-systems. The system is populated by the personality enan-
types of perceiving or judging depending on the nature of the operative
system. Whether a given personality has a perceiving or judging enantype is
determined in part by the relationship that exists with the other enantypes
in the figurative systems (thinking/feeling) and cognitive system (sensing/
intuition), and they fall into one of the feasible stable patterns identified in
MBTI. It is unclear how the autopoiesis and autogenesis that arise in the
personality actually influence or are influenced by these states, but in the
end, they couple with these states to create operative and figurative intelli-
gences. It is also likely that they contribute to the triggering of the
enantypes in a personality in a similar way to the explanation provided
in Yolles and Frieden (2005) and Yolles et al. (2008) when discussing the
enantiodromia of culture. This might enable a personality to adjust its
enantype, resulting in the appearance of a catastrophic change (Thom,
1975; Schwarz, 2001) in the MBTI stable state. In MBTI there are sixteen
possible stable combinations of enantypes states possible, and these can be
assembled into four patterns (Berens, 2013). It is feasible that these patterns
are in some way linked, but it is unclear whether a personality that passes
through a catastrophic change will be able to move between any of the four
patterns of combinations of states. If this is not possible, then this limits the
possible degree of change that a personality modelled in this way is
capable of.
The enantypes of feeling/thinking are constituted as an image of, or
system of thought about, the current judging/perceiving experiences inter-
preted by the personality. This provides a basis for the creation of decision-
making behaviour in the social collective. The cognitive system establishes
within it a base of existent knowledge and conception through the enan-
types sensing/intuition. It is also ultimately responsible for the autono-
mous definition of self, this being influenced by autogenesis, itself
influenced by autopoiesis.
Connecting the operative system to the environment using a social
frame of reference is accomplished by autopoietically coupling the opera-
tive system and its environment. It does this in a way that is bounded in the
sense that it is defined by a group of interactive agents that together
constitute an autonomous system. If the social collective is deemed to
exist as an autonomous system, then it requires its own (proprietary)
existential domain that will have an impact on its autopoietic couple.
Returning to Piaget (1977), the autopoietic connection between the
 An Exercise in Configuration 95
enantypes feeling/thinking with judging/perceiving is constituted through
operative intelligence.
In Figure 2.3 the individual personality is seen as a noumenal system of
the social collective. This illustrates the feasibility of setting up MBTI as
a sociocognitive self-theory of personality temperament. Bandura (2008),
in explaining his sociocognitive theory, tells us that to be a sociocognitive
agent is to influence intentionally one’s functioning and life circumstances.
He identifies four core properties for this: intentionality, forethought
(through anticipation), self-reactiveness (including self-regulation), and
self-reflection. While these properties do undoubtedly occur in the autono-
mous personality agent, the nature of their consequences is always likely to
be constrained in some way by the stable enantypes that the agent settles to
in its stable personality state.
Normally, autonomous agents within systems theory are considered to
be purposeful and/or intentional; In respect of the second characteristic,
there are two forms of anticipation, cognitive and structural (Yolles &
Dubois, 2001), the former constructed as a model and the latter as
a phenomenal construct. As an illustration of this, in Figure 2.3 the
cognitive model occurs through the enantypes thinking/feeling, while
structural anticipation occurs with respect to the enantypes perceiving/
judging. Here for instance the enantypes of perceiving or judging consti-
tute a personality property of an individual that predefines, by its very
structure, what situations to anticipate and how to respond to them. In this
way perceiving/judging are normally biased or prejudiced. It is only
through autopoietic interaction that these biases or prejudices may be
ameliorated. Given unanticipated situations for perception of judgement
an individual is likely to be at a loss on how to respond, unless learning can
quickly occur through interconnections with the enantypes thinking/feel-
ing and sensing/intuition. Self-regulation is a normal cybernetic property
of an autonomous agent, as is self-reflection that could be expressed as part
of the return autogenetic process to sensing/intuition. While it is therefore
possible to show that Figure 2.3 is not only a theory of personality
temperament, it can also call on sociocognitive self-explanations. Only
an indication of this will be provided here.
The link between the figurative and phenomenal domains shown in
Figure 2.3 also requires brief explanation. Individuals tend to exhibit
behavioural patterns in what they say and do, how they relate to people,
and how they perform tasks or process information (McKenna et al.,
2002). This connects directly to decision-making behaviour, and more
generally behavioural style, though it should be seen to be conditioned by
96 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
context and circumstance. McKenna et al. (2002) note that in the literature
a connection is often taken between personality type and behavioural
style,10 and there is a tendency in the management literature to adopt the
premise that consistent behavioural patterns are synonymous with person-
ality. Thus for instance, George and Jones (2002: 43) define personality as
the pattern of relatively enduring ways in which a person feels, thinks, and
behaves, while Robbins (2001: 92) discusses personality in terms of the sum
total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others, and
is most often described in terms of measurable traits that a person exhibits.
We have already explained that the model sets up the three enantypes of
personality temperament that come from their associated traits, and these
are susceptible to particular self-processes. The enantypes perceiving/judg-
ing may be subject to change through processes of self-organisation,
morphogenesis, and even metamorphosis. However, the latter also requires
that there is also an engagement with shifts in at least the way that sensing/
intuition occur, since it is during morphogenesis that the transformation of
self-reference develops. There may be different ways of interpreting refer-
ential drift too. For instance, sometimes the individual may find that
figurative intelligence becomes overtaken by mistaken perceptions of self,
and it is here where referential drift has taken hold. Processes of the
enantypes feeling/thinking are also subject to processes of self-regulation,
homeostatic, and morphostasis.
An illustration of the possible explanatory power of the model can be
provided. Consider the connection between the figurative agentic person-
ality and the system of the agentic personality. This operates as
a constraining operative couple (Yolles, 2006) in which the feeling/think-
ing enantypes informs the perceiving/judging enantypes while the latter
affects the former in a feedback process. Break the ontological couple, and
feeling/thinking cannot in any way inform perceiving/judging. This could
result in outlier combination of personality enantypes that are unstable,
and is representative of pathological personalities. Similarly, there is
a higher order couple between the personality cognitive system of sens-
ing/intuition and the operative couple. This operates to enable sensing
and/or intuiting to impact on the interaction between feeling/thinking and
perceiving/judging. In this case perceiving/judging is influenced either
through sensing and/or intuiting (see, e.g., Cole Wright, 2005), or through
the external environment. In the case where an analytical pathological
break occurs in both the higher order couple and the operative couple,
then personality is unstable being only influenced by external influences.
In this case for instance, an individual may develop what may be called an
 An Exercise in Configuration 97
automata personality that changes according to the environment in which
he or she is hosted, resulting in a highly programmable individual. This
leads to non-repetitive behaviours, whose evolution is not foreseeable
(Chittaro & Serra, 2004).
As far as the other interactive agents are concerned, the personality
orientation of a given agent is only seen in terms of the phenomenal
consequences of its enantypes judging/perceiving, this resulting from the
individual’s autopoietic network of processes which results in behaviour
and that therefore affects the other agents in the social collective. This
suggests that there is a major distinction between the primary and the non-
primary enantypes. While the primary enantypes are distinct properties of
agentic personality temperament where behaviour is constituted as deci-
sion-making, the non-primary enantypes are manifestations that occur at
a social focus of examination that involve the consequences of decision-
making. This constitutes a recursive use of the AT model in which
modelling contexts are changed.
The Myers-Briggs model is concerned with decision-making behaviour,
but there is a relationship between decision-making and social behaviour
that may be sensitive to environmental context and conditioned by the
non-primary enantypes (introvert/extrovert) of personality. In the
S-MBTI model while the primary enantypes have been set up as domain
states, the non-primary enantypes have a different nature. This is not
a unique situation, as shown by Brugha (1998).

2.7 Chapter in Brief

• Pluralities of personality schemas reside across different Maruyama

universes suggesting incommensurability and isolation.
• The three Maruyama universes are classificational, relational, and rele-
vantial. In the classificational universe sit simple distinct models of
personality that be distinguished from each other for some technical
of conceptual reason. The relational universe is a repository for models
that maintain relational connections that can be related to effects. In the
relevantial universe there sit dynamic adaptive models that reflect socio-
cognitive and socio-affect attributes.
• Personality schemas may migrate across Maruyama universes given
appropriate means.
• Agency Theory and its use of configurations provides a means for
schema migration across Maruyama universes.
98 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a static model incapable of
representing personality self-organisation and adaptation. However it
can be moved from a classificational universe to a relational or relevan-
tial universe by appropriate elaboration of its propositions, thereby
delivering to it some self-attributes of social cognition.
• An adaptive configuration of Jungian theory and Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI) is created for personality temperament by migrating
Jungian theory/MBTI into a sociocognitive schema by considering the
knowledge involved.
• MBTI is a type approach that operates with polar opposites, but it can be
conceptually elaborated into a trait theory.
• It is supposed that MBTI has traits at some horizon of meaning, and
since traits are responsible for the creation of enduring states, socio-
cognitive explanations can be provided to explain the stable states of
a personality.
• In essence then, a link is formulated between the MBTI type schema,
a trait space, and a capacity for sociocultural descriptions.
• Agency Theory is an agentic approach, and as a development of
Knowledge Cybernetics, has a systemic basis in which knowledge has
significance.
• Structured patterns of knowledge belonging to an agentic system
enables it to recognise contexts, and have self-awareness, self-
maintenance, and be able to adapt to changing situations.
• Agencies maintain a population of interactive agents, and where
generic rules emerge from these interactions an administrative hier-
archy may arise that enables the population of agents to function as
a coherent representative agency through the formation of simplexity
structures.
• Agency may also be seen as a system hierarchy in which different focal
levels occur as recursive structures. Thus, within the population of
agency, agents may be sub-agencies in their own right having
a population of sub-agents that may be sub-agencies in their own
right, and so on. By the same token, an agent may be part of a meta-
agent more usually considered as agency, and so on. Such systems
function as self-contained wholes.
• Agency theory adopts as its core base the sub-structural third-order
cybernetic complex dynamic model proposed by Eric Schwarz that
operates under uncertainty. However, agencies can be represented as
increasingly complex structures that can promote actions towards ends
 An Exercise in Configuration 99
through the elaboration of its superstructure with multiple
configurations.
• An essential part of agency substructure is its process intelligences
constituted as networks of processes. These enable agencies to respond
to both immanent and adventitious imperatives. Such responses enable
agency to remain viable when the intelligences are sufficiently
efficacious.
 chapter 3

Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality

3.1 Introduction
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Maruyama’s Mindscape
Theory should not be considered as competing theoretical configurations
because their terms of reference are different. Here, it will be shown how
adaptive processes can occur that enable them to be coincident. To do this
they must be able to operate in a common frame of reference enabling
them to be mutually configured, but this requires a common dimensional-
ity established through the definition of relatable trait spaces. A meta-
analysis enabling this to occur will be provided.
Maruyama’s (1965) Mindscape Theory is concerned with ‘observing
systems’ and their subjectivity, and processes of causal deviation and
amplification. In this chapter it will be shown that Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI) and Mindscape schemas are not in competition in their
attempt to profile personality. To show this, they must be able to operate in
a common frame of reference with a common dimensionality established
through the definition of relatable trait spaces. It has been explained in
Chapter 2 that MBTI operates through paired enantypes that arise from
some as yet undefined traits, and as such, a trait space needs to be identified
for this. An adaptation of the trait space by Boje (2004) in relation to
Mindscapes will also be considered. These schemas are migrated into AT,
and the outcome is a common trait platform.
This platform can now be used to explore how the two trait schemas can
be modelled as co-operative schemas. The means to do this is through
theory that is part of KC, and that derives from an adaptation of
Habermas’ (1970) theory of Knowledge Constitutive Interests. This model
when applied to personality argues that there are really three autonomous
interactive ‘semantic streams’ to personality (kinematic, directional, and
latency) that can interact systemically and produce a balanced personality.
100
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 101
The need now is to determine if the migrated forms of MBTI and
Mindscape theory can be assigned to any of these semantic streams, and
metaphor (Ho & Fox, 1988; Brown, 2003) is used here to show that this is
feasible. There is no space here to consider the third semantic stream, but
there are indications that a new approach called Knowledge Profiling
(Yolles, 2006, 2006b), might satisfy this.
As discussed in Chapter 2, Maruyama (1965, 1972) distinguishes between
three ‘schema’ universes: classificational, having an essentially hierarchical
structure in which relations are static and the members of the structure are
assigned positions in superdivisions and subdivisions; relational is event
oriented and structured through logical dynamic relations; and relevantial
which is constructivist and has an existential nature.
Classificational trait approaches to personality evaluation are often seen
as simple typologies that are inadequate in their ability to evaluate person-
ality (Maruyama, 1988). While Temperament theory arises from Jung’s
schema of cognitive dynamics that is part of a relevantial universe, its
development as MBTI resides in a classificational universe where it has
been related to other classificational trait approaches like the Five-Factor
Model (Gonsowski, 1999) also called the the ‘Big Five’ (Harvey et al., 1995).
MBTI represents a theory of individual differences that is devoid of the
context in situations that affect the way people behave (Boje, 2004).
Bandura (1999) has not been an advocate of such trait approaches because
for him they do not capture the contextualised and multifaceted nature of
personal causation that enables the creation of greater explanatory and
predictive power. Neither do global trait measures offer effective guides for
personal change. Classificational trait schemas measure situations where
low correlations occur between the individual differences, personal deter-
minant, and performance may be misread as evidence that personal factors
have little causal impact. Maruyama (1988) contends that psychologists
have focused on individual differences in patterns of cognition and/or
perception, often in relation to personality characteristics. Others, in
particular sociologists and anthropologists, have concentrated on cultural
and social differences in patterns of cognition, perception, behaviour, and
causal explanation, often averaging individual differences within a culture
or a social group.
Maruyama developed his sociocognitive trait theory through a schema
of epistemological meta-types that he called ‘Mindscapes’. Mindscape
theory belongs to a relational universe and its trait schema permits personal
determinants to operate dynamically within causal structures. This is
constituted as a paradigm since it has not only theory but modes of
102 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
practice.1 Within personality research and in particular trait approaches,
paradigms can be tightly connected to personality characteristics, cultural
backgrounds, and behaviour, and they can be explored through ‘type
surveys’.
When we refer to types, we mean accumulations of traits which are
constituted as any element of human culture, material objects, or human
practice (Maruyama, 1988), and these traits may be represented in terms of
states.2 Mindscape analysis, Maruyama claims, is particularly suitable for
complex and multifaceted environments, and can be used to explore the
interrelations among seemingly unrelated aspects of human activities.
While Mindscape theory is represented as a typology, its purpose and use
lie in interrelating seemingly separate aspects of human activities. As a trait
approach, it is therefore relational rather than classificational (Maruyama,
1988: 311). While Mindscape types vary from individual to individual and
are numerous, they accumulate into four common (or stable) types that
may be partly innate and partly learned.
While individuals may be said to have empirical personality, social
collectives have normative personality, a principle supported by, for
instance, Bridges (1992), Kets de Vries (1991), and Yolles (2006), and
already embedded in Mindscape theory. Hence, Mindscape theory can
apply to social and individual personality contexts. Within the context of
the social personality ‘one of the types becomes powerful for historical or
political reasons, and utilizes, ignores or suppresses individuals of other
types’ (Boje, 2004: Maruyama, 2002: 167). In this way it operates in a way
that is reminiscent of the cultural dynamics proposed by Sorokin (1962).
It has been explained that because of the complexity of personality, it
can be useful to adopt a schema plurality approach when modelling it. This
calls on the realisation that there are pluralities of psychological schemas
that have been developed to explain human behaviour (Bandura, 1999a).
These need to reflect both human nature and causal processes, both of
which can be represented through cognitive theory, an approach often
represented as a way to model how the mind processes information. This
information is taken from the environment in which they reside.
In response to this, people self-organise, self-reflect, self-regulate, and
are proactive rather than just reactive to an environment. This self-system
is also a repository for implanted structures and a conduit for external
influences, but it operates with consciousness. For Bandura (1999) social
cognitive theory conceptualises an interactional causal structure involving
a dynamic interconnection between personal determinants, behaviour, and
environmental influences. The connection between behaviour and the
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 103
environment is mediated by cognition that is conditioned by the personal
determinants, underpinned by self-beliefs of efficacy, cognised goals, qual-
ity of analytic thinking, and affective self-reactions.
We have already noted that in this chapter our intention is to show that
the trait approaches of MBTI and Mindscape theory may be seen as
complementary rather than as competing. But is there really any value in
trying to relate these approaches, other than satisfying some post-modern
conceptualisation of plurality? To respond to this question, we note that
cognitive theory is not only about personality, but also about its social
interaction, and this magnifies any complexity that might already exist.
This is especially the case if people like Ionescu (1975) are to be heeded
when they tell us that society is becoming more complex. As this occurs
there is a need to better understand individual and collective pathologies/
ills that interfere with healthy individual and social organisms. In trying to
deal with this type of situation a piecemeal competitive approach to
personality inventory is inadequate.3 Rather, consistent with Mayer
(2005), a general theory of personality is required that can provide capabil-
ity in dealing with social complexity and the inevitable rise of pathologies,
where there is a need to understand what makes people and collectives do
which things. It can lead to the potential of practically connecting mind
with behaviour through the creation of a theory of psychosocial dynamics
(Garcia, 2006), that can link personality with overt individual and ultim-
ately group (e.g., normative culturally related) behaviour. This has import-
ance to a variety of interests that are concerned with the pathology of
groups and group processes, and the professionals who are involved in
them, from health care (Maull, 1991) to institutionalised torture (Forter,
2006) to Child Abuse (Felthous, 1984) to conflict resolution (Azcarate,
1999) to medically dealing with stress (Nordin et al., 2002). The explor-
ation of future likely proclivities towards particular patterns of behaviour is
feasible from personality profiles given appropriate theory and understand-
ing of the non-linear mapping process, especially when it is connected with
learning theory. This constitutes an added value over and above the normal
employment of personality profiling for personality selection, and it is this
potential that can lead directly from this. More commonly, personality
indicators have become an important form of staff evaluation within the
context of organisational behaviour. Such indicators provide a way of
assessing potential personnel to determine their suitability for different
role positions, not only in respect of their likely behaviour and perform-
ance in those roles, but also with respect to their ability to establish
understanding and good communication in a durable group setting.
104 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Many organisations provide significant budgets for this purpose, even
recognising that there is currently no hard evidence to relate assessed
personality type to job performance.

3.2 Knowledge and the Systemic Basis of Agency Theory

KC was discussed earlier and is the antecedent for AT. It was described as
a theoretical platform that explores knowledge formation and its relation-
ship to information; provides a critical view of individual and social
knowledge and their processes of communication and associated mean-
ings; and seeks to create an understanding of the relationship between
people and their social communities for the improvement of social collect-
ive viability and an appreciation of the role of knowledge in this. It is an
agentic approach for which knowledge is seen to develop in structured
patterns. This structure enables an agentic system to recognise its own
existence (be self-aware), maintain itself, and change. KC is also a theory of
contexts: for Bellinger (1996) knowledge is context forming and this leaves
open the capacity to create distinct contexts that become valid for the
formation of given models. Since KC is a context-forming framework
using metaphor as a means of development, there is always a possibility
of connecting it with relatable commensurable approaches, or at least those
approaches that maintain conceptual extensions that are not in other ways
incommensurable.
The three domains of the AT schema shown earlier are analytically
distinct classifications of being, and they each have properties that are
manifestations of knowledge (Yolles, 2006). Originally set up for socials,
the phenomenal domain cover three dimensions of interest, technical,
practical, and political, as adapted from Habermas (1971) as explained by
Yolles and Guo (2003). The other domain properties (Noumenal and
Existential) arise as an extension of this. The connections between the
domains were originally explored using notions of relevance (Schutz &
Luckman, 1974). The existential domain has thematic relevance that
determines the constituents of an experience; the noumenal or virtual
domain creates direction through the selection of relevant aspects of
a stock of knowledge to formulate a system of thought, and it could be
enhanced by involving feeling; and the phenomenal domain is associated
with action.
A further consideration in this vein is that the agent as a social is
distinct from the agent as an individual when it comes to the notion of
culture. While one normally refers to a durable social having developed
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 105
a culture constituted as a set of normative values, attitudes and beliefs,
one might more readily refer to the individual in terms of a disposition.
Disposition (Wollheim, 1999), like culture, is a continuing condition
that has a past and future history, and may include such attributes as
desires, strategic knowledge, memories, abilities, habits, obsessions and
phobias, virtues and vices, abilities and emotions which constitute
stimulating influences. As such here is a relationship between the agent
as an individual and as a social. Kant, among others, referred to the
‘culture of the mind’ connected with learning, and today the term is seen
in terms of training, disciplining, or refining the moral and intellectual
nature of the individual (MLA, 2008). Effectively therefore, disposition
can in part be seen as a manifestation of culture in the same way that
culture is a manifestation of the distillation of a (normative) collection of
dispositions.
The domains of AT are analytically distinct classifications of Being, and
they each have epistemological properties that are expressible as varieties of
knowledge classifications. For the social, the phenomenal domain has
‘cognitive interests’ that have been adapted from Habermas (1971) in
a way explained by Yolles and Guo (2003). The other domain properties
arise as an extension of this, and draw on both systemic and cybernetic
notions. There is a connection here to Schutz and Luckmann (1974) who
are interested in narrative, in that the epistemological content of each of
the three domains can be defined in terms of relevancies. The existential
domain has thematic relevance that determines the constituents of an
experience; the noumenal or virtual domain has interpretative relevance
that creates direction through the selection of relevant aspects of a stock of
knowledge to formulate ideate structures or a system of thought; and the
phenomenal domain is associated with motivational relevance that causes
a local conclusion through action.
The phenomenal domain relates to agent consciousness. Structural in
nature, it facilitates behaviour that is stimulated through interest. The
noumenal domain relates to the agent subconscious. Its nature is con-
nected with mindedness through which ideates are constructed, and this is
stimulated through purpose. The existential domain relates to the agent
unconscious.
The existence of the three streams arises from notions of Habermas
(1970, 1971, 1974) in his consideration of Knowledge Constitutive Interests,
leading to a determination of how knowledge can be identified and
whether knowledge claims are warranted. The three cornerstones of his
notions, as adapted by Yolles (2006), are
106 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
• technical, relating to prediction and control, to causal explanations, and
through action knowledge (in social terms, work) as an instrument to
action governed by technical rules;
• practical, relating to interpretation, understanding, and norms, through
interaction as an instrument of meaning and subjectivity;
• latency, relating political knowledge that coalesces into mindedness
(ideology and ethics), and through the recognition of constraints, cre-
ates the power of emancipation and shifts in perspective.
These are phenomenal streams that mutually interact with each other, and
seen as autonomous systems they form a complementary, structural coup-
ling so as to have developed a shared past and future history.4 These three
phenomenal streams have been extended by Yolles (2006) to address the
existential and noumenal aspects of agentic systems, each of which each
manifest semantic attribute referred to as socioeconomical, cultural, and
political (Table 3.1).
The socioeconomical attribute services a kinematic semantic stream that
ultimately facilitates the nature of an agent’s motion.5 It is technical in as
much as this refers to interactive control processes that affect predictability.
Its noumenal element is purpose related, and connected with the creation
of goals and the establishment of self-referent processes that might include
control, and might be connected with reflection. This ultimately under-
pins how agents will work, and whether they are able to achieve their goals.
Essentially therefore it has an autocybernetic operation, this referring to
logical self-processes of control and communications, where its existential
element creates influences, and where it has a formation imperative that is
responsible for recognising what is acceptable knowledge that is related to
its environment. Hyötyniemi (2006) differentiates between autocybernetic
and allocybernetic systems where, in the former, agents implement the
functionalities that are part of the systems that they constitute (i.e., part of
themselves), as opposed to applying them to another systemic sphere in
which there is a different scope of control.
The cultural attribute operates through a directional semantic stream
where formative processes of organising facilitate social interaction. It uses
the power of coordination to satisfy purposes, and drives the direction that
the agent takes in responding to its environment. It is created by the
cognitive system of beliefs, attitudes, and values, and develops through
belief imperatives. Influences occur from knowledge that derives from
a cognitive system – an interactive set of cognitive beliefs, attitudes, and
values, and this ultimately determines how an agent will relate to the
 Table 3.1 Agentic streams of personality each having an attribute structure defined by the domains
Stream: Domain
Phenomenal/conscious
behavioural interest
Noumenal/subconscious
minded purpose
Kinematics with
socioeconomical attribute
Technical interest
Behavioural proclivity towards
work. In this semantic stream
agents are able to pursue
goals. More generally this
involves the technical ability
to predict and thus decide on
action in the agentic
environment, and the ability
to engage with predictions
and controls. It presupposes
the existence of structure that
both anticipates and
facilitates behaviour.
Autocybernetic purpose
Intention. Within the context of
self-governance this occurs
through the creation of goals
and aims that may change
over time, and enables agents
Direction with cultural attribute
Practical interest
Interactive penchant. In this
semantic stream anticipatory
structures are created that will
predetermine how agents will
interact with our social and
physical world. It guides the
agent in the way in which it
responds to, and is proactive
in situations that it perceives.
Rational purpose
Formative organising. Within
governance enables missions,
goals, and aims to be defined
and approached through
planning. It may involve
Latency with political attribute
Deconstraint
For agentic viability, the
realising of potential is most
effective when agents liberate
themselves from the
constraints of power that they
experience and learn through
precipitation to control their
own orientations. The
structural component of this
semantic stream enables
agents to maintain viability as
personalities, and it is here
where personality switches
may appear.
Mindedness
Manner of thinking. Within
governance of social
collectives an intellectual
framework occurs through
which policy makers observe
Table 3.1 (cont.)
Kinematics with
Stream: Domain socioeconomical attribute
through self-referent
processes to redirect their
futures.
Existential/unconscious Formation. Enables an agent to
dispositional influences be influenced by knowledge
that relates to its social
environment. It affects
structures and processes that
define the agentic forms that
are related to intentions and
behaviours.
Direction with cultural attribute
logical, and/or relational
abilities to organise thought
and action and thus to define
sets of possible systematic,
systemic, and behavioural
possibilities. It can also
involve the (appreciative) use
of tacit standards by which
experience can be ordered and
valued, and may involve self-
reflection.
Belief disposition
A base of belief. Influences occur
from knowledge that derives
from the agentic cognitive
system of beliefs, attitudes,
and values. It also determines
how an agent will respond to
the cultural and social norms
that it interacts with. The
belief system underpins what
is constituted as knowledge.
Latency with political attribute
and interpret reality. This has
an aesthetical or ideological
and ethical positioning. It
provides an image of the
future that enables action
with the external
environment.
Freedom. Agents operate with
personal political disposition
and state. While it has
a freedom imperative, the
nature of what constitutes
freedom varies from
individual to individual. In
part this imperative is affected
by cultural norms.
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 109
normative standards that it perceives in its environment. The cognitive
system underpins what is constituted as knowledge. It is also connected
with processes of rationality and appreciation, as well as the tacit standards
that agents develop to assess and evaluate their environment. It creates
personality structures that will predetermine how it will interact with its
social and physical world. This hinges on its practical interests that orien-
tate it in its environment, and guides it in the way in which it behaves
proactively and responsively in contextual situations that it perceives.
These are lateral Interests in that they coexist in the same ontological
space, illustrated in Table 3.1 as transitive extensions across each onto-
logical space (indicated by the rows) as semantic streams (Yolles, 2006).
These streams are referred to as kinematic, directional, and latency to
indicate the properties of the human agency that they represent.
The kinematic stream facilitates the nature of socioeconomic motion in
human agency.6 Here, intentions use resource or token power to make
transformations, doing this through a behavioural proclivity (leading to
work) that results in the attainment and use of the material requisites of
well-being. It drives the kinematics of the agent that explains its capacity to
change. Phenomenally it is a context sensitive structure related facilitating
agent that is stimulated by interest. Its behavioural proclivity is connected
with work and operates through executor knowledge that provides the
agent with skill and behavioural know-how. Its noumenal element is
purpose related, and connected with the development of appreciations
and the creation of goals, the establishment of self-referent processes that
might include control and might also be connected with reflection. This
ultimately underpins how agents will work, and whether they are able to
satisfy their appreciations or achieve their goals. It has already been said
that its existential element creates influences. It has a formation imperative
that is responsible for recognising what is acceptable knowledge that is
related to its environment. It operates through identifier knowledge that is
conceptual in nature.
The directional stream services the cultural orientation in human agency,
recognising that cognitive influences arise through belief-based culture,
cognitive purposes through organisational rationalities, appreciations,7
and strategy, and cognitive interests through organisational structure is
a facilitator for collective interaction. Formative processes of organising
facilitate social interaction. This uses the power of coordination to satisfy
appreciations and purposes, and drives the direction that the agent takes in
responding to its environment. It is created by the cognitive system of
beliefs, attitudes, and values, and develops through belief imperatives.
110 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Influences occur from knowledge that derives from a cognitive system – an
interactive set of cognitive beliefs, attitudes, and values, and this ultimately
determines how an agent will relate to the normative standards that it
perceives in its environment. The cognitive system underpins what is
constituted as knowledge. It is also connected with processes of rationality,
as well as the tacit standards that agents develop to assess and evaluate their
environment. It creates individual and social mindedness structures that
will predetermine how interactions will occur in the social and physical
world. This hinges on its practical interests that orientate it in its environ-
ment, and guides it in the way in which it behaves proactively and
responsively in contextual situations that it perceives.
The latency stream is related to the capacity of human agency to intro-
duce opportunity and change, is individually oriented since it is through
individual perspective that opportunity is often initiated, and it relates to
political processes that encourage an individual differences perspective to
encourage variety, connected with a propensity to attach different personal
meanings to the importance of social and historical events with different
stimulations of attitudes, emotions, and behaviours relating to broader
social, historical, and political contexts. Duncan (2005) is interested in the
general provision of information about the self for general contexts and
functions to organise, summarise, and explain a behaviour in relation to
such wider contexts. Political culture provides an imperative to deal with
controversial social issues through ideology and ethics. There is also
a centrality for politics to self-definition that implies a deeper emotional
investment in issues and events occurring in the greater social environ-
ment. Duncan used the term Personal Political Salience to describe this
generalised capacity to attribute personal meaning and/or emotional sig-
nificance to political issues, and it relates to a belief that an event under
consideration has had an impact on self. The nature of the personal politics
that are being referred to is best described by Dunbar and Abra (2008), seen
in terms of the power associated with social interpersonal interactions.
The political attribute operates through a latency semantic stream that
creates agentic possibilities, and is concerned with agentic empowerment
and the processes by which that empowerment is facilitated. This
empowerment is facilitated through an ideological/ethical image, itself
underpinned by a set of values, attitudes, and beliefs that constitute
political culture. The manner of thinking about social relations enables
decision-making processes and procedures to develop that harnesses the
power of authority. This stream drives the latency of the agent that itself
can facilitate further opportunity. It has a freedom imperative (Fink, 2019),
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 111
but the nature of what constitutes freedom may vary across agents. It is
connected with manner of thinking and an agent’s ability to establish
principles of personal governance that affects its conduct with others. It
may have aesthetic or ideological attributes, and allows an agent to picture
its future. The structural component of this semantic stream enables an
agent to maintain its viability as a personality.
The semantic streams are autonomous and together determine person-
ality: kinematics is context sensitive and operates through a belief impera-
tive; direction that is anticipatory and operates with a formation
imperative; and latency facilitates viability and adopts a freedom impera-
tive. Hence, each semantic stream has a distinct role in the development of
personality.
One of the consequences of having the three semantic streams is that it
can provide us with some important implications for the way in which we
understand the nature of personality and how it operates. The three
streams have four opportunities through which that can relate. They may
be richly, poorly, or discontinuously interactive, or integrated. If they are
richly interactive then they are individually purposeful and together form
a plural system. Since the directional stream is responsive to context, then
the system as a whole is also context sensitive. This situation of rich
interaction is likely to result in a balanced personality. If the streams are
poorly interactive, then one stream acts as an environment for the others,
and context sensitivity is only local to the directional stream. An illustra-
tion of this situation might occur when the personality may appear to be
spastic or disjointed. Where they are discontinuously interactive, there is
a loss of interaction between the streams. This is likely to result in serious
personality pathology. Finally, integration may occur between the streams.
Normally, a coupling occurs between the phenomenal aspects of each
stream. However, they form a coherent coupling when they become
integrated at all ontological attribute levels, not only phenomenally. In
this case they form a co-operative joint alliance when a new emergent
(offspring) personality results (Yolles, 1999a, 2006; Yolles & Iles, 2004).
The coupling between the three semantic streams is illustrated in
Figure 3.1.
So, if personality can be represented as having three semantic streams,
and each contributes towards the construction of the overall personality,
then how can they be measured and evaluated? The need here is to identify
at least one schema that can be attributed to each stream, and if these
schemas also have inventory capabilities, then they can be used to measure
the semantic streams and the nature of their coupling.
112 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency

Technical system

Deconstraining Practical system

system

Possible Personality domain of

pathological behavioural interests
break

Figure 3.1 Interactive opportunities for integrated development of personality

domain of behavioural interests.

In the following sections, we shall show that it is possible to assign

migrated MBTI and Mindscape schemas each to a distinct semantic
stream, this allowing for the two schemas to maintain their distinctions
while at the same time being complementary.

3.3 Personality Schemas and Their Traits

There are a variety of schemas that are used to represent aspects of
personality (e.g., Ellis et al., 2008). Schemas that have a purely empirical
derivation with post-hoc theory (like the Five-Factor Model) are not of
current interest. Rather, we are interested in schemas that have a basis of
sociocognitive theory, and so the Myers-Briggs schema of personality
temperament and the Mindscape schema are of interest. As an exercise in
configuration, it will be shown through metaphor that these can represent
two of the three proposed semantic streams of personality discussed earlier.

3.3.1 Temperament Theory and Traits

Personality Temperament has already been discussed in the last chapter.
The MBTI schema purports that seemingly random variation in behaviour
is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 113
way individuals prefer to use their perception and judgement, ultimately
influencing behaviour. Perception involves ways of becoming aware cog-
nitively and phenomenally. Judgement involves ways of concluding about
what is perceived. If individuals differ systematically in what they perceive
and in how they reach conclusions, then the rationale underpinning MBTI
purports that they will correspondingly differ in their interests, reactions,
values, motivations, and skills. The aim of the MBTI is to identify through
its measuring instrument, the basic preferences of people in regard to
perception and judgement. The notion is that the effects of each prefer-
ence, singly and in combination, can be established by research and put
into practical use, especially in relation to decision-making behaviour.
The four preference dimensions of MBTI accumulate into a set of
sixteen permutations dichotomies that result in the sixteen personality
types. These form the basis of the Myers’ model and therefore MBTI.
To code these types, MBTI adopts a set of ordered letters: first letter
E (extrovert) or I (introvert); second letter S (sensing) or N (intuition);
third letter T (thinking) or F (feeling); fourth letter J (judging) or
P (perceiving). There is a tendency is to understand each of the sixteen
types as the sum of its essential parts, such as ESTJ = E + S + T +
J. However, it is the interaction of the four preferences that are important
and the unique mental patterns these interactions determine. Thus, INTJ
is taken to be the most independent minded of the sixteen types, while
ISTP is seen as in particular having an intuitive investigatory aptitude.
Thus, for instance the sixteen types are listed as: ISTJ, ISFJ, INFJ, INTJ,
ISTP, ISFP, INFP, INTP, ESTP, ESFP, ENFP, ENTP, ESTJ, ESFJ,
ENFJ, and ENTJ. Berens (2013) and Boje (2004), using different
approaches, independently show that these sixteen types can be blocked
into four stable patterns, thus simplifying their essential relationships
under the different contextual relationships identified by the two authors.
In Chapter 2 it was shown that MBTI could be migrated into the
relevantial universe of KC, when it was referred to Sociocultural MBTI or
S-MBTI. Its paired enantiomers were not seen as traits, but rather as
enantypes that operate as energetic states of some unnamed traits. One
of the interests here will be to identify the traits from which these enan-
types arise.
The Myers-Briggs schema is concerned with decision-making behav-
iour. However, there is a relationship between decision-making and
Temperament orientation to the social that creates behaviour. This is
determined by the connection between personality and the environment,
and conditioned by its introvert/extrovert nature. If one sees the
114 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
personality as an autonomous system that is coupled structurally to its
environment,8 then these Jungian enantypes might also be seen in other
terms, an idea supported independently by Brugha (1998).
In the S-MBTI schema there is a fundamental connection between
individual and social personality, the former being ‘empirical’ and the
latter normative (Yolles, 2006: chapter 13; Yolles, 2007b). S-MBTI is
a model of individual differences, so how might this relate to the streams
indicated in Table 3.1? Metaphorically reflecting on the work by Eysenk
(1957) on political temperament (and commented on by Duverger, 1972), it
may be realised that politics is involved in decision processes where
attempts are made to resolve differences. Hence it is feasible for the
model of personality temperament to be formulated as a latency semantic
stream, where ‘personal political’ knowledge coalesces into ideology and
ethics, and through the recognition of constraints creates the power of
emancipation and shifts in perspective. Is it possible to find additional
support for the notion that individual differences constitute a basis for
personal politics? Well Duncan (2005), who is working in political psych-
ology in respect of self-schemas, considers that a variable of individual
differences has a political connection that comes from the propensity to
attach personal meaning to social and historical events. Referred to as
personal political salience (PPS), this is conceptualised as a self-schema
and seen to be related to efficient processing of political data. PPS in this
context effectively provides a cognitive mechanism whereby people con-
nect personal experiences to their wider social, historical, and political
contexts. Such contexts are not only defined in connection with the formal
governance in society, but also more informal governance in connection
with the interrelation between individual agents, which is in part
a function of the judging/perceiving enantype. Even though Duncan
explores the individual differences of self-schema in relation to politics,
he does not define what he means by this. We can discern what it might
mean by referring to Dunbar and Abra (2008), for whom politics is seen in
terms of the power associated with social interpersonal interactions. So it is
possible to generalise Duncan’s notion by drawing on Dunbar and Abra,
and saying that where an individual difference personality self-schema is
projected into a social environment through social and interpersonal
interaction, the result will be a dynamics of personal politics where self-
schemas are used to interpret information for general contexts. This
functions to organise, summarise, and explain an individual’s behaviour
in relation to the wider social, historical, and (power related) interpersonal
contexts.
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 115
Adopting the classifications of Table 3.1, the traits that can be defined for
S-MBTI essentially derive from the latency column. They arise from
a political attribute of this stream that may be related to the personality
context of MBTI, or that of the social with enantypes adopted from Yolles
(2006c) and with influence from Boje (2004).
The trait variables shown in Table 3.2, when set within a social context
of a plural agent (a social) adopting Boje’s (2004) classifications, as opposed
to a unitary agent (individuals) relevant to MBTI develop an alternative set
of enantypes, as follows:
1. Deconstraint. The MBTI enantypes of {judging, perceiving} can be
migrated into this dimension. The domain is meta-systemic in nature,
and arises with a term that comes from Wollheim (1999). He discusses
the distinction between unconscious mental state (relating to impulses,
instincts, perceptions, imaginings, drives, and motivations) and dispos-
ition (relating to knowledge, emotion, and a filter to processes of
knowledge migration). The enantiomers are taken as {confining, liber-
ating}. Confining personalities limit the distribution of power and
retain it for themselves. These also relate to transactional/transform-
ational personalities as indicated in Mindscape theory (Boje, 2004).
Transactional personalities like to create clear structures that determine
what is required of and delivered (as rewards) to others, and they prefer
formal systems of constraint and discipline. Liberating personalities are
those who, after Jung (Grossman, 1999: 93), listen to their own con-
sciences rather than the dictates of convention, while transformational
personalities are concerned with meaning, values, ethics, and like to
form structures that satisfy purposes.
2. Mindedness. The MBTI enantypes of {feeling, thinking} can be migrated
into this dimension. The dimension operates as a figurative ideate
system, and has the enantiomer attributes of {subjectifying, objectifying},
in part as a reflection of the Foucauldian notion of the enantiomers
subjectification-objectification. It defines a frame of reference that per-
mits others to be seen as subjects (as others are subjectified) or objects (as
others are objectified). Subjectifying is pluralistic since there are as
many subjective perspectives are there are those who are capable of
conscious awareness. Objectivism however, is monistic in nature in
that politically it is constituted within a single normative view of what
is acceptable.
3. Disposition. The MBTI enantypes of {sensing, intuition} can be
migrated into this dimension. This dimension operates within
Table 3.2 Trait variables and their enantypes for personal political Temperament in MBTI trait space and its equivalent
social trait space (shaded) due to Boje (2004)

Traits Enantype Nature Enantype Nature

Deconstraint Judging Normative values required. Perceiving Are flexible in a spontaneous

(structure relating) for Drive towards closure. Need
decision-making planned processes and
towards increased regulation. Highly structured,
viability adhering to plans.
Monistic/ Single normative narrative (may
exclusive be mediated from a plurality).
Demands exclusivity.
Mindedness Thinking Involves logical and rationality.
(decision modelling) Impartial based on
using mental models, normatively based ethical and
ideology, and ethics ideologically based belief
formulated by pre-defined
rules.
way, seeking to experience and
understand a plurality of
phenomena. Allows for value
changes. Open to
environment.
Pluralistic/ Pluralistic narratives servicing
participatory a multiplicity of requirements.
Demand is participatory.
Feeling Involves evaluating information,
and is associated with
emotional responses.
Connects with purely
subjective perspective of
situations, and oriented
towards personal values.
Involves subjective processes
based on personal, ethical, and
ideological grounds.
 Objectifying A normative externalised view of
what is real. Subjective
individual experiences are
objectified. The normalisation
process may be associated with
processes of monism and
monocular vision (see
Maruyama, 2008).
Disposition Sensing Orientation is for sensing
(information gathering) relating to the tangible and
through ‘political’ manifest. Concerned with
values, and cultural data that are literal and
norms. concrete. Noticing that an
object exists without its pre-
evaluation.
Transactional/ The construction of knowledge
Confining through three types of
interaction: between new and
Subjectifying The post-modern process of
individuals ‘locally’
interpreting reality through
internalisation. It can be
associated with Piaget’s notion
of projection (Piaget, 1977: 20)
and the coordination of
perspectives, and provides for
polyocular vision (Maruyama,
2008).
Intuition Connected to the unconscious.
Comes from complex
integration of large amounts
of information. Consequence
is to see the bigger picture,
focusing on the structured
relationships and connection
between facts and finding
patterns. Tends to
accommodate the abstract and
conceptual from information
that is gathered. Connected to
possibilities, patterns, and
inherent meaning in an object.
Transformational/ Concerned with personal
Liberating discovery, interconnectedness,
social awareness, and change,
Table 3.2 (cont.)

Traits Enantype Nature Enantype Nature

existing knowledge; with and is connected with social

subjects/objects in an justice. Liberating
environment; between those personalities listen to their
in the environment and own consciences rather than
outsider world. Connected the dictates of convention.
with the negotiated,
collaborative, experiential,
and jointly assessed. Confining
personalities limit the
distribution of power and
retain it for themselves.
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 119
a power related structural system. The definition of the enantypes has
been influenced by Eysenk (1957), and defined as {pluralistic, monistic};
when related to individuals within a political context may also be seen
as {participatory, exclusive}. By participatory is meant an agent estab-
lishing processes that allow others to participate in decision and action
taking processes. By exclusive is meant establishing processes that the
agent exclusively self-directs (the agent as the centre of political power),
providing little opportunity for participatory access.
Personality Temperament traits as defined here are set up within a trait
space and illustrated in Figure 3.2. As we shall see shortly, a related
approach is provided by Boje’s (2004) who argues that MBTI types can
be subsumed into Mindscape theory, and he illustrates this by creating four
blocks B1–B4 that relate to Maruyama’s Mindscapes to be explored shortly,
and set within a space with dimensions of knowledge, power, and ethics
(related to the dimensions of Figure 3.2). For Boje these blocks emerge as:
B1{Opinion (ESTP, ISTP), Government (ISTJ, INTP)}, B2
{Revolutionary (INFJ, INFP), Reform (ESFP, ISFP)}, B3{Prince (ENTJ,
ENTP), Bureaucratic (ESTJ, ISTJ)}, B4{Super (ESFJ, ISFJ), Heroic

Judging 1
(Exclusive)

Deconstraint

Political
temperament
metric

Perceiving Sensing
(Transactional) Intuitional
(Participatory) 1 (Transformational)
0
Disposition
Feeling
(Subjectifying)

Mindedness

Thinking 1
(Objectifying)

Figure 3.2 Illustration of personality temperament trait space for a ‘personal polit-
ical’ space showing trait enantypes, with social enantypes shown in brackets.
120 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
(ENFJ, ENFP)}, where each block constitutes a political temperament
metric within the trait space.

3.3.2 Mindscape Theory

Mindscape is traditionally a term that refers to a mental or psychological
scene or area of the imagination, a term that has been popular in Asia. Jung
commented on the notion of Mindscape in connection with the idea of
synchronicity (or meaningful coincidence) in his introduction to the
I Ching or Book of Changes (Wilhelm, 1950), highlighting what is said to
be a critical dimension of the global knowledge-based economy: what
constitutes knowledge varies, sometimes significantly, between cultures.
Maruyama (1980a) developed Mindscape theory from his interest in
epistemological structures, which indicate how people process and inter-
pret information, and which has therefore direct connection with cognitive
theory. Mindscapes are thus representations of epistemological types. In
creating these types, Maruyama relates different aspects of human activ-
ities, which until then were often regarded as seemingly independent
(Hentschel & Sumbadze, 2002). His theory identifies four core epistemo-
logical types (Table 3.2) that affect individual attitude and consequently
choice and behaviour.
However, Mindscape theory is not simply a way of defining types
through a classificational approach, but rather, as we shall see from the
work of Boje (2004), adopts an inherently relational trait approach. Its
purpose and use lie in interrelating seemingly separate aspects of human
activities. Mindscape types vary from individual to individual and are
numerous. However, four types are found most frequently, together with
mixtures among themselves and with other types. The types are partly
innate and partly learned. Different cultures and professions exercise
different pressures for or against some types in the process of acculturation,
socialisation, ostracism, marginalisation, etc. According to Maruyama
(1988), there are as many Mindscape types as there are humans in
a system, but stable clusters form, and while four types have been specific-
ally identified there is the possibility of more types.
These types occur as clustering stable patterns, and it is envisaged
that there may be more than four of these (Table 3.2),9 elaborated from
Maruyama (2008) and Caley and Sawada (2000). These can interrelate
and thus generate a potentially innumerable number of apparent mind-
scape profiles. The epistemological types arise from the styles of attitude
that are classified as homogenistic, heterogenistic, hierarchical,
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 121
Table 3.3 Maruyama’s core epistemological types

Mindscape type Keywords Explanation

H Homogenistic Parts are subordinated to

(hierarchical/bureaucrat)
I Heterogenistic
(independent/prince)
S Heterogenistic
(social/reformer)
Hierarchical the whole, with sub-
Classification categories neatly
Competitive grouped into super-
Zero sum categories. The
Opposition strongest, or the
One truth majority, dominate at
the expense of the weak
or of any minorities.
Belief in existence of
the one truth applicable
to all (whether values,
policies, problems,
priorities, etc.). Logic is
deductive and
axiomatic demanding
sequential reasoning.
Cause–effect relations
may be deterministic or
probabilistic.
Parts more important
Independent than the whole. Only
Random individuals are real,
Uniquing even when aggregated
Negative sum into society. Emphasis
Separation on self-sufficiency,
Subjective independence, and
individual values.
Design favours the
random, the capricious,
and the unexpected.
Scheduling and
planning are to be
avoided. Non-random
events are improbable.
Each question has its
own answer; there are
no universal principles.
Parts and whole are
Interactive mutually related and
Pattern-maintaining interdependent.
Co-operative Society consists of
Positive sum heterogeneous
Absorption individuals who
Polyocular interact non-
122 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Table 3.3 (cont.)

Mindscape type Keywords Explanation

hierarchically to
mutual advantage.
Mutual dependency.
Differences are
desirable and
contribute to the
harmony of the whole.
Maintenance of the
natural equilibrium.
Values are interrelated
and cannot be rank-
ordered. Avoidance of
repetition. Causal
loops. Categories not
mutually exclusive.
Objectivity is less
useful than ‘cross-
subjectivity’ or
multiple viewpoints.
Meaning is context
dependent.
G Heterogenistic Society is continually
(generative/revolutionary) Interactive evolving in new
Pattern-generating patterns of change.
Cogenerative Social and personal
Positive sum spaces becoming
Outbreading mutually generative.
Polyocular Heterogeneous
individuals interact
non-hierarchically for
mutual benefit,
generating new
patterns and harmony.
Nature is continually
changing requiring
allowance for change.
Values interact to
generate new values
and meanings. Values
of deliberate
(anticipatory)
incompleteness. Causal
loops. Multiple
evolving meanings.
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 123
individualistic, homeostatic, morphogenic, random, interactive.
Maruyama (1993) attributed conflicts and misunderstandings between
members of two societal cultures to differences in value priorities,
behavioural patterns, and logical and epistemological structures. He
emphasised the significance of the latter that he referred to as
‘mindscapes’.
There is an interesting feature of the four mindscape modes identified by
Maruyama (1988), which is that the I and H types are obverse ‘two sides of
the same coin’, as are S and G types. However, according to Maruyama,
this obverse nature is non-linear, so that it cannot be said that I and H types
or S and G types are polar opposites of each other.
An epistemic description of each of these mindscapes has been proposed
by Dockens III (2004) (adapted from Maruyama, 1980) as shown in Table
3.4. Here the epistemic categories cover, for Dockens III, a typology of
knowledge that constitutes the basis of the mindscape types.
Tung (1995) notes that for Maruyama (1993), the epistemologic structures
that are mindscapes refer to the way in which people process and interpret
information, and this is therefore part of cognitive processing (cf. Galavan,
2005). The four epistemic meta-types identified by Maruyama constitute
proprietary cognitive types which differentiate agencies on the basis of logical
processes and the way in which they analyse and synthesise information. These
four epistemological types and their mixtures are claimed to account for nearly
two-thirds of all peoples in the world (Maruyama, 1993).
Mindscape cognitive types were perceived by Maruyama (1988) to be quite
different from the Jungian psychological typologies. They provide a link
between seemingly separate activities such as decision process, criteria of
beauty, and choice of science theories. They do not line up on a single scale,
nor do they fit in a two-by-two table. Rather, Maruyama considered, they are
more like the four corners of a tetrahedron. Mindscape theory is not
a classificational typology (like that of Myers, 2000) since its purpose and use
‘lie in interrelating seemingly separate aspects of human activities such as
organizational structure, policy formulation, decision process, architectural
design, criteria of beauty, choice of theories, cosmology, etc.’ (Maruyama,
1988:2). Maruyama assumed that it has a relational basis.
Mindscape theory arises from Maruyama’s (1963) realisation that per-
sonality involves causative processes and goals, from which is deviated.
Since these deviations occur in an agency’s interaction with its environ-
ment, the deviation may be either counteracted or amplified. Maruyama
referred to cycles of deviation-counteraction and deviation-amplification (Boje,
2004). Deviation-counteraction seeks to control deviations, while deviation-
 Table 3.4 Classifications for mindscapes

H I S G

Cosmology Casual chains. Hierarchy The most probable state is Equilibrium by means of Generated new
of categories, super- random distribution of mutual corrections, or patterns by means
categories. ‘Oneness’ events with cycles due to mutual of mutual
with the universe. independent balancing. Structures interaction.
Processes are repeatable probability. Structures maintained. Structures grow.
if conditions are the decay. Heterogeneity,
same. differentiation,
symbolisation,
and further
heterogenisation
increase.
Information The more specified, the Information decays and Loss of information can Complex patterns
more information. gets lost. be counteracted by can be generated
Past and future inferable Blueprint must contain means of redundancy by means of
from present more information than or by means of simple rules of
probabilistically or finished product. feedback devices. interaction. The
deterministically. Embryo must contain amount of
more information than information
adult. needed to describe
the generated
pattern may be
greater than the
amount of
information to
describe the rules
of interaction.
Thus the amount
of information
can increase.
Perception Rank-ordering, Isolating. Each is unique Contextual: Look for Contextual: Look
classifying, and and unrelated to meaning in context. for new
categorising into neat others. Look for mutual interactions and
scheme. Find balance, seek stability. new patterns.
regularity. Therefore
meanings change
and new
meanings arise.
Logic Deductive, axiomatic, Each question has its Simultaneous understanding of mutual relations.
mutually exclusive answer unrelated to No sequential priority. Logical values cannot be
categories, permanence others. ordered.
of substance, and
identity.
Ethics Competition. Zero sum. Isolationism. Negative Symbiosis: Static harmony. Symbiotisation:
If not homogeneous, sum. Virtue of self- Avoid disturbance. Restore evolving
then conflict. Let the sufficiency. previous harmony. harmony.
‘strongest’ dominate Positive sum. Positive sum.
homogenistically. Regard
Majority rule differences as
(dominated by beneficial.
quantity). Incorporate new
endogenous and
exogenous
elements.

Note. Adapted from Dockens III (2007).

126 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
amplification enhances them and adds to the existing heterogeneity. The
selection of one form of cybernetic control or another is influenced by an
agency’s cognitive type mindscapes and the interests of the agencies.
It seems that Maruyama (1980) finally settled on four dominant types of
mindscape, though originally he had worked with three mindscape types
(Maruyama, 1974) which he then extended to five in Maruyama (1977). In
developing these mindscapes empirically he used two forms of measuring
instrument, a questionnaire, and a pictograph (Maruyama, 1980).
In a given organisation there are multiple mindscape types, and perhaps
a dominant organisational mindscape. Boje (2004) cites Maruyama (2001: 65)
as saying: ‘In a given culture during a given historical period, some type may
become powerful and official, and the powerful type may change from period
to period’. The four types are listed as follows, with their metaphorical
associations:
• H-type = Newtonian physics;
• I-type = Thermodynamic of the 1940s; random movements of
molecules;
• S-type = First cybernetics of the 1940s and 1950s, using pattern-
generating deviation-counteracting loops (automated error-correction);
• G-type = Second cybernetics of the 1960s that Maruyama initiated with
deviation-amplifying loops.
Maruyama has also compared his four types with an extensive survey of
epistemological data grouped by Harvey (1966) who saw the behaviour of
individuals grouped into four ‘systems.’10 According to EWPHP (2006),
Maruyama considers that the influence of such types predominates in
certain cultures though in practice the types are mixed. The way in
which they predominate is indicated as follows:
• H-type predominates in European, Hindu, and Islamic cultures;
• I-type develops in certain individuals, such as those of existentialist
philosophy;
• S-type is characteristic of Chinese, Hopi, and Balinese cultures;
• G-type predominates in the African Mandenka culture;
• H-type, S-type, and G-type can be distinguished in different streams of
Japanese culture.
Dockens III (1996, 2004, 2008) has developed a learning theory dimension
to Mindscapes. Linked with Catastrophe Theory (Thom, 1975), it also
provides a way of explaining sudden structural change in the thinking
processes for individuals, it also provides a way of explaining sudden
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 127
structural change in the thinking processes for individuals, illustrated for
instance when people act differently in public than they act in private. To
set up his metamorphic analysis Dockens III relates11 to a Freudian onto-
logical model that distinguished between three states of Being in the mind:
Id, Superego, and Ego. These types of consciousness are then related to
personal, private, and public modes of Being (Dockens III, 2007), and each
is assigned its own Mindscape. The result is a Mindscape representation of
‘personality’ that explains why some people may behave differently in each
of their personal, private, and public contexts.
Public, private, and personal, mindsets are actually constituted as spheres of
social context that can be seen as ontologically distinct (Dockens III, 2008a),
and therefore epistemologically different. A more pragmatic explanation of
this is the capacity of people to maintaining distinct and separate pockets of
mindsets in their spheres of contextual life. These spheres tends to be stable
because it defines for an individual a particular mode of behaviour from which
distinct types of behaviour arise, and it is different from the more detailed
context that is demanded from context through the directional semantic
stream (Table 3.1). People are able to partition off their knowledge that
determined their understanding about the natures of these spheres, and
operate in each according to that knowledge (this being a function of multiple
identities to be discussed in Part III of this book). So, the State executioner
goes home after a hard day’s work, but there he would not hurt a fly. That this
is a contradiction has no impact on any individual in question since the
spheres of knowledge are so well differentiated.
Now, Bridges (1992) notion of organisational character referred to in
Chapter 2 shapes how decisions are made and how new ideas are received.
Bridges identifies sixteen organisational character types using the frame-
work of MBTI personality types and shows how these influence an
organisation’s growth and development. In a similar way, Dockens III
(2007) uses the notion of organisational personality in which Mindscape
dynamics determine the development and future of organisations. This is
consistent with the notions of Sorokin (1962), who explores the cultural
dynamics of social organisations and how they shift between Ideational and
Sensate states of cultural being, and the impact that these states have on
their ability to respond to situations that they experience whether as part of
an internal or external environment.
There is a correspondence between Mindscape types and leadership
characteristics, as shown in Table 3.5. There is also a correspondence
between Mindscape types and traits. While Boje (2004) refers to
polyphonic and monophonic attributes of ethics, for us this is linked
 Table 3.5 Dimensional nature of Mindscapes for leaders

Type H I S G

Mindscape
Type leader Hierarchical: oriented Independent: prefers non- Social stability: seeks Generative: seeks
towards hierarchical, non- diverse diverse
bureaucratic structured organisation where organisation where people
leader situation situations without people do interact to keep
limits what is socially things changing
beneficial and rearranging

Traits
Knowledge Transactional: enact own Transactional: enact own Transformational: enact Transformational: enact
will regardless of will regardless of will to serve will to generate change
situation what others say social situation
Power Will to serve Will to power Will to serve Will to power
Ethics Monistic (monophonic) Monistic (monophonic) Pluralistic (polyphonic) Pluralistic (polyphonic)

Note. Adapted from Boje (2004).

 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 129
to his special interest in narrative as explained in the last chapter, and
we have adopted the more general words monistic/unitary and plural-
istic. The distinct stable dominant Mindscape types maintain specific
coordinate positions in the trait space, and they are interactive.

3.3.3 Migrating Mindscape Theory

The migration process of the Mindscape schema into KC (and hence to
Agency Theory) requires that there is a correspondence between the
Mindscape traits formulated by Boje, and those available to KC. Boje
(2004), in explaining the nature of Mindscape theory, sets up
a Mindscape space. To do this he creates a set of dimensions that in
part reflect a ‘will to knowledge’ that creates personality imperatives. In
doing this he uses Foucault’s theory of Power/Knowledge, where power
is the disciplining of knowledge itself controlled through such facets of
society as socialisation and division of labour. He further quotes
Foucault (1972: 216) in referring to our inability to say what we wish
when we like and to whom. Boje uses his narrative paradigm to explain
the knowledge process, and tells us that the knowledge development
process involves the use of knowledge scripts that are established within
coherent social groups in the patterns of action and being. Boje also
notes that certain types of knowledge is prohibited in particular organ-
isations, and refers to Foucault’s (1972: 217–18) notion of there being
three types of knowledge relating to this: (1) discussions of politics and
sexuality are prohibited in the university; (2) discussions of what consti-
tutes madness, and the theories of so-called mad and deviate people are
excluded; institutions impose a system of knowledge of what is con-
sidered true and false knowledge, this is part of the ‘will to knowledge’;
(3) false discourse is routed off campus; or in some campuses confined to
designated ‘free speech zones’.
Boje also calls on Berger and Luckmann’s (1966: 146) notion that in
coherent social groups there is a ‘social distribution of knowledge’, which is
used when we become habituated, trained, and apprenticed into these
scripts. He therefore suggests that knowledge scripting is part of secondary
socialisation. However, within this context the notion that knowledge has
a social distribution which enables normative perspectives to arise, so that
the distribution necessarily has an impact on the personalities that arise
within social environments (Piaget, 1950, 1995). This therefore very closely
ties Boje’s use of the knowledge script with the idea of a system of knowledge
(e.g., Manuel-Navarrete, 2001) that is instituted to social environments. It
130 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
is from this that the notion of cultural standards develops, which define the
differences in the modes of perceiving, sensing, thinking, judging, and
acting across different cultures (Fink et al., 2006: 38), and which define the
constraints and legitimate standing of our social behaviours.
As a result of these arguments, Boje creates a trait space for Mindscapes.
It is defined in terms of the three variables Knowledge {transactional,
transformational}, Ethics (pluralistic, monistic}, and Power {will to
power, will to serve}. However, the meanings of the words used are not
as might be commonly assumed, and they require examination, and
connection with a KC frame of reference. It can be migrated through
metaphor into KC as follows:
• Power (technical interest). This is the disciplining of knowledge,
controlling it through such entities as socialisation and division of
labour. Following Foucault (1972) he notes that agents are not free to
say just anything when or where they wish, and certain types of
knowledge are forbidden in some social environments. This is not
connected with Habermas’ notion of what he refers to as critical
deconstraining, where people try to liberate themselves from their
constraints. It is more connected with recognition of the nature of the
constraints and a technical ability to engage with the environment
and to establish predictions and controls, presupposing the existence
of structure that both anticipates and facilitates behaviour. As such
this variable appears to connect with the Habermasian kinematic
semantic stream, and to ensure clarity we shall therefore call this
variable technical power, with the related power/service enantypes.
• Ethics (autocybernetics). While this is normally defined as the process of
determining right and wrong conduct, Boje prefers to adopt the differ-
ent Foucauldian notion of ethics. Following Coveney (1998) Foucault’s
ethics are individualised forms of self-regulation (e.g., the work ethic).
Ethics are thus connected with the relationships we have with ourselves.
Ethics in this sense is connected with the mutual ways in which agents
are both controlled by others and control themselves. For Murtagh
(2008) this notion of ethics provides the opportunity for agents to
change their relationship to the symbolic order, and provides a means
to self-orientate out of the constraints of socially constructed constraints
(e.g., femininity and masculinity).
• Knowledge (disposition). This is the will to knowledge, which is historic-
ally constituted and scripted, so that agents become characters in a script
system and become script performers and/or script generators. The two
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 131
types of scripts identified are Transaction Scripts and Transformation
Scripts. This will to knowledge is therefore a transactional scripting that
involves simple repetition and sameness. The will to knowledge in trans-
formation scripting is about changing the system through emergence and
deviation. It involves Maruyama’s notion of dialectic of deviation-
counteracting and deviation-amplifying in the scripts. Knowledge script-
ing is part of secondary socialisation (e.g., by providing them with socially
acceptable values). Through this, agents internalise the scripts, as well as
the character type expected for agents in their environment. This script
internalisation is constituted as a means of formation, and enables an
agent to be influenced by knowledge that relates to its social environment.
It affects structures and processes that define the agentic forms that are
related to intentions and behaviours. As such this variable appears to be
connected with the social attribute of the kinematic semantic stream, and
to ensure clarity in our context it can really be referred to as economic
disposition involving a particular pattern of conceptual knowledge. More
easily, however, we shall simply refer to it as disposition, with the related
transactional/transformational enantypes.
So, there is a connection between the Mindscape traits and one of the
semantic streams in KC. This connection is set up in Figure 3.3. Relational

Power
G

Technical
power
I

Service S
Disposition
0 Transformational
Transactional
Pluaristic

Autocybernetic
control
H
Monistic

Figure 3.3 An indication of Boje’s representation of the Mindscape Type Space

using Knowledge Cybernetic traits and Boje enantypes and showing four stable
Mindscape meta-types as depicted by Boje (2004).
132 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
connections between each of the stable personality states that can arise in
Mindscapes are also illustrated.
The trait space for Mindscapes can now be expressed in terms of the
Knowledge Cybernetic domains as shown in Figure 3.4. Mindscapes like
temperament, also maintains enantypes. The development of the domin-
ance of one enantype (transaction, monistic, power) over another (trans-
formation, pluralistic, service) has a similar explanation as that provided for
S-MBTI enantypes in the last chapter. As autopoiesis and autogenesis
influence and are influenced by these enantypes in the personality (as in
the case of S-MBTI), it is likely that they contribute to the triggering of
dominant enantypes in a personality in a similar way to the explanation
provided in Yolles and Frieden (2005) and Yolles et al. (2008) when
discussing the dynamics of culture. This could provide a detailed explan-
ation of how a personality is able to catastrophically adjust change by
suddenly shifting enantypes from one of a pair to the other (Thom, 1975;
Schwarz, 2001) to form a stable state.
Since Mindscapes are represented as being constituted as a technical
semantic stream, they are therefore predictive:12 relating to control, causal
explanations, and as an instrument to action governed by technical rules.
As such, it would be expected that the identification of personalities with
a given Mindscape would enable anticipation of how they behave.
Pathologies in personalities may be explained through the discontinuities
that arise in the model, creating for instance unstable personalities in the
kinematic semantic stream, as shown in Figure 3.4. For instance, technical
interest may not couple adequately with the environment, or a break may

Autogenesis: kinematic operative Autopoiesis:

principles network of processes to
manifest system of poweras Structural coupling
structure and behaviour with the
environment

Virtual/ideate system
Metasystem System
Disposition Autocybernetic
Technical
(transactional/ Interest
Interest Social
transformational) (monistic/pluralistic)
(power/service) Environment

Impulses for behavioural

/structural adjustment

Figure 3.4 Representation of Mindscape Traits as a sociocognitive autonomous

attribute within the AT model indicating the domain enantypes.
 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality 133
occur in autopoiesis or autogenesis. Additional research is required in this
area to enrich such explanations.

3.4 Chapter in Brief

• Personality schemas that may seem to compete with others can be

elaborated on to make them complementary.
• Two trait approaches, MBTI and Mindscape theory – normally con-
sidered to be unconnected and competitive, will be migrated into a more
complex modelling space that has complementary potential.
• While MBTI may be thought of as a simplistic, ineffectual classification
model that does not represent any of the dynamic attributes of person-
ality, it is shown how it can be elaborated on through certain configur-
ations that enable its nature to be enhanced in a way that approaches
Mindscape theory.
• To relate MBTI and Mindscape, it is insufficient to elaborate on its
theory. Mindscape theory also requires elaboration in order for the two
to meet.
• Agency Theory meta-framework is adopted, and the type theory of
MBTI is migrated to the relevantial universe in which sits Mindscape
theory through configurations that are distinct from those considered in
the previous chapter.
• As a result, MBTI becomes a more sophisticated trait theory capable of
providing more complex information about personality.
• Such configurative adaptations enable type theories to no longer be seen
to be stand-alone, but rather complementary within a broader concep-
tual framework.
• The approach adopted is generic, and can be applied to other solitary
theories like FFM.
• The development of appropriate configurative structures leads to the
possibility of improved explanatory power for a type theory.
 chapter 4

Normative Personalities

4.1 Introduction
In this chapter a cybernetic psychosocial view will be adopted to theoretic-
ally explore plural agencies (defined through their population of agents)
with a common culture, a collective mind, and behaviour. Within the
context of cognitive information process theory, the collective mind is an
information system that operates through a set of logical mental rules and
strategies (e.g., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Bowlby, 1980; Novak, 1993;
Wang, 2007). This has relevance to cognitive learning theory (e.g., Miller
& Dollard, 1941; Miller et al., 1960; Piaget, 1950; Vygotsky, 1978; Argyris &
Schön, 1978; Bandura, 1986, 1988; Nobre, 2003; Argote & Todorova,
2007), where ‘learning is seen in terms of the acquisition or reorganisation
of the cognitive structures through which humans process and store
information’ (Good & Brophy, 1990: 187).
Psychosocial approaches to the modelling of plural agency processes are
not new. For instance, Weick (1969, 1995) adopted the idea of corporate
personality metaphorically (Brown, 2003), i.e., to make them compact,
intelligible, and understood (Cornelisson et al., 2008). This metaphor is
well known (e.g., Olins, 1978; Davenport et al., 1997; Gindis, 2009; Barley,
2007), but seems to be more popular in the niche area of Identity Theory
(as part of Strategic Management and Marketing; e.g., Taylor, 2000; He &
Balmer, 2007) and in Human Resource Management where Natoli (2001)
recognises the trait nature of corporate personality.
Plural agencies are prone to pathologies, and in an attempt to under-
stand them, Kets de Vries’ (1991) explored corporate personality in terms of
its pathology and dysfunction, reflecting on psychological tendencies such
as corporate neurosis, guilt, collective psychological defences that reduce
pain through denial and cover-up, and unproductive power processes.
Sperry (1995) has identified classes of corporate dysfunction that include
134
 Normative Personalities 135
strategy/structure mismatch, structural problems, environmental prob-
lems, human resource problems, strategy/structure/culture problems, and
a host of other problems involving corporate personality disorder, like
corporate neurosis.1
Here, we shall create a psychosocial framework for agency having
a collective mind or normative personality. The term normative personality
is not new, being usually used within the context of the ambient normative
social influences that exist during the formation of personalities, and that
mould them (Mroczek & Little, 2006). Our interest lies in recognising that
the norms in a collective may together coalesce into a unitary cognitive
structure such that a collective mind can be inferred, and from which an
emergent normative personality arises. The rise of one implies that of the
other. To explain this further, consider that stable collectives develop
a common dominant culture within which shared beliefs develop.
Agency cultural anchors develop enabling the emergence of norms.
These influence behaviour, modes of conduct and expression, forms of
thought, attitudes, and values. When the norms refer to formal behaviours,
then where agents contravene in a culture requiring their compliance, they
are deemed to be engaging in illegitimate behaviour which, if discovered,
may result in formal retribution. The severity of this is determined from
the agency’s ideological and ethical positioning. This develops with the rise
of collective cognitive processes that start with information inputs, and
through information-processing decisions result for action. It also relates to
the rise of collective affective processes, noting that affect is transferable
(Mitchell, 2014) as is cognition. It does this with a sense of the collective
mind from which develops a collective mind and recognition of self. The
term normative personality does not mean that individual members of
a plural agency will conform to all aspects of the normative processes:
they do so with some degree of cultural compliance (Chapter 1, cultural
issue 6) that depends on sociopolitical demand. In the remainder of this
chapter, when we refer to normative personality, we shall mean the
development of the collective mind and its emergent normative personality.
There are few inherently cybernetic approaches that relate to norma-
tive personality. One of these comes from Bandura (2006) in his theory
of personal agency. Here, active agents are seen to have the cognitive
capacities of intention, forethought, and the ability to react and to
reflect, and it is from these capacities that the agentic perspective arises
through which adaptation and change in human development occurs.
To be an agent is to influence intentionally one’s functioning and life
circumstances, and personal influence is part of the causal structure.
136 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Agential systems are seen to be self-organising, proactive, self-regulating,
and self-reflecting, and they are participative in creating their own behav-
iour and contributors to their life circumstances. An attribute of behaviour
is efficacy, but there are a variety of definitions for this. Thus, Bandura
(2006: 165) defines personal efficacy as ‘the soundness of thoughts and
actions, and the meaning of their pursuits’. His constructivist credentials
are illustrated by Bandura’s (1977) definition of self-efficacy: an agent’s
belief in its capability to organise and execute the courses of action required
to manage prospective situations. He also defines collective efficacy is
a group’s shared belief in its conjoint capability to organise and execute
the courses of action required to produce given levels of attainment.
Bandura (1994, 1999) links information processes with both the self-
efficacy of a unitary agency and the collective efficacy of a collective agency.
He notes that efficacy is conditioned by emotive imperatives (deriving
from emotions and feelings) that can be controlled (Adeyemo, 2007) by
emotional intelligence (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Efficacy therefore influ-
ences an agent’s capabilities to produce designated levels of performance
that exercise influence over events that affect life. Bandura (2006) also
refers to empirical research that shows that perceived collective efficacy
accounts for distinctions in the quality of group functioning in diverse
social systems. In referring to perceived collective efficacy, he means the
common beliefs that reside in the minds of group members about their
collective capability. The membership believes that they are acting on their
common beliefs that contribute to the transactional dynamics that promote
group attainments.
Here, we will align efficacy with perceived efficacy since the latter
constitutes the principal way of measuring the former. As already explained
in Chapter 1, unlike Bandura’s constructivism, we adopt a position of
critical realism so that belief and pure subjectivity is balanced with the
recognition that reality is determined by the structures that create effects
and exist independently of us, even if we cannot apprehend it fully. This
permits us to adopt a more generalised view of the nature of efficacy
offering an intermediate position that reflects the relationship between
an effect and an observer, and that can apply to unitary or plural agencies:
efficacy is the capability to organise and execute the courses of action required to
manage current or prospective situations. Here, then, the notion of efficacy
must necessarily centre on the relationship between a validated internalisa-
tion (however validation might occur) of an effect and the capability in
organising and executing the action. One approach to validation is to
coordinate the perspectives that exist in a plural agency, and this can be
 Normative Personalities 137
supported by an iterative converging sequence of interactions between the
agency and the effect.
Bandura (1999) formulated a sociocognitive theory of agency which can
be related to trait theory, based on and reflective of emotional-motivational
systems that are able to increase adaptation to classes of stimuli associated
with positive and negative reinforcement (Depue & Morrone-Strupinsky,
2005: van Egeren, 2009). For Davis (2000) durable personality traits are
usually tightly bound to qualities of emotions, but they may also be defined
in terms of preconscious mental dispositions that affect the reflective
processes and influence the different categories of cognitive and animated
behaviour. Traits are also related to performance (Fleishman et al., 1999),
and may be taken as variables where the values/states that they adopt may
be called types (Eysenck, 1957). In corporate theory traits have generic
characteristics that are domain dependent, and may be seen as normative
personality variables that regulate the importance attributed to different
classes of information. They are indicative of personality styles that arise
from a combination of personality types, and which suggest a plural
agency’s expected behavioural orientation in relation to that class of
information. The types have a special role in personality theory. They are
deemed to be responsible for the patterns of behaviour that a personality
generates. Patterns of behaviour are generically defined as an abstraction
from a concrete form that keeps recurring in specific, non-arbitrary con-
texts. It is this very nature that enables an agency’s behaviour to be
predicted, even when it comes to their interaction with personal and
situational variables. Where it is possible to associate personalities with
stable trait type predilection, a consistent connection to behavioural pro-
clivities can be discerned (de Oliveira, 2008; Hyldegård, 2009).
Our intention is to develop a model that couples agency sociocognitive
principles with traits to provide a generic cybernetic theory of organisa-
tions as collective agents. To formulate a model that will satisfy our needs
will require that niche and/or subject domain boundaries must be crossed,
this resulting in a meta-framework. This adopts cybernetic principles
(Ashby, 1956) concerned with the control and communication features of
coherently controlled (systemic) structures and their regulation that are
essential to all social contexts. The modern cybernetics of viable systems is
in particular concerned with ‘circular causality’, illustrated by the action of
an autonomous human activity system that interacts with an environment
and that may be responsible for change. Informal feedback may either
confirm actual behaviour or make changes necessary. Imperative structural
adjustments, in turn, can affect the way the system then behaves. A limited
138 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
use of cybernetics in organisation theory was popularised by Argyris and
Schön (1978) through their single and double loop learning. However, it
has been the rise of the complexity view that has made cybernetics attract-
ive. Such work is illustrated, for instance, by Beer (1989, 1994), who argues
for the need of explicit examination of control and communication within
organisational situations that enable organisations to maintain their viabil-
ity. Schwarz’s (1997) innovative condensation of the complex view of
system viability through his Viable Systems Theory also intends to explain
how viable systems adapt and change in complex situations. This has been
developed on by Yolles (2006) in particular for human agency through his
Knowledge Cybernetics. This is one of the few approaches that can enable
a detailed geometric explanation of complex modes of being. It has been
developed for social knowledge-based contexts integrating theory from
Habermas (1970, 1974), Piaget (1950) and others. It is also a meta-
framework that can respond to the apparent current limitations of organ-
isation theory. It entertains properties like self-regulation, self-reflection,
self-organisation, and their connections to adaptation.

4.2 Modelling Plural Agency

All human agencies operate through worldviews that are linked with
perception and are responsible for perspectives. In the case of the collective,
the worldview often becomes formalised into a paradigm (Yolles, 2010a;
Fink & Yolles, 2011). This can be taken as the modus operandi of the
collective, and its structure is representative of that of the collective agency.
Here, a paradigm that represents the collective agency can be seen to have
three ontologically distinct components: (1) A collective cognitive base that
constitutes an informational pattern of the ‘truths’ that form both its
epistemic base (deriving from the scientific beliefs that form patterns of
analytic knowledge) and its cultural base (deriving from the cultural beliefs
that arise as normative standards of conduct). Both are connected with
assumptions, beliefs, and trusted propositions that arise within cultural
development. The cognitive base may be seen as the informative result of
cybernetic interaction (Maturana & Varela, 1987: 75) between the patterns
of cultural and analytic knowledge, and these affect each other through
their history of mutual influence, where cognitive intention plays a meta-
systemic role (Yang et al., 2009). (2) A figurative base that is composed of
relationships that can be construed as information rich conceptual models
sedimented from its cognitive base, with connection to cognitive purpose.
(3) A pragmatic base that is constituted by its normative modes of practice
 Normative Personalities 139
that respond to standards of validity that constitutes evidence, with con-
nection to cognitive interest. Thus, a paradigm, far from being
a disembodied entity, is a cognitive map that is carried by a dynamic
autonomous human activity group and is responsible for its cognitive,
figurative, and pragmatic bases.
Human agencies also function with intelligence, which is closely linked
with the ability to discern attributes of cultural knowledge, to efficiently
and effectively discriminate, relate, manipulate and apply that knowledge
in a variety of phenomenal environments (Yolles, 2006: 287), and to create
inferences, and make effective decisions (Bourdieu, 1984; Gardner, 1983,
1993; Pór, 1995; Atlee & Zubizarreta, 2003). For Piaget (1963) the notion of
intelligence is slightly different and process oriented and is the ability of an
agency to adapt to its immediate environment, and while this occurs in the
individual, collective intelligence can develop in kinship systems. Such
adaptation occurs because an agency develops its intellect through figura-
tive schemas that are changed with a learning process, and two forms of
adaptation occur: assimilation (new information and experiences are fitted
into existing schemas) and accommodation (schemas are changed when
new information cannot be assimilated). Two forms of intelligence are
proposed by Piaget (1950): operative and figurative. Figurative intelligence
provides an agency’s core relational explanations of reality, and operative
intelligence provides for its capacity to evidence its figurative base.
Collective agencies with poor figurative intelligence do not maintain
good representation of their environmental experiences in their figurative
or cognitive bases. Those with poor operative intelligence cannot
adequately manifest elements of their figurative base pragmatically, so
that they have limited capacity to evidence models. Hence figurative and
operative intelligence are intimately connected.2
Through the intelligences, the cognitive, figurative, and pragmatic bases
of a collective agency interactively contribute to its nature as reflected in its
paradigm. Figure 4.1 illustrates this, created from the principles embedded
in Knowledge Cybernetics that has manifested as Agency Theory. This
uses a generic cybernetic model that maintains some core principles
originating from Schwarz (1997), and draws on some of the nature of
organisation theory as defined by Hatch and Cunliffe (2006).They distin-
guish five major fields of organisation theory, which are supposed to be
somehow related to each other, though no specific model of these relations
was developed. The five fields are: organisational culture and identity,
organisational strategy, organisational design and structure, organisational
behaviour, and performance, strategic response to organisational
140
GUIDANCE through a network
of principles (from paradigms)
that constitutes figurative
intelligence
Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
EXTERNALISATION through a
network ofprocesses that
Artefacts
constitute operative intelligence
Phenomenal domain
BEHAVIOUR from
reflection of intentions

Existential domain
CULTURE Noumenal domain
ORGANISATIONAL
as part of a cognitive base STRATEGIC ORGANISING Agent
STRUCTURE
[Belief system & patterns As part of its figurative base OPERATIONS
Pragmatic base.
of knowledge] Decision imperatives and Efficacious directed
Cognitive interest
Cognitive intentions attitudes action with social
Self-organisation
Self-reference Cognitive purposes consequence
Operative
Underlying Self-regulation (reaction).
MANAGEMENT
Assumptions Espoused Values

PERFORMANCE
INTERNALISATION Confirmation or
through operative intelligence COMBINATION through imperative for adjustment
feedback to cognitive base, a networkof information
paradigms,culture and viable processes that induce
patterns of knowledge: ADAPTATION and Socialisation
through Agent
RESPONSE OPERATIONS
communication Efficacious directed
Indicative potential pathology likely leading to dysfunction as a structural action with social
coupling with consequence
connected
agencies

Figure 4.1 Generic model of a collective agency drawing on Hatch and Cunliffe
(2006) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), also showing the operative systems of
a connected agency.

environment. So, there is a need to set the scene for a flexible organisation
theory platform, which defines the domains and processes of organisations
in a coherent systemic context. This would require going beyond what is
defined as organisational mechanisms (as for instance proposed by
Pajunen, 2008) to explain organisational decline and turnaround. It has
to provide a powerful, extensible construct for modelling that is able to
respond to queries about problem situations.
The generic model for the organisation in Figure 4.1 also adopts the
concepts by Piaget (1950) of internalisation, externalisation, and socialisation
that he adopted for child development. Added is the Nonaka and Takuechi
(1995) combination in their organisational learning theory. Internalisation
and externalisation together with combination constitute transitive con-
nections across domains. The term socialisation is distinct in that it operates
through a (lateral, within domain) structural coupling process that lies
outside the normative personality. The bars lying across the connecting
intelligence loops illustrate the possible pathologies that might arise in the
organisation, a notion we shall return to in due course.
It is also appropriate to comment here on the connection between
organisational structure and operations. The question arises, is
 Normative Personalities 141
externalisation connected to structure, to operations, or to the structural
coupling that exists between them? Phenomena must perhaps be repre-
sented as operational behaviour since structure as such is ‘phenomenally
figurative’ and cannot be directly observed. Organisational structure also
acts to constrain and facilitate operations, this connection indicated by the
structural coupling between the two. In other words, performance may be
indicative of the need for a structural adjustment, especially if unexpected
patterns of performance appear. Any such adjustment reflects on the need to
adjust patterns of behaviour.
A problem with models like Figure 4.1 is that while they appear to satisfy
most of the criteria of a theoretical platform, they do not adequately satisfy
generic criterion (3). Ideally, to do this a set of generic variables needs to be
identified that can represent a unique collection of characteristics. To find
such a set of variables we shall have to look at the collective agency in terms
of its personality, and then look towards some applicable cybernetic theory
from personality theory. Since there is little theory on normative personal-
ities, it will be necessary to migrate some principles from the personality
theory of psychology to psychosocial studies, a process that has already
been considered (e.g., Yolles, 2009).

4.3 Normative Personality as a Sociocognitive Model

The noumenal domain of Figure 4.1 centres on information processes, and
thus is constituted as the cognitive part of the organisation. As such we
identify that this is the seat of any emergent normative personality system
that may emerge, and it is our intention to model this.
In the sociocognitive theory of the individual personality, the mind
operates as a complex system (Bandura, 1999; Cervone et al., 2004).
Sociocognitive variables develop through sociocultural experiences. They
distinguish between cognitive capacities that contribute to personality
functioning, including skills, competencies, knowledge structures that
have been sedimented from the real-life situations that have been experi-
enced, self-reflective processes that enable people to develop beliefs about
themselves within social contexts, and self-regulatory processes where
people formulate goals, standards, and motivations towards identifiable
outcomes (Bandura, 1986, 1999; Williams, 1992). Personality assessment
differentiates between personality structures and behavioural orientations.
The internal structures are assessed through an examination of a system of
interacting psychological mechanisms rather than a set of independent
variables as in trait approaches. In sociocognitive theory, assessments
142 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
capture not only current psychological tendencies, but also personal deter-
minants of action that contribute to development over the course of time.
Evaluations are made of individual differences as well of the psychological
attributes that contribute to personal identity. Ways in which the struc-
tures of personality come into play are illustrated as agencies interact with
the settings and challenges that make up their day-to-day lives. Social
cognition personality assessment seeks to explore agency personality coher-
ence and the cognitive structures that are used to interpret events. They are
also not only used to self-reflect and self-regulate, but also to change
through self-organisation.
We recall Bandura’s interest in collective efficacy, and its capacity to
control the emotive imperatives allowing an agency to, as a whole, attain
goals and accomplish its desired tasks (Bandura, 1986, 1991). It involves
a perception that efficacious collective actions are possible in relation to
a social need. While this necessarily differs from the self-efficacy of the
individual, the two concepts arise from the same origin. A difference
between self-efficacy and collective efficacy distinguishes between cultural
cohesion and the differences that exist between the agency members that
compose the collective. The degree of cultural cohesion that an agency has
can in turn influence the development of collective cognitive cohesion or
dissonance (Brehm & Cohen, 1962; Greenwald, 1980; Fraser-Mackenzie &
Dror, 2009), an unpleasant state of arousal that occurs when an agency
becomes aware of attitudinal and behavioural inconsistency that have their
original in a perception of cultural incoherence (Leontovich, 2003). Thus,
for instance, a problem of normative culture can influence collective
cognitive cohesion that in turn may affect normative performance through
agency’s lack of confidence and/or perceptual differences in collective
efficacy (Bandura, 1995). The efficacy of a collective agency will also
influence its ability to communicate, goal set, and persevere during
adversity.
It is clear then that personality theory created for the collective agency
has additional caveats to that of the individual as agency. A collective
agency may behave independently from the individual agents that com-
pose it because the normative anchors for social behaviour may be different
from the anchors of individual agent behaviour, as has been shown by the
literature on Strategic Groups (Fiegenbaum & Thomas, 1995); Herding
(Hirshleifer & Teoh, 2003; Welch, 2000); and Groupthink (Janis, 1972).
In order to understand more about the normative personality, we may
find some direction from theories of the individual personality. There is
support for this from a number of sources (e.g., Weik & Roberts, 1993;
 Normative Personalities 143

Normative Personality Sphere of operative personality intelligence

Guidance through Sphere of observable
Externalisation through
personality figurative behaviour
personality operative intelligence
intelligence

Action
as a reflection of
Personality Personality Personality
figurative system behaviour
cognitive operative Operative System
metasystem Figurative information system Operational
Conceptual as schemas that include Operative information Performance as
information and appreciative Personality structures that efficient & effective
attitudes information and facilitate decision-making directed action
Cognitive decision imperatives behaviour Reaction Social
orientation Figurative Operative as an imperative orientation
orientation orientation to structural
adjustment
Combination
Internalisation

Figure 4.2 Normative personality as a cognitive system with figurative and

operative intelligences, seated in the noumenal domain of the organisational
agency.

Bandura, 1999; Hofstede et al., 2002; Brown, 1961; Gindis, 2009; Barley,
2007), with collective agencies behaving consistently as ‘legal corporate
persons’, and with a unitary rationality that can be explained. In Figure 4.2
we offer a model of normative personality that is sociocognitive in nature.
Performance involves the evaluation of directed behaviour, and is related to
the interaction between the behaviours which are embedded in personality
structures and the social environmental factors with which it is coupled. It
is instructive to relate Figures 4.1 and 4.2, the latter in principle arising
from the recursive application of Figure 4.1, where the domain meanings
are contextually adjusted. Due of its systemic orientation, Figure 4.2
defines the normative personality in terms of a set of personality subsys-
tems. Personality can be a cognitive or an affect phenomenon. As
a cognitive entity it is constituted in terms of three classes of information
that are expressed as meta/systems: conceptual information (object-
oriented beliefs and attitudes that through the system trait creates
a cognitive orientation), figurative information (that is associated with
appreciative information and decision imperatives that through the system
trait creates a figurative orientation) and operative information (with its
structural and action information that through its system trait creates an
operative orientation). These conceptual, figurative, and operative types of
information are consistent with the identification, elaboration, and
144 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
execution types identified by Marshall (1995) as will be further discussed in
Chapter 10.
Figure 4.2 defines normative personality as a cognitive system, but still
does not respond to the requirements of the generic criterion (3) that, with
reduced complexity, it can provide improved capacity for the assessment
and evaluation of normative processes. To do this there is a need to better
identify the epistemic nature of each of the subsystems. The intention now
is to do this through the use of traits.

4.4 A Basis for Coupling Agency and Trait Theory

The model that we shall develop here relates to the metaphorical argu-
ments of van Egeren (2009) in his cybernetic discussion of agency traits,
but they take a more formal route. Bandura’s (1986) sociocognitive
theory arises through his notions of social learning, and he recognised
that sociocognitive processes are influenced by memory and emotions,
and interactive with environmental influences. Behaviour is also seen to
be guided by cognitive processes (like the Jungian types of thinking and
judging). Bandura developed a theory of self that explored the complex
psychological and subjective reality of individuals as it impacts on goals
and expectations and points towards individual strategies that are used
to satisfy expectations and accomplish meaningful subjective goals, and
it induces the affective representation of the perceived problem (Scott
Murray, 2005). It can be seen as a theory of individual differences
(Bandura, 1999), that recognises that processes are connected with
personality traits that condition personality processes in some invisible
way. However, he recognises that they are descriptive behavioural clus-
ters that tell one little about the determinants and regulative structures
governing the behaviours that constitute a particular cluster. In his view,
for this there is a need for process theory in which can be explored self-
efficacy. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how an agency feels, thinks,
motivates itself, and behaves. The beliefs produce diverse effects through
the major processes of cognition, motivation, effectiveness, and selec-
tion. In contrast to Bandura’s expressed limited understanding of the
function of traits, van Egeren (2009) and Davis (2000) have found that
traits have a fundamental control and characterising function in the
personality. However, it needs to be recognised that the regulative
control function, which is unique for each trait, is constituted by
distinct frameworks of principles that offers domination and functional
governance.
 Normative Personalities 145
In personality theory, a trait is usually seen as a distinguishing feature,
characteristic, or quality of a personality style, creating a predisposition for
a personality to respond in a particular way to a broad range of situations
(Allport, 1961). Traits are described as enduring patterns of perceiving,
relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself that are
exhibited in a wide range of social and personal contexts; they are also
habitual patterns of thought, emotion, and stable clusters of behaviour.
Traits also operate as continuous dimensions that together may define
a personality space. The trait variables may in theory be subject to small
degrees of continuous variation. For Eysenck (1957), the scalar value that
a trait variable takes may be classed as a personality type (hence type value),
and there are various manifestations of types in trait theory (Goldberg,
1993; Costa & McCrae, 1992; Heinström, 2003). Traits may be inferred in
personality theories that explore types.
It is possible to summarise the relationship between sociocognitive, trait,
and type tendencies in the predominant species of theories, as shown in
Table 4.1. Support for such distinctions might be read into Cervone et al.
(2001), who notes that a sociocognitive approach to personality yields
a theory of personality assessment that differs significantly from the trait
assessment strategy that has so far predominated in the field. Connecting
species of theories is not unknown, as illustrated by Eysenck (1957) who
created a trait theory in which trait variables were able to adopt type states,
and by van Egeren (2009) who explored how sociocognitive theories may
be expressed in terms of traits. He uses his cybernetic control model to
recast and reinterpret personality traits as predispositions that regulate
goal-directed actions in particular ways characteristic of the individual
(van Egeren, 2009: 94). As such, a trait describes individual differences in
how people tend to carry out tasks.
According to Bandura (1999), supertraits form the basic structure of
personality. In contrast, van Egeren (2009) uses the term global traits to
mean the same thing. Since these traits form the regulatory mechanisms
of the personality domains, we call them formative traits. Bandura
recognises that different authors see different sets of formative traits
(Barrett & Klein, 1982). For instance, a seven-fold set is suggested by
Tellegen and Waller (1987), a six-fold set by Jackson, Ashton, and Tomes
(1996), a five-fold set by McCrae and Costa (1997), a three-fold set by
Eysenck (1991), a two-fold set by Digman (1997). This diverse collection
suggests that the number of traits selected is arbitrary if they do not
derive from a generic model that demands certain characteristics,
a notion supported by van Egeren (2009).
146 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Table 4.1 Overview of major theory tendencies in personality theories

Characteristics Sociocognitive Traits Types

Theoretical Multiple- Defines Usually described in terms

approach causative a framework of paired opposite states
cognitions for called enantiomers.a
personality
Variables Continuous Continuous Discrete states adopted by
variables that variables trait variables.
may have
states
Data Quantitative Quantitative Quantitative and qualitative
collection and inventories inventories.
tendencies qualitative
inquiries
Analytical Susceptible to Often uses Often uses relational
tendencies complex simple approaches.
explanations classification
approaches

a
The term enantiomer (also enantiomorph, which in particular relates to form or structure)
means a mirror image of something, an opposite reflection. The term derives from the
Greek enantios, or ‘opposite’, and is used in a number of contexts, including architecture,
molecular physics, political theory, and computer system design. We use it in the sense
of complementary polar opposites. The related word enantiodromia is also a key Jungian
concept used in his notions about consciousness (e.g., www.endless-knot.us/feature
.html), and (from the OED Online) it is the process by which something becomes its
opposite, and the subsequent interaction of the two: applied especially to the adoption
by an individual or by a community, etc., of a set of beliefs, etc., opposite to those held at
an earlier stage. For Jung the word enantiodromia represents the superabundance of any
force that inevitably produces its opposite. Consequently, the word enantiodromia often
implies a dynamic process which is not necessarily implied by the word enantiomer. By
using the simpler word enantiomer, we shall not exclude the possibility of any dynamic
action that may have been implied by the term enantiodromia. For us, a trait develops
enantiomers through traits that have either an operative or the figurative orientation.

4.5 Formative Trait Schemas and Cultural Agency Theory

At this point in the chapter, it is appropriate to recall our interest in
developing a generic model of personality. Just as there is a plurality of
unconnected and unrelated organisational theories (Suddaby et al., 2008),
there is also a plurality of personality schemas that have little or no
common connection (Carver, 2005). We recall that for a modelling
approach to be generic it must satisfy the generic criterion (1), i.e., it
must connect widely recognised fundamental properties (e.g., the traits)
 Normative Personalities 147
and related processes of ‘an object of attention’ (the given schema) in
a defined area of applicability (personality theory). In our approach, this
means we need not only to relate organisational theories, but also person-
ality theories.
Consider that a set of formative personality traits can arise from core
properties that commonly exist in relation to the capacity of a collective
agency to survive efficaciously. They establish stable regulatory processes
that enable the emergence of stable patterns of behaviour. Different traits
therefore have different regulatory functions and hence necessarily reflect
different characteristics. Therefore, it is not too relevant how the names of
these traits vary, so long as their characteristics can be related. This has been
illustrated by Yolles (2009) and Yolles and Fink (2009), where trait
schemas have been set into a characteristics typology and compared and
related.
Personality interacts with its environment, and because of this we need
also to consider influences that are exercised from the environment on the
agency. We may distinguish two sociocultural traits that relate directly to
the environment: agency cultural and social orientation. Agency cultural
orientation regulates what is legitimate in the agency, while social orienta-
tion regulates how the agency reacts to the perceived needs of others.
Let us propose that a set of normative personality formative traits can
arise from core properties that commonly exist within the agency in
relation to its capacity to survive efficaciously in its environment. In respect
of our modelling approach, we shall identify three ontologically distinct
formative personality traits (where under agency stability the cognitive
orientation supports integrativity, the figurative orientation embraces
appreciativeness, and operative orientation facilitates viability), one add-
itional agency formative trait (agency cultural orientation), and two agency
environmental traits (social and ambient culture orientations). At this stage
we are not interested in ambient cultural orientation. These traits are
represented in Figure 4.3. This figure, having been formulated with culture
as a driver of the rest of the agency, is a special form of agency that we call
Cultural Agency Theory (CAT).
The possible natures of each of the five traits are contextually fixed but
their active characteristics can evolve so that any traits that represent them
are also subject to change. The contexts are indicated by each of the
orientations (cultural, personality, and social) created by trait penchants,
where the sociocultural subset orientations are (cultural, social), with
personality as (cognitive, figurative, operative). The three personality
systems in Figure 4.3 have contexts that may be epistemically linked to
148 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency

Cultural Environment Cultural intelligence

Cultural
orientation trait
P1,1

Figurative Agency Personality Social

P2,1 P3,1 intelligence
Figurative intelligence
P4,1
Operative Intelligence
Personality
Operative
Personality Personality Operative Environment
Personality Figurative
Cognitive System System
System
Normative self-reference Normative self-organisation
Normative self-regulation Social
Cognitive orientation trait Operative orientation trait
Figurative orientation trait environmental
orientation trait
Operative Intelligence
Figurative Intelligence adjustment imperatives P4,2
adjustment imperatives
P3,2
P2,2 Imperativefor
P1,2
operative intelligence
adjustment
Impulses for cultural adjustment

Figure 4.3 Cultural Agency Theory (CAT) model involving five sociocognitive traits
connecting personality with its social and cultural systems.

Table 3.1. Thus, the personality cognitive system may be a function of

socioeconomic, belief and political dispositions that are connected with
self-reference and as we shall see in Chapter 9, private identity; the
personality figurative system may represent mindedness and develop auto-
cybernetic and rational purposes and that relates to self-regulation and as
we shall see in due course is connected with personal identity; and the
personality operative system that may represent a technical, practical, or
deconstraining interest that relate to personality self-organisation, and
which we shall see is connected with public identity. The orientation
that each of these systems takes that related to its characteristics, are
determined by its traits contextualised by system properties. These orien-
tations can be explained as follows:
Cultural orientation. This is created through the cultural trait that is part of
the cultural meta-system of the agency. It maintains three forms of
knowledge: identification, elaborating, and executor knowledge
(Yolles, 2006) that can each be manifested into the personality system
as information. The enantiomer type values of this trait have been
explored at some length in Yolles et al. (2008) and arise from the work
of Sorokin between 1939 and 1942, and summarised in Sorokin (1962).
From this we can distinguish between two orientations: sensate (with
a tendency towards the materialistic) and ideational (with a tendency
 Normative Personalities 149
towards the cognitive or spiritual). The type values that this trait can
assume includes sensate trait penchant, which allows realities to be
deemed to exist only if they can be sensorially perceived. Sensate type
members of a culture do not seek or believe in a super-sensory reality,
and are agnostic towards the world beyond any current sensory capacity
of perception. Needs and aims are mainly physical primarily satisfying
the sense organs and frequently materialistic. The epistemic attributes
include: appreciating the nature of the needs and ends that are to be
satisfied, the degree of strength in pursuit of those needs, and the
methods of satisfaction. The means of satisfaction occurs not through
adaptation or modification of human beings, but through the exploit-
ation of the external world. It is thus practically oriented, with emphasis
on human external needs. With reality as perceived from senses, its
operative nature is highlighted in that it views reality through what can
be measured and observed rather than reasoned. Cultural orientation
may also assume an ideational trait penchant, which sees reality as non-
sensate, non-material, and frequently spiritual. Epistemological needs
and ends are mainly spiritual, rather than practicable, and internal rather
than external. The method of fulfilment or realisation is self-imposed
minimisation or elimination of most physical needs, to promote the
greater development of the human being as a Being. Spiritual needs are
thus at the forefront of this disposition’s aims rather than human
physical needs. These enantiomer types act as yin-yang forces that
together create what Sorokin (1962: 4:590) called the Principle of
Immanent Change. In this, autonomous agencies with coherent cultures
experience cultural change by virtue of its own internal forces and
properties. The principle of immanent change means that an agency
cannot help changing even if all external conditions are constant.
Sorokin (1962: 4:600–601) tells us that any functional sociocultural
system incessantly generates consequences that are not the results of
the external factors to the system, but the consequences of the existence
of the system and of its activities. As such they are necessarily imputed to
it, and this occurs without the benefit of conscious decision. One of the
specific forms of this immanent generation of consequences is an inces-
sant change of the system itself, due to its existence and activity. The
dynamics of change thus occur naturally as an internal process to the
culture. While Sorokin was interested in large-scale cultures which
change over the long periods of time, smaller scale cultures like those
of corporate agencies having small-scale cultures may have an immanent
dynamic that changes over small-time scales. Due to the intimate
150 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
relationship between culture and personality, cultural orientation
changes must necessarily be reflected through change in attitudes and
emotive imperatives in the normative personality.
Cognitive orientation. This is created by the cognitive trait that arises from
cognitive and social psychology (van Liere & Dunlap, 1981; Menary,
2009) and is able to contribute to the integrativity of schemas during the
internalisation process, and which is existentially connected with cogni-
tive self-reference (Hannah et al., 2013), and maintains a relationship
with cognitive intention (Freeman, 2008). Taken as a trait variable, it
might involve the effective realising of potential recognising social and
political structures and the associated constraints imposed on the
agency. The variable may be seen to take enantiomer type values that
give the agency an autonomy trait penchant directed towards finding
meaning in self, when an agency will follow less the guidance of its host
culture, but might react more autonomously to the lessons drawn from
(or opportunities offered by) environmental impulses. The other
enantiomer type value of the variable might be embeddedness trait
penchant directed towards the group that self is believed to be a part
and the maintenance of status quo through restraining actions, and
where a similar construct can be found in Sagiv and Schwartz (2007).
The trait is affected by attitudes, and emotive imperatives that may
orientate the agency towards cognitive coherence or dissonance.
Processes of integrativity can impact on perspectives that are associated
with strategies, ideology, and ethics/morality. It also creates imperative
for the regulation of the patterns of behaviour through intention. This
trait affects the operative couple between the cognitive and operative
traits through its network of processes. This network has an efficacy
orientation that affects an agency’s ability to manifest information
through the creation of an emotive bias. However, it can also be seen
in terms of directly affecting the operative trait (Figure 4.3) thereby
contributing to cognitive coherence. This is connected with a move
towards homeostasis – the human capacity to maintain or restore some
physiological, psychological, or psychosocial constants despite outside
environmental variations (Pasquier et al., 2006). The development of
inefficacy can similarly lead to lack of coherence and a demonstration of
collective cognitive dissonance, and this can act as a driver for cognitive
state/dispositional3 dysfunctions (Endler & Summerfield, 1995: 255).
Figurative orientation. This occurs through the figurative trait and has both
cognitive and evaluative aspects, and it is influenced by attitudes and
reflection, and connects with cognitive purpose and processes of
 Normative Personalities 151
cognitive self-regulation. As a trait variable it might take enantiomer
type values that define a harmony trait penchant or an achievement trait
penchant relating to the appreciations or goals. This may also be related
to the notions of harmony and mastery by Sagiv and Schwartz (2007).
We could further relate this to appreciations driving goal formulation as
a process that derives from data collection and involving the careful
weighing of arguments as opposed to spontaneous decisions following
from the spontaneous desires of the decision makers. This trait main-
tains an interconnected set of more or less tacit standards which order
and value experience, determines the way an agency sees and values
different situations, and how instrumental judgements are made and
action is taken. The trait facilitates how an agency as a decision maker
observes and interprets reality, and establishes decision imperatives
about it. As such the trait regulates the appreciations and resulting
goals of the organisation with respect to its intended operations, the
potential for social interaction, and the ethical positioning that may
occur as a response to opportunities provided or indicated by the social
environment. Efficacy in this trait in relation to the operative trait can
lead to self-principled agencies with aesthetical, intuitive, or ethical/
ideological positioning. It can provide preferred ideological images that
may facilitate action. It orientates the agency towards a view of stages of
historical development, with respect to interaction with the external
environment. Inefficacy can lead to corrupt and sociopathic organisa-
tions (Yolles, 2009), or more broadly agency misconduct (Greve et al.,
2010).
Operative orientation. This occurs through the operative trait and can
contribute to agency viability (Beer, 1979), providing the ability of an
agency to be able to durably maintain a separate operative existence
while coping with unpredictable futures. As a trait variable it is able to
take one of two enantiomer type values. Later we shall show that these
can be taken as egalitarianism, which constitutes a flexible orientation to
effectively respond to environmental challenges or those that emerge
from the social system. It is consistent with liberation away from
regulatory power and bureaucracy. The other enantiomer we shall
adopt is hierarchy, which is effectively an adherence orientation to
proven rules that relates to efficient decision-making, and is consistent
with the subordination to hierarchy in Sagiv and Schwartz (2007).
Challenges from the social system may require flexibility in the applica-
tion of these rules. Through this the operative trait can represent
a durable and distinct personality orientation that is able to cope with
152 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
unpredictable futures. It structures appreciative information enabling
adaptation, and enables the personality to facilitate responses to its social
environment and predefine its behavioural proclivities towards its oper-
ations. An alternative penchant (also from Sagiv & Schwartz, 2007) is
embeddedness through which there is a tendency to recognise others as
moral equals, and where processes of co-operative socialisation will
embrace the concern for the welfare of others.
Social orientation. This occurs through the social trait that concerns oper-
ations in a given social environment. This might be seen to exist in
a social operative system directed towards action, interaction, and reac-
tion that (re)constitutes the cultural environment in terms of (desired,
welcome, undesired, not welcome) activities. This might be seen to exist
in a social operative system directed towards action, interaction, and
reaction that (re)constitutes the cultural environment in terms of
(desired, welcome, undesired, not welcome) activities. Two extreme
forms exist: dramatising and patterning. Dramatising puts an emphasis
on action (where its membership is convinced that it will get positive
feedback, their product will sell, etc.). Patterning is more observation
orientation and collect (lots of) information before engaging in action. It
is worth noting that the efficacy of the social intelligences can also affect
social orientation.
In the CAT model given in Figure 4.3 we note that the cognitive trait
acts to constrain personality through normative self-reference and identity.
More, the figurative trait is concerned with normative self-regulation, and
the viability trait is concerned with normative self-organisation – and the
two together constitute a first-order operative couple. There is also
a second-order figurative couple that links the operative couple with its
cultural environment and involves identity and self-reference.

4.6 Intelligences and Efficacy in the Collective Agency

We can represent Piaget’s operative intelligence as having the efficacious
capacity of a collective agency to create a cycle of activity that manifests
figurative entities operatively. In other words, operative intelligence occurs
in a personality as the capacity of a network of processes to efficaciously
migrate through semantic channels appropriate information content
between two analytically distinct trait systems,4 in relation to the beliefs
that the agency has in this regard. In contrast to intelligence, efficacy may
involve cognition and affect weightings that are applied to the
 Normative Personalities 153
manifestation of distinct types of information by the intelligences, often
summed up through the word capability. Semantic blocks may occur that
inhibit the manifestation of information though the intelligences. This
may result in cognition issues when information about an effect is intern-
alised with bias that disturbs assessment of the effect. It may also be
associated with affect processes, where positive–negative mood, optimis-
tic–pessimistic outlook, or low–high levels of self-esteem (Strelau, 2002)
may impact on efficacy. These aspects can change perspectives and out-
look, and under certain conditions inefficacy may develop as a pathology
resulting in neurosis (Figure 4.3, in reference to Pi,j), where it conditions
the intelligences. Other attributes that can factor pathologies include
intelligence limitation, which occurs when the selection of information
to be manifested by the intelligences may become uncoupled from pen-
chants and become unrepresentative of the normal perspectives.
So, operative intelligence can be conditioned such that the ability of
a personality to efficaciously migrate figurative trait information as impera-
tives for the operative trait is impaired, and vice versa. The personality
meta-system is connected with this personality operative intelligence by
figurative integrative intelligence. This arise as a network of meta-processes
or cognitive principles that efficaciously enables and contextualises opera-
tive intelligence. It also connects identity with self-processes, a notion indir-
ectly supported by Markus and Nurius (1986) who proposed a theory of
‘possible selves’ which explains how the agency develops a connection
between present self, motivation, behaviour, and possible or future self.
In addition, it connects with Identity Process Theory (Breakwell, 1986,
1988; Sullivan, 2000; Twigger-Ross et al., 2003) where the conceptualisa-
tion of identity is seen to involve four distinct principles of identity (self-
esteem, self-efficacy, distinctiveness, and continuity) that together enable
the maintenance of a positive self-view.
As we show in Figure 4.3, the coupling connections between personality
and the social system is referred to as operative-social intelligence, and is
the network of operative processes that enables a personality to manifest its
decisions from its operative trait to be manifested socially. Indeed, as far as
other personalities in the social environment are concerned, the only trait
that is visible is that of viability. The coupling between the cultural
environment and operative-social intelligence (the latter occurring as
a migratory dialogue between the personality and the social) occurs
through figurative intelligence.5
The notion of cultural intelligence connects the integrative trait with
operative intelligence, and in its original meaning is defined as the ability
154 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
for an agency to successfully adapt to a change in cultural settings attribut-
able to cultural context (Earley & Ang, 2003: 3; Thamas & Inkson, 2009).
This definition requires a plurality of cultural beliefs, attitudes, and values,
which are in interaction and create a plural figurative base that has some
level of cultural conflict within it. Where there is no such conflict cultural
intelligence reduces to ‘the manifestation of the figurative base as patterns
of cultural knowledge’.
We have indicated that operative intelligence may be seen as having
the capacity to migrate information between analytically distinct trait
systems of the personality. Operative intelligence is functionally con-
stituted as a network processes that channel the migration of informa-
tion semantically between trait systems. They occur with an efficacy
status that conditions the intelligence by adjusting its emotive
condition.6 While this should be more fundamentally connected with
knowledge and understanding, efficacy can condition the impact of
emotive imperatives that may otherwise become overwhelming for an
agency. Efficiency also influences the capacity of the semantic channels
through which the migrations occur, and this can influence the cap-
acity of the interactive network of processes to manifest information
between the figurative and operative traits, or the operative trait as
social action. This can impact on perspectivistic information as well as
the capacity of the agency to undertake tasks efficiently, effectively, or
with optimal utility. Thus, for Bandura (2006), high efficacy status
allows impediments to achievement to be seen as surmounted by the
improvement of self-regulatory skills and perseverant effort, this in
contrast to low efficacy status which suggest an inability to gain such
improvement. High efficacy status can also overcome vulnerability to
stress and depression, and impact on the choices people make at
important decisional points. It may also be envisaged that very high
efficacy status can positively impact on motivation and agency
performance.
A collective agency is often interested in achievement represented by
a given level of context-specific performance. Performance is in part
determined by the efficacy of the migration of information between trait
systems for given personality types. So, normative personality experiencing
a shift in orientation must recognise the need for efficacy status change.
Such a change will impact on the manifestation of information between
the traits, influencing positivity/negativity.
The nature of the model in Figure 4.3 supports the proposition that
a normative personality is constituted through cultural value trait types
 Normative Personalities 155
that normally deliver inherently biased stability. The trait type values states
are fundamental to personality orientation, cognition and affect attitudes,
and agency behavioural proclivity. It is also reflected in its perspectivistic
information which is responsible for the ability of agency to recognise and
in due course respond to effects. The traits contribute to control processes
by filtering information necessary for this. The type values that agency
adopts arise from espoused values that determine requisite efficacy7 – the
ability to achieve a preferred level of performance through the control of
emotive imperatives that are best suited to create intended achievements. It
does this through the manifestation of information between trait ontolo-
gies. An agency appreciates from its orientation what is requisite from its
understanding of its environment in relation to its values and attitudes and
other emotive information. Orientation may also influence efficacy status
and intelligence functionality.
Intelligence is concerned with the semantic manifestation of trait related
information across domains using a network of internal processes. Taking
into account the demands of its environmental context, if a plural agency
has figurative information directly relating to an intention, aim, or goal,
then setting up an operative capacity to implement the plan viably requires
a network of processes that can manifest figurative information operatively.
Its capacity to do this is also influenced by the requisite efficacy through
which its network of processes operates.
It is clear that personality orientations are connected to both intelli-
gences and efficacy, and it is perhaps useful to summarise our terms here:
• Process intelligence is constituted as a network of first- and second-order
processes that couple two ontologically distinct trait systems. This
network of processes manifests information through semantic channels
thereby allowing local meaning to arise from the manifested content in
the receiving trait system.
• Operative intelligence is a first-order form of autopoiesis that creates an
operative couple between the figurative and operative systems. It consists
of a network of personality processes that manifests significant figurative
information operatively, but also it creates improvement imperatives to
adjust the figurative system. This network of processes is itself defined by
its appreciative schemas and decision imperatives in the figurative
system and the improvement adjustment imperatives that arise from
the operative system.
• Figurative intelligence is a second-order form of autopoiesis (called
autogenesis) that projects conceptual information into the operative
156 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
couple. However, this couple also creates improvement imperatives to
adjust the cognitive meta-system, from which figurative intelligence
emanates in the first place. This meta-system is composed of attitudes,
feelings, and conceptual information that are harnessed to identify the
network of meta-processes that define it, permitting significant concep-
tual information to be manifested in the operative couple. Intelligences
are structured through personality perspectives and orientations.
• Personality perspectives arise in the personality meta-system from atti-
tudes, feelings and conceptual information, and are influenced by the
adjustment imperatives carried by figurative intelligence from the opera-
tive couple. The perspectives are manifested across the personality
through perspectivistic information carried by its intelligences, to be
integrated into schemas in the figurative system, and structured into the
operative system.
• Personality orientations arise from a personality’s trait types. The trait
type may itself be conditioned by partial information carried by the
intelligences. The selection of information to be manifested by the
intelligences may become uncoupled from the orientations and unrep-
resentative of the intended perspectives. This causes an intelligence
limitation that can result in the development of pathologies (Figure 4.3)
that affect the ability of trait systems to function. This lack of represen-
tation occurs because not all of the perspectivistic information is repre-
sented. Under such a condition the personality may (1) have its capacity
to conceptualise, schematise, or apply perspectivistic information
reduced; (2) have the orientation of its traits perturbed; and (3) be
drawn towards unintended conduct that may even ‘corrupt’ its propri-
etary strategic ideological or ethical orientations. Perspectives too may
become adjusted through pathologic shifts in trait orientations.
• Efficacy refers to agency capability in actuating cognition and affect
processes of intelligence. It has already been said that it has
a cognition dimension when semantic blocks inhibit the manifestation
of information between ontologically different systems in agency, there-
fore lowering efficacy. This may impact on cognitive responses to
effects, or through disturbances through positive–negative mood, opti-
mistic–pessimistic outlook, or low–high levels of self-esteem may occur.
Efficacy operates on the manifestations of information that occur
between two trait systems, modifying the semantic channelling pro-
cesses of the intelligences. It does this through the control of emotive
impulses. Efficacy status occurs on a strong/weak scale that indicates the
degree of efficacy/inefficacy that an agency has. High efficacy status
 Normative Personalities 157
allows impediments to achievement to be seen as surmountable by the
improvement of self-regulatory skills and perseverant effort. They can
also overcome vulnerability to stress and depression, and impact on the
choices made at important decisional points. While rigidly high efficacy
status can affect the capacity of an agency to create individual motiv-
ations that benefit its performance, low efficacy status can influence
agency ability to communicate, to develop appreciations, and to set
goals and cite tasks. It happens because of the way efficacy conditions
the manifestation process and hence drives both local development and
the adjustment imperatives for improvement. As such it can affect an
agency’s feeling, thinking, motivation, behaviour, and performance –
including how it perseveres under adversity. Practically it is the capabil-
ity efficacy that moderates agency towards operative performance pro-
gression and hence achievement, and the adjustment imperatives that
indicate the capability of this progression. The notion of capability
efficacy assumes that every organisation maintains some level of emotive
impulse control, which might either dampen or enhance on the emotive
impulses. Requisite efficacy occurs when the ability develops to achieve
a level of performance through the control of emotive imperatives that
are best suited to create intended achievements. Requisite efficacy
constitutes a desired efficacy which serves as a guideline for the agency.
Pathologies may emerge when orientations restrain or exclude import-
ant knowledge flows or/and when the efficacy of knowledge flows is
impeded. In both cases the agency is not in a position to follow its
appreciations or achieve its own goals. If capability efficacy deviates
from desired efficacy then the agency might consider some change in its
pattern of behaviour or modify its appreciations or adapt its goals it
wants to achieve. When orientations are perturbed, then a difference
arises between requisite and capability efficacy, resulting in an efficacy
distinction that contribute to the formation of pathologies indicate the
limited capacity of the agency to generate requisite responses to its
perceived needs for achievement under perceived environmental cir-
cumstances. The efficacy distinctions of the intelligences shown in
Figure 4.3 may result in pathologies. Given combinations of these across
the personality may well generate distinct personality dysfunctions. If
one considers that dysfunctions arise from standards of diagnosis, then
one has to try to find out what pathologies result in which dysfunctions.
• Pathologies Pi,j (Figure 4.3) occur in the manifestation of information
between trait systems, and this impacts on both the process intelligences
and efficacy. There is some evidence that combinations of these
158 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
pathologies might lead to classical forms of agency dysfunction (Dauber,
2011), leading to the possibility of predicting pathology/dysfunction
and/or personality orientations. Sperry (1995) has identified a number
of classes of corporate dysfunction that include strategy/structure mis-
match, structural problems, environmental problems, human resource
problems, strategy/structure/culture problems, and a host of other
problems that might be better expressed as problems that occur under
the umbrella of corporate personality disorder like corporate neurosis.
This leads to the possibility of predicting dysfunction, and suggests
a need to track the relationships between pathology combinations and
dysfunctional agency classifications.
The Pi,j pathologies may be called transitive since they occur within the
process intelligences that transitively connect the ontologically distinct
systems of the agency. The first of the types of pathology (Figure 4.3)
(P1,1 and/or P1,2) occur when an agency has no access to its cultural system
and hence its cultural trait has no significance and so there is no controlling
value system. This can result in a personality orientation with an uncon-
trolled ethical or ideology that has no cultural anchors. Dissociative
behaviour may also develop that is inconsistent with plural agency values
and norms. More it can inhibit normative coherence within the cultural
fabric of the plural agent, in part because cultural learning is not possible.
This has major implication for the way in which patterns of behaviour
become manifested. The second type of pathology (P2,1 and/or P2,2) can
occur when the cognitive system loses connection with the rest of the
personality, and hence will affect the agency’s ability to maintain self-
reference, to cognitively learn. It becomes visible when figurative intelli-
gence is inhibited. Similarly, pathologies in types P3,1, P3,2 may change so
that the controlling influence of the figurative personality trait may not be
recognised and affecting its self-regulating capacity. It may also impact on
the operative intelligence within the personality, resulting in incapacity
and or inefficacy in manifesting figurative information to the operative
system, this resulting in decision-making that is not anchored in ethical,
ideological, or strategic specifications. In the case of an agency having
cultural instability (where there may be a plurality of shifting norms),
this can result in non-coherent and perhaps gratuitous behaviour that
may simply respond to the instinctive or emotional needs or wants.
A pathology in P4,1 and/or P4,2 disconnects the behaviour of the agency
from its controlling personality, resulting in behaviour that simply
responds to situations in the environment.
 Normative Personalities 159
4.7 Chapter in Brief

• Plural agencies are psychosocial and a normative personality may

emerge from its population of agents.
• Organisations are plural agencies through their administrative
hierarchy.
• The diagnosis of organisation ills through purposeful analysis and
diagnosis is often problematic due to their complexity.
• There is fragmentation in the field of organisational studies illustrated
through the unconnected non-synergistic plurality of organisational
models, each of which relates to a particular isolated frame of thought
and purpose.
• A cybernetic approach is adopted to create a generic psychosocial model
for the organisation that is used to characterise its emergent normative
personality.
• Since organisations are often complex, seeing them in terms of their
normative personality can reduce the complexity and enable a better
understanding of their pathologies.
• To overcome this a generic agency model of the organisation is con-
structed. This has ontologically distinct, separate but connected, opera-
tive, figurative/strategic, and cultural systems.
• Through a recursive process in a system hierarchy, the generic model can
be represented in the alternative terms of the emergent normative
personality, that is the figurative/strategic system that itself is composed
on a personality operative, figurative, and cognitive system.
• The agency systems are connected through process intelligences, and
where these processes are efficacious they permit ends from actions to be
better met.
• Pathologies can interfere with process intelligences, and contribute to
processes of dysfunction.
• Organisational and personality theories can thus be connected generic-
ally through agency theory.
• The patterns of behaviour that occur in agency have underlying trait
control processes, that is, they are driving entities that contribute to the
creation of meso structures.
• Agency Theory adopts a meta-systemic view of the organisation enab-
ling flexibility and formality when seeing organisational models for
purposes of configuration.
160 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
• Agency Theory provides a formal generic model of the organisation that
can facilitate the exploration of complex problem situations both theor-
etically and empirically.
• Normative personality operates through collective cognitive processes
providing a feasible way to explain organisations, and provide a capacity
to analyse and predict the likelihood of their behavioural conduct and
misconduct.
• Normative personality, like the empirical personality, can be formulated
as a trait model where the traits emerge from normative structures.
• Agency explains the sociocognitive aspects of self-organisation and the
efficacy of connections between the traits.
• The traits control the personality that promotes imperatives for
behaviour.
• Agency may be modelled through three personality traits and two
sociocultural traits. Sociocultural traits create a trait environment for
the personality.
• The cultural trait may have a penchant towards either the sensate or
ideational, or a balance between them. A sensate penchant is phenom-
enal and concerned with the material, while an ideational penchant is
cognitive and concerned with ideas.
• The social trait may have a penchant towards either dramatising or
patterning, or a balance between them. Dramatising is action directed
(and hence is phenomenal) while patterning is more observation orien-
tation (and hence relates to psyche) and concerned with information
collection.
• Personality traits include the cognitive, figurative, and operative traits,
each with its penchant.
• The cognitive trait may have an autonomy penchant that is directed
towards finding meaning in self (and relates to the psyche), or an
embeddedness penchant that is more directed towards the group that
self is believed to be a part, and the maintenance of status quo through
restraining actions (and is hence phenomenal).
• The figurative trait may have a penchant towards harmony or towards
achievement through mastery. The former penchant seeks to under-
stand and appreciate rather than to direct or exploit (and relates to
psyche), while the latter involves active self-assertion to attain group or
personal goals (and hence is phenomenal).
• The operative trait may have a penchant towards hierarchy that adheres
to proven rules of conduct (and is hence phenomenal), or embeddedness
that has concern for others (and relates to psyche).
 Normative Personalities 161
• Inter-trait connections are Piagetian process intelligences that orient the
traits and work through forms of first- and second-order networks of
processes that define living systems.
• A typology of pathologies may occur that can explain organisational
dysfunction.
 chapter 5

Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour

5.1 Introduction
Theory tells us that, knowing the stable type orientation of an agency
associated with patterns of behaviour, it is possible to predict agency
behaviour under normal conditions. Such normality is defined in terms
of homeostatic equilibrium where any environmental perturbations that
an agency experiences can be dealt with through existent control pro-
cesses to stimulate appropriate responses. However, in post-normal
(Ravetz, 1999; Yolles, 2010) conditions where homeostatic equilibrium
becomes disengaged, the innate stability of the agency type orientation is
lost and the likelihood of successful prediction is reduced.1 Within this
context, in this chapter the conceptual work from the last chapter will be
built on. Our particular trait model that indicate the nature of the
controlling traits will be introduced in due course. These traits are
variables that take type values that determine agency orientation, and
normally (under stable conditions) it is these that determine its patterns
of behaviour and provide opportunities to predict instance of behaviour.
Traits are not just passive indicators of agency’s type orientation, but
have epistemic properties that determine the type values that they take
and hence the type orientation of an agency, and they are core to its
immanent dynamics. Normal equilibrium agency situations tend to
enable behavioural anticipations with little trouble given sufficient infor-
mation. During post-normal conditions the immanent dynamics
become more volatile, when exceptional approaches are needed to enable
behaviour to be predicted. It may be noted that often one refers in such
circumstances to anticipation rather than prediction, where the very
structures of the system under investigation are deemed to be responsible
for its future behaviour for which one then attempts to create expect-
ations (Yolles & Dubois, 2001).
162
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 163
5.2 Agency Orientation
In the last chapter a model was developed for the agency (Figure 4.3) with
its normative personality that is central to our interest here. This operates
through both sociocognitive processes and variable traits the values of
which determine the agency type orientation. Agencies exist in an external
environment, and have orientations determined by the personality and
sociocultural traits which influence behaviour. While the names of the
traits are not too significant and can be replaced with other names (Yolles,
2009a), their control characteristics are central to the modelling process.
The type values that the traits can adopt are mediated by operative and
figurative intelligences.
Agency cultural orientation can take a sensate value that allows realities
to be deemed to exist only if they can be sensorially perceived. Sensate type
members of a culture do not seek or believe in a super-sensory reality, and
are agnostic towards the world beyond any current sensory capacity of
perception. Needs and aims are mainly physical, that is, that which
primarily satisfies the sense organs. The epistemic attributes include appre-
ciating the nature of the needs and ends that are to be satisfied, the degree
of strength in pursuit of those needs, and the methods of satisfaction. The
means of satisfaction occur not through adaptation or modification of
human beings, but through the exploitation of the external world. It is thus
practically oriented, with emphasis on human external needs. With reality
as perceived from senses, its operative nature is highlighted in that it views
reality through what can be measured and observed rather than reasoned.
Cultural orientation may also assume ideationality, which sees reality as
non-sensate and non-material. Epistemological needs and ends are mainly
spiritual, rather than practicable, and internal rather than external. The
method of fulfilment or realisation is self-imposed minimisation or elim-
ination of most physical needs, to promote the greater development of the
human being as a Being. Spiritual needs are thus at the forefront of this
disposition’s aims rather than human physical needs. These enantiomer
types act as yin-yang (Du, Ai, & Brugha, 2011) forces that together create
what Sorokin (1962: 4:590) has termed the Principle of Immanent Change.
In this, autonomous agencies with coherent cultures experience pass
through cultural change by virtue of their own internal forces and proper-
ties. Such an agency cannot help changing even if all external conditions
are constant. Sorokin (1962: 4:600–601) tells us that any functional socio-
cultural system incessantly generates consequences that are not the results
of the external factors to the system, but the consequences of the existence
164 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
of the system and of its activities. As such they are necessarily imputed to it,
and this occurs without the benefit of conscious decision. One of the
specific forms of this immanent generation of consequences is an incessant
change of the system itself, due to its existence and activity. The dynamics
of change thus occur naturally as an internal process to the culture. Due the
intimate relationship between culture and personality, cultural orientation
changes must necessarily be reflected through attitude change in the
normative personality. This where there is a distinction between the
personality of the non-migrant individual who may have little exposure
to cultural orientation shifts,2 and that of the durable agency that will,
through immanence, experience its own cultural shifts that may be exacer-
bated by ambient cultural shifts. While cultural orientation refers to agency
culture, this is in itself influenced by the ambient host culture in which the
agency is embedded. Social orientation is an extension of the agency
personality that orientates it within the social environment that hosts it.
It has been defined in Chapter 4, but for completeness we shall repeat the
definition. Two extreme forms exist: dramatising and patterning.
Dramatising puts an emphasis on action (where its membership is con-
vinced that it will get positive feedback, their product will sell, etc.).
Patterning is more observation orientation and collect (lots of) information
before engaging in action. Essentially, therefore, being action oriented
arises from an optimistic tendency, while observation oriented arises
from a pessimistic tendency.
Both cultural and social traits are therefore part of the agency’s person-
ality environment, and both are able to represent changing contexts that
influence personality. The personality orientation is defined by a set of
three traits. Its operative trait relates to the capacity of an operative system
to be able to respond to recognised processes of cognitive self-organisation.
Through this variable an agency may be high on ‘autonomy’ when it might
react to the lessons drawn from (or opportunities offered by) environmen-
tal impulses, and will follow less the guidance by the cultural meta-system
at the societal level. An alternative value for the variable might be ‘embed-
dedness’. Through this the operative trait can represent a durable and
distinct personality orientation that is able to cope with unpredictable
futures. It structures appreciative information enabling adaptation, and
enables the personality to facilitate responses to its social environment and
predefine its behavioural proclivity towards its operations.
Agency pathologies can develop that may result in specific dysfunctions
that impact on viability. While these may occur within the trait systems, of
more interest to us here are those that occur in the trait system semantic
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 165
channels or intelligences, referred to as Pi,j. Combinations of these path-
ologies fall into patterns called dysfunctions. Pathologies may occur in at
least one of three ways. One is through a low efficacy rather than high
status: efficacy status constitutes a measure on the control capacity of
efficacy on emotive impulses, and inefficacy may alter the capacity of the
intelligences to manifest information between trait systems away from
some intended capacity. Another is intelligence limitation which occurs
when the selection of information to be manifested by the intelligences
may unrepresentative of the oriented perspectives. Another is where the
networks of first- or second-order semantic processes that constitute the
intelligences are not well selected, or where some of the processes are
semantically blocked. Yet another cause may be semantic blocks (the Pi,j
for i,j = 1,2 from Figure 4.3) that inhibit the manifestation of information
between trait systems, and this may be related to the development of
cognitive dissonance that diminishes the coherence of the agency. While
we have already considered the intelligence in the last chapter, for coher-
ence it might be of interest to reconsider them and efficacy, and also other
personality attributes are that relate to the Pi,j.
Intelligence here is a process that may best be seen as the agential
capability to appreciate its own and new knowledge in the light of mani-
fested information, and to combine this knowledge appropriately with new
knowledge to allow the manifestation of appreciations and goals in a way
that is consistent with intentions. In part intelligences embrace adjustment
imperatives that enable the agency to consider the interests and influences
of the external environment (stakeholders, institutions, counterparts in the
task environment), consideration of the agency’s own appreciations and
goals and those of others as far as they are perceived, and to develop ideas
about possible reactions of others to the action taken by the agency. More
technically, intelligence is constituted as a network of first- and second-
order rational processes that couple two ontologically distinct trait systems.
This network of processes manifests information through semantic chan-
nels thereby allowing local meaning to arise from the manifested content in
the receiving trait system.
Operative intelligence manifests actual behaviour in interaction with the
outside environment. It constitutes the observable form of personality.
Operative intelligence collects information about states of reality in the
feedback processes from the environment. More technically, operative
intelligence is a first-order form of autopoiesis that creates an operative
couple between the figurative and operative systems. It consists of a network
of personality processes that manifests significant figurative information
166 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
operatively, but also it creates improvement imperatives to adjust the
figurative system. This network of processes is itself defined by its appre-
ciative schemas and decision imperatives in the figurative system and the
improvement adjustment imperatives that arise from the operative system.
Figurative intelligence projects knowledge and beliefs so that a set of
figurative images (including mental models and abstractions) are mani-
fested into figurative structures that include agentic strategy, ideology, and
ethics that should solidify and form personality. More technically figura-
tive intelligence decides what kind of information assembled through
operative intelligence will be considered as important, significant or rele-
vant, and will be used to either re-emphasise available figurative images
(including mental models and abstractions) or will be used to reformulate
them. Technically, figurative intelligence is a second-order form of autop-
oiesis (called autogenesis) that projects conceptual information into the
operative couple. However, this couple also creates improvement impera-
tives to adjust the cognitive meta-system, from which figurative intelli-
gence emanates in the first place. This meta-system is composed of
attitudes, feelings, and conceptual information that are harnessed to iden-
tify the network of meta-processes that define it, permitting significant
conceptual information to be manifested in the operative couple.
Intelligences are structured through personality perspectives.
Formative traits are closely related to the intelligences and indicate an
orientation between forward linkage knowledge flows (application of own
knowledge, mental models, and figurative images) and feedback that is
constituted as adjustment imperatives that become manifested as know-
ledge flows (consideration of information collected in the social environ-
ment and related adjustment imperatives). Manifested orientations
determine the set of trait tendency of the personality that together create
a personality orientation. These orientations create an agency proclivity
responsible for the nature of a personality, and that predisposes an agency
towards a certain mode of being, and this includes attitudes and
behaviours.
Personality orientation arises through personality trait and their type
value tendency. These are manifested in (1) the cognitive meta-system of
the personality as significant attitudes, precedencies, and connected feel-
ings; (2) the figurative system as appreciative schemas; and (3) the operative
systems as structural/behavioural imperatives.
Personality perspectives arise in the personality meta-system from atti-
tudes, feelings, and conceptual information, and are influenced by the
adjustment imperatives carried by figurative intelligence from the
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 167
operative couple. The perspectives are manifested across the personality
through perspectivistic information carried by its intelligences, to be inte-
grated into schemas in the figurative system, and structured into the
operative system.
Personality orientation results from a personality’s trait penchants, and as
a variable this is determined by the type value that the trait takes. The trait
selection of type value may itself be conditioned in some way by the
information carried by the intelligences. The selection of information to
be manifested by the intelligences may be consistent with agency prece-
dencies and representative of appreciations and their perspectives.
Requisite intelligence occurs with this, and when the selection of informa-
tion moderates the capability of an agency towards operative performance
progression and hence achievement together with any imperatives that
indicate the capability of this progression. Practically we refer to capability
intelligence when moderation of the capability of an agency towards
achievement indicates the capability of this progression. However, they
may become uncoupled from the precedencies and unrepresentative of the
appreciated perspectives. This causes an intelligence limitation that can
result in the development of pathologies that affect the ability of trait
systems to function. The distinction between requisite and capability
intelligence is called an intelligence deficit. The lack of representation by
the intelligences occurs because not all of the perspectivistic information is
represented. Under such a condition the personality may (1) have its
capacity to conceptualise, schematise or apply perspectivistic information
reduced; (2) have the penchants of its traits perturbed; and (3) be drawn
towards un-preferred or unintended conduct that may even ‘corrupt’ its
proprietary strategic ideological or ethical orientations. Perspectives too
may become adjusted through pathologic shifts in trait orientations.
Pathologies may emerge when precedencies restrain or exclude important
knowledge flows or/and when the efficacy of knowledge flows is impeded.
In both cases the agency is not in a position to achieve its own goals.
Desired efficacy may serve as a guideline for the agency. If desired efficacy
deviates from effective efficacy then the agency might consider some
change in its behaviour.
Efficacy was noted in the last chapter as an indication of agency capabil-
ity by the intelligences in manifesting information between two trait
systems, modifying the semantic channelling processes of the intelligences,
where the semantics are relative to the cultural system of agency. Where
requisite efficacy and intelligence occur together, we refer to the manifest-
ation of information between trait systems as requisite manifestation.
168 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Where requisite manifestation does not occur, then pathologies arise
through either inefficacy or intelligence limitation. A related definition
also applies to capability manifestation. Efficacy and intelligence in rela-
tion to the social orientation trait may contribute to the realising of its full
social orientation potential to engage with the environmental predictions
that it controls, and to adjust its own operative processes. In contrast
pathology may result in an agency inadequacy that will impact on its
operative intelligence and the recognition of agency adjustment
imperatives.
The figurative trait can be connected with ‘harmony’ or ‘achievement’ of
appreciations or goals that create agency orientation. We could also relate
this to appreciations driving goal formulation as a process that derives from
data collection and involving the careful weighing of arguments as opposed
to spontaneous decisions following from the spontaneous desires of the
decision makers. It has already been said that this trait maintains an
interconnected set of more or less tacit standards which order and value
experience, determines the way an agency sees and values different situ-
ations, and how instrumental judgements resulting in action. The trait
regulates the appreciations and resulting goals of the organisation with
respect to its intended operations, the potential for social interaction, and
the ethical positioning that may occur as a response to opportunities
provided or indicated by the social environment. Requisite manifestation
in this trait in relation to the operative trait can lead to self-principled
agencies with aesthetical, intuitive, or ethical/ideological positioning. It
can provide ideological images that may facilitate action. It orientates the
agency towards a view of stages of historical development, with respect to
interaction with the external environment. Pathology can lead to corrupt
and sociopathic organisations (Yolles, 2009), or more broadly agency
misconduct (Palmer et al., 2010). The cognitive trait can involve the
effective realising of potential recognising the nature of agency social and
political processes and of the constraints imposed by social and political
structures. This may occur through self-regulation and either the subor-
dination to hierarchy or liberation away from power and bureaucratic
regulations allowing normative rule obedience to be defined at a sub-
agency level. This trait affects the operative couple between the cognitive
and operative traits through its network of processes, but it can also be seen
in terms of directly affecting the operative trait (Figure 4.3) thereby
contributing to cognitive coherence. This is connected with a move
towards homeostasis – the human capacity to maintain or restore some
physiological or psychological constants despite outside environmental
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 169
variations (Pasquier et al., 2006). Pathology can similarly lead to lack of
coherence and cognitive dissidence (Fraser-Mackenzie & Dror, 2009), and
as already noted this can act as a driver for cognitive state/dispositional
dysfunctions. So, the trait involves attitudes, and is affected by emotive
impulses that may orientate the agency towards cognitive coherence or
dissidence. The cognitive trait has impact on unitary and plural fugitive
perspectives like strategies, ideology, and morality. It also creates impera-
tive for the regulation of the patterns of behaviour of the patterns of
behaviour through intention. Here, then, when we talk of a normative
personality, we are also referring to personality traits with type
orientations.
The set of traits that have been set within Figure 4.3 adopts the same
trait control logic as previously modelled for MBTI. In this figure, we
note that the cognitive trait acts to constrain personality through
normative self-reference and identity. More, the cognitive trait is con-
cerned with normative self-regulation, and the operative trait is con-
cerned with normative self-organisation – and the two together
constitute a first-order operative couple. This defines for the agency its
own boundaries relative to its environment, produces its own network
of processes that are themselves part of the processes, obeys its own laws
of motion, and defines for itself a set of boundaries that satisfy its
intentions. There is also a second-order figurative couple that links the
operative couple with its cultural environment and involves identity and
self-reference.
The social/environmental orientation trait, like the other traits, is taken
as a variable. We might distinguish agencies who are ‘action’ oriented
(being convinced that they will get positive feedback, their product will
sell, etc.), as opposed to others that are more ‘observation’ oriented. If this
trait does not suffer from pathologies, then the agency will be more able to
manifest behaviour that is tied to value precedencies which result in desired
performance.
Here, we call the type values (that traits of the personality and the
cultural and social orientations take) agency orientation. Where agency
has trait type values and hence an orientation; these are maintained by
the manifestation of value precedencies from which arise type preceden-
cies. In principle, where these trait precedencies are stable and empirically
identifiable, there is a significant possibility of predicting agency behaviour
in given thematic contexts. There is a caveat which relates to the possibility
that agencies can lose their stability and pass through morphogenic adap-
tations that might result in metamorphosis.
170 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
5.3 Proclivity and Pathologies
Pathologies have consequences for the anticipation of behaviour since they
can influence its proclivity. In Chapter 4 we discussed transitive patholo-
gies, which we are reminded occur as ontological connection between the
different systems that indicate the ‘living’ nature of the agency. It is these
through which migration processes occur that are essential for the effica-
cious functioning of the agency. The inefficacious functioning of intelli-
gences is a result of agency pathologies, and this can affect the mindscape
modes that an agency is deemed to take. This is because inefficacy can
misrepresent the cognitive attributes that exist across the ontological parts
of the agency, resulting in an altered mindscape mode – which is sensitive
to context.
Besides transitive pathologies, there are also lateral ones, where the
former may be responsible for the latter. Laterally based pathologies are
not ontological, but are rather epistemic corruptions. Epistemic con-
tent provides opportunity to construct narratives. Epistemic corrup-
tions provide opportunity for semantic adjustments that result in the
delivery of new narratives that may diverge from those that result from
‘uncorrupted’ epistemic content. They therefore relate to within system
rather than between system interactions of an agency, and interest in
improving the collective is restricted to understanding the nature of
what is happening within systems. The recursive nature of the living
system model described in Yolles and Fink (2013a) implies that lateral
pathologies can often be expressed in terms of lower level transitive
pathologies.
When exploring agencies from a lateral perspective it is useful to recog-
nise that two orientations for their pathologies may develop. They may be
inwardly directed creating general conditions that affect the internal oper-
ations of the collective adversely, and they may be outwardly oriented
affecting the social environment in which they exist. A collective may have
pathologies that are both inwardly and outwardly directed at the same
time. This distinction in orientation can be formalised, allowing us to
define the two orientations of lateral pathology as follows. Social collectives
may be: autopathic which is consistent with an intrinsic analysis and
primarily affect a collective agency internally and therefore its internal
processes or conditions, or sociopathic which is consistent with an extrinsic
analysis of how the agency affects others in the social environment, where
the stress for the organisational sickness may take a distinctly different
explanation.
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 171
While autopathology may have an unintended impact that is external to
the agency, it primarily affects its internal environment. It can therefore
have a significant impact on the ability of the agency to operate intelli-
gently when the pathologies interfere with this capacity. It also affects the
capacity of individuals and groups to operate effectively and efficiently.
However, sociopathic collectives contribute to the creation of pathologies
within their external environment, sometimes through strategic motiv-
ations. In general, they maintain egocentric as opposed to sociocentric
behaviour, and have exogenously oriented attitudes that are likely to
include callousness and a conscience defect. That a social collective is
sociopathic does not mean that it is not also autopathic, so that being
a member of one category does not exclude it from being a member of the
other.
Transitive pathologies are also connected with a form of cognitive
projection. This can be explained following Yolles (2006; Piaget, 1977:
20) through a discussion of human cognitive processes, social collectives
have an associative projective capacity when they are active in forming an
image of reality, and as already indicated it involves the two kinds of
properties: (1) an interrelation or coordination of viewing points; and (2)
the possibility for deductive reasoning. In (2) there are logical processes at
work that enable the consequences of relationships to be determined. We
have already noted that a pre-requirement for this involves the ability to
develop an object conception as indicated in (1). For Piaget (1977: 87), object
conception derives from the coordination of the schemes that underlie the
activities with objects. This is in contrast to the notion of objectivity, which
more generally is seen as a derivative of the coordination of perspectives.
The capacity of an individual to change the relationship between object
and subject through the coordination of perspectives results in an ability to
shift roles (or to use the theatre metaphor, change characters). The ability
to assume the role of another is seen as a special case of a more fundamental
capacity to decentre or departicularise the focus of one’s conceptual activ-
ities to consider and coordinate two more points of view. One of the
apparent facets of the coordination of viewing points is the necessity to
subjectify the object, thereby connecting one’s own comprehension and
deductive reasoning from actions or operations that have been subjectively
assumed. This leads us to want to consider further the subject-object
relationship. This has been explored by Foucault (see Rabinow, 1984)
and the process of subjectification – seen as the creation of an association
between an emotional perceiver and a phenomenal object that is beyond
the boundary of subjective perception. The process of subjectification is
172 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
one of shifting the boundaries of what constitutes the subjective. The two
are irrevocably bound together, and it is from this association that social
action originates. The object and subject are in dialectic interaction, and
this enables properties of the former to be discovered freeing knowledge of
its subjective illusions. This dialectic interaction enables the subject to
organise its actions into a coherent system that constitutes its intelligence
and thought.
Now the real natures of the subject and object are distinct, and this very
distinction is fundamental to associative projection, as explained by Piaget
(1977: 62). The subject appears to be formulated through tacit knowledge
while objects are only seen as pictures that have been theorised such that
they can be interpreted. This has impactions for the rise of transitive
pathologies between the figurative and operative systems of the personality
(Figure 4.1). These transitive pathologies are primary in nature, when the
agency is incapable in some way of normally relating the cognitive image of
an object to its operative processes within a context indicated by the tacit
subject. Now, the collective agency coexists with the phenomenal environ-
ment with which it interacts. However, the object is external to its own
behavioural system. As a result, any of the transitive pathologies or their
combinations constitutes a condition of collective sociopathology.
Sometimes pathologies that arise may be disguised through the personality
orientation of agency towards the object.
There is an obverse of this proposition. Let us take it that associative
projection is a normal attribute of those individuals who populate a social
collective. Within the collective it occurs through normative processes. So,
when associative projection is bounded because of an inhibited ability to
adequately create subjective association, then the collective at least has the
behavioural potential to be sociopathic. It comes from the inability of the
collective agency to recognise objects, thereby limiting the inclusiveness of
the perspectives that need to be coordinated.
Autopathic situations arise with structural and other problems. Thus,
for example, Claver et al. (1999) explore problems that reflect on the
development of social pathologies that arise because of the restrictive
hierarchical nature of organisations and their authoritarian governance
and relationships that operate through power-based leadership roles.
Such environments can create emotional and rational bases for
pathologies.
Another problem often comes with structures, especially since many
collective agencies maintain restrictive hierarchical structures. They are the
result of a political culture of the collective agency that is responsible for
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 173
political awareness. For Rosenbaum (1972: 13), political culture is ‘learned
behaviour’, implying processes of socialisation involving the creation of
values, attitudes, and beliefs that influence a political positioning and the
formation of political ideology and ethics. According to Hunter (2002),
political culture is the normative context within which politics occur. This
context includes the ideals, beliefs, values, symbols, stories, and public
rituals that bind people together and direct them in common action.
Political culture is ultimately responsible for political processes that estab-
lish power distributions, which act to constrain and facilitate certain types
of politically acceptable behaviour. This occurs through political structure
with relatable action that is a reflection of that culture’s ideals, and, in turn,
reinforces that culture’s normative boundaries.
Political culture also provides the boundaries of political legitimacy and
the horizons of political possibility, and defines modes of operations that
reside in the political structures that are defined and that constrain social
processes. These structures normally maintain political executives (in
a pluralistic political environment there may be more than one executive,
which can result in competition and conflict) supported by a political
bureaucracy. This mediates between members of the social collective
subjected to the political processes, and the executive(s). However, the
bureaucracies also maintain political cultures with resulting power struc-
tures and modes of operation that may be, but are unlikely to be,
a complete reflection of the social collective’s political culture in which
they reside. This occurs because the nature of bureaucracy is that it controls
meaning and develops systems of administration (Mazlish, 1990).
Another consideration that comes out of this theory is that pathology
may appear as corruption (Yolles, 2009a). Often corruption is seen in
terms of a moral imperative, but there is more to it than just this. For
instance, Goorha (2000) tells us that anti-corruption not only has a moral
imperative, but also an economic one. Corruption has been generally
vilified because it is indicative of governance that is failing to perform its
chief function of limiting transaction costs, and indeed there is a direct
relationship between corruption and transaction costs (Murphy, Shleifer,
& Wishny, 1993). This relationship tells us that low transaction costs
encourage economic growth through institutions being able to exploit
opportunities by engaging in economic exchange and transformation of
resources (Goorha, 2000).
Corruption is higher where political opportunities are not realised: e.g.,
where policies and institutions are weak (Anderson & Grey, 2006). Weak
institutions do not have the capacity to enforce facilitating or constraining
174 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
processes in relation to policy provisions, or where the policies themselves
do not cater for the legitimate needs that a collective has. Collectives in
transition, like the countries of Asia or Countries of Central and Eastern
Europe, are also likely to be subjected to higher levels of corruption,
though this proposition implies that the definition of corruption in each
collective is the same. In periods of fast growth, formulation corruption
may be exacerbated, particularly if such growth is lubricated by the provi-
sion of wealth-inducing resources.
Corruption inhibits the ability of agency to develop to its full potential,
and in its capacity to adapt in a way that will maintain its viability. It is thus
an autopathological condition of a collective that will ultimately impact on
the way that the agency operates within its social environment. Another
possibility of the theory we developed here is that we can assess agency
pathologies in terms of a spectrum of intensity or density. To do this we
need to be able to distinguish between agencies with no pathologies and
those with a high density of pathologies. Identifying agencies with no
pathologies may well be a mean feat. However, it may be possible to
approach this. Thus, Du, Ai, and Brugha (2011) are interested in the inter-
relationship between generic bipolar forces called yin and yang that are part
of the Chinese philosophy of Taoism. As with Sorokin and his notion of
idealistic culture, they consider that when balance occurs between yin and
yang, it results in harmony – or perhaps congruency – indicating the state of
coming together through balance in all the traits. This reduces conflict and
facilitates achievement and adaptability, when pathology density may be
deemed to be reduced.
We have said transitive pathologies occur with inefficacy in the intelli-
gences. The consequence is the loss of agency cohesion. One aspect of this
can be the development of collective neuroses (Jung, 1923). A neurosis is
most simply seen as an inner cleavage that drives agencies to internal
conflict because of contradictory intuition or knowledge. It happens
when distinct groups or factions that are part of a collective have developed
their own incommensurable paradigms making it difficult to meaningfully
communicate. Where the paradigms compete for domination in a social
community, neurosis can develop into analytical schizophrenia resulting in
the formation of contradictory organisational purposes that debilitates the
organisation. Like Jung, Erich Fromm (1961) sees that every neurosis is the
result of a conflict between agency inherent powers and those forces that
block development. For Jung (1916), the moment of the outbreak of
neurosis is not just a matter of chance – it is generally critical, and is
usually the moment when a ‘new psychological adjustment, that is, a new
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 175
adaptation, is demanded’. Examples of manifestations of plural agency’s
neuroses are: an employee strike against its corporate employer; the cap-
acity of corporate managers to share information with other managers is
compromised by their power-seeking interests; and a riot in a prison or
plural ethnic community.

5.4 Proclivity and Uncertainty

Prigogine and Stengers (1984) explain how systems under uncertainty and
experiencing bounded instability (which occurs when a system hovers
between equilibrium and chaos) need to put in effort to self-organise and
hence survive, this following from prior work by Prigogine (1967, 1980).
Morin (2006) notes that Prigogine’s theory of change generally relates to
appearances that are superficial or illusory: apparently, phenomena arise in
a confused and dubious manner as inquirers seek, during a search for
comprehension, to explore behind those appearances for the hidden
order of authentic reality. Complexity allows for a condition in which
multiple entities interact in ways that are not easily discernible, with
unclear consequences (Mielkov, 2013). It can most simply be described in
terms a set of relatable elements having relational interconnections that are
uncertain, indeterminate, and with possible inherent contradictions,
though a few general principles can explain the phenomena that they
generate (Morin, 1990).
Scientific propositions have traditionally followed authors like Newton,
La Place, and Descartes, and these postulate that natural systems were
essentially stable and well-behaved, and reductionism and determinism can
be used to make reliable predictions about behaviours (Capra, 1982). This
entailed a principle of disjunction that separates objects, disciplines,
notions, subject, and objects of knowledge (Morin, 2006). A contrary
perspective arrived with complex adaptive systems (Klijn, 2008; Miller &
Scott, 2007),3 which sees natural systems as inherently unstable, managing
to survive through self-organisation using processes of emergence and
feedback. Morin (2006) asserts that every agency seen as a complex system
has a whole that is composed of parts, and scientific interest lies in the
relation between the whole and the parts. Developing on Von Bertalanffy
(1968), Morin (1990) notes that it is also concerned with actions among
complex units which are themselves composed of interactions. As illustra-
tion, a biological organism is not defined by its cells, but rather by the
actions taking place among the cells that constitute it. Its organisation is
defined by the interactions that occur between its components, which give
176 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
such attributes as constructive coherence, order, regulation, structure to
the interactions. So, agencies as complex adaptive systems adhere to
a principle that centres on relations between order, disorder, and organisa-
tion. Order here refers to laws, stabilities, regularities, and organising
cycles, while disorder is dispersion, disintegration, blockage, collision,
and irregularity. This approach has been used, for instance, to explore
assemblies of elements that come together to form living cells, or the
development of human activity systems for which examination is made
(for instance) on how organisations change (Dooley, 1997).
In the introduction to this book we differentiated between macro, meso,
and micro foci of a system. Morin (1990: 3) calls the macro focus a macro-
unity, with parts or components that have two identities: an individual one
which is irreducible to the whole, and a common one that reflects the
membership of the whole. This macro-unity has parts that, by implication,
constitute a complex micro-plurality, that is the population of agents that
compose the agency, though these agents may be agencies in their own
right. The purpose for Morin to introduce the term macro was to illustrate
the significance of the whole as something entire that needs to be con-
sidered as a one indivisible thing, at least in respect of its macro-behaviour.
It is possible to elaborate on this terminological tendency, where the
relationship between the behaviour of the parts of a complex adaptive
system and its whole can be explained not only in terms of macro-micro,
but also through the introduction of meso in a macro-meso-micro rela-
tionship. Under complexity, the behaviours of the micro-plurality are not
deterministically aliened, and thus a system’s overall (macro-unity) behav-
iour cannot be determined by knowledge of the behaviour of its (micro)
parts. Nor can the inherent emergent properties it has be predetermined by
an analytical specification of the properties of the system components
(Byrne, 2009). However, such emergence can be reflected in meso attri-
butes of the system that might be referred to as a set of principles, laws, or
more particularly the generic rules that govern it.
To explain how meso rule emergence occurs we draw on theory by
Whitley (1994), Dopfer et al. (2004), and Dopfer (2006, 2011) and consider
that the agents in a population are grouped into configurations of inter-
connected structures and behaviours from which interactive relationships
arise. If these become common generic practices, conventions, or norms
(i.e., are institutionalised), then a potential is created for the emergence of
generic rule structures. Agency meso structure emerges when the potential
then becomes embodied in agent interactions. Dopfer et al.’s (2004) study
of the relationship between macro, meso, and micro attributes of a system
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 177
defines the nature of the meso that might otherwise be expressed in terms
of Cohen and Stewart’s (1995) notion of simplexity or Gribbin’s (2004)
deep simplicity. As a rule-assembly that controls structure and process, it
has affects that are reflected throughout its history of actualisations.
While micro agents are the individual carriers of rules and the systems
they organise, and macro refers to the overall agency structure, generic
meso structures regulate both macro and micro. As an illustration of this
for human activity systems:
• micro refers to individuals (or groups of them) that compose the system;
• meso refers to the generic rules that arise from some dominating assem-
bly that facilitates macro structures and processes (that result in behav-
iour) through their actualisations;
• macro refers to the agency (the whole system) with its behaviour.
Here then, micro behaviours can coalesce into meso-normative struc-
tures, and their actualisations can be manifested as macro imperatives for
behavioural orientations. Meso functionality can be taken as knowledge
rules (which may or may not be generic), and connections are made
between elements that exist both within and beyond the system in ques-
tion. The rules are relational complementary rule bundles, but to predict
macro system behaviour only generic rules are relevant. This lies in contrast
to local (micro) idiosyncratic rules that reflect a variety of particular
conditions that a systems experiences from which new generic rules may
in due course emerge.
While meso generic rules may occur as a natural consequence of the
interaction between the set of behaviours of its micro parts, where
consciousness is deemed to be a component of a complex system, meso
generic rules may also reflect this. Scientific inquiry, once seen as
something an observer undertook when examining some disconnected
object of attention, has in due course come to involve conscious human
beings having intention (Lucas, 1976; Yolles & Fink, 2013a) and becom-
ing, as Mielkov (2013) explains, human-commensurable. So, in complex
situations human-commensurable paradigms can provide explanations
about behaviour through meso actualisations that involve consciousness
and intention, while human-incommensurable paradigms do so devoid
of evaluable causal attributive consciousness for change. Thus, for
instance, the development of living cells from specific interactions
between natural ingredients (Lane, Allen, & Martin, 2018) does not
involve conscious intention from a science perspective, but rather centres
on complex mechanisms.
178 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
In modelling complex adaptive systems, the use of a macro-meso-micro
explanation can be particularly useful since it generalises inquiry into
systemic causal attributes. Interest lies in structures associated with meso
actualisations that can be expressed as meso generic rule structures and
their consequential actualisations.

5.5 Agency Trajectories and Stability

The agents in a population of them in agency be a micro agency in its own
right with a population of micro agents, and so on to micro-micro agents
and beyond to potentially infinitely lower systemic levels. This, as previ-
ously indicated, is consistent with the notion of system hierarchy (Simon,
1962), a recursive structure occurring in a complex system that is composed
of interrelated subsystems. The terms system hierarchy and (emergent)
hierarchy should not be confused, noting that the latter is an emergent
structure resulting from an interactive network in a population, and can be
used by proxy (for instance as agency) to represent the system. Agency
ecology is defined in terms of its population of actors that may themselves
be agents, and its environment that includes abiotic subordinates some of
which are desirable amenities. Within a complexity framework, agents are
autonomous, self-organising, and evolve through progressive sequences of
adaptations to changing conditions through which they may be able to
maintain their viability. Agency too has an evolutionary landscape within
which possible evolutionary trajectories can be tracked that determine its
possible processes of evolution.
Agency trajectories are generically complex resulting from its dynamic
processes from which one can recognise that it exists in a condition of
bounded instability (also called organised disorder; Diamond, 1999). This is
a region of transition between order and disorder and generates behaviour
that is unstable within certain bounds. maintain stability (thus bounding
transitional disorder away from instability) the agency needs to self-
organise (Batten et al., 2008; Meysman & Bruers, 2010), this requiring
feedback that can influence its operative, strategic, and identity attributes.
This enables it to evolve through processes of self-organisation thereby
determining how to respond to a changing environment through adaptive
and/or creative remedies, thus creating increased order enabling viability.
Thus, an agency can maintain order. The dynamic process for agency
change has been explained by Kuhn (1970) as starting in a normal mode,
then reaching crisis and revolution. Following Funtowicz and Ravetz
(1993) and Ravetz (1999), this cycle can be adjusted to a four-mode change
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 179
process: normal, post-normal, crisis, and transformation (Figure 5.1).
During normal mode the system is in equilibrium and deterministic and
predictable. With increasing change and the development of uncertainty,
value loading occurs with a plurality of legitimate perspectives post-normal
mode arises as equilibrium becomes disturbed. The early part of the
dynamic movement in this mode occurs with the rise of dissipative
processes, or the loss of order (Doyle, 1968), as the agent drifts away
from equilibrium and viability as adaptive tensions arise (Plowman et al.,
2007). Agencies now develop irregular and unpredictable patterns of
behaviour, referred to as dissipative structures, and to combat this they
need to input energy/information through work in order to adapt
(Prigogine, 1967; Nicolis & Prigogine, 1977). At a certain critical point,
the energy is dissipated through the agency, breaking up existing symmet-
ries and creating disorder.
It is here that the likelihood of system stability and hence behavioural
predictability becomes lost. The onset of structural criticality (Minorsky,
1962: 185), otherwise known as structural instability, arises. Perturbations
from the environment act on the system affecting it in a way that is
structure determined – the impact being limited by the capabilities of
the structure itself to respond. During equilibrium a structure is ‘stable’ as
it responds to perturbations in expected ways, while in non-equilibrium
situations perturbations may result in non-predeterminable ways. This is
consistent with the idea that they are subject to chaos (EoM, 2016) and
structural instability when the system becomes highly sensitive to small
random perturbations that impact on it. Structural stability is endangered
when small changes in one of the parts of a structured situation can result
in a qualitatively distinct change in its form.
An explanation for the onset of structural instability usefully considers
that a population of agents exist as a microcosm, and it resides in an agency
ecology macrocosm. The macro-micro relationship is connected through
a meso control structure. This emerges from the network of micro agency
behavioural trajectories as a set of rules that can influence both the
population of agents and the ecosystem, though for this the rules need to
be generic (Dopfer, 2004; Yolles, 2018c). The network is formed through
the sum of interactive agency trajectories when meso rules can emerge as
control structures (Yolles, 2016).4 Analysis of a control structure can
provide explanation for causative development. Understanding of the
dynamics of the network from which the control structure springs can
enable explanations of how it elaborates or constrains individual trajector-
ies or, for Makrygiannikis and Jack (2016), provides limits on the horizon
180 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
of agent behaviours. Understanding the control structure can also create
a capacity to study the relationships between potentially conflicting agent
trajectories and the agent imperatives that are responsible for them, for
example by explaining a bounding capacity for agency development in
relation to a potential for continued acquisition of amenities. Now, the
ecosystem may experience conflict when each trajectory perturbs the
others. Given a set of pre-existing conditions and a control structure,
dynamic stability is maintained when the perturbations are small and do
not influence agency trajectories. Large perturbations become responsible
for disruption in the network of behavioural trajectories that may result in
collective crises and the onset of structural instability. While this may affect
developmental possibilities, it can also attenuate structural instability (Yan,
1998).
Returning to the cycle of change, the onset of mode 3 is crisis when
randomness, and hazard are to be found, and positive feedback can be
triggered while attempting to stabilise the agent. This may be followed by
internal fluctuations. The tensions that arose in mode 2 increase, likely leading
agency to an elaboration that result in structural criticality in mode 3.
Trifurcation indicates three alternative trajectories. Of these, if the agency
does not die it can experience adaptive bifurcation, when it will have responded
adequately to its perturbations after which it then heads towards its original
normality. Alternatively, it may head towards a process of transformation.
Mode 4 is transformation, a process of metamorphoses in which a new structure
emerges for the agent, also creating new superstructure variable values and
increased complexity. Yolles (2019e; Schwarz, 1997) has explained this dynamic
process through a dynamic cycle shown in Figure 5.1 and Table 5.1.
From the last chapter, Figure 4.3 illustrates the ontological distinction
within the agency and its personality by considering the relationship
between its controlling traits. Each trait system in the agency is epistemo-
logically independent with feed-forward inputs and feedback outputs to
the other independent but interactive trait systems. Other than this, the
nature of each trait system may be taken as a black box with its own
unknown immanent dynamics. The dynamics of each trait system can
therefore also be considered independently, and their interactive affects
will come from an examination of the agency as a whole.
Each trait system of the agency controls its structural orientation, and as
it changes so does the system’s nature. The trait orientation arises from the
agency’s immanent dynamics, so that changes in orientation may be
a function of the membership of that system, while being influenced by
the interconnected intelligences. These dynamics are also subject to the
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 181

1. Entry
Mode 1
(Normal)
2. Paradigmatic drift

Mode 2
Mode 4 (Post-normal:
(Transformational) drift to more
8. uncertainty) 3. Tensions
Complex-
ification

7.2 Type change:

morphogenesis

Mode 3 4. Tension increase &

(Crisis) structural criticality

7.1
Type change:
more of the same 5. Fluctuation
6. Trifurcation

7.0 Type change:

paradigmatic death or
disorganization

Figure 5.1 Cycle of agency change

rules indicated in Table 5.1. Thus, for instance, in normal mode small
changes in trait values are consistent with homeostatic equilibrium that
allows morphogenesis to occur in the structures of the subsystem as
indicated by its trait.
In transformational mode, major changes occur in the subsystem allow-
ing metamorphosis to come into play as a trait undergoes significant
change in the type value it selects. In the operative trait, any change in
the type value that it takes will be linked to the structural nature and
orientation of the action imperatives that allow decisions to be made and
set of implementations in relation to environmental impulses in the
personality operative system. A small change in the value of the operative
trait will indicate small changes in the type orientations that affect the
decision-making and action potential little, in the personality. This will be
put down to processes of personality self-organisation, and as a part of this,
its orientation towards action will be affected a little. However, big changes
in the trait type values are associated with metamorphosis in the orientation
 Table 5.1 Agency modes of change

Mode Phase Step Change

Normal Stability 1. Entry Existing durable agents have dynamically stable

(homeostasis) orientation, with homeostatic negative feedback
loops that dominate. Agency orientation exists
with a stable belief and value system, though
during normal development gradual changes may
ensue through morphogenesis.
Post-normal Tropic drift 2. Orientation drift Tropic drift involves actualisation of the
3. Tension development potentialities of the system.
4. Tension increase and
Dissipative processes are introduced as agency
structural criticality
orientation is seen as being incapable of
delivering its promises. In a complex application
domain, tropic drift takes the agency orientation
away from its stable position and gives rise to
tensions and conflictual perspectives that create
uncertainty in the ability to explain and predict
situations, and questions about its methods in
relation to observations.
Crisis ALEA ALEA refers to crisis, randomness, and hazard. Here
positive feedback can be triggered. Tensions,
following the tropic drift that moved the agency
orientation away from its stable normal mode
life, lead it to structural criticality where work is
required by the agency to maintain a stable
orientation. Here orientation fluctuations are
amplified.
 5. Fluctuations Fluctuations occur internally, or in the environment
as noise. Through amplification of fluctuations
due to tensions following uncertainty drift,
a discontinuity occurs in the causal sequence of
events/behaviour.
6. Bifurcations When bifurcations occur, the agency is able to take
a variety of possible agency orientation paths. At
this point three options are possible.
7.0 Orientation demise In type 7.0, decay represents a process of
disorganisation, regression of agency orientation.
This can be seen as the start of a catastrophe
bifurcation.
7.1 Type 1 change In type 7.1 the process of change begins with ‘more
of the same’ small changes that maintain its
current state but do not resolve issues.
Transformation Metamorphosis Metamorphosis involves a cascade of mutually
provoked events through self-organisation
mainly through positive feedback.
7.2 Type 2 change In type 2 change, metamorphosis occurs through
emergence that begins in the logical base of
agency, and is amplified within its critical
structure leading to a new rationality that drives
new propositions and consequently new forms of
orientation. This is referred to as morphogenic
change, occurring through amplification and
differentiation. It is a relational process that
develops in the orientation through positive and
negative feedback, and integration, when and the
new cognitive base is manifested figuratively and
pragmatically.
Table 5.1 (cont.)

Mode Phase Step Change

8. Complexification This is accompanied by processes of

complexification that can occur during iteration
of the spiral, perhaps leading to autonomy.
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 185
of decision-making and action potential, and this will create major changes
in the viability of personality.
In the cognitive trait, any change in the type value that it takes will be
linked to the structural nature and orientation of the attitudes and emotive
impulses that exist in the personality meta-system. A small change in the
value of the trait will result in small changes in the type orientations that
affect the attitudes and emotive impulses little, that rule the personality.
This will be put down to processes of personality self-reference, and as part
of this its identity will be adjusted little. However, big changes in trait type
value are associated with metamorphosis in the orientation of attitude and
emotive impulses, and this will create major changes in the identity of the
personality.
In the figurative trait, any change in the type value that it takes will be
linked to the structural nature and orientation of the decision imperative
and mental schemas that allow appreciation and goal setting to occur in the
personality figurative system. A small change in the value of the trait will
indicate in small changes in the type orientations that affect the decision
imperative and mental schemas little, in the personality. This will be put
down to processes of personality self-regulation, and as part of this its
rationality will be adjusted little. However, big changes in the trait values
are associated with metamorphosis in the orientation of decision impera-
tive and mental schemas, and this will create major changes in the ration-
ality of personality.
So, ultimately, it is the type value taken by the traits in the personality
that determine how it exists, its rationality, and how it operates. This then
leads to a question about how trait values are obtained (when not subject to
pathologies), and if they are the result of a dynamic process then what is the
nature of the dynamics that enables personality type to develop?
An approach to respond to this question is provided in Chapter 14,
where a framework is created capable of exploring the immanent dynamics
of personality traits. It enables explanations to develop for the sociocultural
personality psychology. While it can apply to the mind of the individual, it
in particular applies to that of the collective. The theory begins by explain-
ing that any normative personality trait variable takes its type values as the
result of an interaction between (enantiomer) type potentials that results in
an immanent dynamic for the agency. The basis of this theory arises from
the dynamic nature of culture that feeds the attitudes of durable cognitive
agencies, whose life expectancy is often greater than that of the individuals
from which traits stem. This immanence shifts the patterns of personality
orientations that govern a collective mind and therefore changes its
186 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
behavioural proclivity. The dynamic process indicated in Figure 5.1 will
now be explained within the context of cultural change.

5.6 Chapter in Brief

• Traits are variables that take type values that constitute penchants which
arise from their epistemic properties.
• The trait penchants together create agency orientation.
• Agency orientation in turn creates behavioural proclivity.
• Under normal (equilibrium) agency situations prediction of agency
behaviour is possible with sufficient information.
• In post-normal (non-equilibrium) conditions agency immanent
dynamic become more volatile, and this creates uncertainty that
makes behavioural decisions problematic for an agency.
• Under such volatility prediction of agency behaviour by agency obser-
vers is difficult. More appropriate is the anticipation of behaviour from
the examination of agency structures, like trait penchants and agency
orientations from which behavioural tendencies can be identified.
• However, trait penchants and hence agency orientations may change
under non-equilibrium conditions, thus impacting on behavioural pro-
clivity and hence resulting behaviours. Since trait type values may
change, to better anticipate behaviour an understanding of the nature
of trait dynamics is necessary.
• Process intelligences communicate information between traits, and do
so efficaciously when information is semantically maintained.
• The semantic nature of information is a reflection of the cultural system
of agency.
• Process intelligences are important to agency, but are prone to transi-
tive pathologies (that connect ontologically distinct agency systems)
that can ‘adjust’ the semantic nature of information flows between
traits, this possibly impacting on trait penchants and resulting
behaviours.
• Pathologies may be also be lateral when they occur as epistemic corrup-
tions – i.e., semantic adjustments that enable new narratives to emerge
that are different from the original semantics.
• Transitive pathologies can result in lateral pathologies.
• Epistemic corruption inhibits the ability of agency to develop to its full
potential and to adapt to changing conditions that will maintain its
viability.
 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour 187
• Agents in an agency population have behaviours that are not determin-
istically aliened, and prediction of future behaviours under uncertainty
is problematic.
• Meso structures, that traits contribute to, provide regulations that create
control imperatives for both agency and its agents.
• Agencies may pass through degrees of uncertainty, moving from normal
equilibrium determinism, to post-equilibrium uncertainty, to crises, to
complexification, and then to transformation depending on circum-
stances and under various conditions.
 Summarising Narrative for Part I

In this part a basis for a general theory of personality psychology has been
created that will be amplified in due course.
Personality psychology is the study of how the different parts of the
mind work together, and how they can work together in a unified way.
Sadly, it is a fragmented discipline and various suggestions have been made
concerning how to integrate it. This work provides a means, through
configuration approaches and third-order cybernetic modelling, by
which integration can develop and a more understandable whole can
develop.
The approach adopted recognises that personality psychology is com-
plex, and the theory permits the development of an overarching narrative
for any particular context that allows for detailed exploration of sub-points
relevant to that. Key to this narrative is the concept of agency which, refers
to action towards an end. Agency has the demonstrable ability to process
and react to complexity, and is an entity that may be conscious or non-
conscious.
Agency has the capacity to adopt a variety of configurations that are able
to process and react to complexity. These configurations may be thought of
as named patterns regarding behaviours and effects, and can be represented
in terms of schemas that have coordinative structures. Configurations can
be connected through meta-analysis, enabling a collection of narratives to
arise that are set into recurrent contexts, and which agents can refer to
when considering potential actions. Agencies that are conscious have the
added ability to summon these contexts while making use of them retro-
spectively. The resulting reflection (reflexivity) allows for mindful feed-
back to alter both the narratives told and the configurations subsequently
summoned.
Agencies, whether conscious or not, and which have a population of
autonomous self-determining adaptable interactive agents, always have
a potential capacity to self-regulate. These self-regulative structures can
188
 Summarising Narrative for Part I 189
be variously called simplexity, deep simplicity or meso structures com-
posed of generic rules, and these are intended to both constrain and
facilitate the behaviours of agency and its population of agents.
Agency is core to Agency Theory, which is a general living system theory
with a substructure and superstructure. The substructure embeds the
generic rules that enable it to be defined as, and to function as, a living
system, while the superstructure anchors the configurations that define its
functionality.
Part of the regulative structure of agency arises from its formative traits,
those that define its character. When a set of traits have been defined that
establish the potential character of agency, Agency Theory become to
Mindset Agency Theory. This is a cybernetic theory of living that is closely
associated with and extends Maruyama’s Mindscapes, and which can
explore the interrelations among seemingly unrelated aspects of agency
activity.
Personality is a complex system that, as with any living system, can self-
organise and give rise to stable patterns of organisation that create the
psyche. With the rise of pathologies, the psyche and its organisation may
lose stability, thereby challenging any perceptions concerning its coher-
ence. Personality and agency can both be modelled through Mindset
Agency Theory in different but related ways. Personality involves person-
ality traits that can be related to personal identity, while agency involves
both personality and sociocultural traits that can be related to public
identity.
There are also two dimensions of Mindset Agency Theory, one con-
cerned with cognition and the other with affect. They are equally import-
ant and represent distinct autonomous aspects of personality that interact
and together create imperatives for behaviour. Considering cognition
without affect provides more limited possibilities to anticipate agency
behaviours.
Maruyama distinguished between different universes within which sit
personality schemas that maintain certain characteristic properties.
Identifying into which universes such schemas fit highlights their incom-
mensurability and isolation. The three Maruyama universes are classifica-
tional, relational, and relevantial. In the classificational universe sit simple
distinct models of personality that be distinguished from each other for
some technical of conceptual reason. The relational universe is a repository
for models that maintain relational connections that can be related to
effects. In the relevantial universe there sit complex dynamic adaptive
models that reflect sociocognitive and socio-affect attributes. Personality
190 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
schemas may migrate across Maruyama universes given appropriate means.
Agency Theory and its use of configurations can provide a means for
schema migration across these universes.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a static classification model that
is incapable of representing personality self-organisation and adaptation.
However it can be moved from a classificational universe to a relational or
relevantial universe by appropriate elaboration of its propositions, perhaps
for instance, delivering to it some self-attributes of social cognition. An
adaptive configuration of Jungian theory and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI) has been created for personality temperament by migrating
Jungian theory/MBTI into a sociocognitive schema by considering the
knowledge involved.
MBTI is a type approach that operates with polar opposites, but it can be
conceptually elaborated into a trait theory. The process of migration
supposes that MBTI has traits at some horizon of meaning, and since
traits are responsible for the creation of enduring states, sociocognitive
explanations can be provided to explain the stable states of a personality. In
essence then, a link has been formulated between the MBTI type schema,
a trait space, and a capacity for sociocultural descriptions.
Agency Theory is an agentic approach, and as a development of
Knowledge Cybernetics, has a systemic basis in which knowledge has
significance. Structured patterns of knowledge belonging to an agentic
system enables it to recognise contexts, and have self-awareness, self-
maintenance, and be able to adapt to changing situations.
It has been noted that agencies maintain a population of interactive
agents, and where generic rules emerge from these interactions an admin-
istrative hierarchy may arise that enables the population of agents to
function as a coherent representative agency through the formation of
simplexity structures.
Agency may also be seen as a system hierarchy in which different focal
levels occur as recursive structures. Thus, within the population of agency,
agents may be sub-agencies in their own right having a population of sub-
agents that may be sub-agencies in their own right, and so on. By the same
token, and agent may be part of a meta-agent more usually considered as
agency, and so on. Such systems function as self-contained wholes.
Agency theory adopts as its core base the sub-structural third-order
cybernetic complex dynamic model proposed by Eric Schwarz that oper-
ates under uncertainty. However, agencies can be represented as increas-
ingly complex structures that can promote actions towards ends through
the elaboration of its superstructure with multiple configurations.
 Summarising Narrative for Part I 191
An essential part of agency substructure is its process intelligences
constituted as networks of processes. These enable agencies to respond to
both immanent and adventitious imperatives. Such responses enable
agency to remain viable when the intelligences are sufficiently efficacious.
Personality schemas that may seem to compete with others can be
elaborated on to make them complementary. To demonstrate this, two
trait approaches from different Maruyama universes, MBTI and
Mindscape theory were migrated into a more complex modelling space.
While MBTI may be thought of as a simplistic ineffectual classification
model that does not represent any of the dynamic attributes of personality,
it is shown how it can be elaborated on through certain configurations that
enable it its nature to be enhanced in a way that approaches Mindscape
theory. To relate MBTI and Mindscape, it is insufficient to elaborate on
only its theory. Mindscape theory also requires elaboration in order for the
two to meet. To do this, an Agency Theory meta-framework is adopted,
and the type theory of MBTI is migrated to the relevantial universe in
which sits Mindscape theory. To do this configurations are identified. As
a result, MBTI becomes a more sophisticated trait theory capable of
providing more complex information about personality. Such configura-
tive adaptations enable type theories to no longer be seen to be stand-alone,
but rather complementary within a broader conceptual framework. The
approach adopted is generic, and can be applied to other solitary theories
like FFM. The development of requisite configurative structures can lead
to the possibility of improved explanatory power for a type theory.
Plural agencies are psychosocial and a normative personality may emerge
from its population of agents. Organisations are plural agencies through
their administrative hierarchy. These organisations are often pathological
leading to dysfunction and inappropriate behaviour that can be problem-
atic for their viability. The diagnosis of organisations ills through purpose-
ful analysis and diagnosis is often problematic due to their complexity.
One way of looking towards diagnosis is by searching for appropriate
methodologies. While some do exist, unfortunately they are not universally
recognised because of the fragmentation in the field of organisational
studies. This fragmentation is illustrated through the unconnected non-
synergistic plurality of organisational models, each of which relates to
a particular isolated frame of thought and purpose.
A cybernetic approach is adopted to create a generic psychosocial model
for the organisation that is used to characterise its emergent normative
personality. For coherent organisations, those with a dominant culture,
this is able to explore organisations in terms of their normative personality.
192 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
Since organisations are often complex, seeing them in this way can reduce
the complexity, enable a better understanding of their pathologies, and
improve the likelihood of anticipating their behaviours.
To overcome complexity, a generic agency model of the organisation is
constructed. This has ontologically distinct, separate but connected opera-
tive, figurative/strategic and cultural systems. Through a recursive process
in a system hierarchy, the generic model can be represented in the alterna-
tive terms of the emergent normative personality, that is the figurative/
strategic system that itself is composed on a personality operative, figura-
tive, and cognitive system. The agency systems are connected through
process intelligences, and where these processes are efficacious they permit
ends from actions to be better met. Pathologies can interfere with process
intelligences, and contribute to processes of dysfunction. Organisational
and personality theories can thus be connected generically through agency
theory. The patterns of behaviour that occur in agency have underlying
trait control processes, that is, they are driving entities that contribute to
the creation of meso structures.
Agency Theory adopts a meta-systemic view of the organisation enab-
ling flexibility and formality when seeing organisational models for pur-
poses of configuration. It also provides a formal generic model of the
organisation that can facilitate the exploration of complex problem situ-
ations both theoretically and empirically.
Normative personality operates through collective cognitive processes
providing a feasible way to explain organisations, and provide a capacity to
analyse and predict the likelihood of their behavioural conduct and mis-
conduct. Normative personality, like the empirical personality, can be
formulated as a trait model where the traits emerge from normative
structures.
Agency explains the sociocognitive aspects of self-organisation and the
efficacy of connections between the traits. The traits control the personality
as well as the agency as a whole, that promotes imperatives for behaviour.
Agency may be modelled through three personality traits and two socio-
cultural traits, and these can have a penchant that is either phenomenal or
psyche/cognition related. Sociocultural traits create a trait environment for
the personality. The cultural trait may have a penchant towards either the
sensate or ideational, or a balance between them. A sensate penchant is
phenomenal and concerned with the material, while an ideational pen-
chant is cognitive and concerned with ideas. The social trait may have
a penchant towards either dramatising or patterning, or a balance between
them. Dramatising is action directed (and hence is phenomenal) while
 Summarising Narrative for Part I 193
patterning is more observation orientation (and hence relates to psyche)
and concerned with information collection.
Personality traits include the cognitive, figurative, and operative traits,
each with its penchant. The cognitive trait may have an autonomy pen-
chant that is directed towards finding meaning in self (and relates to the
psyche), or an embeddedness penchant that is more directed towards the
group that self is believed to be a part, and the maintenance of status quo
through restraining actions (and is hence phenomenal). The figurative trait
may have a penchant towards harmony or towards achievement through
mastery. The former penchant seeks to understand and appreciate rather
than to direct or exploit (and relates to psyche), while the latter involves
active self-assertion to attain group or personal goals (and hence is phe-
nomenal). The operative trait may have a penchant towards hierarchy that
adheres to proven rules of conduct (and is hence phenomenal), or embed-
dedness that has concern for others (and relates to psyche).
Inter-trait connections are Piagetian process intelligences that orient the
traits and work through forms of first- and second-order networks of
processes that define living systems. A typology of pathologies may occur
that can explain organisational dysfunction.
Traits are variables that take type values that constitute penchants which
arise from their epistemic properties. The trait penchants together create
agency orientation. Agency orientation in turn creates behavioural
proclivity.
Under normal (equilibrium) agency situations prediction of agency
behaviour is possible with sufficient information. In post-normal (non-
equilibrium) conditions agency immanent dynamic become more volatile,
and this creates uncertainty that makes behavioural decisions problematic
for an agency. Under such volatility prediction of agency behaviour by
agency observers is difficult. More appropriate is the anticipation of
behaviour from the examination of agency structures, like trait penchants
and agency orientations from which behavioural tendencies can be identi-
fied. However, trait penchants and hence agency orientations may change
under non-equilibrium conditions, this impacting on behavioural procliv-
ity and hence resulting behaviours. Since trait type values may change, to
better anticipate behaviour an understanding of the nature of trait dynam-
ics is necessary.
Process intelligence communicate information between traits, and do so
efficaciously when information is semantically maintained. The semantic
nature of information is a reflection of the cultural system of agency.
Process intelligences are important to agency, but are prone to transitive
194 Cybernetic Sociopsychology and Agency
pathologies (that connect ontologically distinct agency systems) that can
‘adjust’ the semantic nature of information flows between traits, this
possibly impacting on trait penchants and resulting behaviours.
Pathologies may also be lateral when they occur as epistemic corruptions –
i.e., semantic adjustments that enable new narratives to emerge that are
different from the original semantics. Transitive pathologies can result in
lateral pathologies. Epistemic corruption inhibits the ability of agency to
develop to its full potential and to adapt to changing conditions that will
maintain its viability.
Agents in an agency population have behaviours that are not determin-
istically aliened, and prediction of future behaviours under uncertainty is
problematic. Meso structures, that traits contribute to, provide regulations
that create control imperatives for both agency and its agents. Agencies
may pass through degrees of uncertainty, moving from normal equilibrium
determinism, to post-equilibrium uncertainty, to crises, to complexifica-
tion, and then to transformation depending on circumstances and under
various conditions.
 part ii
From Cognition to Affect

In Chapter 6 we establish a psychic basis for agency as a simplexity

structure called Mindset Agency Theory (MAT). This exists as a set of
formative traits are derived from Schwartz (1990) and Sagiv and Schwartz
(2007) extensive empirical cultural values study. It is from this that a set of
personality formative traits are created. This integrates with Sorokin’s
(1962) and Shotwell et al.’s (1980) schemas from which we arrive at two
agency sociocultural traits. These five traits show how agencies are able to
maintain their stability and create behavioural proclivity. Linking the traits
to Mindscapes enables a synergy to arise the consequence of which is to
create a set of Mindsets which has a transparent origin, and which orient
the agency. It will be shown that a whole variety of possible agency
Mindsets (as opposed to four Mindscapes) can arise. The dimensionality
of these Mindsets is greater than that of the Mindscapes because it
explicitly (rather than implicitly) involves sociocultural factors.
In Chapter 7 a return is made to detail the distinction between Mindsets
belonging to agency and personality. Personality Mindsets are extracted
from the cognition agency, and the it will be shown that Mindsets can be
formulated into the two classes: individualism and collectivism. While this
does not support the idea that individualism and collectivism are good
ways of distinguishing between agency orientations, it rather demonstrates
that there are a whole variety, on a continuous scale, of individual and
collectivistic classifications. The simplistic use of these terms may therefore
be seen as a stereotyping. Maruyama found through observation that there
were four dominant stable Mindscape types, but did not explain how they
could be easily derived, whether there might be more that can be easily
discovered, and what they might be. Mindset Agency Theory embraces
Mindscape theory, but sets it in a new empirical context explaining how at
least eight stable Mindsets can be generated.
In Chapter 8 the personality traits are explored in greater detail within
the context of Mindset theory. It is shown how the Mindsets relate to
195
196 From Cognition to Affect
individualism and collectivism, explaining that these two classifications are
much broader that is often realised. The original problem with mindscape
theory was its transparency, and this has been resolved with Mindset theory.
Also shown is how the Mindsets that arise can be described in terms of
variations in individualism and collectivism. Eight of the stable agency
Mindsets developed previously are then related to the Mindsets considered
in this chapter, also relating them to both cultural and social traits.
In Chapter 9 we formulate affect Mindset theory. This has different
traits from cognitive Mindset theory, and the traits accumulate into
specific affective Mindsets. Both affect and cognition are sub-agencies of
personality that interact operatively, where affect/cognition traits are
respectively influenced by cognition/affect process of internalisation. As
a result, we create affect Mindset agency theory that is symmetrical with
the pre-existing cognition Mindset agency theory.
In Chapter 10 we shall look towards understanding interdependencies
between cognition and emotion regulation is a prerequisite of managerial
intelligence and strategic cultural intelligence, which is in demand for inter-
action and integration processes across social systems. Strategic cultural intel-
ligence may be grossly defined as the capacity of leading agents in social
systems (e.g., politicians or managers) to find an appropriate and fruitful
balance between action and learning orientation of a social system and to
deploy guidance for individuals or groups of individuals in integration
processes.
Overall, it is shown that affect agency functions quite similarly to
cognition agency. Cognition agency cultural trait dynamics are the result
of interactions between sensate and ideational polar positions, and is rather
reflective of affect agency emotional climate (de Rivera, 1992) and its
interaction between the polar positions of fear and security. Both also
reflect the dualistic relationship between the psyche and the material.
 chapter 6

Cognition Agency

6.1 Introduction
The cognition agency is a theoretical development that configures cogni-
tion with traits, and initially explains how agency cognition is dependent
on a set of formative traits. When referring to cognition, we are interested
in it’s nature and outcome of the immanent and adventitious social
processes that impact agency. Social cognition is an important aspect of
personality psychology, and before developing our trait theory for the
cognition agency, it is useful to consider a background of piecemeal theory
that has developed in the field, which will incidentally further demonstrate
the historical lack of integration in the field. Since this chapter centres on
cognition, it is appropriate to define its nature:
Social cognition refers to the cognitive structures and processes that shape our
understanding of social situations and that mediate our behavioural reac-
tions to them. At its core, the fundamental assumption of social cognition
research is the idea that internal mental representations of other persons and
of social situations play a key causal role in shaping behaviour. The central
task of social cognition research is thus to provide a specification of the
nature of these mental structures and the processes that operate on them.
(Bodenhausen et al., 2003: 257)
Bodenhausen et al. (2003) adopt the task of exploring the development of
a platform of theory that is able to contribute to an understanding of social
cognition. They show that many sociocognitive theories consist of pro-
positions that link representational assumptions with particular informa-
tion-processing tendencies. These tendencies are actually inherent to
agency. A core tendency is to adhere to the principle that cognition
mediates social behaviour, a feature of social cognition theorists. This
stands against the radical behaviourists who see the mind as a black box

197
198 From Cognition to Affect
and who take the view that there is no modelling relevance to the regula-
tion of behaviour. Social cognition theory recognises that while an agency
may have consciousness, cognitive processes that result in behaviour are
not always accessible to conscious reflection despite the importance of
cognition to behaviour. The exploration of cognition inevitably requires
a set of (often implicit) propositions about its nature. In saying this,
Bodenhausen et al. (2003) distinguish between three historical classes of
cognition theory: (1) mental representation through structure and process;
(2) automatic and controlled processes in social cognition; and (3) motiv-
ational and affective influences on social cognition.
A core feature of the mental representation class that occurred during the
early development of cognition theory was Rationality. Here, observers
look for cues relating to attributes like controllability, foreseeability, or
desirability of the behaviour of others. These cues are then used to logically
derive assumptions about mental states and the reasons for their observed
behaviour. More modern social cognitive theory decries the rationality
view, replacing them with metaphors. These include seeing agents as
automatons, as motivated tacticians, as intuitive lawyers, or as affect
driven. Various theories that arose include Associative Network Models
with emphasis on the learning of simple associations between sensations
as the foundation from which all mental capacities. Schema theory where
agency understanding is a consequence of the organisation of generic
knowledge structures. Here, a schema was taken as a subjective theory
that embeds the generalities of experience. These previous approaches
implied that cognitive entities are discrete, stable, and enduring. An
alternative was the Exemplar modelling, where social cognition was con-
sidered to be based on specific representations of individual instances, so
exemplars were sought to present proposed theories. This allowed for
dynamic construction of representations that depended on the nature of
the harnessed exemplars in a particular context. In Distributed Data
Processing cognition models a concept is represented as a pattern of activa-
tion across a set of low-level processing units that can involve a variety of
different representations each of which are devoid of meaning – this only
emerging from the overall pattern of their activity. These representations
occur as transitory states.
The automatic and controlled processes class involves a number of
approaches that are part of this. Automatic Social Cognition theory has
four qualities of information processing: awareness, intention, efficiency,
and control. A cognitive process is presumed to be automatic if one or
more attributes are found to occur: lack of awareness; no intention;
 Cognition Agency 199
efficiently and little mental capacity; or difficult to inhibit. Controlled
Social Cognition theory offers another approach to the control of thought
and action, requiring intention, and hence conscious access. Connecting
motives to thought processes needs a system that can cope with the
constraints imposed by limitations of attentional capacity – a concept
that had become important to social cognition research. Early ideas con-
cerning attentional capacity made assumptions that they had a simple
unitary structure for mental resources used in conscious, controlled infor-
mation processing, but this has changed to allow a more complex structure
to emerge. Bodenhausen et al. note that the relationship between auto-
matic and controlled processes has become central to inquiry into social
cognition.
In the motivational and affective influences class, Bodenhausen et al. ask
about the distinction between cognition per se and social cognition. In
Reply, they recognise that cognitive psychologists often study cognitive
processes that are distinct from the real-life contexts, while social cognition
explorers tend to provide a contextual background. As a consequence they
have had to include consideration of perception, memory, motivation, and
emotion. A category of this class is Epistemic Motivation – a desire to
develop and maintain a rich and thorough understanding of a situation,
and it is through this that reposes to complex situations are moderated.
This connects with a need for security through an understanding of
predictable and manageable social interactions. Another subclass is
Defence Motivation, a theory of avoidance behaviour that centres on the
desire for predictability and control through accurate representations and
judgements, and involves consideration of the function of conflict and
related situations. Another subclass is Social-Adjustive Motivation, and
concerns the need to belong. Here, social perceivers are seen to be motiv-
ated to perceive the world in ways that win them acceptance and approval,
making them feel worthy as part of their social groups, where conformity
to the impressions and judgements of others is an important consideration.
Affect States is another subclass in which emotion and motivation are
closely tied. Here, affective and arousal states are seen to connect with
the capacity for attention and epistemic motivation.
More or less consistent with the above, Godin et al. (2008) are interested
in social cognitive theories in which cognitions may be viewed as processes
that intervene between observable stimuli and responses in real-world
situations. In particular, like Bodenhausen et al. (2003), they are interested
in theories that are able to show how cognition mediates behaviour, they
also seek to determine a more pragmatic perspective with respect to
200 From Cognition to Affect
practitioners. From detailed examination of the literature, they have found
that there are two essentially dominant social cognition approaches. The
Theory of Planned Behaviour is a dominant theory concerned with the
relationship between intention and behaviour. Other theories, like
the Agentic Sociocognitive Theory from Bandura, represent a more general
and dynamic theoretical approach to explain the relationship between
social cognition and behaviour.
Any theory predicting behaviour from intention, like that of Theory of
Planned Behaviour, may have predictive stability issues. Sugimoto (2000)
notes that intention has a very close connection with preferences, so for
example if two agency intentions become inconsistent, the one surrendered
is that with the intention having least preference. The close relation
between intention and preference stems from the fact that intentions
reflect certain features associated with preferences. However, we have
already noted that belief-based preferences may not be stable and may
change over time and with contexts (Warren et al., 2011; Pittenger, 1993),
this initially casting concern about the veracity of a theory intending to
predict behaviour from intention. Now, the Theory of Planned Behaviour
proposes that volitional behaviour is determined by the intention to
perform the behaviour. Intention is hypothesised to be a function of
attitudes towards the behaviour, subjective norms, and perceived capacity
to control that behavioural. It operates on three unproved propositions
concerning behaviour, intention, attitude, subjective norms, and control
beliefs. A study by Sniehotta et al. (2014), however, has demonstrated
connecting intention to behaviour or behavioural change to produce
reliable predictive outcomes is implausible.
The other approach, to create a more general explanatory theory to
explain behaviour, comes from Bandura’s (1999) and, incidentally, under-
pins the Mindset Agency Theory developed here. It adopts an agentic
sociocognitive perspective in which agencies are self-organising, proactive,
self-reflecting, and self-regulating. Agencies are self-determining with
a capacity to influence their own actions to satisfy purposes and interests.
Agencies can also exercise control over their thought processes, motivation,
affect, and action.
Linking this with the living system Cultural Agency Theory and config-
uring in such schemas as a trait theory, sociocultural dynamic theory,
agentic sociocognitive theory, Piaget’s learning theory, and information
theory, results in a general agency theory that encapsulates not only the
principle of agentic self-determination, but also the various other self-
attributes proposed by Bandura.
 Cognition Agency 201
6.2 The Dynamic Nature of the Cultural Trait
To understand the nature of the cognition agency within the context of
Agency Theory, it is important to understand the nature of the formative
traits that create it.
Agency has a personality that may be defined in terms of one of two
attributes: cognition and affect, part of the latter referring to emotion.
There is a case to be made that while both operate independently, they also
interact and thereby influence each other, and we shall consider this in due
course. Here however, interest lies in exploring the cognition agency in
which only the cognition personality attributes will be considered. The
commonality between cognition and affect is that both can be modelled to
have a similar ontological structure, both are cultural – though the nature
of the cultural elements differs, and both operate through their individual
set of traits. Here, only the cognition agency will be considered.
The term trait as used here refers to the variables of an agency that are
formative in defining its functional nature. The traits may take one of two
bipolar values, called enantiomers that define possible trait penchants, and
these orientate the agency in the way that it processes information and
develops, and which ultimately creates a penchant towards particular forms
of decision and policy making and behaviour. For Van Egeren (2009) and
Davis (2000), such traits operate as fundamental control and characterising
function. There are five traits – combinations of the enantiomers of three
normative personality traits create personality types; two are sociocultural –
and the five traits together create agency types.
The traits arise from core epistemic properties of the agency that
commonly exist within it, and an agency’s capability to create perform-
ance is taken as a function of its capacity to process information
efficaciously. The traits establish regulatory processes that enable the
emergence of stable patterns of behaviour. Different traits therefore
have different control functions and hence necessarily reflect different
definitive characteristics (Yolles, 2009; Yolles & Fink, 2009; Yolles, Fink
& Dauber, 2011).
Agency has an internal and external environment, as does personality.
The trait nature of personality interacts with its trait environment con-
nected as it is with the external agency environment, and because of this we
need also to consider environmental influences that impinge on agency.
The trait environment is defined through two sociocultural traits: agency
cultural and social, each of which has its penchant. Agency cultural pen-
chant controls what is culturally legitimate in the agency, while social
202 From Cognition to Affect
penchant controls how the agency reacts to the perceived needs of what it
identifies as its environment, including others.
Cultural penchant is core to agency, and its very nature draws on the
dynamic theory of Sorokin (1962). This begins with the realisation that
culture may be seen as being constituted through the shared norms, values,
beliefs, and assumptions, and the behaviour and artefacts that express these
orientations – including symbols, rituals, stories, and language; norms and
understanding about the nature and identity of the social entity; the way
work is done; the value and possibility of changing or innovating; relations
between lower and higher ranks; and the nature of the environment
(Yolles, 2006; Williams et al., 1993). All durable societies have a culture.
This is explained by Schaller, Conway, and Crandall (2008) when they
refer to Sumner’s realisation that culture results from ‘the frequent repeti-
tion of petty acts’ (Sumner, 1906: 3) that result in what he calls folkways.
They further note that these cultural folkways ‘are not creations of human
purpose and wit’ but are instead ‘products of natural forces which men
unconsciously set in operation’ (Sumner, 1906: 4) and which develop
through fundamental psychological processes that govern the thoughts
and actions of individuals.
Culturally based social groups (sociocultures) are not static entities that
are just shaped simply in reaction to external forces. As Kemp (1997)
explains, the reason is that sociocultures are dynamic systems is that they
are constantly in a state of change generated by the properties within the
system. In other words, human cultures do not ‘change’, but are rather
always in a ‘state of change’. They form historically not as discrete entities,
but through continual development. Thus, cultures can be defined less for
what they are now, and more for where they are coming from and where
they are going. This is not unique to human sociocultures since many non-
human societies also culturally adapt, both in technology and social
organisation (Rensch, 1972). However, what seems to be unique about
human society is that it has developed the capacity to take cultural
adaptations and convert them into an evolutionary process. Human cul-
tures evolve, rather than just adapt to circumstances. Here evolution is
a distinct dynamic process, and is what Gell-Mann (1994) describes as
a complex adaptive system: ‘a system [that] acquires information about its
environment and its own interaction with that environment, identifying
regularities in that information, condensing those regularities into a kind
of “schema” or model, and acting in the real world on the basis of that
schema. In each case, there are various competing schemata, and the results
of the action in the real world is feedback to influence the competition
 Cognition Agency 203
among those schemata’ (Gell-Mann, 1994: 17). This constitutes both
a learning process for the system through feedback, and the generation of
its own capacity to change over time – hence creating its dynamic.
A socioculture is not isolated from its environment, which acts to impose
natural selection on schemata that limit which schemata might be
successful.
An explanation for change in the complex sociocultural system has been
given by Sorokin (1962) through his Principle of Immanent Change. This
tells how cultures change not just as a response to the external needs of
human society, but through something that occurs within the process
itself. This principle states that a durable social system changes by virtue
of its own forces and properties, and it cannot help changing even if all
external conditions are constant. A sociocultural system satisfying this
principle generates consequences which are ‘not the results of the external
factors to the system, but the consequences of the existence of the system
and of its activities. As such, they must be imputed to it, regardless of
whether they are good or bad, desirable or not, intended or not by the
system. One of the specific forms of this immanent generation of conse-
quences is an incessant change of the system itself, this being due to its
existence and activity’ (Sorokin, 1962: 4:600–601).
For Sorokin all social systems, whether they be the family, the State,
universities, schools, churches, or any other, are reflections of complex
systems of meanings (Gibson, 2000). Sorokin created a theory of sociocul-
tural change that explains how, through the domination of one of two
cultural conditions, different patterns of culturally based behaviour can
develop. The two cultural conditions identified are referred to as sensate
and ideational cognitive types (Yolles et al., 2008). While these constitute
dominant cultural orientations, culture is always multi-dimensional and
pluralistic.
These types are paired and exist together within a given frame of
reference, and form an interactive couple. In a cultural frame of reference,
they are constituted as opposing and interactive sensate and ideational
forces. Kemp (1997) explains that in a culture in which the sensate type
dominates, meanings are only taken from the senses, this resulting in
a predominantly utilitarian and materialistic society. Ideational culture
relates to the super-sensory, to the creation of ideas, and the highlighting
of the humanitarian or spiritual. In an ideational culture the creation of
ideas may predominate, and people with a predominantly ideational
mindset generate possibilities through the pursuit and maturation of
a variety of ideas.
204 From Cognition to Affect
Communication is also important within sociocultural settings and the
way in which it operates through narrative. In this context, Gibson (2000)
notes that ideational culture centres on meta-narrative, while sensate
culture centres on Visualism1 – in which meta-narratives collapse and
fragment into antenarratives, leading to a society without integrated
thought or judgement.2
The bipolar culture types can find a balanced synthesis (Yolles, 2009),
creating what Sorokin called an Integral or Idealistic culture, in which the
material (this-worldly) and the spiritual (the otherworldly), are harmoni-
ously (or congruently) blended in a mutually enriching partnership (Nieli,
2012). The western industrial revolution saw the rarity of an Idealistic
period, which then moved to sensate, and this has now become greatly
imbalanced in their government, law, and morals, and by the law of
immanent change they must move towards greater ideationalism.
Cultural dynamics arise because these cultural conditions maintain the
coupled interactive types, Jung uses the word enantiomer,3 to act as a
principle in which the superabundance of any force will inevitably produce
its opposite. He in particular used it to explore the dichotomous relation-
ship between the unconscious and conscious mind, the former acting
against the wishes of the latter (Jung, 1971).
Now, all traits act in the same way as the cultural trait, having enantio-
mer type values in interaction. With respect of culture, when ideational
cultural type mentalities interpret the world, they are idea centred and tend
to embrace the creation of ideas (Kemp, 1997). However, they are unable to
apply the ideas created or the practical or material governing controls
necessary to manifest them as behavioural aspects of the system. People
with a predominantly ideational cultural trait generate possibilities
through the pursuit and maturation of a variety of ideas, though they
tend not to know how to use them materially. They thus create variety, but
they cannot harness and apply it. In contrast, sensate mentalities will be
interested in or support practical and/or material matters relating to exter-
nal events which are then sought to be integrated within the dominant one-
world view.

6.3 Traits, Enantiomers, and Agency Types

It has been explained that agency traits have control functions that have
formative cybernetic properties. They also have an empirical epistemic
nature that has an impact on how they can be used and in what contexts.
Additionally, they determine the choice of bipolar values that the traits
 Cognition Agency 205
may adopt. We earlier introduced Boje’s trait epistemology deriving from
Foucault. The problem with this is that it does not capture sufficient
enantiomer properties to enable us to make any definitive assignments of
where a Mindset would appear in a trait space, or what other Mindsets
might look like.
As a result, we shall here adopt the epistemology that arises from the
cultural values study of Shalom Schwartz (1994), who developed his
‘Schwartz Value Inventory’ based on a survey of 60,000 respondents, to
identify common values that act as guiding life principles. These lay
beyond the relatively simple notions of individualism and collectivism
(Schwartz, 1994).4 In doing so Schwartz identified a number of ‘value
types’ that gather multiple values into a single category. This study was
further developed by Sagiv and Schwartz (2007) to enable the types to be
paired, that is set out in bipolar relationships. There are six of these, and
they correspond to our normative personality traits for which they act as
enantiomers.
Agency has five traits, two of which are sociocultural and external to the
normative personality and three of which are internal to it (cognitive,
figurative, and operative). These traits and their enantiomers will be
discussed in Chapters 7 and 8 and are shown in Table 6.1.
Shalom Schwartz (2006) created the value concept from which our trait
dimensions arise. They have noted that the pursuit of novelty and change is
likely to undermine preserving traditional values, and further that pursuing
traditional values is congruent with pursuing conformity values, which
motivate actions of submission to external expectations. There is
a relatively close correlation between Schwartz’s terms intellectual and
affective autonomy. However, intellectual autonomy is correlated with
affective autonomy and egalitarianism; and affective autonomy is correl-
ated with intellectual autonomy and mastery (see Sagiv & Schwartz, 2007:
181). The Sagiv–Schwartz schema has two forms of autonomy, intellectual
and affective. They linked affective autonomy with mastery, finding that
the two have a high positive correlation, and consequently Yolles and Fink
(2014d) connected mastery and affective autonomy as a single type.
However, affective autonomy does not appear to be cognitive, and this
requiring explanation. Schwartz, Struch, and Bilsky (1990) indicate that
cultural values have consequences for personality, especially in relation to
social motives, and affective autonomy may be considered as motive. It will
be shown later that there is an interplay between cognition and affect –
each an independent but interactive system of the personality: with one
acting as a reality filter for the other. Affective autonomy is associated with
Table 6.1 List of personality traits and shaded sociocultural traits belonging to agency and their polar enantiomer orientations
Personality type enantiomers
Orientations Enantiomer Nature
Cultural Senate Appreciating nature of needs
and ends to be satisfied.
Means of satisfaction
occurs through
exploitation of the
external world. Practically
oriented, with emphasis
on human external needs.
Cognitive Intellectual autonomy Bounded entities should find
meaning in their own
uniqueness.
Figurative Mastery + Monistic in nature and
Affective autonomy encourages active self-
assertion to attain group
or personal goals and to
master, direct, and change
the natural and social
environment, like values:
ambition, success, daring,
competence. May involve
Enantiomer Nature
Ideational Appreciating the conceptual and
internal nature of an entity.
Creating fulfilment or realisation
through self-imposed
minimisation or elimination of
most physical needs.
Embeddedness Emphasises on maintenance of status
quo and restraining actions or
inclinations that might disrupt in-
group solidarity or the traditional
order.
Harmony Pluralistic in nature. Tries to
understand and appreciate and
avoid disturbance, rather than to
direct or exploit. Connected with
appreciations driving goal
formulation as a process deriving
from data collection and involving
careful weighing of arguments.
 spontaneous decisions
following from the
spontaneous desires of the
decision makers. +
Encouraged to express their
internal attributes like
preferences or penchants,
traits, feelings, and
motives.
Operative Hierarchy Relies on hierarchical Egalitarianism Agencies tend to recognise one
systems of ascribed roles another as moral equals sharing
for productive behaviour. basic interests. They are socialised
Agencies are socialised to to co-operate and to feel concern
take the hierarchical for welfare of others. Expectation
distribution of roles for of action for benefit of others as
granted and to comply a matter of choice (values: equality,
with the obligations and social justice, responsibility,
their role’s rules. Tends to honesty). Organisations are built
adopt a chain of authority on co-operative negotiation among
with well-defined roles. employees and management.
Agencies are expected to
comply with role-
obligations putting
interests of the
organisation first. Unequal
distribution of power,
roles, and resources
legitimate (values: social
power, authority,
humility, wealth).
Table 6.1 (cont.)

Personality type enantiomers

Orientations Enantiomer Nature Enantiomer Nature

Social Patterning Persistent curiosity about the Dramatising Interested in sequences of

object world and how it interpersonal events, having
works, is constructed, and dramatic or narrative structures
is named, varied, or that are likely to involve distinction
explored. It is connected and differentiation (e.g.,
to problems of symmetry, distinguishing situations), and
pattern, balance, and the undertaking effective
dynamics of physical communications.
relationships between
entities, and is likely to
indicate relational
connection.
 Cognition Agency 209
mastery in relation to the pursuit of positive experiences, and for Schwartz
(1994), it relates to relations to like exciting, enjoying and varied life,
pleasure, and self-indulgence. However, these relations are all affect conse-
quences of motive (Hoeken & van Vliet, 2000; Babin & Attaway, 2000;
Neff et al., 2007), highlighting interaction between cognition and affect.
Affective autonomy can be connected with motivation which Schwartz
and Tessler (1972) relate to altruism. Wolf (2010) extends this by explaining
that motive can be expressed in terms of (1) altruism (fulfilment through
common-interest) where people are moved and guided by something that
lies beyond their own self-interest; and (2) egoism (fulfilment through self-
interest), conceiving human beings moved and guided by their own self-
interest. However, the two may not be so far apart, since for Brosch et al.
(2011), egoism can be rewarded by creating a ‘warm glow of selfishness’
which may be a basis for altruism. In other words, egoism may create
altruism.
As detailed in Chapter 4, for completeness we can repeat the nature of
the traits as follows:
Cultural orientation (CԎ). This trait maintains three forms of knowledge:
identification, elaborating, and executor knowledge that can each be
manifested into the personality system as information. The enantiomers
of this trait have been explored at some length in Yolles et al. (2008) and
arise from the work of Sorokin. As already explained, the trait type
penchants that orientate culture are sensate and ideational. Sensate
epistemic attributes include: appreciating the nature of the needs and
ends that are to be satisfied in respect of a given object of attention, the
degree of strength in pursuit of those needs, and the methods of
satisfaction. The means of satisfaction occurs not through adaptation
or modification of human beings, but through the exploitation of the
external world. It is thus practically oriented, with emphasis on human
external needs. With reality as perceived from senses, its operative nature
is highlighted in that it views reality through what can be measured and
observed rather than reasoned. In contrast, ideational cultural orienta-
tion have epistemic attributes that include: appreciating the conceptual
and internal nature of an object of attention, and creating fulfilment or
realisation through self-imposed minimisation or elimination of most
physical needs. With reality as perceived conceptually, its operative
nature is highlighted in that it views reality through what can envisaged
and reasoned. When we are considering the macro-economic context of
a country and the policies that government generate and implement to
210 From Cognition to Affect
achieve efficacious performance. We will likely be referring to the
political culture that drives its governance, which may adopt predomin-
antly sensate or ideational perspectives. In cases of cultural instability,
the ascendancy of one type over the other may vary according to the
means by which a particular regime is able to come to power and
maintain it.
Cognitive orientation (cԎ). This arises from cognitive and social psychology,
is existentially connected with cognitive self-reference, and maintains
a relationship with cognitive intention. It might involve the effective
realising of potential recognising social and political structures and the
associated constraints imposed on the agency. The variable may be seen
to take enantiomers that give the agency an intellectual autonomy trait
penchant when an agency will follow less the guidance of its host culture,
but might react more autonomously to the lessons drawn from (or
opportunities offered by) environmental impulses; the other enantiomer
of the variable might be embeddedness trait penchant. Intellectual auton-
omy refers to bounded entities that should find meaning in their own
uniqueness and who are encouraged to express their internal attributes
(preferences or penchants, traits, feelings, and motives). Embeddedness
emphasises the maintenance of the status quo and restraining actions or
inclinations that might disrupt in-group solidarity or the traditional
order. The trait is affected by attitudes, and emotive imperatives that
may orientate the agency towards cognitive coherence or dissonance. It
also has impact on perspectives that are associated with strategies,
ideology, and ethics/morality. It in addition creates imperatives for the
control of the patterns of behaviour through intention. The develop-
ment of inefficacy can lead to lack of coherence and a demonstration of
collective cognitive dissonance, and recall that this can act as a driver for
cognitive state/dispositional dysfunctions. This can also be connected
with patterns of information that arise from conceptual and cultural
knowledge.
Figurative orientation (fԎ). This has both cognitive and evaluative aspects,
is influenced by attitudes and reflection, and connects with cognitive
purpose and processes of cognitive self-regulation. As a trait variable it
takes enantiomers that define a harmony trait penchant and a mastery +
affective autonomy trait penchant. Mastery is monistic in nature and
encourages active self-assertion to attain group or personal goals and to
master, direct, and change the natural and social environment (values:
ambition, success, daring, competence). Affective autonomy is consistent
with this and expresses internal attributes like preferences, traits,
 Cognition Agency 211
feelings, and motives. Harmony is pluralistic in nature, and tries to
understand and appreciate rather than to direct or exploit. We could
further relate this to appreciations driving goal formulation as a process
that derives from data collection and involving the careful weighing of
arguments as opposed to spontaneous decisions following from the
spontaneous desires of the decision makers. This trait maintains an
interconnected set of more or less tacit standards which order and
value experience, determines the way an agency sees and values different
situations, and how instrumental judgements furnish action. It is
through the information provided by this trait that agency (as decision
maker) observes and interprets reality, and thus establishes decision
imperatives. As such the trait regulates the appreciations and resulting
goals of the organisation with respect to its intended operations, the
potential for social interaction, and the ethical positioning that may
occur as a response to opportunities provided or indicated by the social
environment. Efficacy in this trait in relation to the operative orienta-
tion can lead to self-principled agencies with aesthetical, intuitive, or
ethical/ideological positioning. It can provide preferred ideological
images that may facilitate action. It orientates the agency towards
a view of stages of historical development, with respect to interaction
with the external environment. Inefficacy can lead to corrupt and
sociopathic organisation, or more broadly agency misconduct.
Operative orientation (oԎ). This develops through the penchant adopted by
the operative trait. It provides the ability for agency to be able to durably
maintain a separate operative existence while coping with unpredictable
futures. As a trait variable it is able to take one of two enantiomers. These
are hierarchy and egalitarianism. Hierarchy relies on hierarchical systems
of ascribed roles to ensure productive behaviour. Through hierarchy,
people are socialised to take the hierarchical distribution of roles for
granted and to comply with the obligations and rules attached to their
roles. In hierarchical cultures, organisations are more likely to construct
a chain of authority in which all are assigned well-defined roles.
Members are expected to comply with role-obligations and to put the
interests of the organisation before their own. Hierarchy defines the
unequal distribution of power, roles, and resources as legitimate (values:
social power, authority, humility, wealth). In contrast egalitarianism
seeks to induce people to recognise one another as moral equals who
share basic interests as human beings. People are socialised to internalise
a commitment to co-operate and to feel concern for everyone’s welfare.
They are expected to act for others’ benefit as a matter of choice (values:
212 From Cognition to Affect
equality, social justice, responsibility, honesty). Egalitarian organisa-
tions are built on co-operative negotiation among employees and man-
agement. Hierarchy is also consistent with the formulation of strong
control measures to accrue funds that might develop through the
supposition that austerity measures are needed that must be directed to
easily objectively controlled parts of a system through processes of mass
taxation, while egalitarianism would rather challenge this by pointing to
the unequal distribution tax collection according to resources and capacity
to pay. Challenges from the social system may require flexibility in the
application of these rules. This trait can represent a durable and distinct
personality orientation that is able to cope with unpredictable futures. It
structures appreciative information enabling adaptation, and enables the
personality to facilitate responses to its social environment and predefine
its behavioural proclivity towards its operations. Agency efficacy in
relation to the social trait may contribute to the realising of its full social
potential, to engage with the environmental predictions that it controls,
and adjust its own operative processes. In contrast, inefficacy may
result in an agency inadequacy that can impact on its operative intelli-
gence or the recognition of agency adjustment imperatives. This may
occur through self-regulation and either the subordination to hierarchy
or liberation away from power and bureaucratic regulations allowing
normative rule obedience to be defined at a sub-agency level. The distinc-
tion between hierarchy and egalitarianism is reflected in considerations
information power. This is constituted as the disciplining of information,
and its control through, among other things, socialisation, and division of
labour.
Social orientation (sԎ). This has been defined previously, but will be listed
here again for completeness. Social orientation arises from a social trait
that has adopted some penchant, or bias. It directs action, interaction,
and reaction that (re)constitutes the cultural environment in terms of
(desired, welcome, undesired, not welcome) activities, and it determines
the orientation that a society has towards its environment. In a stable
sensate culture the trait may orientate the agency towards a dramatising
(individual relationships, sequential, communication, narrative, con-
tracts, individualist, ideocentric) social orientation, while in a stable
ideational culture it assumes a patterning (configurations, relational
pattern, balance, collectivist, allocentric) trait type penchant, and in
a stable idealist culture it assumes a balanced dramatising or patterning
trait type penchant. This trait is ultimately responsible for the way in
which policy, deriving from the operative system, can be implemented.
 Cognition Agency 213
It may also reflect forms of democratic or autocratic administration. It is
also reflective of introversion – with its focus on the inner world of ideas
and experiences, reflecting on thoughts, memories, and feelings (and
reflective of ideational culture), and extraversion – with its focus on the
external world and participatory activities and actions within it (and
reflective of sensate culture). It is unclear what the specific correlating
relationship is between introverted/extroverted personalities and idea-
tional/sensate penchants that define cultural orientation, though
a connection does seem to be possible.
If we take it that each polar enantiomer constitutes an auxiliary function
that acts on its local system, then when the auxiliary function becomes
inoperative, pathologies arise. These traits and their enantiomer character-
istics are summarised in Table 6.2, also listing keywords that arise with
respect to the enantiomers. With respect to the self-control of an agency,
the cultural trait acts to constrain personality through normative self-
reference and identity. The figurative orientation trait is concerned with
normative self-regulation, and the operative orientation trait is concerned
with normative self-organisation – while the two together constitute a first-
order (operative) couple one of which drives the other cybernetically.
There is also a second-order (figurative) couple that links the operative
couple with its cultural environment and involves identity and self-
reference.
Where the cultural orientation of a governing body refers to its political
culture, it is in itself influenced by the ambient host culture in which the
agency is embedded. Social orientation is an extension of the agency
personality that orientates it within the social environment that hosts it.
Both cultural and social traits are therefore part of the agency personality
environment, and both are able to represent changing contexts that influ-
ence personality.
Setting the cultural level of Sagiv–Schwartz enantiomers in a trait space
thereby enables the generation of what we shall call a set of Sagiv–Schwartz
(2007) Mindsets, since as explained earlier, while they come from the same
frame of reference as that of Maruyama, their epistemology arises differ-
ently. This trait space referred to is explained in Table 6.2. As a result, we
are able to generate a set of Sagiv–Schwartz Mindsets, equivalent to those
of Maruyama’s Mindscapes as shown in Table 6.3. This is also represented
in Figure 6.1, where there is an explicit selection of enantiomers that
correspond more of less to the Maruyama Mindscapes, but which do not
show any epistemic incommensurability between them. This is partially
 Table 6.2 Summary of the traits and their bipolar enantiomers for an agency from Sagiv–Schwartz

Trait Trait enantiomer Nature

Cultural (CԎ) e
Sensate (S ) Reality is sensory and material, pragmatism is normal,
Sensory. Pragmatic. there is an interest in becoming rather than being,
Instrumental. and happiness is paramount. People are externally
oriented and tend to be instrumental and empiricism
is important.
Ideational (Id) Reality is super-sensory, morality is unconditional,
Super-sensory. Moral. tradition is of importance, there is a tendency
Creation. towards creation, and examination of self.
Cognitive (cԎ) Intellectual Autonomy (Au) People seen as autonomous, bounded entities who
Autonomy. Uniqueness should find meaning in their own uniqueness and
(heterogenistic). who are encouraged to express their internal
Independent. Self- attributes (preferences, traits, feelings, and motives).
development. Encourages individuals to pursue their own ideas and
intellectual directions independently (important
values: curiosity, broad-mindedness, creativity).
Embeddedness (Em) People are viewed as entities embedded in the
Social relationships. Traditional collectively. Meaning in life comes through social
(homogenestic). Status quo. relationships, identifying with the group,
Order. Solidarity. participating in its shared way of life and striving
towards its shared goals. Such values as social order,
respect for tradition, security, and wisdom are
especially important. Embedded cultures emphasise
maintaining the status quo and restraining actions or
inclinations that might disrupt in-group solidarity or
the traditional order. Embrace responsibility and
duty and commit to shared goals. Connected with
Transactional scripting that constitutes simple
repetition and sameness.
Figurative (fԎ) Mastery (Ma) Encourages active self-assertion to attain group or
Self-assertion. Mastery, personal goals and to master, direct, and change the
Monistic. + natural and social environment (values are:
Affective autonomy ambition, success, daring, competence). It is
Preferences, traits, feelings, basically monistic in nature.
motives. Encourages individuals to pursue affectively positive
experience for themselves (values: pleasure, exciting
life, varied life). Likely to treat others as independent
agencies with their own interests, preferences,
abilities, and allegiances. Others need autonomy to
self-develop own ideas.
Harmony (Ha) Trying to understand and appreciate rather than to
Understanding. Unity, direct or exploit. This orientation emphasises the
Pluralism. goals ‘unity with nature’, ‘protecting the
environment’, and ‘world at peace’. It is basically
pluralistic in nature.
Operative (Ԏo) Hierarchy (Hi) People are socialised to take the hierarchical
Hierarchic. Inequality distribution of roles for granted and to comply with
(heterogenistic). Authority. the obligations and rules attached to their roles. In
Humility. Power. hierarchical cultures, organisations are more likely to
construct a chain of authority in which all are
assigned well-defined roles. There is an expectation
that individuals operate for the benefit of the social
organisation. Sees the unequal distribution of power,
roles, and resources as legitimate (values are: social
power, authority, humility, wealth). This has an
implicit connection with power and power processes.
Table 6.2 (cont.)
Trait Trait enantiomer
Egalitarianism (Eg)
Moral equality. Cooperation.
Equality (homogenesitic).
Social justice. Responsibility.
Honesty. Service.
Social (sԎ) Dramatising (Dr)
Relationalist. Sequential.
Communication. Contracts.
Individualist. Ideocentric.
Patterning (Pa)
Configurations. Relational.
Pattern. Balance.
Collectivist. Allocentric.
Note. Shaded traits are sociocultural; unshaded traits are personality.
Nature
Seeks to induce people to recognise one another as
moral equals who share basic interests as human
beings. People are socialised to internalise
a commitment to co-operate and to feel concern for
everyone’s welfare. They are expected to act for
others’ benefit as a matter of choice (values: equality,
social justice, responsibility, honesty). Organisations
are built on co-operative negotiation among
employees and management. This has an implicit
connection with service to the collective.
Individual relationships to others are important,
constituted as sequences of interpersonal events.
Communication and narrative are important, as are
individuals and their proprietary belief systems, and
individual social contracts. Goal formation should be
for individual benefit. Ideocentric collectives are
important, operating through social contracts
between the rational wills of its individual members.
Configurations are important in social and other forms
of relationships. There is persistent curiosity. The
social is influenced by relationships with individuals.
Some importance is attached to symmetry, pattern,
balance, and the dynamics of relationships. Goal
seeking should be for collective benefit, and
collective goal formation takes precedence over
personal goal formation. Allocentric collectives are
important, where the members operate subjectively.
 Table 6.3 Relating Maruyama Mindscapes and Sagiv–Schwartzian canonical cognitive mode Mindsets, showing their
epistemic relationship

Mindscape mode keyword epistemic characteristics

Broad epistemic mapping
Generic modes (Mindscape ↔Mindset)
of Mindscape Maruyama Mindscapes Sagiv–Schwartz Mindsets commensurabilities

Hierarchical/ H: Hierarchical, Homogenicistic H’(EmHaHiPaId): Social relationships, Homogenistic = Traditional,

bureaucrat (conventionalist), Classification
(neat categories), Universalist,
Sequential, Competitive, Zero
sum, Oppositional, Extension,
One truth, Optimalist, Ethics to
dominate the weak, In-group,
Self-stereotyping, Group
bounded, Prone to collectivism.
Independent/ I: Independent, Heterogenistic
prince (unconventionalist),
Randomising (embraces
uncertainty), Individualistic,
Uniqueness, Negative sum,
Separation, Caprice,
Subjectivity, Self-sufficiency,
Poverty self-inflicted.
Traditional, Status quo, Order,
Solidarity.
Understanding, Unity, Pluralism,
Hierarchical, Inequality, Authority.
Humility. Power.
Configurations, Relational, Pattern,
Balance, Collectivist, Allocentric.
Super-sensory, Moral, Creation, Prone to
Ideational collectivism.
I’(AuMaEgDrSe): Autonomy, Uniqueness,
Independent, Self-development,
Self-assertion, Mastery, Monistic,
Preferences, feelings.
Moral equality. Cooperation. Equality
(homogenesitic). Social justice.
Responsibility. Honesty. Service.
Relationalist, Sequential,
Communication, Contractivist,
Individualist, Ideocentric,
Sensory, Pragmatic, Instrumental, Prone to
sensate individualism.
Universalist = solidarity,
Sequential = Sequential
In-group = Autonomy
Group bounded = [a variety of]
Collectivist.
Zero sum = hierarchy.
Independent = Autonomy
Heterogenistic = Uniqueness
Separation, Individualistic =
Autonomy
Unique= Uniqueness
Subjectivity = Ideocentric
Poverty self-inflicted = Self-
assertion
Negative sum = Individualist.
Table 6.3 (cont.)
Mindscape mode keyword epistemic characteristics
Generic modes
of Mindscape Maruyama Mindscapes
Social/reformer S: Heterogenistic (non-
conventionalist), Interactive,
Pattern-maintaining,
Mutualising, Simultaneous, Co-
operative, Positive sum (mutual
aid through individual
difference so all gain in
interaction), Absorption,
Stability, Polyocularity, Cause–
effect. Harmonious patterning,
Interactions are non-
hierarchical, Self-contained
universe.
Generative/ G: Liberational, Heterogenistic,
revolutionary Interactive, Pattern-generating,
Mutualising, Simultaneous,
Cogenerative, Positive sum,
Sagiv–Schwartz Mindsets
S’(AuHaEgPaSe): Autonomy, Uniqueness,
Independent, Self-development, Order,
Understanding, Unity, Pluralism,
Moral equality, Cooperation, Equality,
Social justice, Responsibility, Honesty,
Service,
Configurations, Relational, Pattern,
Balance, Collectivist, Allocentric,
Sensory, Pragmatic, Instrumental, Prone to
sensate individualism.
G’(AuHaEgPaId): Autonomy, Uniqueness,
Independent, Self-development, Order.
Understanding, Unity, Pluralism,
Broad epistemic mapping
(Mindscape ↔Mindset)
commensurabilities
Interactive = Social relationships
Pattern-maintaining = Pattern
Positive sum = Responsibility
Stability = Balance
Pluralism = Polyocularity,
Mutualising = Moral equality,
Non-hierarchy = Relational,
Instrumental = Cause–effect.
Heterogenistic = uniqueness
Positive sum = social justice
Mutualising = Moral equality
Unfolding, Evolution,
Polyocularity, Pattern-
generating causal loops, Non-
hierarchical, Diversity,
Relational emergence.
Moral equality, Cooperation, Equality,
Social justice, Responsibility, Honesty,
Service,
Configurations, Relational, Pattern,
Balance, Collectivist, Allocentric,
Super-sensory, Creation, Prone to
ideational collectivism.
Pattern-generating causal loops =
Configurations,
Non-hierarchical, Diversity =
Creation,
Positive sum = responsibility
Pluralism = Polyocularity,
Liberational = Self-developing.
Cogenerative = Allocentric +
Creation.
220 From Cognition to Affect
1
Hierarchy Hi
F(iPaId)
HÕ(DrId) C
ĥ(Pi)

Operative trait °Ԏ
Ć(PaId) C(PrId)

HÕ IÕ

Egalitarianism Eg O SÕ(PaSa)
Cognitive trait C Ԏ GÕ(PaId) 1
0 Embeddedness Em Autonomy Au
Harmony Ha

IÕ(PrSa)
Figurative trait Ԏ
F A(DrSa)
N(Pa)

MasteryMa 1

Figure 6.1 Distribution of modes of personality meta-types in a three-dimensional

personality trait space, with sociocultural traits also indicated. Like the relationship
between Individualism and Collectivism, this shows the obverse nature of I and
H Mindscape modes.

shown graphically in Figure 6.1, where the five-trait dimensionality is

reduced to a three-trait geometry representing only personality, the miss-
ing two sociocultural dimensions being indicated symbolically in the trait
space.
So far, we have related Mindscapes to Mindsets. To set up
a configuration that allows Mindsets and Mindscapes to be deemed
equivalent, we need to show that they both ascribe to the same para-
digm. If this is the case, then two requirements must be satisfied. The
first is that both Mindscape and Mindset classes must be seated in the
same frame of reference. The second is that they must also be epistemo-
logically related, even if they maintain epistemic extensions that are not
common. The first requirement is simple: both operate in the same
cybernetic frame of reference, and even use related languaging.
The second requires that an epistemic mapping comes out positive. It
is not too important that the keywords may indicate different epistemic
extensions of the paradigm since their semantic nature may arise else-
where or through alternative interpretation, but it is important that no
incommensurability arise. Table 6.3 has been formulated as a set of
keywords, as listed earlier, to enable an epistemic mapping to occur. It
 Cognition Agency 221
also incorporates some keywords proposed by Boje (2004).
Epistemologically speaking, the Mindsets appear to be the closest
mapping that we can come to the Mindscapes, and there does not
appear to be any epistemic incommensurability. What is important
about Table 6.2 is that the generic Mindset modes that are shown
simply stand for relational combinations of enantiomers. That is, dif-
ferent combinations of enantiomers come to represent different epis-
temological entities.
The three-trait Sagiv–Schwartz personality enantiomers constitute eight
possible cognition Mindset modes. Agency has a five-trait schema which
calls on both the cultural (Se or Id) and social (Dr or Pa) enantiomers and
delivers thirty-two agency possible meta-types. However, there are complica-
tions. While traits are bipolar, composite types may also emerge from the
balance between a bipolar pair of enantiomers, as in the case of the cultural
orientation trait. We shall take it in this chapter that these balance points
indicate that the epistemic elements of both of the bipolar enantiomers can
coexist with equal validly for a given agency. As such balance occurs the
auxiliary function of the alternative poles will mutually support each other.
It should be noted that while in Figure 6.1 we represent the four Sagiv–
Schwartz Mindset modes listed in Table 6.3, it in addition lists four ‘new’
Mindset modes that apparently have not been considered by Maruyama
(though it is likely that one of these is his fifth discarded mode). Their
properties derived from the enantiomers as shown. We shall return to these
new modes shortly.
The trait theory now brings us to another aspect of Mindsets that is due
to the possibility that they can form balances. These appear to represent the
Mindscape mode combinations that Maruyama (1980) discusses briefly.
Now in the personality a balance between two enantiomers of a trait can
arise as illustrated in Figure 6.1, represented by Iʹ and Hʹ. More, taking these
two particular traits to be in balance gives an ‘Independent Hierarchical’
Mindset mode represented by the symbolic combination I’H’ (or equiva-
lently H’I’) for a personality as shown in the illustration in Figure 6.1, by
which we mean
I’H’ = I’H’(cԎ, fԎ, oԎ, sԎ, CԎ), (1)
where Ԏ represents a balanced point between enantiomers for the trait Ԏ,
and where a partly balanced personality occurs over the traits of cԎ and fԎ
(see illustration in Figure 6.1) is indicated. There is some evidence for the
existence of I’H’ when Iʹ and Hʹ Mindset modes are taken to represent
individualism and collectivism. According to Limerick and Cunnington
222 From Cognition to Affect
(1993), ‘collective individualism’ exists as a balanced alternative to either
individualism or collectivism for agencies that are seen as a collective
network, this having epistemic properties that embrace both individualism
and collectivism. A similar representation to that of Equation (1) can
also be applied to SʹHʹ or GʹHʹ since Sʹ and Gʹ are the same in the
personality traits (cԎ, fԎ, oԎ) and for a possible balance in oԎ.
Noting earlier the comment that I and H modes maintain an obverse
relationship, and this must be due (in terms of the Mindsets) to the fact
that the elements that relate to the normative personalities of the agency
draw on polar opposite enantiomers. Maruyama (1988) makes similar
observations about S and G modes, but in terms of the Mindsets this is
due to the fact that they adopt opposite cultural and social trait enantio-
mers. This provides an interesting recognition about Mindscapes, that
I and H are obverse modes with respect to the agency, while S and
G modes are obverse representatives of cultural modes.
There are also other symbolic Mindscape combinations possible that
arise from the inclusion of CԎ, and sԎ. What this means is that an agency
may have a Mindset that is balanced in some respects. It also implies that
just as all collective agencies have the four canonical Mindsets together in
some proportion and with their proprietary patterns of dominance, there
also exist a variety of balanced trait Mindsets. It can be seen from Figure 6.1
that from these four canonical Mindset modes it is possible to generate
eight Mindsets with some traits in balance for a personality.
It is appropriate now to suggest some illustrations to postulate some
possibilities that explain what we mean by balance. We earlier consider the
cultural trait CԎ with its enantiomers Sn and Id, and when culture is
balanced (CԎ) it becomes idealistic – symbolised as Sn∩Id. In this case
there is no domination by either sensate (Sn) or ideational (Id) values.
Rather a synergy occurs between them, and both forms of value sets are
regarded and valid. Thus, Id people might find themselves in significant
social roles just as will Sn people, a situation not possible in
a predominantly ideational or sensate culture. These roles will depend on
the strengths of the individuals. So, for instance, creative people and
instrumentalists may work in synergy resulting in new material outputs.
This proposition implies that while the formative trait may be continuous,
there are only three stable states that a trait may adopt: each bipolar
extremum, and a mutually supportive role.
A related explanation can be applied to the other traits. So, for instance,
in the balanced operative trait Ԏo the enantiomers of hierarchy and
egalitarianism create the composite Hi∩Eg, when we might find that
 Cognition Agency 223
a social collective operates through a politics of instrumental democracy in
which participation is just token. Full participation would provide mech-
anism for civil society (within a western civilisation context) to directly
participate in the political decision-making processes. Historically instru-
mental democracy arose as we know it during the balanced idealistic period
of culture that started after the 1600s, notably after the western develop-
ment of the printing press. As the west moved to the polar sensate culture
after the industrial revolution, it in due course achieved an unstable post-
sensate mode. Currently, even though we operate a balanced operative trait
as part of our political system, not all western leaders have Mindsets with
balanced traits.
With respect to the figurative trait fԎ an enantiomer balance between
mastery + affective autonomy and harmony would be Ma∩Ha and might
refer to situations in which goal achievement is constrained by arguments
of sustainability within a global context. This has been brought on through
crises that have demanded attention be paid to the environment as a finite
and damageable resource. It would appear to have arisen within the current
unstable cultural period with the temporary rise of idealistic culture as we
gradually move through social chaos towards stable ideationalism, when-
ever this may happen.
The cognitive trait CԎ refers to the balance between intellectual auton-
omy and embeddedness giving Au∩Em, and one form of this in an
organisational context that might involve the harnessing of individual self-
development to help create improved group development through broader
access to knowledge, as might be promoted for instance through
a knowledge-based social. Such a balance has been proposed by culturally
idealistic thinkers, but this is not the norm for social collectives. It is still
the case in many organisations that knowledge is local and there is no
consciousness of knowledge sharing.
In the case of the social orientation trait Ԏs, balance between dramatists
and patterners is Dr∩Pa, and might refer to an organisational situation in
which social structures support collective goals of groups being pursued
through ‘approved’ individual goals synergistically, where both take equal
precedence.
Returning to the bipolar case of thirty-two options, these may be
reduced when, for instance social orientation represents a technical rather
than substantive difference. Technically the number of traits could be
reduced during a micro-level study that looks at the impact of intelligences,
efficacy and pathologies on traits, and permits empirical analysis of given
situations. In this case significantly high correlations may emerge between
224 From Cognition to Affect
certain traits reducing their use as independent entities, for instance when
individualistic attitudes have a strong impact on cognitive, strategic, and
operative choices. A more macroscopic level explanation that may allow us
to diminish the significance of some of the many Mindscape modes can be
made too. While the cultural trait is orthogonal to the personality traits, it
has a commanding cybernetic role in its interactions with personality that
may constrain the importance of some modes. In Section 6.4 we referred to
the relationship between the cultural orientation trait and the agency
orientation towards particular types of normative personality. Thus, for
instance ideational culture occurs during its upswing period, when Sʹ and
Gʹ Mindsets take ascendancy, and during a cultural decline. Sensate
culture, femininity, and individualism become more dominant. It also
appears to be the case that during the dominance of a sensate culture its
social institutions are more hierarchical, leading to the dominance of Hʹ or
Iʹ mode Mindscapes.
Returning now to the ‘new’ modes in Figure 6.1, we can attempt to
identify their natures from Table 6.4. In this table we distinguish between
polar Mindscape (i.e., a pole and its polar obverse) modes that in essence
create a dichotomous pair, and which will be briefly explained shortly. To
identify their natures, we shall recall that (Iʹ, Hʹ) and (Sʹ, Gʹ) paired modes
are each obverse one to the other with respect to some point of reference.
Now the primary distinction between the original Maruyama set of four
Mindscape modes and the other ‘new’ Mindset modes is that Iʹ and Hʹ
take polar opposite characteristics to each other within the context of the
agency as a whole, while Sʹ and Gʹ take polar opposite characteristics to
each other within the context of the agency’s cultural extension from
a flexible centre of reference. None of the other modes take on such clear
polar positions, and thus may be considered to be less important as
indicators of overall dynamic processes of the agency.
This brings to us realise that the only way in which we are able to
construct the Maruyama Mindscape modes from Savig–Schwartz
Mindset characteristics is to establish Mindset modes that operate as
regional reflections of the enantiomers that are the properties of
a formative trait. The highlight of this is the recognition that (Iʹ, Hʹ)
and (Sʹ, Gʹ) are both pairwise modes offering different dynamics of
change to the agency. This also allows us a simple way of naming the
remaining twenty modes in terms of their pairwise dynamics, as shown
in Table 6.4. Each of the twenty-four Mindset modes has arguments that
occur with the following order: Trait ordering: (Cognitive, Figurative,
Operative, Social, Cultural), however, within the context of Table 6.4,
Table 6.4 Keyword characteristics of Mindset modes, where Iʹ and Hʹ are opposites for the agency ass a whole and Sʹ and Gʹ for culture
Paired Mindset modes with associated Mindscape names
Region of pairwise
dynamic Pole Nature
Whole agency Mindscape: Independent/ Autonomy. Uniqueness.
Prince Independent. Self-
I’(AuMaEgPaSe) development.
Self-assertion. Mastery.
Monistic.
Moral equality. Cooperation.
Equality (homogenesitic).
Social justice. Responsibility.
Honesty. Service.
Relationalist. Sequential.
Communication.
Contractivist. Individualist.
Ideocentric.
Sensory. Pragmatic.
Instrumental. Prone to
Sensate individualism.
Normative N(AuMaEg{DrIe/PaId}) Autonomy. Uniqueness.
personality Independent. Self-
(relative to whole development. Self-assertion.
agency) Self-assertion. Mastery.
Monistic.
Obverse pole Nature
Mindscape: Hierarchical/ Social relationships.
Bureaucrat. Traditional. Status quo.
H’(EmHaHiDrId) Order. Solidarity.
Understanding. Unity.
Pluralism. Zero sum.
Hierarchical. Inequality.
Authority. Humility. Power.
Relationalist. Sequential.
Communication. Contractivist.
Individualist. Ideocentric.
Super-sensory. Moral.
Creation. Prone to ideational
collectivism.
Ň(EmHaHiPaId) Social relationships.
Plus obverse influence Traditional. Status quo.
from whole agency. Order. Solidarity.
Solidarity. Understanding.
Unity. Pluralism.
Table 6.4 (cont.)

Paired Mindset modes with associated Mindscape names

Region of pairwise
dynamic Pole Nature Obverse pole Nature

Moral equality. Cooperation. Hierarchical. Inequality.

Equality (homogenesitic).
Social justice. Responsibility.
Honesty. Service.
{plus respective variations from
one of Dr, Pa, and Id}
Cognitive system Ĉ (EmMaHi{PaSe/DrId/ Autonomy. Uniqueness.
(relative to whole PaId}): Independent. Self-
agency). Plus obverse influence development. Self-assertion.
from normative Self-assertion. Mastery.
personality. Monistic.
Hierarchical. Inequality.
Authority. Humility. Power.
Relationalist.
{plus respective variations from
one of Dr, Pa, Se and Id}
Figurative system Obverse influence from
(relative to whole normative personality.
agency).
Authority. Humility. Power.
Relationalist.
Relationalist. Sequential.
Communication.
Contractivist. Individualist.
Ideocentric.
Super-sensory. Moral.
Creation. Prone to Ideational
collectivism.
C(AuHaHi{PaSe/DrId/ Autonomy. Uniqueness.
PaId}): Independent. Self-
development. Self-assertion.
Solidarity. Understanding.
Unity, Pluralism.
Hierarchical. Inequality.
Authority. Humility. Power.
Relationalist.
{plus respective variations from
one of Dr, Pa, Se and Id}
F(EmMaEg{PaSe/DrId/ Social relationships.
PaId}) Traditional. Status quo.
Order. Solidarity.
 Self-assertion. Mastery.
Monistic.
Moral equality. Cooperation.
Equality (homogenesitic).
Social justice. Responsibility.
Honesty. Service.
{plus respective variations from
one of Dr, Pa, Se and Id}
Operative system Obverse influence from O(EmHaEg{PaSe/DrId/ Social relationships.
(relative to whole whole sociocultural PaId}) Traditional. Status quo.
agency). traits. Order. Solidarity.
Understanding. Unity.
Pluralism.
Hierarchical. Inequality.
Authority. Humility. Power.
Relationalist. Sequential.
{plus respective variations from
one of Dr, Pa, Se and Id}
Culture Mindscape: Autonomy. Uniqueness. Mindscape: Generative/ Autonomy. Uniqueness.
Social/ Independent. Self- Revolutionary Independent. Self-
Reformer development. G’(AuHaEgPaId) development.
S’(AuHaEgPaSe) Order. Understanding. Unity. Understanding. Unity.
Pluralism. Pluralism.
Moral equality. Cooperation. Moral equality. Cooperation.
Equality. Social justice. Equality. Social justice.
Responsibility. Honesty. Responsibility. Honesty.
Service. Service.
Table 6.4 (cont.)

Paired Mindset modes with associated Mindscape names

Region of pairwise
dynamic Pole Nature Obverse pole Nature

Configurations. Relational. Configurations. Relational.

Pattern. Balance. Pattern. Balance.
Collectivist. Allocentric. Collectivist. Allocentric.
Sensory. Pragmatic. Super-sensory. Creation.
Instrumental. Prone to Prone to Ideational
sensate individualism. collectivism.
Social (relative to A(AuMaEgDrSe) Self-assertion. Mastery. Obverse influence from
whole agency) Monistic. normative personality
Moral equality. Cooperation.
Equality (homogenesitic).
Social justice. Responsibility.
Honesty. Service.
Relationalist. Sequential.
Communication.
Contractivist. Individualist.
Ideocentric.
Relationalist. Sequential.
Communication. Contracts.
Individualist. Ideocentric.
Sensory. Pragmatic.
Instrumental. Prone to
sensate individualism

Note. Other modes interact cybernetically.

 Cognition Agency 229
we adopt the scheme (Cognitive, Figurative, Operative, {permutations of
Social, Cultural}) using the brackets {} in order reduce the number of
modes listed. Of course, we should note that while Maruyama’s appre-
ciation that the four Mindscapes he identified are dominant ones, the
others may occur individually or in combination through balances
between enantiomers.
From Table 6.4 it can be seen that Sʹ and Gʹ Mindset modes are obverse
components through their cultural trait, and hence indicators of cultural
condition. Moreover, Iʹ and Hʹ Mindset modes operate as obverse whole
agency entities, and thus act as an agency resultant in the large. In contrast,
there is a new normative personality mode N which is influenced by its
obverse element Ň as well as that which arises from the I mode of the
agency. There are similarly figurative and operative level centred
Mindscape modes that represent each region of the agency in general
terms, but which are each influenced either by the agency or its parts
directly. While the traits adopt enantiomers, these are themselves con-
trolled to some extent by the outcome Mindscapes which are themselves
under tension. In this way, since these tensions constitute a means by
which, just as traits may shift their values between enantiomers, so the
Mindscape modes also subject to shifts over time. In addition, both trait
type values and Mindscape modes may be subject to drift during the onset
of chaotic situations under cultural decline. What becomes an interesting
outcome of this aspect of the study in this chapter is that while traits act as
controllers for the subsystems of an agency, Mindscape (and hence
Mindset) modes in different regions of the agency seem to operate as
standards against on which the traits can draw. There are implications
for this with respect to the creation of strategic policy created by the agency
normative personality. I and H Mindscape modes tend to seek oppos-
itional policies that are reflective of the current state of the social agency as
a whole. S and G modes are more flexible than either, each responding to
the cultural condition of the social agency. N modes are good at taking
responsibility for the formulation of agency strategic policy that guides its
decision-making, though in doing so can be kept in check by agency I and
H modes from their own perspectives, or others. All of these Mindscape
modes operate interactively in the mix of a social collective agency. Under
pathologies, the interactive control nature of I or H modes on N modes can
break down, so for instance strategic policy can be made without reference
to the agency as a whole and a synergy problem arises between policy and
social agency expectation.
230 From Cognition to Affect
This type of discussion is an illustration that the twenty-four different
Mindset modes have different enantiomer constitution, take different inter-
ests, have different competences, and are susceptible to the creation of
different pathologies. In agency they therefore each have a role that is their
own, one that can be anticipated with respect to cognitive processes and
behaviours, especially under interaction with others under definable contexts.

6.4 Chapter in Brief

• The cognition agency is a theoretical development that configures

cognition with traits on which its orientation is dependent.
• By cognition is meant the nature and outcome of the immanent and
adventitious influences that impact agency. Immanent influences are
the result of internal agency dynamics, while adventitious influences are
a result of external interactions.
• Cognitive processes that result in behaviour are not always accessible to
conscious agency reflection.
• The cognition agency has a character defined through its traits.
• These traits refer to agency variables that are formative in that they offer
fundamental control and characterising functions.
• Traits have extreme/polar type values called enantiomers that define
their possible penchants.
• Cognition agency has five traits – three belong to personality that
together create personality types that define its orientation, and two to
socioculture. The five traits together create agency type that has an
orientation determined by the collective trait penchants.
• Trait penchants are defined through their epistemic properties.
• Traits establish regulatory processes that enable stable patterns of
behaviour.
• Different traits have different control functions thereby reflecting dif-
ferent agency characteristics.
• Agency has an internal and external environment, as does personality.
The environment of personality is its agency.
• The trait nature of personality interacts with its trait environment
composed of sociocultural traits.
• Agency ability to create performance is a function of its capacity to
process information efficaciously. This is dependent on trait type values
that can bias information.
 Cognition Agency 231
• Agency cultural orientation controls what is culturally legitimate in the
agency, while social orientation controls how the agency reacts to the
perceived needs of what it identifies as its environment, including
others.
• Cultural orientation is core to agency contributing to its durability.
• Culturally based agency are dynamic systems constantly in a state of
change generated by properties of the system.
• Cultural systems have the capacity to convert cultural adaptations into
evolutionary process.
• Agency evolution is a distinct dynamic process operating as a complex
adaptive system that acquires information about its environment and its
interactions within it that are examined for regularities resulting in
internalised schemas.
• The principle of immanent change explains the dynamics of culture
through its cultural trait. The principle states that a durable social
system changes by virtue of its own forces and properties, and it cannot
help changing even if all external conditions are constant. The same
principle applies to the other four agency traits.
• Agency has five formative traits with regulatory ability. Of these, three
belong to personality and two are sociocultural traits.
• The sociocultural traits include the cultural trait that may take types
values of sensate or ideational penchants, or some mix between them,
while the social trait may take the type value of patterning or dramatis-
ing penchant, or some mix between them.
• A sensate penchant is connected with material needs, while an ideational
penchant is connected with needs of the psyche. Patterning, with needs
from its psyche, is connected with persistent curiosity about the world,
and dramatising which is connected with the material is concerned with
sequences of personal events.
• Personality is the home for the cognitive, figurative, and operative traits.
• The cognitive trait involves intellectual autonomy (connected with the
psyche) that delivers meaning for self, or embeddedness (connected with
the material) which is concerned with social order. There may also be
some mix between these enantiomer penchants.
• The figurative trait may take the trait type value of mastery plus affective
autonomy, connected with the material and relating to social goals, or
harmony which has a penchant in the psyche that is connected with
understanding and the avoidance of disturbance. There may also be
a mix between these penchants.
232 From Cognition to Affect
• The operative trait may take the type value of hierarchy, a material
penchant, where one must comply with obligations and the role rules
they imply. Alternatively egalitarianism, with a penchant towards the
psyche, adopts the view that others with related interests are morally
equal.
• The traits accumulate into a set of Mindsets that determine the character
of the agency.
• Eight stable cognition Mindsets types have been identified that identify
agency orientations. However, it is possible to combine these enabling
an infinite variety Mindsets due to the variable dynamics of the traits
that compose them.
• From this there also arises the idea that two measures can arise, agency
orientation and personality orientation.
 chapter 7

Cognition Personality

7.1 Introduction
Let us be reminded that there is a distinction between agency orienta-
tion and its personality orientation, the former including sociocultural
traits. Here interest will centre on personality traits in a little more
depth.
Sociocognitive theory provides a conceptual framework that explains
how agencies make choices and motivate and regulate their behaviour on
the basis of belief systems which is the foundation of agency (Bandura,
1997). An agency may be a unitary/singular entity (e.g., an individual) or
a plural or collective entity (group decisions that still require each individ-
ual’s effort and choice; Bandura, 2001).
Interest in plural agency concerns a population of agents that act
together under a common culture within which norms that guide its
modes of being and behaviour. The plural agency (related to the idea of
the first-person plural; Sellars, 1963) is here taken as a social ‘living’ social
viable system illustrated in Figure 7.1, defined to be ‘living’ through it
autopoietic nature which will be explained shortly.
A plural agency operates through its collective norms, and its strategic
component is referred to as its normative personality. These norms are due
to its culture which influences its normative personality and that is respon-
sible for attitudes, strategies, and the decision-making imperatives. The
nature of the normative personality can be represented through a set of
three traits that determines agency’s mode of collective thinking and its
behavioural orientation. It is an intelligent, self-organising, proactive, self-
regulating, and self-organising body that is participative in creating its own
behaviour and contributors to its own life’s circumstances (Yolles, Fink, &
Dauber, 2011). These properties, however, may be susceptible to patholo-
gies that damage its social health.
233
234
Figurative intelligence &
network of thematic
processes sensitive to
context
From Cognition to Affect
Operative intelligence &
manifestation of task-
related behaviour

Cognitive Figurative Operative

System System System
Conceptual Figurative elaboration Structural execution
identification Figurative purposes Operative intention
Cognitive interest

Operative intelligence &

Figurative intelligence regeneration of
& regeneration of network of operative
conceptual processes through
identification evaluated operative
through evaluated experience
experience

Figure 7.1 Core concept of a Cognitive Living System.

Due to its properties, agency may be considered to be a broadly viable

system that develops strategies as part of its socially ‘living’ processes that
enables it to develop policies, the consequence of which include issues of
sustainability. The core representation of a living agency (Figure 7.1) is
a subsystem composed of three ontologically distinct interconnected sys-
tems. The cognitive system offers an important directive for the living
supersystem since it is here that identity constructs occur that act as
a referent field of influence for the rest of the supersystem. Seeing these
systems in terms of fields of influence, the cognitive system operates as
a field attractor for the supersystem as a whole. Operative intelligence is
constituted simply as an autopoietic network of processes that enables
cognitive system activity to become manifested operatively (Schwarz,
1997), and this is conditioned by autogenesis – a network of principles
(that may be seen as second or higher order processes) that create a second-
order form of autopoiesis guiding autopoiesis. The conceptual system
maintains conceptual entities that act as a formative reference for the
figurative system in which conceptual entities are manifested through
autogenesis as structured schematic entities, which create a strategic poten-
tial for the supersystem. The operative system functions through struc-
tured operative entities, manifested by autopoiesis from the figurative
system, and from which together with stimuli from its operative environ-
ment it undertakes its operative functions. Feedback between each of the
systems enables the supersystem as a whole to learn.
Figurative intelligence is an autogenesetic network of second-order
processes that facilitates an ability to create, organise, and prioritise
 Cognition Personality 235
according to some cognitive interest associated with self-identification that
permeates the cognitive system for a given operative context. Autopoiesis
occurs as a network of processes that are used to connect elaborated
figurative schemas to a set of possible operative actions that conform to
these schemas under the given context. Responses may be fed back to the
figurative and cognitive system so as to amplify or supress particular
figurative schemas or conceptual identifications. The figurative intelligence
conduit is a generator of the strategic (or figurative schema) laws through
which the agency operates, and an operative intelligence conduit is
a generator for operative laws and relationships (Schwarz, 1997).
While Figure 7.1 is a representation of the core concept of a living
system, such an agency is represented in its simplest terms in Figure 7.2,
which includes indication of both operative and figurative feedback. In the
context of this generic model, the form of figurative intelligence taken is
dependent on culture, and hence it is referred to as cultural (figurative)
intelligence, while the operative intelligence is referred to as agency opera-
tive intelligence.
For Piaget (cited in Elkind, 1976: 56), process intelligence is something
that creates an internal connective orientation within an agency (or its
personality) towards its environment. This orientation is connected to the
capacity of the agency to adapt (Plucker, 2012: Piaget, 1963: 3–4). The
Piagetian (1977) intelligences include operative and figurative forms that
frame how the world is understood.
Operative intelligence is concerned with the representation and
manipulation of the transformational aspects of reality, and involves all
actions that are undertaken so as to anticipate, follow, or recover the

Cultural (figurative) Agency operative

intelligence intelligence

Cultural Agency
Personality
System Operative
System
Cultural Epistemic System
Figurative schemas
patterns (of Structure and
(goals, ideology,
knowledge), cultural imperativesfor
ethics, self-schema)
identity decisions

Agency operative
Cultural (figurative) intelligence feedback
intelligence feedback

Figure 7.2 Generic model for a Living System Agency.

236 From Cognition to Affect
operative transformations. It also refers to highly integrated and general-
ised sets of actions that are adaptive in nature (Schoenfeld, 1986). It can
thus be thought of as the effective capacity to create a cycle of activity that
manifests schemas operatively. There are two forms of operative intelli-
gence illustrated in Figure 7.2: one is connected with the agency as a whole,
and the other with its normative personality, and both have similar
functions. Personality operative intelligence manifests strategic schemas
from the figurative system to the operative system. Agency operative
intelligence manifests agency schemas from the personality as a whole to
the agency operative system. While both personality and agency operative
intelligences are constituted as a network of self-producing processes, in
the agency they involve bureaucracy – this being responsible for the
implementation of policy that arises from the normative personality.
Figurative intelligence is a form of autogenesis (Schwarz, 1997; Yolles,
Fink, & Dauber, 2011) that provides core relational explanations of reality
as a reflection of epistemic patterns of knowledge or cognitive information.
Connected with states of reality, it manifests epistemic patterns in the
figurative system to enable strategic schema. These schemas may be con-
stituted as perception, drawing, mental imagery, language, and imitation
(Montangero & Maurice-Naville, 1997; Piaget, 1950; Piaget & Inhelder
1969).
Further development of Figure 7.2 is possible, noting that the nature of
the core generic model in Figure 7.1 is that it is recursive (Yolles, 2006), and
this permits one to represent fractal ‘living systems’ within the living
system. Deeper recursions are also possible with the caveat that they
make sense and are meaningful within the context that is defined for
them. A full representation of an agency, involving culture, a normative
personality, and an operative system in contact with an environment, is
was shown in Figure 4.3.
The normative personality is a strategic supersystem within the agency
that has within it a cognitive, figurative, and operative system. The cogni-
tive system is where cultural knowledge has been delivered as patterns of
conceptual information that are directly relevant to active contextual
situations. It is here where context sensitive patterns of information reside
that can inform both strategic and operative needs. Where concepts of
sustainability are important to the agency and there is knowledge about
how this may occur, then patterns of sustainability information will be
identifiable here. It is here that values about sustainability must be mani-
fested from culture, or they simply reside in the background without
strategic action.
 Cognition Personality 237
The figurative system is where personality schemas reside as patterns of
strategic information which include goals, ideology, ethics, and self-
schema (this latter reflecting how an agency is expected to think, feel,
and behave in a particular situation in a way that is related to the percep-
tion of self; Crisp & Turner, 2010). It is here that through purpose schema
are formulated that need to embed the principles of sustainability that are
derived from the cognitive system, and which can be expressed through
ideology and ethics, and specified through goals. Ideology and ethics
interact here with other strategic schemas. While sustainability is a part
of ideology it can inform strategic goals. If this does not happen, then
either the sustainability concept is ideologically suppressed, or the inter-
action between then is pathological.
The operative system maintains patterns of structured information
which enable decision to be formulated and executed. Here, decisions are
made to enable strategic schemas to be manifested operatively, and accord-
ing to strategic interests. Here these interests are related to sustainability, so
decisions about a raft of specifications are made to enable operative
sustainable operational processes to develop.
The intelligences couple these systems together. Both operative and
figurative intelligence are networks of (respectively first- and second-
order cybernetic) processes that are the result of collective actions that
have occurred between components of the plural agency (e.g., cooperation
among departments or project activities including communications).
These intelligences are susceptible to pathologies, and may be due to
poor communications, poor distribution of current knowledge, poor atti-
tudes, or cultural incoherence due to a lack of normative definition. The
intelligences may be seen as a network of relational processes of transform-
ation of a definable set of components of a given domain of the living
system that (1) through their interactions and transformations, continu-
ously regenerate, realise and adapt the relations that produce them; and (2)
constitute its sociocognitive nature as a concrete unity.
Here it may be seen that there are two forms of figurative intelligence in
the agency: cultural (figurative) intelligence and personality figurative
intelligence. Cultural (figurative) intelligence is used when knowledge is
manifested from agency culture to the cognitive system in the personality
as conceptual information. Through figurative intelligence within the
personality, this information is then again manifested as a variety of
strategic forms of schema like goals, ideology, ethics, and self-scripts the
latter of which connect strategic expectations with operative structure and
behaviour.
238 From Cognition to Affect
An agency is interactive with an environment that may include other
agencies. It functions through behavioural intelligence, as represented
through its overt actions (Ang et al., 2007: 6). Behavioural intelligence is
connected with how policy developed in the personality is implemented. It
occurs as a ‘structural coupling’ (Maturana & Varela, 1987), meaning that
there is an epistemic relationship between two ‘living system coupled
entities’, which create an interactive connection between their past, pre-
sent, and future histories.
Operative intelligence within an agency is always potentially able to
deliver information in a way that is efficacious, impacting on operative
performance. In the plural agency, this is normally referred to as collective
efficacy. Lindsley, Brass, and Thomas (1995), citing Guzzo et al. (1993: 9),
note that efficacy is a task specific potency that is meant to refer to a shared
belief about general effectiveness across multiple tasks encountered by
groups in complex environments. However, the incorporation of the
word belief adheres to a constructivist view of the term. From a critical
realist perspective, efficacy can also be taken as the capability an agency has
to organise and implement a series of actions to produce given attainments
or performances (Bandura, 1977, 1986; Wood & Bandura, 1989). This
capability is influenced by the capacity of operative intelligence to generate
coherence, and (as noted by Bandura, 2005: 316) an agency’s interactive,
coordinative, and synergistic dynamics. Efficacy, through feedback to the
figurative system, has also been seen to affect goal setting, choice of activity,
amount of effort that will be expended, analytic strategies, and persistence
of coping behaviour (Bandura, 1977; Wood & Bandura, 1989; cited in
Lindsley, Brass & Thomas, 1995: 647).
Efficacy can also refer to figurative intelligence where it is concerned
with the relationship between cognitive conceptualisation that are con-
nected with cultural knowledge, and figurative schemas that include self-
schemas, goals, ideology, and ethics. Efficacy is reduced with the develop-
ment of pathologies Pi,j in Figure 4.3, where (i,j) are such that they indicate
type i = 1,4 and order j = 1,2. These pathologies can result in agency
dysfunction.

7.2 Agency Cognition Traits and Mindsets

When referring to normative personality we recall that reference is being
made to the norms in a collective that may together coalesce into a unitary
cognitive structure such that a collective mind can be inferred, and from
which an emergent normative personality arises. To explain this further,
 Cognition Personality 239
consider that a potentially durable collective develops a dominant culture
within which shared beliefs arise in relation to its capacity to produce
desired operative outcomes. Cultural anchors arise which enable the devel-
opment of formal and informal norms to which patterns of behaviour,
modes of conduct and expression, forms of thought, attitudes, and values
are more or less adhered to by those that compose the plural agency. When
the norms refer to formal behaviours, then where the members of the
collective contravene them, they are deemed to be engaging in illegitimate
behaviour which, if discovered, may result in formal retribution – the
severity of which is determined from the agency’s ideological and ethical
positioning. This occurs with the rise of collective cognitive processes that
start with information inputs and through communication and decision
processes result in a predilection towards action; and it does this with
a sense of the collective mind and self. It is a short step to recognise that the
collective mind has associated with it a normative personality. Where
a normative personality is deemed to exist, it does not necessarily mean
that individual members of the collective will all conform to all aspects of
the normative processes: they may only do so ‘more or less’. According to
Yolles (2009b), as long as a plural agency has a durable culture to which
participants more or less conform through its norms, a ‘collective mind’ is
implied that operates through meaningful dialogue and agreement. As
such the plural agency may appear to behave more or less like a unitary/
singular cognition agency. While the plural agency is ultimately composed
of singular agencies, they are similar, can suffer from related pathologies
that include: dysfunctions, neuroses, feelings of guilt, adopt and maintain
collective psychological defences that reduce pain through denial and
cover-up, and operate through processes of power that might be unpro-
ductive (Kets de Vries, 1991).
In the same way that singular agencies learn, so do plural agencies. The
capacity of the normative personality for learning is represented through
cognitive learning theory (e.g., Miller & Dollard, 1941; Miller et al., 1960;
Piaget, 1950; Vygotsky, 1978; Argyris & Schön, 1978; Nobre, 2003; Argote
& Todorova, 2007), where ‘learning is seen in terms of the acquisition or
reorganization of the cognitive structures through which agencies process
and store information’ (Good & Brophy, 1990: 187). Set within cognitive
information process theory, the collective mind is seen as an information
system that operates through a set of logical mental rules, and strategies
(e.g., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Bowlby, 1980; Novak, 1993; Wang, 2007).
The agency model has epistemic value properties that determine its
characteristics, and hence enable anticipation for the patterns of behaviour
240 From Cognition to Affect
that are likely to develop. These characteristics determine its value system,
its attitudes, its modus operandi, and its potential for behaviour under
given contexts. The nature of the normative personality can change. In the
plural agency it is determined by its membership that defines its self-
schema. The characterisation of a normative personality can be determined
by three traits, one for each of the personality systems, and each takes one
of two polar opposite values (called enantiomers), or a balance between
them. Let us extract the personality traits that define personality from the
agency traits provided in the last chapter, as shown in Table 7.1. The nature
of these types is that they fall into one of two broad classifications,
individualism, and collectivism, which we shall discuss now.

7.3 Individualism, Collectivism, and Mindsets

Following Oyserman, Coon, and Kemmelmeier (2002), individualism is
the doctrine that all social phenomena (their structure and potential to
change) are in principle explicable only in terms of individuals – for
instance their properties, goals, and beliefs. In contrast, collectivism in
principle and ideally relates to people coming together in a collective to act
unitarily through normative processes in order to satisfy some commonly
agreed and understood purpose or interest. Agencies that strongly adopt
either individualism or collectivism have realities that are differently
framed, and hence maintain ontologically distinct boundaries constituting
frames of reality, which could represent barriers for coherent meaningful
mutual communications across these agencies. Individualism and collect-
ivism are very broad concepts and can mean quite different things to
different cultures. Nevertheless, Gelfand et al. (1995) believed that an
undifferentiated view of individualism and collectivism presented
a satisfactory way of seeing them. However, Schwartz (1994) had found
this unsatisfactory, and had replaced the broad notions of individualism
and collectivism by his differentiated value universe devoid of reference to
individualism and collectivism. It is also worth noting that Schwartz did
not perceive individualism and collectivism as mutually exclusive oppos-
ites, but referred to values, e.g., wisdom, that are related to both, which
have a mutually supportive role to play.
Different authors give different weight to specific aspects and illustrate
their perceptions of individualism and collectivism with ‘two-word’ con-
structs, like for instance in economics ‘methodological individualism’
versus ‘methodological institutionalism’ (Davis, Marciano, & Runde,
2004), or more common to politics ‘transactional individualism’ versus
 Table 7.1 Bipolar traits normative personality traits

Traits Dimensions/poles Values/items Key words

Cognitive Intellectual Meaning is found in the uniqueness of the individual that Autonomy, creativity, expressivity, curiosity,
autonomy is encouraged to express internal attributes (preferences, broad-mindedness.
traits, feelings, motives). Intellectual autonomy takes it
that individuals are encouraged to pursue their own
ideas and intellectual directions independently
(important values: curiosity, broad-mindedness,
creativity). Values are: exciting life, enjoying live, varied
life, pleasure, and self-indulgence.
Embeddedness Meaning in life can be found largely through social Polite, obedient, forgiving, respect tradition, self-
relationships, identifying with the group, discipline, moderate, social order, family
participating in a shared way of life, and the adoption security, protect my public image, national
of shared goals. Values like social order, respect for security, honour elders, reciprocation of
tradition, security, and wisdom are important. There favours.
tends to be a conservative attitude in that support is
provided for the status quo and restraining actions
against inclinations towards the possible disruption
of in-group solidarity or the traditional order.
Figurative Mastery + Promotes the view that active self-assertion is needed in Ambition, success, daring, competence, exciting
Affective autonomy order to master, direct, and change the natural and life, enjoying live, varied life, pleasure, and self-
social environment to attain group or personal goals indulgence.
(values: ambition, success, daring, competence). Tends Acceptance of portion in life, world at peace,
to be dynamic, competitive, and oriented to protect environment, unity with nature, world
achievement and success, and are likely to develop and of beauty.
use technology to manipulate and change the
environment to achieve goals. Affective autonomy
pursues positive affective experience. Values are:
exciting life, enjoying live, varied life, pleasure, and self-
indulgence.
Table 7.1 (cont.)

Traits Dimensions/poles Values/items Key words

Harmony The world should be accepted as it is, with attempts to Social power, authority, humility, wealth.
understand and appreciate rather than to change,
direct, or exploit. Emphasis on fitting harmoniously
into the environment (values: unity with nature,
protecting the environment, world at peace). There
is an expectation that there will be a fit into the
surrounding social and natural world. Leaders that
adopt this type try to understand the social and
environmental implications of organisational
actions, and seek non-exploitative ways to work
towards their goals.
Operative Hierarchy Supports the ascription of roles for individuals to ensure Quality, social justice, responsibility, honesty,
responsible, productive behaviour. Unequal loyal, equality, honesty, helpful, cooperation.
distribution of power, roles, and resources are seen to
be legitimate (values: social power, authority,
humility, wealth). The hierarchical distribution of
roles is taken for granted and to comply with the
obligations and rules attached to their roles.
Egalitarianism There is a recognition of others being moral equals who Loyal, equality, responsible, honest, social justice,
share basic interests. There is an internalisation of helpful.
a commitment towards cooperation, and to feelings
of concern for everyone’s welfare. There is an
expectation that people will act for the benefit of
others as a matter of choice (values: equality, social
justice, responsibility, honesty).
 Cognition Personality 243
‘relational collectivism’ (Herrmann-Pillath, 2009; Tangen, 2009;
Glasman et al., 2011). However, we also find the use of the same term
to describe different constructs, like ‘conservative individualism’ as
opposed to ‘socialist (or collective) individualism.’ The respective pairs
strongly depend on the ideological position of those who adopt the terms
as ideology is seated in the personality. Here, different weight may be
given to the intellectual, spiritual, economic, or social aspects of ‘indi-
vidualism’, or on the intellectual, spiritual, economic, or social aspects of
‘equality’, or on the ‘right to enjoy’ individual achievements without
boundaries or ‘responsibilities’ to take care of other human beings and of
natural resources.
Even so, we will show that the Schwartz value universe has powerful
explanatory value for individualism/collectivism when related to concepts
of Sorokin (Yolles & Fink, 2013, 2014a). Individualism/collectivism can
then be taken to operate as broad categories, with some consistent differ-
entiation within the categories.
Broadly speaking, individualism is mostly directly related to Intellectual
Autonomy, and Mastery + Affective autonomy, while collectivism is
mostly directly related to Harmony and Embeddedness. Since there are
some forms of hierarchy that are practiced by individualists and by power
holders of societies with an orientation towards embeddedness, the con-
struct of Hierarchy and its opposite enantiomer Egalitarianism may not be
directly linked with individualism/collectivism.
Different aspects of the relations between individualism and collectiv-
ism were identified by Tamis-LeMonda et al. (2008), who recognise that an
agency may adopt one cognitive type of a pair under one context and shift
to the other as context changes. This is shown in their individualism/
collectivism study of parents with interest in the development goals of their
children. They argue that within cultural value systems, presumed polar
opposites may be viewed as conflicting, additive, or functionally dependent
(functional dependence may be attributed to an auxiliary process). When
making educational efforts parents embrace Individualism and
Collectivism as they occur because these presumed opposites are in
dynamic coexistence. In particular it was found that either achievement/
individualist or social harmony/caring/collectivist attitudes are emphasised
in response to factors that include: changes across situations; developmen-
tal time; and response to social, political, and economic sub-contexts. The
reason is that without an achievement orientation individual may not
exploit their capabilities, but without social orientation they may care
less about social or even family obligations.
244 From Cognition to Affect
Individualism frames the development goals of autonomy and independ-
ence while collectivism frames relatedness and interdependence (Tamis-
LeMonda et al., 2008; Schwartz, Luychx & Vignie, 2011). Individualism
and Collectivism both embrace distinct cultural identities (from which
organisational structures are a reflection) that are manifested within indi-
viduals as self-identity that impacts on basic motives for action (Earley &
Gibson, 1998). Viskovatoff (1999) also notes that Individualism-
Collectivism represents a dualism, and recognises attempts to overcome
its effects by (1) adopting a post-structuralist approach; (2) recognising that
reality should be seen as chaotic (and hence subject to chaos), disorganised
and fragmented (hence affecting the framing of development goals); and
(3) viewing the social world in terms of the decentred subject (thus impact-
ing on self-identity).
Collectivism and individualism each have their own value ranges, but
the boundaries between their differentiations can become merged. Thus,
the notions of Toennies (1957), Triandis (1995), and White and Nakurama
(2004) connect through transactional and relational forms of collectivism
(Yolles, 2009b), so that for instance transactional collectivism is constituted
as a boundary for individualism.
In Table 7.2 we set up our eight Mindset types into two broad classes of
Individualism and Collectivism. We have noted that the terms
Individualism and Collectivism mean different things to different people
and within different cultures. As a guiding position we may refer to Sagiv
and Schwartz (2007), who present constructs which are clearly related to
individualism and collectivism:
• Individualism: Intellectual autonomy {broad-mindedness, freedom, cre-
ativity, security}; Affective autonomy {exciting life, varied life, pleasure,
enjoying life, self-indulgent}; Mastery {capable, successful, ambitious,
independent, influential, social recognition, choosing own goals,
daring}
• Collectivism: Harmony {accept my portion in life, world at peace, protect
environment, unity with nature, world of beauty}; Embeddedness {polite,
obedient, forgiving, respect tradition, self-discipline, moderate, social
order, family security, protect my public image, national security,
honour elders, reciprocation of favours}
Some ‘core values’ of collectivism are captured by the Embeddedness
enantiomer. In Table 7.2 the pairs (HS, EP) and (ES, HP) the idea of
Individualism versus Collectivism prevails, although the Mastery aspect is
attached to a collectivistic culture (i.e., through Embeddedness culture),
 Table 7.2 Mindset types identified with their enantiomer values and a listing of key epistemic words that relate to them
Mindset type Mindset type
1 HI
Hierarchical Individualism
2 EI
Egalitarian Individualism
Maruyama: I
(Independent Prince)
3 HS
Hierarchical Synergism
4 ES
Egalitarian Synergism
Maruyama: G
(Generative/Revolutionary)
Enantiomer Epistemic value
Individualism
Intellectual autonomy broad-mindedness, freedom, creativity, curious
Mastery successful, ambitious, independent, influential, social
+ recognition, choosing own goals, daring
Affective autonomy exciting life, varied life, pleasure, enjoying life, self-
indulgent
Hierarchy authority, wealth, social power
Intellectual autonomy broad-mindedness, freedom, creativity, curious
Mastery successful, ambitious, independent, influential, social
+ recognition, choosing own goals, daring
Affective autonomy exciting life, varied life, pleasure, enjoying life, self-
indulgent
Egalitarianism loyal, equality, responsible, honest, social justice,
helpful
Intellectual autonomy broad-mindedness, freedom, creativity, curious
Harmony accept my position in life, world at peace, protect
environment, unity with nature, world of beauty
Hierarchy authority, wealth, social power
Intellectual autonomy broad-mindedness, freedom, creativity, curious
Harmony accept my position in life, world at peace, protect
environment, unity with nature, world of beauty
Egalitarianism loyal, equality, responsible, honest, social justice,
helpful
Table 7.2 (cont.)

Mindset type Mindset type Enantiomer Epistemic value

Collectivism

5 HP Embeddedness polite, obedient, forgiving, respect tradition, self-

Hierarchical Populism discipline, moderate, social order, family security,
Maruyama: H protect my public image, national security, honour
(Hierarchical/Bureaucrat) elders, reciprocation of favours
Mastery successful, ambitious, independent, influential, social
+ recognition, choosing own goals, daring
Affective autonomy exciting life, varied life, pleasure, enjoying life, self-
indulgent
Hierarchy authority, wealth, social power
6 EP Embeddedness polite, obedient, forgiving, respect tradition, self-
Egalitarian Populism discipline, moderate, social order, family security,
protect my public image, national security, honour
elders, reciprocation of favours.
Mastery successful, ambitious, independent, influential, social
+ recognition, choosing own goals, daring
Affective autonomy exciting life, varied life, pleasure, enjoying life, self-
indulgent
Egalitarianism loyal, equality, responsible, honest, social justice,
helpful
7 HC Embeddedness polite, obedient, forgiving, respect tradition, self-
Hierarchical Collectivism discipline, moderate, social order, family security,
protect my public image, national security, honour
elders, reciprocation of favours.

8 EC
Egalitarian Collectivism
Maruyama: S (Social/Reformer)
Harmony accept my position in life, world at peace, protect
environment, unity with nature, world of beauty
Hierarchy authority, wealth, social power
Embeddedness polite, obedient, forgiving, respect tradition, self-
discipline, moderate, social order, family security,
protect my public image, national security, honour
elders, reciprocation of favours.
Harmony accept my position in life, world at peace, protect
environment, unity with nature, world of beauty
Egalitarianism loyal, equality, responsible, honest, social justice,
helpful, cooperation
248 From Cognition to Affect
and the Harmony aspect is attached to the Intellectual autonomy
Individualism culture. This shows that Individualism versus collectivism
is an undue parsimonious generalisation, i.e., a reduction of a complex
system of values and attitudes to one bipolar dimension. A reduction of
a complex system to one single pair of enantiomers perhaps is easily
understood, but not adequate for many situations. The traditional under-
standing of individualism can be assigned to Intellectual autonomy and
Mastery + Affective autonomy and that of collectivism can be assigned to
Embeddedness + Harmony. The terms Intellectual autonomy with
Harmony and Embeddedness Mastery + Affective autonomy (combined val-
ues: polite, obedient, forgiving, respect tradition, self-discipline, moderate,
social order, family security, protective of public image, national security,
honour elders, reciprocation of favours, exciting life, enjoying live, varied
life, pleasure, self-indulgence) tend to be extensions that are normally
beyond what most people would consider to constitute components of
either individualism and collectivism. However, that these might exist in
those who are individualists or collectivists is not really significant to the
classifications, and may therefore stand as ancillary or ‘non-core’ exten-
sions. Thus, the Mindsets with these pairs are able to sit with a more
traditional understanding of individualism and collectivism. As such we
shall allow the terms Individualism and Collectivism to include these
additional constructs, and refer to them here as Harmony Individualism
and Mastery Collectivism, and we shall mean these extensions when
referring to Individualism and Collectivism further. We have labelled the
Intellectual autonomy plus Harmony aspects as ‘Synergism’. There are two
forms, hierarchical synergism which occurs through an adherence to
Humanism, and refers to the abstract community of the learned as well
as to the knowledge they possess. It involves an implicit consensus about
rules and shared ideals of the community of the learned. The abstract
community of the learned lays down claims to altruistic mutual assistance
and constant increase in overall knowledge, and this intersects and inter-
feres with the political and social aims concrete institutions. It may
alternatively arise as egalitarian synergism through individual freedom,
this being deemed to be dependent upon mutual support, community,
social equality, and social coherence, i.e., social harmony. The mastery
value class embraces populism, and two variations of this arise. One variety
of this is hierarchical populism which centres on security by highlighting
real or constructed threats from ‘dangerous’ others, while its alternative of
egalitarian populism adopts a central theme of social justice and all that this
implies, positions that may be seen in terms of the political right and left.
 Cognition Personality 249
Populist value sets frequently indicate political positions that arise during
periods of cultural instability where dominant values in the culture conflict
with each other, exacerbated by periods of economic recession deep
enough to impart structural process pathologies to the social. One may
therefore conclude that during movements towards cultural stability
(Yolles & Fink, 2013; Sorokin, 1962), mastery value sets tend to decline
while harmony value sets ascend.
It is possible to formulate Mindset types against the polar enantiomers
and their epistemic values. However, trait values may also occur as balances
between the polar values, resulting in what we call congruences between
Mindset types. Table 7.2 sets up the Mindsets as types associated with polar
traits, and a listing of key epistemic words that relate to these. In Table 7.3
the Mindset types are formulated according to whether they broadly
conform to individualism or collectivism. This arises because of the
enantiomer driver of Individualism (Mastery) and that of Collectivism
(Harmony). To put this into context it is appropriate to understand a little
more of the nature of individualism and collectivism. Following
Oyserman, Coon, and Kemmelmeier (2002), individualism is the doctrine
that all social phenomena (their structure and potential to change) are in
principle explicable only in terms of individuals – for instance their prop-
erties, goals, and beliefs. In contrast, collectivism in principle and ideally
relates to people coming together in a collective to act unitarily through
normative processes in order to satisfy some commonly agreed and under-
stood purpose or interest. Agencies that strongly adopt either individual-
ism or collectivism have realities that are differently framed, and hence
maintain ontologically distinct boundaries constituting frames of reality,
which could represent barriers for coherent meaningful mutual communi-
cations across these agencies. Individualism and collectivism are very broad
concepts and can mean quite different things to different cultures, and this
variation in their natures is reflected in the set of Mindset types that can
arise, and their congruent interconnections. Nevertheless Gelfand et al.
(1995) believe that an undifferentiated view of individualism and collectiv-
ism presents a satisfactory way of seeing them. In contrast, Schwartz (1994)
had found this unsatisfactory, and had replaced the broad notions of
individualism and collectivism by his differentiated value universe devoid
of reference to these terms. It is also worth reiterating that Schwartz did not
perceive individualism and collectivism as mutually exclusive opposites,
but referred to values, e.g., wisdom, that are related to both, which have
a mutually supportive role to play. It is clear from Table 7.3 that there are
principally two types (mastery and harmony) of both individualism and
 Table 7.3 Four pairs of contrasting Mindset types

Pole 1 – Individualism type Pole 2 – Collectivism type

Type Type
Mindset Mastery Individualism Enantiomers Mindset Harmony Collectivism Enantiomers

1 HI Intellectual autonomy 8 EC Embeddedness

Hierarchical Individualism Mastery + Affective Egalitarian Collectivism Harmony
autonomy
Hierarchy Egalitarianism
2 EI Intellectual autonomy 7 HC Embeddedness
Egalitarian Individualism Mastery + Affective Hierarchical Collectivism Harmony
autonomy
Egalitarianism Hierarchy
Harmony Individualism ≥ Mastery Collectivism
Synergism ≥ Populism
3 HS Intellectual autonomy 6 EP Embeddedness
Hierarchic Synergism Harmony Egalitarian Populism Mastery +
Affective
autonomy
Hierarchy Egalitarianism
4 ES Intellectual autonomy 5 HP Embeddedness
Egalitarian Synergism Harmony Hierarchical Populism Mastery +
Affective
autonomy
Egalitarianism Hierarchy
 Cognition Personality 251
collectivism, but there are innumerable variations that can occur across
these. The implication of course is that the terms individualism and
collectivism on their own can be highly misleading, and essentially of little
value. More, an implication of the research by Tamis-LeMonda et al.
(2008) referred to earlier is that an agency may change Mindsets with
contexts, demonstrating the ever more complex nature of personality.
Different authors give different weight to specific aspects and illustrate
their perceptions of individualism and collectivism with ‘two-word’ con-
structs, like for instance in economics ‘methodological individualism’
versus ‘methodological institutionalism’ (Davis, Marciano, & Runde,
2004), or more common to politics ‘transactional individualism’ versus
‘relational collectivism’ (Herrmann-Pillath, 2009; Tangen, 2009; Glasman
et al., 2011). However, we also find the use of the same term to describe
different constructs, like ‘conservative individualism’ as opposed to ‘socialist
(or collective) individualism’ or ‘transactional individualism’ as opposed to
‘relational collectivism’. The respective pairs strongly depend on the ideo-
logical position of those who adopt the terms as ideology is seated in the
personality. Here, different weight may be given to the intellectual, spirit-
ual, economic or social aspects of ‘individualism’, or on the intellectual,
spiritual, economic or social aspects of ‘equality’, or on the ‘right to enjoy’
individual achievements without boundaries or ‘responsibilities’ to take
care of other human beings and of natural resources.
Even so, Mindsets have powerful explanatory value for individualism/
collectivism when taken to operate as broad categories. Individualism
frames the development goals of Intellectual autonomy and independence
while collectivism frames relatedness and interdependence (Tamis-LeMonda
et al., 2008; Schwartz, Luychx, & Vignie, 2011). Individualism and collect-
ivism both embrace distinct cultural identities (from which organisational
structures are a reflection) that are manifested within individuals as self-
identity that impacts on basic motives for action (Earley & Gibson, 1998).
It is quite easy to identify the respective number of possible Mindset
types. To do so one needs to well define the possible states (two or more) of
a bipolar trait and based on a consistent theory defines the number of traits.
In addition to the extreme polar types in Table 7.3 (illustrated graphically
in Figure 7.3) there are types that can arise from balanced traits. For three
traits with three possible states (pole 1, balanced, pole 2), there are twenty-
seven possibilities in the system. This illustrates the capacity of Mindset
agency theory to engage with variation, which enables the modelling of the
complexities of human personality beyond a simple classification scheme.
These include eight biased Mindsets that are combination of the poles of
252 From Cognition to Affect
1
Hierarchy

HS
HC

Operative trait
HP HI

EC
Egalitarianism ES
Cognitive trait 1
0 Embeddedness Intellectual Autonomy
Harmony

Figurative trait
EP EI

Mastery+Affective 1
Autonomy

Figure 7.3 Mindset Personality Space showing eight Mindset types, where congru-
encies may occur between them that derive from trait enantiomer balances.

the three traits – one in each of the eight corners of the cube (the apexes),
one congruent Mindset composed of three balanced traits in the middle of
the cube (Figure 7.4). There are six strongly congruent Mindsets with two
traits in balance in the middle of the six sides of the cube. Finally, there are
also twelve weakly congruent Mindsets with only one trait in balance in the
middle of the twelve lateral edges of the cube (Figure 7.4).
However, the range of values (scores) that a personality trait may take
between the two extreme polar enantiomers may be represented by
a continuous variable. This would result in the huge discrete set of possible
Mindset types becoming a potentially continuous and hence infinite set
that can represent any possible values or value balance of a personality. In
practice, however, it will be useful that this range is limited to a discrete
determinable set, where differences between types do matter.
We have indicated that personality Mindset congruencies are in prin-
ciple possible along each axis and on each plane of Figure 7.4. But, for them
to exist there is a need for them to arise as stable combinations, something
that depends on the current state of cultural values. We have said that these
congruencies will be related to the values that the cultural trait of the
agency takes. Sorokin (1962) noted that when the sensate and ideational
enantiomers reach a common balance the idealistic state arises. In this case
 Cognition Personality 253
neither sensate nor ideational values dominate, but rather a synergy occurs
between them so that both forms of value sets are regarded as valid in
society. Thus, ideational people might find themselves in significant social
roles just as people with sensate values, a situation not possible in
a predominantly ideational or sensate culture. These roles will depend on
the strengths of the individuals.
Since under normal conditions cultural trait values operate as an
attractor for personality, the Mindset values adopted are a reflection of
the cultural trait, with either a tendency towards individualism or collect-
ivism. The emergence of variations within individualism or collectivism in
a given agency likely is a function of the ‘fine tuning’ within a culture that
may relate to desired goals and Outcomes, i.e., achievements and possible
distortions through one-sided action.
We have indicated that the agency is not only composed of a normative
personality, but also has a cultural and social system. These both have
representative traits, each of which adopts epistemic enantiomer values.
These traits and their enantiomers are shown in Table 7.4.
The cultural trait maintains an agency field that biases it towards either
individualism or collectivism, depending on the value taken up by the
cultural trait. Thus, when the cultural trait takes an ideational value the
normative personality takes an individualist Mindset, and when the cul-
tural trait takes a sensate value normative personality takes a collectivist
value. Similarly, an ideational value for the cultural trait results in
a patternising social trait value while a sensate value results in
a dramatising value, determining in the end whether an agency might be
either say creative or instrumentalist, or whether they might operate
together synergistically according to cultural conditions, this resulting in
innovative material outputs typical of socio-industrial revolutions.

7.4 Illustration of Trait Penchants

Traits create imperatives for patterns of behaviour within given contexts.
This occurs because they formulate information biases that create internal
schemas concerning a particular issue. It is interesting, therefore to identify
an illustration of such penchants. Consider, for instance, that this results in
a behavioural proclivity towards sustainability, this having been of signifi-
cant interest in recent decades with the egocentric failure of capitalism
(Mixon, 2011).
Mensah and Castro (2004: 2) distinguished between two broad group-
ings that support paradigms of sustainability, suggesting that optimists
254 From Cognition to Affect
Table 7.4 Sociocultural traits and their polar enantiomer values

Trait Enantiomer Nature Key words/values

Cultural Sensate Reality is sensory and The senses, utilitarianism,

material, pragmatism is materialism, becoming,
normal, there is an process, change, flux,
interest in becoming evolution, progress,
rather than being, and transformation,
happiness is paramount. pragmatism, temporal.
People are externally
oriented and tend to be
instrumental and
empiricism is important.
Ideational Reality is super-sensory, Super-sensory, spirituality,
morality is humanitarianism, self-
unconditional, tradition deprivation, creativity of
is of importance, there is ideas, eternal.
a tendency towards
creation, and
examination of self.
Social Dramatising Individual relationships to Sequenciality,
others are important, communication,
constituted as sequences individualism,
of interpersonal events. contractual, ideocentric.
Communication and
narrative are important,
as are individuals and
their proprietary belief
systems, and individual
social contracts. Goal
formation should be for
individual benefit.
Ideocentric agencies are
important, operating
through social contracts
between the rational
wills of its individual
members. Tendency to
be action centred,
connected with
immediacy.
Patterning Configurations are Configurations,
important in social and relationships, symmetry,
other forms of pattern, balance,
relationships. There is dynamics, collectivism,
persistent curiosity. The allocentric.
social is influenced by
 Cognition Personality 255
Table 7.4 (cont.)

Trait Enantiomer Nature Key words/values

relationships with
individuals. Some
importance is attached
to symmetry, pattern,
balance, and the
dynamics of
relationships. Goal
seeking should be for
collective benefit, and
collective goal formation
takes precedence over
personal goal formation.
Allocentric collectives
are important, where the
members operate
subjectively. Tendency
to be observation
centred, connected with
deliberated action.

tend to be economists and related others. Pessimists tend to be ecologists

and related others, and for many economics is identified with
Individualism (Davis, Marciano, & Runde, 2004: 21), though not all
economists are individualists nor optimists. Nozick (1977: 359; cited in
Davis, Marciano, & Runde, 2004: 121) identifies two frames of reference in
economics are methodological individualism and collectivistic methodo-
logical institutionalism. By the same token, it is likely that there will also be
variation in the paradigms being supported by ecologists and related
others.
Gladwin, Kennelly, and Krause (1995) note two broad paradigms (that
appear to be modes of thinking) of sustainability associated with pessimism
and optimism. These are listed in Table 7.5 with their respective keywords
over three classifications, ontological and ethical, scientific and techno-
logical, and economic and psychological. In their study they seek synergy
between the two opposing optimistic and pessimistic perspectives. The
optimistic mode is Technocentric (through its faith in technology) and the
pessimistic mode is Ecocentric (through its lack of faith in technology).
They also propose an in-between mode referred to as the Sustaincentrism.
256 From Cognition to Affect
Table 7.5 Optimistic, pessimistic, and in-between paradigms related to
sustainability

Key assumptions Technocentrism Ecocentrism Sustaincentrism

Ontological and ethical

Metaphor of earth Vast machine Mother/web of Life support

life system
Perception of earth Dead/passive Alive/sensitive Home/managed
System composition Atomistic/parts Organic/wholes Parts and wholes
System structure Hierarchical Heterarchical Holarchical
Humans and nature Disassociation Indisassociation Interdependence
Human role Domination Plain member Stewardship
Value of nature Anthropocentrism Intrinsicalism Inherentism
Ethical grounding Narrow Whole earth Broad
homocentric homocentric
Time/space scales Short/near Indefinite Multiscale
Logic/reason Egoist-rational Holism/ Vision/network
spiritualism

Scientific and technological

Resilience of nature Tough/robust Highly Varied/fragile

vulnerable
Carrying capacity limits No limits Already exceed Approaching
Population size No problem Freeze/reduce Stabilise soon
Growth pattern Exponential Hyperbolic Logistic
Severity of problems Trivial Catastrophic Consequential
Urgency of problem Little/wait Extraordinary/ Great/decades
interventions now
Risk orientation Risk taking Risk aversion Precaution
Faith in technology Optimism Pessimism Scepticism
Technological pathways Big/centralised Small/ Benign/
decentralised decoupled
Human vs. natural Full substitutes Complements Partial
capital substitutes

Economic and psychological

Primary objective Efficient Ecological Quality of life

allocation integrity
The good life Materialism Anti- Postmaterialism
materialism
Human nature Homo Homo Homo sapient
economicus animalist
 Cognition Personality 257
Table 7.5 (cont.)

Key assumptions Technocentrism Ecocentrism Sustaincentrism

Economic structure Free market Steady state Green economy

Role of growth Good/necessary Bad/eliminate Mixed/modify
Poverty alleviation Growth trickle Redistribution Equal
opportunity
Natural capital Exploit/convert Enhance/ Conserve/
expand maintain
Discount rate High/normal Zero/ Low/
inappropriate complement
Trade orientation Global Bioregional National
Political structure Centralised Decentralised Devolved

Note. Adapted from Gladwin, Kennelly, and Krause (1995).

Each of these modes is described through a set of epistemic values, which

are collected under the three classifications of ontology/ethics, scientific/
technological, and economic/psychological beliefs/values.
Set against Mindsets (Table 7.6), it may be noted that specific agency
will adopt traits that do not capture all of these elements, or there may be
balances between the polar enantiomers that result in compound Mindset
types. Since these enantiomers are associated with different Mindsets that
broadly collect under individualism and collectivism, it is also clear that
not all perspectives on sustainability are either in the extreme polar opti-
mist or pessimist camps. These comparisons are indicative that there are
some components of the pessimistic sustainability Mindsets that are related
to forms of Individualism, as there are some components of the optimistic
Mindsets that are related to Collectivism.

7.5 Relating Personality and Sociocultural Traits

The approach taken in Chapter 5 explored agency traits including three
personality and two sociocultural traits. In this chapter we have only
considered the three personality traits. The two need to be related since
later, in Chapter 13, we shall comment on how personality connects with
sociocultural change. Here, then, we shall identify the relationships
between them. In Table 7.7 we show the relationship between personality
and cultural traits indicating tendency towards which cultural enantiomer,
and in Table 7.8 between personality and social trait indicating tendency
 Table 7.6 Broad relationships between Mindset trait enantiomers and susceptibility towards given values

Optimistic (technocentrism)
Trait enantiomer Epistemic values values Pessimistic (ecocentrism) values

Culture

Sensate The senses, utilitarianism, materialism, Materialism, Exploit/convert

becoming, process, change, flux,
evolution, progress, transformation,
pragmatism, temporal
Ideational Super-sensory, spirituality, Spiritualism, anti-materialism
humanitarianism, self-deprivation,
creativity of ideas, eternal

Normative personality

Intellectual autonomy Autonomy, creativity, expressivity, No limits, Atomistic,

curiosity, broad-mindedness. disassociation
Embeddedness Polite, obedient, forgiving, respect Intrinsicalism
tradition, self-discipline, moderate,
social order, family security, protect my
public image, national security, honour
elders, reciprocation of favours.
Mastery Ambition, success, daring, competence, Atomistic, disassociation,
+ exciting life, enjoying live, varied life, anthropocentrism
pleasure, and self-indulgence. +
Affective autonomy Acceptance of position in life, world at
peace, protect environment, unity with
nature, world of beauty.
Harmony Social power, authority, humility, wealth. Heterarchical, Ecological
integrity, whole earth
Hierarchy Quality, social justice, responsibility, Hierarchical, vast machine,
honesty, loyal, equality, honesty, domination, centralised
helpful, cooperation
Egalitarianism Loyal, equality, responsible, honest, social Ecological integrity,
justice, helpful Redistribution,
Indisassociation

Social trait

Dramatising Sequentially, communication, Narrow homocentric, Egoist-

individualism, contractual, rational, free market
ideocentricity
Patterning Configurations, relationships, symmetry, Whole earth, highly vulnerable,
pattern, balance, dynamics, collectivism, complements
allocentric
260 From Cognition to Affect
Table 7.7 Relationship between Maruyama and Agency Mindsets for the
cultural trait

Agency Mindset
Type Agency Mindset types types (from Cultural trait
no. (Maruyama Mindscape) Chapter 6) proneness

1 Hierarchical Individualism Ĉ(AuMaHi{SeId}) Sensate or

Ideational
Individualism
2 Egalitarian Individualism I’(AuMaEg{Se}) Sensate
(Independent/Prince: I) Individualism
3 Hierarchical Synergism C(AuHaHi{SeId}) Sensate or
Ideational
Individualism
4 Egalitarian Synergism G’(AuHaEg{Id}) Ideational
(Generative/ Individualism
Revolutionary: G)
5 Hierarchical Populism Ĉ(EmMaHi{SeId) Sensate or
Ideational
Collectivism
6 Egalitarian Populism F(EmMaEg{SeId}) Sensate or
Ideational
Collectivism
7 Hierarchical Collectivism H’(EmHaHi{Id}) Ideational
(Hierarchical/ Collectivism
Bureaucrat: H)
8 Egalitarian Collectivism O(EmHaEg{SeId}) Sensate or
(Social/Reformer: S) Ideational
Collectivism

towards which social enantiomer. It is clear from Chapter 6, however, that

there is a greater variety of Mindsets than indicated in Tables 7.7 and 7.8,
but these given are the dominant types.

7.6 Chapter in Brief

• Agency may be described in terms of a cultural, personality, and agency

operative system.
• The systems are ontologically distinct, but connected through process
intelligences.
• Operative intelligence is a form of autopoiesis, and connects the opera-
tive and personality systems as an operative couple. It is concerned with
the representation and manipulation of transformational aspects of
 Cognition Personality 261
Table 7.8 Relationship between Maruyama and Agency Mindsets for the
social trait

Agency Mindset Agency Mindset

Type (Maruyama Mindscape) types (from
no. types Chapter 6) Social trait proneness

1 Hierarchical Ĉ(AuMaHi{DrPa}) Dramatising or

Individualism Patterning
Individualism
2 Egalitarian Individualism I’(AuMaEg{Pa}) Patterning
(Independent/Prince: I) Individualism
3 Hierarchical Synergism C(AuHaHi{PaDr}) Patterning or
Dramatising
Individualism
4 Egalitarian Synergism G’(AuHaEg{Pa}) Patterning
(Generative/ Individualism.
Revolutionary: G)
5 Hierarchical Populism Ĉ(EmMaHi{PaDr}) Dramatising or
Patterning Ideational
Collectivism
6 Egalitarian Populism A(AuMaEg{Dr}) Dramatising
Collectivism
7 Hierarchical Collectivism H’(EmHaHi{Dr}) Dramatising
(Hierarchical/ Collectivism.
Bureaucrat: H)
8 Egalitarian Collectivism O(EmHaEg{DrPa}) Dramatising or
(Social/Reformer: S) Patterning
Collectivism.

reality. It reflects all actions that are undertaken so as to anticipate,

follow, or recover the operative transformations, as well as referring to
highly integrated and generalised sets of actions that are adaptive in
nature.
• Figurative intelligence is a form of autogenesis, and connects the per-
sonality to the operative couple. It provides core relational explanations
of reality as a reflection of epistemic patterns of knowledge or cognitive
information. It is connected with states of reality, manifesting epistemic
patterns in the figurative system to enable strategic schema to arise or
develop.
• The normative personality can be seen as a strategic supersystem of
agency. It is a recursion of the agency model within a personality
context. It consists of the cognitive, figurative, and operative systems,
262 From Cognition to Affect
connected together by operative and figurative personality intelligences
in ways that are similar to the model of agency.
• Cultural (figurative) intelligence manifests knowledge from agency cul-
ture to the cognitive system in the personality as conceptual information
as it also influences the operative system. Through personality figurative
intelligence this information is manifested as a variety of strategic forms
of schema like goals, ideology, ethics, and self-scripts the latter of which
connect strategic expectations with operative structure and behaviour.
• Mindsets may belong to agency and personality.
• Personality Mindsets are extracted from the cognition agency, and can
be formulated into the two classes: individualism and collectivism.
• Individualism is the doctrine that all social phenomena (their structure
and potential to change) are in principle explicable only in terms of
individuals – for instance their properties, goals, and beliefs.
• Collectivism in principle and ideally relates to people coming together
in a collective to act unitarily through normative processes in order to
satisfy some commonly agreed and understood purpose or interest.
• An agency may adopt one cognitive type of individualism or collectiv-
ism under one context, and shift to the other as context changes. This
implies that the Mindset type that might characterise agency can also
change with context.
• In the same way that Mindsets can be mixed to better characterise
a personality or agency, so too can individualism and collectivism.
• The dualism of individualism and collectivism are good ways of distin-
guishing between agency orientations, so long as it is recognised that
each has a variety of variations on a continuous scale of distinction.
• Individualism frames the development goals of autonomy and inde-
pendence while collectivism frames relatedness and interdependence.
• Within the context of Agency Theory, individualism is directly related
to Intellectual Autonomy and Mastery + Affective autonomy, while
collectivism is directly related to Harmony and Embeddedness.
• A simplistic use of the terms individualism and collectivism does not take
account of possible variations, and thus constitutes a form of
stereotyping.
• Maruyama identified four dominant Mindscape types.
• Mindset Agency Theory adopts Mindscape theory, so that these four
Mindscape types are the same as four Mindset types.
• Mindsets has been shown to be generated by empirical means using the
cultural values study of Sagiv and Schwartz (2007).
 Cognition Personality 263
• The cultural values study permits eight dominant Mindsets that can be
generated.
• Mindsets characterise agency and its personality.
• Mindsets can be mixed resulting in an infinite possibility of agency/
personality characterisations.
 chapter 8

Affect Types and Mindset Types

8.1 Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the creation of affect Mindset theory. It
has already been said that personality theory, both for cognition and
affect, is historically fragmented, even if a start has been made towards
defragmentation (e.g., Kaschel & Kuhl, 2004; Mischel & Shoda, 1995).
We continuing on this path by following theory from Swann et al. (1987)
by developing an affect–cognition interactive model that arises through
configuration within the framework of cybernetic Cultural Agency
Theory. Here, affect and cognition are sub-agencies of personality that
interact operatively, where affect/cognition traits are respectively influ-
enced by cognition/affect process of internalisation. We shall develop
a trait model for the affect personality that might be called Affect
Mindset Theory, symmetrical with the pre-existing Cognition Mindset
Theory (Yolles & Fink, 2014, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). In developing the
approach, we have found that it is possible to configure existing suitable
temperament theory.
The Affective Agency Model consists of an ‘Affective Normative
Personality’, which is (1) embedded into a ‘Cultural Emotional
Environment’ with an ‘Emotional Climate’ (de Rivera, 1992); and (2)
displays emotions and observes others’ emotions in a ‘Social
Environment’ in a way that conforms to emotional norms. For the
‘Affective Normative Personality’ it identifies three domains which partici-
pate in the regulation of decision-making and self-organisation of
a normative personality:
1. ‘Identification’: This generates affect situation awareness.
2. ‘Elaboration’: Affect is constituted through schemas of emotional feel-
ing, which generate goals of emotion expression through emotion

264
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 265
ideologies for framing emotional responses to distinct contextual
situations.
3. ‘Execution’: In the operative system, primary emotions are (1) assessed
through operative intelligence for capacity to organise action, but also
generate information which may require adaptation; and (2) turned
into action, i.e., responses, through quickly available cultural feeling
rules and sociocultural display rules, conforming to emotion ideologies.
The basic orientations are regulated by bipolar formative affect traits. In
the affect personality we shall discern five formative traits (each identified
by, e.g., Hill & Mazis, 1986; Watt, 2004; Hartel et al., 2005; McIntosh,
1996). The three personality affect traits are: Emotional Attitude with
bipolar stimulation versus containment; Figurative Affective Activation
with ambition versus protection; and Operative Emotion Management
with dominance versus submission. The sociocultural traits refer to the
cultural environment which influences behaviour through an emotional
climate with fear versus security, and relations with the social environment
are regulated by social emotion management on others and on self with
missionary versus empathetic positioning.
Traits may take extremal or balanced type values. Extremal types arise
from three traits of the normative personality, this resulting in the
emergence of a typology of eight extremal types, which are perhaps
pathological due to the total exclusion of their bipolar partners. There
are also two bipolar traits that constitute contextual traits for personality
that define four trait types. In total then, there are five traits with ten
extremal types between them. In trait balanced positions, trait types
become conjoint, and so the traits are influenced jointly by both of its
extremal types.
It has been said that we shall adapt temperament theory in our model-
ling process, so it is appropriate here to clarify the nature of this adaptation.
The term temperament refers to the classical temperaments, which do not
relate only to emotions. They also include interests and patterns of behav-
iour (as will be seen from Table 8.3), though this being beyond our affect
modelling requirements. Therefore, in order not to cause confusion, rather
than using the term temperament, we shall adopt the term affect or affective
as appropriate. The resulting theory that arises is then briefly related to the
cybernetic epistemology of Nechansky (2016). Prior to this, however, we
shall explore affect a little more, and then discuss the relationship between
affect and cognition.
266 From Cognition to Affect
8.2 Relating Affect and Cognition
As we shall see, the nature of affect varies across the literature, illustrating
fragmentation in the field. Despite this we shall move ahead to create affect
theory that conforms to our general (living system) theory of personality
psychology. To do this there if first a need to understand what affect refers
to. Gross (1998) defines affect as a superordinate category for valenced
states, where the valence of an agency refers to the attraction towards
desirable objects or repulsion from undesirable ones, and this can be
expressed in terms of positive–negative, good–bad, or pleasure–displeas-
ure. It includes emotions, emotional episodes, mood, dispositional states,
and traits. Drawing further on authors like Johnson (1996/2004), Desmet
et al. (2012), Réale et al. (2000), and Shackman et al. (2018), we can take
affect as being composed of the entities emotion, mood, temperament, and
sensation, with the following definitions:
• Emotion: a transitive episodic relatively short-lasting class of feelings that
when conscious becomes a directed mental reaction like anger or fear, is
subjective with degrees of strength, and may be understood as either
states or processes. The distinction between states and processes is that
a mental state interacts with other mental states and causes certain
behaviours. However, a process has an early part as the interval between
the perception of the stimulus and the triggering of the bodily response.
It has a later part which is a physical response like change in heart rate,
skin conductance, and facial expression. Emotion is a response to
a specific immanent stimulus, and have intentional adventitiously
related content.
• Mood: a transitive episodic relatively long-lasting predominant emotion
or conscious state of feeling. It is non-intentional, and is not determined
by a specific adventitious cause, but rather it arises from the general
surroundings. Moods have a plurality of combined causes, so that
a specific cause cannot be identified for a particular mood. Mood can
be represented by valence (pleasure–displeasure) and arousal (high
energy–low energy). Together these dimensions represent four basic
mood categories.
• Temperament: associated with personality and represents character traits
or habitual inclination or mode of emotional response. They have trait-
like tendencies or biases that slowly evolve over the course of months
and years. It determines how a personality reacts to novel or challenging
situations. States of behaviour are determined by temperaments, which
may be seen as context specific. However, temperaments may also be
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 267
seen as adaptive, so that they can respond to pressures that enable them
to evolve autonomously in their response to selective pressures.
• Sensation: a mental process like seeing, hearing, or smelling that results
from the immediate external stimulation of a sense organ often as
distinguished from a conscious awareness of the sensory process.
While temperament and personality theories can both refer to traits, the
distinction between them is that temperament refers to behavioural style
which indicates how behaviour arises, while personality theory describes
what behaviours arise and why they do (Kagan, 2020).
When discussing affect one comes across affect theory, which can be
defined as the organisation of affects, including the experience of feelings
and emotions, into categories to better understand their physical, cultural,
and interpersonal instances (Gregg & Seigworth, 1961), so that it may, for
instance, seek to show how affects are the ‘building blocks’ of drives
(Kernberg, 1990). Affect can therefore refer to any of the attributes indi-
cated above and their relationships, though some inquirers refer just to
emotion (Lawler, 2001), while others centre on mood and yet others on
temperament. There are relationships between these entities. For instance,
some personality character traits may vary with mood state and medica-
tions in patients with bipolar I disorder (Chavez et al., 2016).1 For
Shackman et al. (2018), emotion and mood differ in their characteristic
intensity, specificity, expression, and consequences; mood and tempera-
ment also involve emotional states; temperament reflects stable individual
differences in the propensity to experience particular feelings and to engage
in related thoughts and actions, though temperament cannot be reduced to
moods or emotions; emotion regulation can also contribute to
temperament.
According to Gruber (1982), there is a need for a theory of knowledge
that does not sever affect, cognition, and society, but that rather strength-
ens their interconnection. For DeVries (1997) this has some relevance to
the ideas of Piaget who, since the 1940s, focused on the problem of the
development of knowledge, looking at the evolution of knowledge by
individual children covering a wide variety of problems and involving
logical reasoning. An interest in this within the context of social process
involves cognitive, affective, social, and moral development. Just as for
Piaget knowledge of the object world is constructed by the child, so too
must psychosocial knowledge be constructed. As such, social thought and
understanding in action undergo qualitative transformations. However,
affect is an indissociable motivational element in intellectual development,
268 From Cognition to Affect
where socioaffective bonds motivate social and moral development. The
third parallel is that a self-regulating process can be described for social and
moral development as for cognitive development. Despite Piaget’s impres-
sive contributions the development of psyche, according to Birns (1972–
73), he essentially neglects motivation and the affective aspects of develop-
ment. However, affective factors do influence individual cognitions,
implying that motivation, self-esteem, anxiety, and other emotional factors
are all important attributes of the self.
Lenhart (1996) notes that there is a relationship between affect and
cognition in conscious systems, quoting Piaget (1964: 33–34):
There is a close parallel between the development of affectivity and that of
the intellectual functions, since these are two indissociable aspects of every
action. In all behaviour the motives and energising dynamisms reveal
affectivity, while the techniques and adjustment of the means employed
constitute the cognitive sensorimotor or rational aspect. There is never
a purely intellectual action, and numerous emotions, interests, values,
impressions of harmony, etc., intervene–for example, in the solving of
a mathematical problem. Likewise, there is never a purely affective act,
e.g., love presupposes comprehension. Always and everywhere, in object-
related behaviour as well as in interpersonal behaviour, both elements are
involved because the one presupposes the other.
Lenhart further notes that cognitive development (the capacity to have
elaborating knowledge-based rational thought over time) occurs together
with affective development, these having mutual complementarity. Some
commonality occurs in that neither cognition through tacit knowledge nor
affect through feeling require language, only experience. For Jung, feeling
is a rational function and provides a way of knowing, and hence cognitive
development implies new ways of knowing. Lenhart elaborates further
through Piaget and Inhelder (1969: 158), who note that
as we have seen repeatedly, affectivity constitutes the energetics of behaviour
patterns whose cognitive aspect refers to the structures alone. There is no
behaviour pattern, however intellectual, which does not involve affective
factors as motives; but, reciprocally, there can be no affective states without
the intervention of perceptions or comprehensions which constitute their
cognitive structure. Behaviour is therefore of a piece, even if the structures
do not explain its energetics and if, vice versa, its energetics do not account
for its structures. The two aspects, affective and cognitive, are at the same
time inseparable and irreducible.
Affective states may occur independently of the comprehensions that
enable a cognitive structure to develop within entities with a primitive
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 269
identity. Such a cognitive structure does not require a conscious ideate in
order for feeling to be experienced. With consciousness, knowledge about
feelings enables affective and cognitive states to occur simultaneously (cf.
Lenhardt, 1996). So, like primitive identity, primitive affect can occur
without consciousness. This is something that is indicated by Northoff
(2012), who sees that the environment can impact on emotional feelings
only indirectly via the body through its sensorimotor (and vegetative)
functions, or in those brain regions that register the body’s sensorimotor
(and vegetative) functions. For Northoff (2012; citing Tsuchiya &
Adolphs, 2007: 159), emotion and consciousness emerge as a result of
neuronal activity in the brain, though emotions or consciousness can be
viewed in terms of relationships between a living system and its environ-
ment, where such relationships are contributing but not constitutive.
Affect may occur independently of adventitious influences, where feelings
have a major role in personality. In connection with this, Lenhart (1996)
notes Jung’s (1971: 434) recognition that feeling is an entirely subjective
process which may be independent of external stimuli that allies itself with
every sensation, including indifference which also expresses some sort of
valuation. Lenhart further notes that for feeling to ally itself with sensation
requires that body sensation precedes every possible feeling, which in turn
would precede every possible affect. However, there is a need for conscious
perception of sensation to enable it to be judged or valued, and hence to be
turned it into an affect. This is supported by Jung (1971: 434), who says that
‘when the intensity of feeling increases, it turns into an affect, i.e., a feeling-
state accompanied by marked physical innervations. Feeling is distinguished
from affect by the fact that it produces no perceptible physical innervations,
i.e., neither more nor less than an ordinary thinking process’. So, notes
Lenhart, Jung has differentiated between the feeling function and affect or
human emotion, suggesting that they are separate aspects of psychic energy.
However, we have already seen that these aspects are closely related. This is
supported by the notion that it is the intensity of value judgements given by
the feeling function that enables effects to be experienced through emotion.
Considering intuition to be an unconscious phenomenon, then sensation
will flow out of intuition and proceed to conscious feeling, and this will
register as an unconscious thought in the thinking function.

8.3 Affect Agency Theory

Affect agency theory is a dual extension (with cognition agency theory) of
cultural agency theory. The development of the latter begins with Yolles
270 From Cognition to Affect
(2006) and centres on cognition/thinking and behaviour within
a framework defined by Schwarz’s (1994) complex dynamic ‘living systems’
theory. It is a systems theory with epistemic and ontological properties that
has integrated and developed some principles of psychology and personal-
ity. It is the obverse of other approaches to agency (like that of Piaget, 1950,
1971; Bandura, 1986, 1999) that adopt psychology and personality
approaches with systemic attributes.
Cultural Agency Theory has migrated principles of personality psych-
ology from Piaget’s (1950) theory of development, which initially centred
on children, extending to social collectives. Piaget was fundamentally
a systems thinker who ‘saw the child, like us all, as psychologically involved
in a dynamic system of understanding wherein what counts as knowledge
can change and change again through an ongoing process of construction’
(Leman, 1998: 42). Piaget (1971) saw social/psychological development as
a prime function in that it relates to the cognised operational environment
of the agency and its capacity for adaptation. It has already been notes that
Piaget’s (1950, 1971) work on developmental ‘intelligence’ constitutes an
unrecognised for-runner for what many now acclaim as the important
autopoiesis principle of the living systems as conceptualised by Maturana
and Varela (1979).
Bandura (1999: 229) also established a rather different but also systemic
approach to that of Piaget in his socio-cognition agency development
theory. Here, dynamic self-schemas of personality enable the individual/
collective to see itself as an autonomous system that interacts dynamically
with its social environments. Bandura additionally adopted systemic con-
trol theory to enhance his schema of adaptability and to further his work on
cognition within both an individual and collective context.
Cultural agency theory reached its maturity some years ago, enabling it
to be extended to affect by referring to systemic thinkers like Gross (2008).
Over this and the next chapter we shall establish a model for this, and
explain how it connects with cognition agency theory and how it influ-
ences patterns of behaviour. Configurations may be seen as theoretical
codes that through selective coding enables them to be epistemically inte-
grated through by evolving them into a coherent set of propositions to
explain theoretical interests. To do this a theoretical (living systems)
framework is adopted which is able to encompass the qualitative data
that arise from the literature. Developing theoretical codes thus becomes
a process of superstructural theory building which embraces new concep-
tual devices through the creation of a new strategic model, rather than
examining relationships among antecedent variables (Parkhe, 1993). As
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 271
such the expected research outcome becomes a refined framework with
explanatory power, where theory testing can follow. The focus of a theory-
building process is not to verify established hypotheses, models, or frame-
works but to improve their substance (Flynn et al., 1990).
Since the framework we use is systemic, as is our study of emotions, this
would appear to be consistent with Gross (1998: 275), who notes that the
nervous system operates as ‘multiple, partially independent information
processing subsystems. …Subsystems work with differing inputs, and
often provide different outputs, even given the same input’.
The agency maintains external relations that involve (1) emotional cli-
mate (Sterelny, 2010) as a bipolar trait that influences attitudes that
emotionally orient the agency’s cultural environment; and (2) affective
operative orientation as the bipolar trait that influences agency emotional
interaction within its operative environment.
Though we have already defined affect above, fragmentation in the field
is obvious when screening the literature, and we found that it is a problem
laden task to create emergent coherent theory. Major issues emerge from
the turmoil and apparent contradictions within the variety of affective
theories in the literature, where similar or even the same constructs are
labelled with different terms, or where different concepts adopt the same
terminology (cf. Buck, 1990: 330; Gross, 1998: 275; James, Brodersen &
Eisenberg, 2004: 173). Thus the use of the term emotion might refer to
emotions proper, but also to positive or negative mood or to feelings. Some
use the term emotional feelings raising the question of what ‘non-emotional
feelings’ might be. For other authors emotion and temperament are the
same thing (Bates, Goodnight & Fite, 2008: 485). For the uninformed
reader, such an overlapping terminology becomes an obstacle to broad
understanding of the nature of emotions, their relationships, and their role
within social systems. Thus, one of our aims is to develop a set of constructs
that sit in a coherent ‘living’ affective agency framework. This has various
properties (Yolles & Fink, 2014d) including a capacity for adaptation.
A further issue is that in some theories emotional variables take bipolar
values that are epistemically dependent where more of one means less of
the other. In other theories bipolar values are epistemically independent
existing simultaneously. For sake of theory coherence, one cannot have
both in the same theory. In living agency theory the alternate poles of
bipolar traits are epistemic independent and have an auxiliary function to
each other.
Other attributes of agency affect are (Gross, 1998: 282) (1) ‘emotion
action’ that relates to ‘antecedent-focused emotion regulation’; and (2)
272 From Cognition to Affect
adaptation and learning processes or ‘response-focused emotion regula-
tion’. As such Gross’ interest lies in exploring emotional climate, attitude
and culture, feelings as activators of the figurative system, operative emo-
tion management, and emotion and its display in the operative system.
Adopting a ‘living’ agency approach drives a need to explore three sub-
structural attributes of our Agency Theory: (1) feed-forward processes
leading to actual emotional display as an observable behaviour; (2) feed-
back processes leading to emergence and amendments of a predominant set
of prevailing feelings and the emergence of a specific emotional attitude; (3)
the need to identify and relate feed-forward and feedback processes in
relation to agency regulatory functions.

8.4 Deriving Affect Types

There are two personality sub-systems, the ‘Cognition Personaliy’ and the
‘Affect Personality’, and both conform to the same generic structure:
1. A ‘Cognition/Affect System’ related to experience and concerned with
Cognitive self-identification and Affective self-identification.
2. A ‘Figurative System’ concerned with self-regulation, for which (1)
cognitive strategy development and goal identification that gives direc-
tions on should be focused on, and (2) affective activation of feelings
giving directions about default modes or reflective re-action.
3. An ‘Operative System’ concerned with self-organisation, where there
are (1) cognitive structures that relate to behaviour generation, or (2)
inclinations of how to display emotional behaviour in specific contexts.
In the context of the ‘Cognition Personality’ the functions of these
systems focus on slow thinking and careful weighing of arguments, pro-
viding overall basic cognitive orientations (from bipolar cognition traits).
In the context of the ‘Affect Personality’ the functions of these systems
focus on fast thinking, quick emotional reactions, and overall basic affect-
ive orientations (through bipolar affect traits).
Emotional attitude resides in the ‘Affective Existential System’ of the
Affect Personality. This system is concerned with the creation of patterns
of recognition connecting emotional attitudes to a given context.
Emotional attitude (Godin, 1987) guides the processes of motivation
activation (Lang et al., 2007) and operative emotion management
(Bolton, 2005). Depending on context, a positive or a negative orientation
can emerge from emotional attitude. If some effect (a contextual object of
attention) is emotionally identified as positive, then the agency is
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 273
‘stimulated’ to activate reinforcing strategies and to pursue appropriate
reinforcing action. If negative, then the agency activates ‘containment’
feelings, i.e., towards a reduced level of goals setting or actions of with-
drawal from a given context (Fink & Yolles, 2015). This activation is of
a special kind, where stimulation and containment are intimately con-
nected as interactive polar auxiliaries, one to the other, as explained by
Zhang’s (2011) notion of balancing contradictions. While positive stimula-
tion is an assertion for dominance in emotional attitude, negative stimula-
tion is an assertion for conjoint balance between the extremal types of
stimulation and containment, where negative stimulation encourages
more control than does positive stimulation that may otherwise be
unbounded.
Motivation refers to stimulation to action involving feelings.
Motivation activation resides in an affective activation system that can be
called the ‘Affective Figurative System’ and is concerned with self-
regulation. While emotional attitude guides the strategic affective self-
regulation processes, in the figurative system of the Affect Personality
feelings of motivation are activated: either ambition is emphasised, i.e.,
feelings that stimulate elation and assertion; or rather protection, i.e.,
feelings that identify and stimulate needs and desires for shelter and
support and are emphasising survival values. Thus, affective self-
regulation identifies goals and designs strategies directed towards ambition
or protection or some state in-between (cf. Stets & Turner, 2008).
Operative emotion management resides in the ‘Affective Operative
System’. Grandey, Fisk, and Steiner (2005) note that affective agencies
may have an institutional orientation, within which strong norms are
maintained that are intended to regulate emotion display so that it satisfies
institutional roles and standards. Under conditions of strong institutional
orientation, in a climate of dominance, aggressive emotions are displayed by
power holders (individuals with inclination for an upper position in
a hierarchy) to enforce dependent behaviours, like compliance with rules
and following commands. Consequently, there must be an alternate sub-
missive behavioural pattern displayed by other individuals, who have an
inclination towards a lower position in a hierarchy (Nechansky, 2016). For
commands to be met, sub-ordination and submission are required.
To progress the configuration approach, in a similar vein to Fink and
Yolles (2015: 835), the selective coding method of Grounded Theory
(Strauss & Corbin, 1998: 143) is applied to identify a coherent range of
keywords for the alternate poles of bipolar traits. Through this, the list of
items from the source theory is expanded. Coherent terms are chosen after
274 From Cognition to Affect
comparison of meanings and parsimonious reduction of the number of
terms through synonym and antonym analysis (see Table 8.1). These are
also illustrated in Figure 8.1 representing the affect personality.
Here our concern is currently only with the affect personality traits.
Through a combination of the three alternate poles for affect personality
we arrive at eight Affect Mindset Types. The keywords in Table 8.1 are used

Table 8.1 Bipolar emotional traits of the affect personality

Trait bipolar
Generic system type Nature

Emotional attitude Stimulation Context positive as an assertion for dominance

in emotional attitude: passionate,
emotional sensitive, joy, exuberance,
delight, exiting, ecstasy, elation, joviality,
open, serenity, intense, independent,
creative.
Context negative as a demand for conjoint
balance with containment: anger,
hostility, panic, paranoia, annoyance,
rage, disgust, panic, grief (emerges also as
outburst from containment).
Containment Dependable, restraint, self-possession, self-
containment, self-control, self-discipline,
self-government, self-mastery, self-
command, moderateness, continence.
Figurative motivation Ambition Aspiration, intention, enthusiasm,
activation initiative, aim, goal, desire, hope, wish,
enterprise, craving, longing, appetite,
ardour, aggressiveness, killer instinct.
Protection Safety, stability, security, shield, defence,
immunity, salvation, shelter,
safekeeping, conservation, insurance,
preservation, safeguard.
Operative emotion Dominance Control, domination, supremacy,
management hegemony, power, pre-eminence, rule,
sovereignty, ascendancy, authority,
command, dominion.
Submission Compliance, conformity, obedience,
subordination, subjection, allegiance,
deference, observance, non-resistance,
loyalty, devotion, passiveness, fealty,
resignation, homage, fidelity.
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 275
Figurative intelligence & Operative intelligence &
network of processes manifestation of emotional
sensitive to emotional positioning
context

Figurative Operative
Cognitive/Affect
System System
System
Motivation Activation
Emotional Attitude (Affective activation of Emotion Management
feelings)

Figurative intelligence & Operative intelligence &

regeneration of emotional regeneration of network of
attitude through evaluated operative processes through
experience evaluated operative experience

Figure 8.1 The Affect Personality System.

to characterise the emerging eight types. The details of these combinations

of the six alternate poles are shown in Table 8.2.
After combining six alternate poles an epistemic mapping (comparing
related terms) is undertaken with the classical four temperaments choleric,
sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic. To start, we briefly describe the four
Classical Temperaments summarised as below, and fully indicated in
Table 8.2:
• Choleric individuals are inclined to be brash, proud and aggressive,
prone to anger, and easily annoyed.
• Sanguine individuals are inclined to care little of others, they are bubbly,
extroverted, and unreliable.
• Melancholic individuals are inclined to be serious, analytic, critical,
passionate, and stubborn.
• Phlegmatic individuals are inclined to be followers, inoffensive, submis-
sive, conflict avoiding.
With their intentions, goals, and strategies, the embedded smaller social
wholes may constitute the figurative system of the larger social whole; and
with their interaction in the agency operative system they constitute the
numerous petty acts which are at the roots of the common cultural
environment. However, there is also the possibility that a variety of
subsystems interact within a larger social whole. Such subsystems have
different power, resources, capabilities, interests, and goals. In such
a setting, different forms of social coexistence emerge, and these are at
the base of within-culture variations as detailed in Table 8.3.
 Table 8.2 Items of eight combinations of the affect traits of the internal systems of personality

Type Affect traits Selection of items of affect traits

Dominant Stimulation Positive: passionate, emotional sensitive, joy, exuberance, delight, exiting, ecstasy, elation, joviality, open,
sanguine serenity, intense, independent, creative.
Negative: anger, hostility, panic, paranoia, annoyance, rage, disgust, panic, grief (emerges also as outburst from
containment).
Ambition Aspiration, intention, enthusiasm, initiative, aim, goal, desire, hope, wish, enterprise, craving, longing,
appetite, ardour, aggressiveness, killer instinct.
Dominance Control, domination, supremacy, hegemony, power, preeminence, rule, sovereignty, ascendancy, authority,
command, dominion.
Moderate Stimulation Positive: passionate, emotional sensitive, joy, exuberance, delight, exiting, ecstasy, elation, joviality, open,
sanguine serenity, intense, independent, creative.
Negative: anger, hostility, panic, paranoia, annoyance, rage, disgust, panic, grief (emerges also as outburst from
containment).
Ambition Aspiration, intention, enthusiasm, initiative, aim, goal, desire, hope, wish, enterprise, craving, longing,
appetite, ardour, aggressiveness, killer instinct.
Submission Compliance, conformity, obedience, subordination, subjection, allegiance, deference, observance, non-
resistance, loyalty, devotion, passiveness, fealty, resignation, homage, fidelity.
Reformer Stimulation Positive: passionate, emotional sensitive, joy, exuberance, delight, exiting, ecstasy, elation, joviality, open,
melancholic serenity, intense, independent, creative.
Negative: anger, hostility, panic, paranoia, annoyance, rage, disgust, panic, grief (emerges also as outburst from
containment).
Protection Safety, stability, security, shield, defence, immunity, salvation, shelter, safekeeping, conservation, insurance,
preservation, safeguard.
Dominance Control, domination, supremacy, hegemony, power, preeminence, rule, sovereignty, ascendancy, authority,
command, dominion.
Subversive Stimulation Positive: passionate, emotional sensitive, joy, exuberance, delight, exiting, ecstasy, elation, joviality, open,
melancholic\ serenity, intense, independent, creative.
Negative: anger, hostility, panic, paranoia, annoyance, rage, disgust, panic, grief (emerges also as outburst from
containment).
 Protection Safety, stability, security, shield, defence, immunity, salvation, shelter, safekeeping, conservation, insurance,
preservation, safeguard.
Submission Compliance, conformity, obedience, subordination, subjection, allegiance, deference, observance, non-
resistance, loyalty, devotion, passiveness, fealty, resignation, homage, fidelity.
Expansive Containment Dependable, restraint, self-possession, self-containment, self-control, self-discipline, self-government, self-
choleric mastery, self-command, moderateness, continence.
Ambition Aspiration, intention, enthusiasm, initiative, aim, goal, desire, hope, wish, enterprise, craving, longing,
appetite, ardour, aggressiveness, killer instinct.
Dominance Control, domination, supremacy, hegemony, power, preeminence, rule, sovereignty, ascendancy, authority,
command, dominion.
Defensive Containment Dependable, restraint, self-possession, self-containment, self-control, self-discipline, self-government, self-
choleric mastery, self-command, moderateness, continence.
Protection Safety, stability, security, shield, defence, immunity, salvation, shelter, safekeeping, conservation, insurance,
preservation, safeguard.
Dominance Control, domination, supremacy, hegemony, power, preeminence, rule, sovereignty, ascendancy, authority,
command, dominion.
Compliant Containment Dependable, restraint, self-possession, self-containment, self-control, self-discipline, self-government, self-
phlegmatic mastery, self-command, moderateness, continence.
Ambition Aspiration, intention, enthusiasm, initiative, aim, goal, desire, hope, wish, enterprise, craving, longing,
appetite, ardour, aggressiveness, killer instinct.
Submission Compliance, conformity, obedience, subordination, subjection, allegiance, deference, observance, non-
resistance, loyalty, devotion, passiveness, fealty, resignation, homage, fidelity.
Dormant Containment Dependable, restraint, self-possession, self-containment, self-control, self-discipline, self-government, self-
phlegmatic; mastery, self-command, moderateness, continence.
fatalist Protection Safety, stability, security, shield, defence, immunity, salvation, shelter, safekeeping, conservation, insurance,
preservation, safeguard
Submission Compliance, conformity, obedience, subordination, subjection, allegiance, deference, observance, non-
resistance, loyalty, devotion, passiveness, fealty, resignation, homage, fidelity.
278 From Cognition to Affect
Table 8.3 Semantic comparison of classical temperaments

Temperament types Temperament key words

Sanguine Bubbly, Social, Displays emotions openly, Changes

optimistic, active, social emotions quickly, Upbeat, Outgoing, Positive,
Extroverted, Loves attention, ‘Exciting’, Life of the
Party, Chatty, Perhaps follows trends, Dramatic,
Will try to make people pay attention to them if
nobody is, Very emotional, and expresses emotion
openly, Flighty, Unreliable, Spontaneous, FUN,
Likes more than they dislike, Make you feel
comfortable when talking with them, Vain,
narcissistic, Makes friends quickly and often; they
can make someone into a ‘best friend’ in mere hours,
Naturally physical; ‘touchy-feely’, Tends to move on
rather than blaming anyone
Choleric Brash, Prone to anger; ‘short fuse’, Proud, Confident,
short-tempered, fast, or irritable Forceful, Needs to see results, Gets things done,
Doesn’t show weakness, Strong, Makes things their
business, Likes to be in charge, Likes things their
way, Stubborn, Can’t admit if they’re wrong,
Defiant, Demanding, More likely to fight than flee,
Tends to show little emotion, other than anger,
Passionate, Reliable; sticks by you and holds to
promises, Vengeful; they will be your best friend if
you stick by them, but turn against them and they’ll
make a point of making you regret it, Dislikes
following, Contrary, Condescending, especially if
you try to defy them, Likely to offer advice, Criticises
others, Loves winning, likely to humiliate the one
they defeated/dominated, gives advice or help which
isn’t asked for, Tends to blame others
Phlegmatic Meek, Inoffensive, Submissive, Follower, Can’t say no,
relaxed, peaceful Struggles with decisions; prefers others to decide for
them, Shy, Quiet, Listener, ‘Boring’, Doesn’t assert
themselves, Doesn’t like change . . ., …but will
rather change themselves than cause conflict,
‘Easygoing’ in normal situations . . ., …but they
panic if put into new situations, Doesn’t crave
excitement, Tends to show little emotion, Not very
passionate, Trustworthy, Low confidence, Fears
doing things wrong, Avoids conflict, Finds leading
stressful rather than desirable, tends to find
*winning* against someone else stressful rather than
a reward; they do not seek personal glory, Does not
believe they know best, Gives in easily rather than
arguing …or feels extremely nervous and upset if
they do argue, Tends to blame self.
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 279
Table 8.3 (cont.)

Temperament types Temperament key words

Melancholic Serious, Prone to misery, Emotionally sensitive,

analytical, wise, quiet
Analytical, Critical, Self-deprecating, Needs things
to be RIGHT, Creative, Moved to tears by beauty,
Bitter, Can have unrealistically high standards,
Introverted, Stubborn, Selfish, Easily upset, Rejects
others so then they aren’t themselves rejected, Very
emotional, but keeps emotions inside mostly,
Passionate, Holds grudges, Unreliable, Pessimistic,
Deep and thoughtful, Prefers planning to
spontaneous action, May dislike more than they like,
Intense, Corrects others, Reluctant to make friends,
Takes ages for them to consider someone a friend,
Suspicious; untrusting, Complains OFTEN, Tends
to blame self,

Note. Adapted from Pseudolonewolf (2004).

In the literature and on the Internet, one can find discussion and presenta-
tion of blends between the four classical types choleric, sanguine, melancholic,
and phlegmatic. In the following, the terms Sanguine, Melancholic, Choleric,
and Phlegmatic are used to indicate the similarity between the eight ‘affect
Mindset types’ and the range of keywords for each of the types, which one can
find also for each of the four classical temperaments. However, the ‘affect
Mindset types’ do not cover the whole range of keywords supplied for
temperaments, which include values, interests, goals, preferences, and patterns
of behaviour. Thus, the ‘affect Mindset types’ can only explain part of the
temperaments. Since a given set of behaviours is included into a temperament
definition: a ‘temperament’ can be identified only through observed patterns
of behaviour. A temperament’s predictive capacity can only be assumed when
values and interests and context remain unchanged. By contrast, ‘affect
Mindset types’ have a predictive value for behaviours. Thus, when the states
of the bipolar traits change (when values and feelings change) then a change in
behaviour can be predicted.
To extend this through variation, the ‘affect Mindset types’ that emerge
from Affect Mindset Agency Theory should also be compatible with the
eight (pathologic) cognitive types developed and described in detail by
Yolles and Fink (2013a, 2013b, 2014). The results of combining the traits
and undertaking an epistemic mapping are four times two variations of the
280 From Cognition to Affect
Table 8.4 Eight alternate combinations of affect traits of the personality

Stimulating affect
type Nature Containment affect type Nature

Dominant sanguine Stimulation Expansive choleric Containment

Ambition Ambition
Dominance Dominance
Moderate sanguine Stimulation Defensive choleric Containment
Ambition Protection
Submission Dominance
Reformer melancholic Stimulation Compliant phlegmatic Containment
Protection Ambition
Dominance Submission
Subversive Stimulation Dormant phlegmatic Containment
melancholic Protection (fatalist) Protection
Submission Submission

classic temperaments: For Sanguine one can distinguish ‘Dominant

Sanguine’ and ‘Moderate Sanguine’; for Melancholic ‘Reformer
Melancholic’ and ‘Subversive Melancholic’; for Choleric ‘Expansive
Choleric’ and ‘Defensive Choleric’; and for Phlegmatic ‘Compliant
Phlegmatic’ and ‘Dormant Phlegmatic’ or ‘Fatalist’. In Table 8.4, affect
Mindset types are ordered as two sets of type orientations. Types 1–4 have
dominant stimulation orientation, and types 5–8 have dominant contain-
ment orientation.
It is important to note that temperaments have advantages/disadvan-
tages, strengths/weaknesses, just as do every cognitive type. However, the
alternate poles of bipolar traits interact with each other and exert a mutual
auxiliary function (Jung, 1921; Blutner & Hochnadel, 2010). This applies
to both affect and cognition types. Thus, in the literature on classical
temperament types (the ‘Four Humours’) we find hints that combinations
of temperaments are prevalent and important. Any individual personality
has a ‘major temperament orientation’ and at least one other supportive
‘subordinate supportive temperament orientation’ (Pseudolonewolf,
2004–11; Cocoris, 1988, 2008, 2012).

8.5 Emotional and Cultural Climate in the Agency

Environment – Affect Agency Types
Fink and Yolles (2015: 857–58) briefly touch on the variety of patholo-
gies that might emerge in agency environments noting that Kets de
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 281
Vries and Miller (1986) had ‘identified five types of pathologic styles
prevalent in organizations: suspicious paranoid; depressive helplessness
(avoidant/dependent); dramatic/charismatic (histrionic/narcissistic);
compulsive bureaucratic control; and detached politicized (schizoid/
avoidant)’.
Four of these five pathologic styles emerge from the bipolar dimensions
‘fear versus security orientation’ for the cultural environment and ‘mis-
sionary dramatist versus empathetic orientation’ for operative interaction
with the social environment:
(1) Fear + Missionary: is related to compulsive bureaucratic control.
(2) Fear + Empathetic: is related to suspicious paranoid.
(3) Security + Missionary: is related to dramatic/charismatic.
(4) Security + Empathetic: is related to depressive helplessness.
When considering attitudes of individuals resulting when their groups are
marginalised (Berry et al., 1989), we find similarities between ‘depressive
helplessness (avoidant/dependent)’, ‘fatalism’ (cf. Gross & Rayner, 1985),
and ‘collective culture shock’ (Feichtinger & Fink, 1998; Fink & Holden,
2002, 2010).
When comparing the sociocultural traits for affect and cognition agen-
cies (Table 8.5) we find similar keywords between the agency affect trait
‘missionary versus empathetic’ and agency cognition trait ‘dramatist versus
patterner’. However, similarities are not easily found between the cultural
traits of agency cognition ‘sensate versus ideational’ and agency affect ‘fear
versus security’. Such differences are a result of epistemic independence of
the traits and their alternate poles.
The traits that have been identified are all individually associated with
their own ontologically distinct systems that are part of agency. Earlier we
indicated affect personality traits, and here affect sociocultural traits. These
can be brought together as indicated in Table 8.6 and with descriptions
replacing key words. These affect traits may be related to the cognition
agency traits previously indicated in Table 6.2.

8.6 Agency Affect Types and Cognition Agency Mindset

Types – A Brief Comparison
Cognition autonomy and affect stimulation are connected. Shalom
Schwartz (2006) noted that pursuing novelty and change (stimulation
values) is likely to undermine preserving tradition values, and further
that pursuing tradition values is congruent with pursuing conformity
282 From Cognition to Affect
Table 8.5 Sociocultural traits for cognition and affect agencies

Agency Orienting Bipolar

context trait trait values Key word meanings

Cognition Cultural Sensate Senses, utilitarianism, materialism,

becoming, process, change, flux,
evolution, progress, transformation,
pragmatism, temporal.
Ideational Super-sensory, spirituality,
humanitarianism, self-deprivation,
creativity of ideas, eternal
Operative- Dramatist Ideocentric, theatrical, climactic,
social thrilling, emotional, farcical,
impressive, melodramatic, breath-
taking, sensational.
Patterner Configurations, relationships, symmetry,
pattern, balance, dynamics,
collectivism, allocentric.
Affect Cultural – Fear Isolation, non-co-operative, insecurity,
emotional anxiety, aggression, concern, scare.
climate Security Trust, confidence, satisfaction, solidarity,
encouragement, hope.
Operative- Missionary Imposing, proponent, converter, herald,
social promoter, propagandist, revivalist.
Empathetic Accepting, compassionate, sensitive,
sympathetic.

values, which motivate actions of submission to external expectations.

Since conformity (embeddedness) is connected with containment, in this
chapter ‘intellectual autonomy’ and ‘stimulation’ are chosen as the alter-
nate poles of ‘embeddedness’ and ‘containment’. This choice is supported
by Cooper et al. (2003: 532), who relate ‘intellectual autonomy’ with
‘stimulation’. This is not to deny that there is a relatively close correlation
between intellectual and affective autonomy. However, intellectual auton-
omy is correlated with affective autonomy and egalitarianism; and affective
autonomy is correlated with intellectual autonomy and mastery (see Sagiv
& Schwartz, 2007: 181). Beugré (2007: 72) initially connects ‘stimulation’
with ‘affective autonomy’, but then he says that the latter is quite closely
connected with ‘intellectual autonomy’. Further to this, Stratis (2008)
notes that ‘affective autonomy’ relates to ‘stimulation’ with ‘self-
direction’. In other words, if we connect ‘intellectual autonomy’ with
‘stimulation’, then this implies that the affect ‘stimulation’ is cognitively
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 283
Table 8.6 Affect personality traits plus affect sociocultural traits (shaded) from
which affect Mindsets result

Agency Trait bipolar

trait Type trait type Description

Cultural Emotional Fear The trait encourages an agent to seeks

climate isolation due to fear, is non-
co-operative due to insecurity and
anxiety, may become aggression, or
concerned due to being scared.
Security This trait enables an agent to be
trusting and confident, satisfied
with things as they are, having
solidarity with others, and full of
encouragement and hope.
Cognitive Emotional Stimulation Context positive as an assertion for
attitude dominance in emotional attitude:
those with this trait option are
passionate, emotional and
sensitive, full of joy and
exuberance, tend to be delighted by
experiences, seek exiting situations
that might provide ecstasy, elation,
and joviality. They are also open,
serene, intense, independent, and
quire creative.
Context negative as a demand for
conjoint balance with containment:
tend to be angry and hostile, may
tend to panic and paranoia, be
susceptible to annoyance, rage,
disgust and, grief. This may emerge
as outburst from apparent
containment.
Containment This trait is consistent with
dependability and restraint. It gives
self-possession as well as self-
containment, self-control, self-
discipline, self-governance, self-
mastery, self-command,
moderateness, and continence.
Figurative Motivation Ambition Aspiration and intention are
activation significant attributes together with
gaining enthusiasm and initiative.
Aims and goals are important as
well as desire, hope, and wish. It
promotes enterprise, and is
284 From Cognition to Affect
Table 8.6 (cont.)

Agency Trait bipolar

trait Type trait type Description

consistent with craving or longing

for something for which there is an
appetite for. Ardour is important
just as is aggressiveness and the
killer instinct.
Protection Safety and stability/security are
important, as is a defensive shield
that may provide immunity or
salvation to shelter from the
unknown. Safekeeping and
conservation are important, and
there is a need for insurance,
preservation, and safeguard.
Operative Emotion management
Dominance Control, domination, and rule are of
importance, these giving
supremacy, and hegemony.
Seeking power is of value, as is pre-
eminence in situations. This affect
type supports sovereignty,
ascendancy, authority, and
command over dominion.
Submission Compliance conformity, obedience,
is usually subordination, and subjection.
sought Allegiances are normal, as if
together deference and observance.
with Resistance to situation is
uncommon just as loyalty and
devotion are. The trait encourages
passiveness, fealty, resignation,
homage, and fidelity.
Operative Social Missionary The trait encourages the imposition
of ideas on others. It encourages
other to be a proponent of the
ideas, by converting or heralding or
promoting them to others. The
trait can result an agent with this
trait being a propagandist and
revivalist.
Empathetic This trait is one that is accepting,
compassionate, sensitive,
sympathetic.
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 285
Table 8.7 Comparison of stimulation-oriented affect Mindset types with
individualistic Mindset types

Type
no. Affect type Trait Cognitive type Trait

1 DS: dominant Stimulation HI: hierarchical Intellectual

sanguine individualism Autonomy
Ambition Mastery +
Affective
Autonomy
Dominance Hierarchy
2 MD: moderate Stimulation EI: egalitarian Intellectual
sanguine individualism Autonomy
Ambition Mastery +
Affective
Autonomy
Submission Egalitarianism
3 RM: reformer Stimulation HS: hierarchic Intellectual
melancholic synergism Autonomy
Protection Harmony
Dominance Hierarchy
4 SM: subversive Stimulation ES: egalitarian Intellectual
melancholic synergism/ Autonomy
Protection social Harmony
Submission anarchism Egalitarianism

directed primarily at freedom, creativity, curiosity, and broad-mindedness

(as in Table 8.7) and only secondary to values of ‘affective autonomy’
(exciting life, varied life, pleasure, enjoying life, and self-indulgence). It is
also possible to make connections between embeddedness and contain-
ment, as shown in Table 8.8. Thus, for instance, following Matsumoto
(2007), containment is a means by which power holders organise relation-
ships through which embeddedness occurs.
The two Sanguine types in Table 8.7 can be subsumed under the label of
‘Mastery Individualism’. These types are related to ‘niche players’ in the
system of Nechansky (2007).
• Combination of Dominant Sanguine and Hierarchical Individualism
Individuals who support and personally pursue such an orientation
find that: People need someone to lead and thus others have to follow
to assure stability. They raise arguments in defence of economic
inequality, which arise because of differences in mental and physical
286 From Cognition to Affect
Table 8.8 Comparison of containment-oriented affect Mindset types with
collectivistic Mindset types

Type
no. Affect type Trait Cognitive type Trait

5 EC: expansive Containment HP: hierarchical Embeddedness

choleric Ambition populism Mastery +
Affective
Autonomy
Dominance Hierarchy
6 DC: defensive Containment HC: hierarchical Embeddedness
choleric Protection collectivism Harmony
Dominance Hierarchy
7 CP: compliant Containment EP: egalitarian Embeddedness
phlegmatic Ambition populism Mastery +
Affective
Autonomy
Submission Egalitarianism
8 DP: dormant Containment EC: egalitarian Embeddedness
phlegmatic Protection harmony Harmony
fatalism Submission collectivism Egalitarianism

capabilities and in material circumstances. Therefore, within a society,

leaders are likely to acquire more than others, seen as fair.
Related cognitive value orientations are values of social hierarchy and
deference: social recognition and social power, authority, wealth, influ-
ential, freedom, independence, creativity, successful, and ambitious (cf.
Fink & Yolles, 2016).
• Combination of Moderate Sanguine with the Cognitive Type
Egalitarian Individualism
Individuals who support, and personally pursue, such an orientation
find that: Free people can take care of themselves. The purpose of liberty
is to allow a free people to be creative, to release the creative energy that
is needed, and to strive for virtue and excellence. Thus, one should
eliminate all these taxes, regulations, and government controls. The state
must not engage in needless wars. Freedom is economic freedom,
domestic freedom, freedom of speech, and the freedom to bear arms.
Fair distribution of property can only arise in an undistorted natural
market. Free market operates as mediator of egoistic impulses and is
providing social stability.
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 287
Related cognitive value orientations are: freedom, liberty, independ-
ence, creativity, equality of chance, daring, ambitious successful, influ-
ential, social recognition (cf. Fink & Yolles, 2016).
The two Melancholic Types in Table 8.7 can be subsumed under the
label ‘Synergism/Harmony Individualism’. These types are related to
inclination towards ‘cooperation’ as long as common goals can be identi-
fied (Nechansky, 2007).
• Combination of Reformer Melancholic with the Cognitive Type
Hierarchic Synergism
Characteristics: It is rooted in Humanism and refers to the abstract
community of learned men as well as to the knowledge embodied in
them. This involves an implicit consensus about rules and shared ideals
of the community of the learned. The abstract community of the
learned – with its claims to altruistic mutual assistance and constant
increase in overall knowledge – intersects and interferes with concrete
institutions with political and social aims of their own.
Related cognitive value orientations are: accept my portion in life,
world at peace, protect environment, unity with nature, world of
beauty, broad-mindedness, freedom, creativity, curious, authority, sov-
ereignty, control, preeminence (cf. Fink & Yolles, 2016).
• Combination of Subversive Melancholic with the Cognitive Type
Egalitarian Synergism/Social Anarchist
Characteristics: Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. Individual freedom is seen as
being dependent upon mutual support, community, social equality, and
social coherence, i.e., social harmony. Social Anarchism declares itself to
foster community self-reliance, direct participation in political decision-
making, respect for nature, and nonviolent paths to peace and justice.
Related cognitive value orientations are: equality, responsible, honest,
social justice, helpful, accept my portion in life, world at peace, protect
environment, unity with nature, broad-mindedness, freedom, creativity
(cf. Fink & Yolles, 2016).
In Table 8.8, the two Choleric Types are related to Hierarchic
Dominance in Collectivistic/Populist systems. These types refer to
a ‘hierarchical position’ (Nechansky, 2007).
• Expansive Choleric Combined with Hierarchical Populism
Characteristics: strong emphasis on the threats from dangerous ‘others’,
most notably foreigners, immigrants, protection seeking refugees, asy-
lum seekers, and threats from visible but segregated groups within
a given society.
288 From Cognition to Affect
Related cognitive value orientations are: authority, wealth, social power,
obedient, respect tradition, self-discipline, moderate, family security,
protect public image, national security, honour elders, reciprocation of
favours, social order (cf. Fink & Yolles, 2016).
• Defensive Choleric Combined with Hierarchical Collectivism
Characteristics: when collectivist groups, tribes and clans become larger,
and/or when individual members of a community perceive that they
may become more prosperous when assuming control over resources,
then moves emerge towards hierarchical collectivism (hierarchy, embed-
dedness, harmony) with wealth accumulation by individuals or small
groups at the top of emerging hierarchies.
Related cognitive value orientations are: obedient, forgiving, respect
tradition, self-discipline, moderate, social order, family security, pro-
tect my public image, national security, accept my portion in life,
world at peace, authority, wealth, social power (cf. Fink & Yolles,
2016).
In Table 8.8 the two Phlegmatic Types are related to Egalitarian
Subordination in Collectivistic/Populist systems. These types refer to
‘subordination’ or inclination towards ‘hierarchy lower position’ as indi-
cated by Nechansky (2016: 378).
• Compliant Phlegmatic Combined with Egalitarian Populism
This orientation reflects forms of left-wing populism: That means
emphasis on social justice, pacifism, anti-globalisation, and anti-
capitalism. Left-wing populism is mainly directed against ‘the rich’, be
it local rich people or foreign ‘rich’ corporations.
Related cognitive value orientations are: obedient, helpful, honest,
responsible, loyal, equality, moderate, reciprocation of favours, security,
social order, social justice, social recognition (cf. Fink & Yolles, 2016).
• Dormant Phlegmatic/Fatalist Combined with Egalitarian Harmony
Collectivism
This orientation reflects a form of group-oriented collectivism with
strong emphasis on egalitarianism in (sometimes voluntary) collective
communities: there is no private property; everyone is responsible for
taking care of the needs of the members of the community and their
families.
Related cognitive value orientations are: loyal, equality, accept my
portion in life, protect environment, unity with nature, polite, obedient,
forgiving, responsible, helpful, respect tradition, group security, recip-
rocation of favours, self-discipline, social justice (cf. Fink & Yolles,
2016).
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 289
8.7 The Affect Agency Space
The affect agency defined through possible affect Mindset types shown in
Tables 8.7 and 8.8 can be represented in an affect agency modelling space as
shown in Figure 8.1. To formulate it we recall that in Chapter 6 we
considered the cognition agency space in which Mindsets were displayed,
the same technique can be applied to affect agency Mindsets. In Figure 8.1
we display the eight affect Mindset types, noting that these can vary within
the space indicated. This variation may occur as personality affect traits
shift in their possible range of values (scores) that they may take between
the two extreme polar enantiomers supposing that traits are continuous
variables. However, this can result in huge discrete set of possible affect
Mindset types that could potentially become continuous delivering an
infinite set of Mindsets that can represent any variation in the affect
personality. These congruencies need to arise in stable Mindset combin-
ations, something that depends on the current state of emotional climate
values. These congruencies will be related to the values that the emotional
climate trait. As with the cultural trait that can take either sensate of
ideational states or an idealistic balance between them, so to emotional
climate may take a balance between fear and security. In this case neither
fear nor security dominate, but rather a synergy occurs between them so
that both forms of emotional conditions are regarded as valid in society.
These congruencies, when examined within the context of affect Mindsets,
may be seen as Mindset intersections as shown, for example for RM∩MD
in Figure 8.2.

8.8 A Brief Comparison between Affect Mindsets

and Nechansky’s Theory
In ‘Elements of a Cybernetic Epistemology’ Nechansky (2007, 2008a)
shows that four modes of coexistence result as a cybernetic necessity that
arise from only four factors (Nechansky, 2008a: 85):
1. the number of systems trying to control one controlled system;
2. the relative positions of their goal-values in relation to each other;
3. the relative positions of their goal-values in relation to the actual state of
the controlled system;
4. the variety and power of their actions.
These four modes of coexistence are (Nechansky, 2008a: 85):
290 From Cognition to Affect
1
Dominance

(7) DC (3) RM

Operative trait
(5) EC (1) DS

RM∩MD
(8) EC
Submission (4) SM
Emotional Attitude trait
1 Stimulation
0 Containment
Protection

Figurative trait
(6) CP (2) MD

Ambition 1

Figure 8.2 Affect Agency Space displaying Mindset types.

1. The Niche. If a goal-oriented system can act alone upon a controlled

system, without any interaction with other goal-oriented systems.
2. Conflict. If two or more goal-oriented systems try to realise different
goal-values in one controlled system and the actual state of that system
amounts to deviations in different directions from these goal-values,
and neither goal-oriented system has enough power to achieve its own
goal.
3. Hierarchy. If two or more goal-oriented systems try to realise different
goal-values in one controlled system and one goal-oriented system has
enough power to dominate the other goal-oriented systems as well as
the controlled system to realise its own goal.
4. Cooperation. If two or more goal-oriented systems act upon one
controlled system and either all share the same goal-values or have
different goal-values, but the actual state of the controlled system
amounts to deviations in the same directions from these goal-values.
One may consider an example for the options of cooperation and conflict:
if two interacting individuals are in the same room, but have different
preferences for the actual temperature – say the one for twenty degrees and
the other for twenty-five degrees – then there will be two ranges of
temperature where both co-operate: at temperature below twenty degrees
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 291
both are for heating, and at temperature above twenty-five degrees both are
for cooling. Thus, in those ranges they co-operate. However, between
twenty and twenty-five degrees, interests are different. Thus, there will
be conflict.
It is important to note that at the individual level Nechansky distin-
guishes ‘inclinations’ from interaction modes (Nechansky, 2016: 92–93):
1. inclination for an upper position in a hierarchy – corresponding
behaviour is aggressive;
2. inclination for a lower position in a hierarchy – corresponding behav-
iour is aimlessly drifting or submissive;
3. inclination for the niche – resulting behaviour is independent;
4. inclination for cooperation; the behaviour is co-operative.
Nechansky (2008b), in his article ‘The Cybernetics of Social Change – and
History’, when considering the context of foreign policy, refers to ‘submis-
sive foreign policy’: ‘Occasionally we find that a social unit surrenders to
a too strong opponent, or decides to merge with another one to get
protection against such an opponent. The resulting mode of coexistence
is the lower position in a hierarchy’ (Nechansky, 2008b: 269). Thus, while
this might be the case ‘occasionally’ in foreign policy, we may posit that
wherever there is hierarchy, there necessarily must be submission, too.
Subordination also arises if the social system does not only pursue a single
goal, but a set of goals with different importance assigned to these goals,
then there are some ‘subordinate goals’, which may be sacrificed if
resources are required to satisfy the higher order goals (Nechansky, 2010,
2017).
In comparison with Nechansky’s typology, the emergent eight affect
types of the affective personality model are pairwise related to the four
Nechansky ‘inclinations’ referring to the modes of coexistence individuals
may want and try to realise. Thus, the affect personality model offers some
further differentiation of types.

8.9 Chapter in Brief

• Affect theory, like cognition theory, is fragmented.

• Affect may refer to short-lasting emotion, long-lasting moods that
represent predominant emotion or conscious state of mind, tempera-
ment (character traits or habitual inclination or mode of emotional
response) and sensation (mental process like seeing, hearing, or
292 From Cognition to Affect
smelling resulting from the immediate external stimulation of a sense
organ).
• Emotions are often represented as short-lasting feelings, while mood is
represented as long-lasting feeling. However, while feeling may be
a consequence of affect, it is distinguished from affect by the fact that
it produces no perceptible physical innervations, i.e., neither more nor
less than an ordinary thinking process.
• Both temperament and personality theories can refer to traits, but the
distinction between is that temperament refers to behavioural style and
indicates how behaviour arises, while personality theory describes what
and why behaviours arise.
• Affect personality adopts a temperament approach to is defined by a set
of affect traits that constitute temperament.
• Affect traits, like cognition traits, are epistemically independent bipolar
affect types with particular penchants.
• Affect agency has a personality system that can be represented by
a cognitive/affect system that supports emotional attitude with opposing
penchants of stimulation and containment, a figurative/affect system
that supports motivation activation (of feeling) with opposing pen-
chants of ambition and protection, and an operative/affect system that
supports emotion management through opposing penchants of domin-
ance and submission.
• Affect personality sits in affect agency that has a cultural system involv-
ing cultural climate (with extreme penchants of fear or security) and
a social/operative system (with extreme penchants of missionary and
empathy).
• Like the immanent processes of cognition, affect may occur independ-
ently of adventitious influences, where feelings have a major role in
personality.
• Cognitive development (the capacity to have elaborating knowledge-
based rational thought over time) occurs together with affective devel-
opment, these having mutual complementarity.
• Affect development is closely connected with cognitive development.
The motives and energising dynamisms that drive behaviour involve
affect, and there is no purely intellectual action. Similarly, there is not
purely affect act. Affect and cognition are integrally intertwined.
• Affect traits coalesce into a set of Mindset types that can be related to the
classical four temperaments.
• Just as cognition agency has Mindsets that fit into individualist and
collectivist categorisations, there are four affect Mindsets led by
 Affect Types and Mindset Types 293
stimulation penchants, and four that are led by containment
penchants.
• Affect Mindsets, like cognition Mindsets, can represent an infinite
number of individual differences as they cross mix.
• Different affect types are supposed to differently regulate the stages of
emotion management.
• Affect types and cognition types provide mutual contexts for each other,
and foster reciprocal affect and cognitive orientations.
• It is possible to analyse cultural differentiation within social systems
(societies/organisations), with reference to identification, elaboration,
and execution of ‘emotion knowledge’ and ‘cognition knowledge’.
• Understanding interdependencies between cognition and emotion
regulation is a prerequisite of managerial intelligence and strategic
cultural intelligence, which is in demand for interaction and integration
processes across social systems.
• From the framework model linking emotion expression and emotion
regulation with cognition analysis, a typology arises allowing ex ante
expectation of typical patterns of behaviour.
• Affect Mindsets emerge from an analysis of the literature, when eight
affect Mindsets are identified. This is beyond Mindscape theory that
principally supports cognition.
 chapter 9

Affect and Cognition

9.1 Introduction
Personality is a complex component of agency composed of interactive
affect and cognition, resulting in patterns of behaviour. This occurs for the
individual as well as for the social collective, like the organisation (Fink &
Yolles, 2015). As we have already indicated throughout this book, there is
still fragmentation in personality psychology (e.g., L’Abate, 2005). For
Carver (2005: 320), ‘there is potential for confusion in comparing …
[theories of personality] across literatures, due to differences in use of
terms’. This is supported by Boeree (2006), who indicates that field of
personality offers a plurality of theories, rather than a science of personal-
ity; this results in a confusing complexity of non-relatable terms. Such
views apply not only to cognition theories of personality, but affect theories
too. Historically, Leventhal (1980: 140) has noted that the concept of
emotion is poorly defined, and research is fragmented and unintegrated,
a situation is not much better more recently in relation to theories of
emotion regulation:
There remains an unfortunate degree of confusion about what emotion
regulation is (and isn’t), and what effects (if any) emotion regulation has on
important outcomes. (Gross, 2008: 497)
In this chapter we posit some theory that not only embraces a variety of
existing cognitive theory, but also proposes for the first time a detailed
explanation of how cognition and affect are related to create the whole
personality, and how they more generally relate and with what potential
consequences.
This chapter builds on our Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) by
elaborating on it with ‘affect’ (Guo et al., 2016). The model provides
a framework which links emotion expression and regulation with

294
 Affect and Cognition 295
cognition analysis. From three formative traits for each of the two
fundamental aspects of personality, a typology arises that defines ex
ante expectations of typical patterns of behaviour in given contexts.
This interaction determines personality (Chang-Schneider & Swann,
2010), and establishes a basis for anticipating agency behaviours. This
relationship is important, because the personality that emerges from
their complex interactions is determined by mental reflection and self-
reflection, with self-certainty functioning as an important moderator.
The theoretical basis for such self-certainty seeking arises from the
affect–cognition crossfire model by Swann et al. (1987). Affect and
cognition are autonomous systems, but they mutually impact each
other through processes of ‘crossfire’. While the self-certainty propos-
ition with its theoretical underpinning provides a useful approach
towards creating potential for future behaviour which can be adopted
as a predictor, this approach does not yet provide specific theory capable
of explaining how the search for self-certainty occurs.
We are already aware that cognitive MAT identifies three generic
domains which regulate decision-making and self-organisation:
a cognitive/existential system for self-identification, a figurative/nou-
menal system for self-reflection and self-regulation, and an operative/
phenomenal system for self-organisation and observation of the envir-
onment. The same attributes can be applied to the affect agency model
(Fink & Yolles, 2015), which was developed as an extension of James
Gross’ (1998) model of emotion regulation using the principles of
Schwarz’s (1994) ‘living systems’ theory. While emotions and feelings
arise in the unitary personality, they may also develop a normative
dimensionality in a plural agency. Fink and Yolles (2015) have identified
the cybernetic principles of how emotions might be normatively regu-
lated. The agency is understood as a sociocognitive entity with an
emotional attitude. For slow thinking with careful reflection of situ-
ations, it operates through cognition traits that control thinking, iden-
tification of goals, and decision-making. But, for quick and
spontaneous decisions it operates through affect traits. All traits are
epistemically independent and operate on a bipolar scale. They are also
ontologically distinct, one being phenomenological and the other
noumenal.
In the last chapter it was noted that processes of emotion regulation can
be represented through three stages:
1. Identification: generates affect situation awareness.
296 From Cognition to Affect
2. Elaboration: affect is constituted through schemas of emotional feeling,
which generate goals of emotion expression through emotion ideolo-
gies for framing emotional responses to distinct contextual situations.
3. Execution: operative system primary emotions exists that are
a. assessed through operative intelligence for capacity to organise
action, but also generate information which may require adaptation;
b. turned into action, i.e., responses, through quickly available cul-
tural feeling rules and sociocultural display rules, conforming to
emotion ideologies.
Given the numerosity of related terms used in the literature, some
clarifications may be useful. From the literature we find terms like affect,
emotions, temperaments, etc. for related constructs. For the affect agency,
and as noted in the previous chapter, and on reflection of Swann et al.
(1987), we adopt the terms affect, affect system, affect traits, and affect
Mindset types. These correspond symmetrically to terms used for the
cognition agency which are cognition, cognitive system, cognition traits,
and cognitive Mindset types.

9.2 Historical Thought on Relating Affect with Cognition

Forgas (2008) provides a very useful background to the historical thought
on the relationship between affect and cognition which contributes to the
view of lack of cohesive development of the field. This will be summarised
here.
Early approaches to affect and cognition were shaped by psychoanalytic
theories and behaviourism. In the former, affect was seen to be part of
Freud’s concept of the id, and working against the rational ego. One
consequence was the idea that the suppression of fear facilitates
a tendency to project fear onto another social object. In the latter, in the
1920s affect was seen to influence thoughts and judgements through
conditioned blind associations between affect and other stimuli. As
a result, emotions could be explained in terms of cumulative conditioning
experiences superimposed on a few fundamental inherent emotions.
However, an idea that has been retained came from Watson that affect
may influence thoughts and judgements through incidental associations.
There has also been a proposition that unconditioned stimuli result in
unconditioned responses, arising from the view that aversive or pleasant
environments can produce an affective reaction in a given environment.
 Affect and Cognition 297
By the 1960s a new information-processing paradigm emerged, taking
affect as a source of disruption and noise. A decade later it was found that
affect was important as a function that determines how social information
is dealt with, however, it was principally related to consideration of mood.
It resulted in an associative network model for the affect–cognition rela-
tionship that supported the view that there is a mood-congruent influence
on social memory. Affect was also seen to determine how mental represen-
tations of social experiences may be constructed and maintained – just as
cognitive processes are also involved in the generation of affective
responses.
Appraisal theories began in the 1950s and is still relatively current.
They have sought to explore the relationship between cognition and
affect, for instance proposing that emotions or emotional components
are caused and differentiated by an appraisal of the stimulus as mis/
matching with goals and expectations, as easy/difficult to control, and
as caused by others, themselves or impersonal circumstances (Moores,
2017). Emotional appraisal combines situational and personal informa-
tion to predict what the stimulus means to the individual, and explains
the cognitive basis of emotions. The idea of affect congruence proposes
that affect can influence cognition through inferential processes and
memory processes, as well as influencing how the information is
processed. While affect may influence both the content and the process
of how people think, by the turn of the millennium these effects were
seen to be subject to important boundary conditions. One model,
referred to as AIM, sought to integrate the inferential and memory-
based accounts of affect congruence, and it posits that affective states
also have a direct influence on information-processing strategies.
A consequence of this approach is that affect is seen to have
a function in stereotyping (which involve a variety of cognitive oper-
ations, one of which allows for correction), and intergroup judgements.
Psychodynamic concepts for instance with respect to frustration-
aggression responses, and affective conditioning models connected
with anger and resentment also provide entry into theory relating to
group and individual processes.
It was also believed that mood affect can influence strategies for infor-
mation-processing strategies by producing adaptive cognitive benefits in
information processing, the reduction of judgemental errors, and the
improvement of eyewitness memory. Negative mood affect produces
more accommodative thinking, and promotes a processing style coincident
with the needs of a particular situation thereby improving the quality and
298 From Cognition to Affect
effectiveness of cognitive performance. As a result, affective influences on
cognition influences behaviour.
More recent developments by Preckel et al. (2018) have found that
within the social context, affect, and cognition systems adopt separable
and independent brain networks. These are jointly activated and jointly
interact in a dynamic interplay between the two systems that respond to
complex social situations. Centring on the theme of empathy, compassion
and theory of the mind, the model explains the functionality of the social
mind and the social behaviour that results. As information processors, the
affect and cognition networks become coactivated during complex social
situations. In other words, while the networks are independent, affect and
cognition are autonomous (i.e., self-determining) information processors
that facilitate understanding. Here, then, the adaptive social behaviour that
is the result of this occurs through the dynamic interplay between affect
and cognition, consistent with the view by Liu et al. (2009) that as
information processors they are strongly interdependent.
In what follows, we shall further consider theory concerning the rela-
tionship between affect and cognition and their interdependency. To
develop the theory, each of these two systems will be deemed to be ‘living’
interactive agencies with traits configured in. The central feature of their
connection will come from the crossfire model of Swann et al. (1987),
which, according to Google Scholar Citations, has been cited 825 times,
indicating that it has been fairly well regarded – even if not having
developing into a core theory noticed by Forgas (2008).

9.3 Basics of Mindset Agency Theory

Recall that MAT arises from Cultural Agency Theory – a learning cyber-
netic ‘living system’ able to respond to its environments. It has been said
that the concept of the living system arises with the foundational work by
Miller (1978) and embraces the work of Maturana and Varela (1980), who
were interested in the biological basis of living for autonomous systems.
Beer (1972) explored this concept in terms of a dual ontology, referred to as
a system-meta-system. This acts as the basis of a theory of second-order
cybernetics that many associate with the ideas of Spencer-Brown (1969), as
illustrated by Miller (2010). While Maturana and Varela did not believe
that social systems could also be defined as ‘living’, Luhmann (1995)
showed that they could be defined through their communications pro-
cesses (cf. Seidl, 2004). Schwarz (1994, 2001) elaborated on Beer’s concep-
tualisation and encapsulated other concepts arising from complex systems.
 Affect and Cognition 299
For him, with sufficient autonomy, any such system could survive by
adapting to changing environments, and unlike in Beer’s approach, learn-
ing could be indicated explicitly. That autonomy can be ‘sufficient’ draws
in discussion about its nature. Autonomy essentially refers to self-
determination, but this is subject to the constraints of both immanent
and adventitious influences. Here, then, conditions may arise such that
these influences constrain of facilitate certain forms of agency self-
determination. The nature of sufficiency must then reflect the ability of
an agency through its administrative hierarchy to self-determine adaptive
behaviour within given constraints rather than being directed to adaptive
behaviour.
Essentially, we recall that Schwarz formulated a three-domain living
system model, each domain interacting cybernetically. Indeed, Schwarz’s
conceptualisation is an entry point for cybernetic multi-dimensionality
that overcomes the limits of second-order cybernetics (Yolles, 2006a;
Yolles & Fink, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c). Elaborating on Schwarz’s conceptual-
isations, collateral attributes of adaptation in living systems include func-
tions like awareness, self-organisation, self-reflection, self-reference, and
learning, as the living system acts and reacts to others in its environments.
Any system that is perceived to be ‘sufficiently’ autonomous in an inter-
active environment, and can survive and adapt, can therefore be taken to be
a living system.
Agency has a population of agents with a collective personality, where
the ‘cultural environment’ may be perceived to represent shared ‘highest
goal-values implicitly expressed in cultural ideals’ (Nechansky, 2016: 91); or
as a ‘legitimising environment’ (Dauber et al., 2012), giving legitimacy to
the effective goal-orientation and action of a personality. However, the
view taken in this chapter is that culture does not necessarily directly
influence goal setting by individuals or a group. The basic assumption
here is that the cultural environment influences the way personalities
interact with each other (Yolles & Fink, 2015) and through the thousands
of petty acts between personalities and their social environment, culture is
created or influenced to change.
The model in Figure 1.3 is a cyclic cybernetic system due to feed-forward
and feedback processes. Wherever a cycle starts, the alternate level process
has a cybernetic control function:
1. Suppose that agency pursues a well-defined goal and sets action to
achieve that goal in an environment. Consequently, agency receives
response from that environment. When this response corresponds to
300 From Cognition to Affect
the pursued strategy, agency may set more of the same action. If the
response does not meet expectations, then the agency is induced to
change its behaviours and actions.
2. Suppose that an advancement strategy is pursued. Agency may attempt
to copy the behaviour of others. Then the feed-forward process of
display behaviour and setting action can serve as a control process,
and when the adaptive learning strategy is effective and appropriate
(copied) behaviour will be the result.
It is worth mention that the Russian Psychologist Lev Semyonovich
Vygotsky in his writings in the 1920s (Vygotsky, 1994) strongly emphasised
the importance of adaptive learning processes for child development, just
as Jean Piaget (1950) strongly emphasised the creative learning processes.
Yolles (2017) concludes from this divide that while adaptive learning
certainly is of importance, without independent creative learning a child
can never develop its own personality. In the context of social psychology,
the same applies in organisation theory to an ‘alliance child’, i.e., an
organisation created by two other organisations. If an alliance child is
founded by two different organisations in order to deal with specific issues,
it cannot resolve these issues by simply copying attitudes of one of the
founding organisations; it has to creatively develop new knowledge and to
apply it successfully, becoming an autonomous self.
After Glanville (2004), Nechansky (2006, 2007, 2017) explains that
a goal-oriented viable system is not only an acting system, but also an
observing system. Observations are related to goals, permitting a goal-
oriented system to put into effect goal-oriented action. Thus, for
Nechansky (2006: 99),
a goal oriented system is one that has: (1) an internally defined goal, (2) the
ability to observe the actual state of a part of its environment, and (3) the
ability to act on that part of its environment, so that certain properties of
that part can be changed in the direction towards the goal.
Consequently, we may consider figurative intelligence and the related
processes of self-reflection and self-regulation as the driving forces for
immanent change and learning in social systems, since self-reflection is
about assessment of situations with respect to survival (viability through
adaptation) and the achievement of intended goals. Information about
goal achievement emanates from the operative system as adjustment
imperatives, that impact on goal options that might be pursued.
A general aspect is that ‘reflection’ is concerned with the assessment of
 Affect and Cognition 301
the general situation of the cultural and the operative environment and
its relevance for the agency. A specific aspect is that self-reflection is
concerned with the consequences of values and emotions agency adheres
to. Now, goals are strategic elements connected with a worldview, and
when this is associated with mode of behaviour driven by propositional
structures, it may be referred to as a paradigm, where in stable agencies
a dominant paradigm normally exists. So, self-reflection has to deal with
both the available strategic options if the dominant paradigm is changed,
and the operative capabilities it might have to realise different options.
However, self-reflection is also concerned with the consequences of the
emotions and emotional display that the agency adheres to, i.e., the
strategic options it might have if changing the dominant emotional
attitude and the operative capabilities to change emotion expression
(Guo et al., 2016: 34–35).

9.4 Modelling Emotion Management

James Gross was engaged in modelling emotion regulation (Gross &
Munoz, 1995; Gross, 1998, 2008; Gross & Thompson, 2007) and defined
affect as a ‘superordinate category for valenced states’ (Gross, 1998: 274),
where the valence of an agency refers to the attraction towards desirable
objects or repulsion from undesirable ones, expressible, for instance, in
terms of positive–negative, good–bad, or pleasure–displeasure so to cap-
ture essential about affect. This subordinate category includes emotions,
emotional episodes, mood, dispositional states, and traits. A necessary
condition of emotion management was identified, namely the ability to
‘distinguish regulatory processes from the targets of regulation’ (Gross,
1998: 275). It also addressed the purpose of emotion regulation:
Emotion regulation refers to the processes by which individuals influence
which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience
and express their emotions. (Gross, 1998: 275)
This statement implies that individuals have a capability for creative
learning and do not just adapt to an existing emotional climate.
Gross’ (1998: 275) definition of emotion regulation emphasises self-
regulation. He identified five sets of emotion regulatory processes: situ-
ation selection, situation modification, attention deployment, cognitive
change, and response modulation (Figure 9.1). This model is an elabor-
ation of the two-way distinction ‘made between antecedent-focused emo-
tion regulation, which occurs before the emotion is generated, and
302 From Cognition to Affect
Stage Process Feedback
Situation selection

Situation Situation modification

Attention Attention deployment

Appraisal Cognitive change

Response Response modulation

Figure 9.1 Representation of Gross’ (1998) Model of Emotion Management.

response-focused emotion regulation, which occurs after the emotion is

generated’ (Gross, 1998: 281; cf. Gross & Munoz, 1995).
As an extension of Gross’ model, Fink and Yolles (2015: 834) argue that
emotions emerge from
1. an underlying emotional attitude, used to self-identify personality within
an available range of spontaneous and un-reflected emotional reactions;
2. from feelings, used to self-regulate personality and its displayed reper-
toire of emotional expressions in the light of personal interests and
strategic goals;
3. through a management process that determines which emotions avail-
able are to be expressed through a process of self-organisation.
This indicates that it is feasible to configure Gross’ model so as to be part
of a generic living systems framework from which cultural agency theory
arises (Guo et al., 2016). This generic model is structured as in Figure 9.2,
where self-identification refers to a value-rich cognitive/existential system,
self-regulation to a personality figurative/noumenal system, and self-
organisation to an action-related operative/phenomenal system. This
model constitutes an axiomatic sub-structural framework into which
propositional superstructural theory can be built. Here, a superstructural
model depicts the cognitive attributes of an agency and has three bipolar
normative personality traits that are formative for its personality, giving
a ‘Cognition personality System’ (see Guo et al., 2016) constituting
a ‘living’ social/organisational system. These principles may be applied to
the affect agency, where the traits regulate the ‘Affect Personality System’,
 Affect and Cognition 303
Social/
Behavioural
Intelligence
I3,1 Social/Behavioural feedback
Agency Operative
Intelligence
Cultural Figurative Intelligence is
(influenced by the
Intelligence influenced by the
Cultural Environment Social Orientation
Personality Mindset
Cultural beliefs & values. Trait)
Social
Collective unconscious, Identity,
Environment
Cultural Self-Reference.
Cultural orientation trait

Agency Cognitive Normative Personality

I2,1
I1,1
Figurative
Intelligence
I4,1
Operative Intelligence Agency
Figurative Operative System
Cognitive
Self-Regulation System Operative Structures that
Self-Identification System
Figurative information as Self-Organisation System create operational
Cognitive Attitude,
schemas (strategies and goals) and Operative information & performance as
Self-Reference,
appreciative information, structures facilitating decision- and efficient and effective
and Knowledge
ethics & decision imperatives. actual policy-making behaviour. directed action under
Cognitive unconscious,
Cognitive subconscious, Cognitive conscious, structural facilitation/
Cognitive orientation trait
Figurative orientation trait Operative orientation trait constraint. Agency
self-organisation
Operative Intelligence Social orientation
Figurative Intelligence adjustment imperatives trait
adjustment imperatives I4,2
I3,2 I1,2
Operative
I2,2 Intelligence adjustment
Cultural Figurative imperatives affecting
Intelligence personality mindset
adjustment

Figure 9.2 Cognition agency – Generic Cognition Agency model (adapted from
Yolles & Fink, 2014).

which interacts with the Cognition Personality System. These two inter-
active systems are autonomous, in line with Swann et al. (1987).
The Cognition agency Model by Guo et al. (2016) consists of a smaller social
whole with a normative personality, which is embedded into a larger social
whole. Each social whole consists of three subsystems, a cognitive system,
a figurative system, and an operative system. In the Cognition agency Model
the ‘cognitive system’ relates to culture, identification knowledge, and self-
identification; the ‘figurative system’ to strategy and goals, elaboration know-
ledge (i.e., self-reflection) and self-regulation; and the ‘operative system’ to self-
organisation and execution knowledge resulting in patterns of behaviour,
deployment of action in the environment, and observation of that part of
the environment where action is taken (cf. Nechansky, 2006: 98).
In Figure 9.2, the cognition agency model is represented as an autonomous
living system. It consists of Agency with a ‘Normative Cognition personality’,
which is embedded into a ‘Cultural Environment’ which takes actions and
makes observations in a ‘Social Environment’. Agency’s ‘Normative Cognition
personality’ consists of three systems: the ‘Cognitive Self-Identification
System’, the ‘Figurative Self-Regulation System’, and the ‘Operative Self-
Organisation System’. The agency model has five bipolar traits. As we have
304 From Cognition to Affect
Table 9.1 Agency cognition traits and their bipolar types

Type agency trait Trait bipolar types Origin

Agency personality traits

Cognitive attitude embeddedness vs. intellectual Sagiv and Schwartz
autonomy (2007)
Figurative self-regulation mastery + affective autonomy vs.
harmony
Operative self-organisation hierarchy vs. egalitarianism
Agency sociocultural traits
Cultural self-reference sensate vs. ideational Sorokin (1937–42, 1962)
Social behaviour dramatist vs. patterner Shotwell, Wolf, and
Gardner (1980)

repeatedly noted in this book, these belong to the agency as a whole, and can
be divided into two sociocultural agency traits (for the cultural and the social
environment), and three central or formative personality traits. These traits
were derived from exemplars in the value literature. They were selected
through epistemic mapping from the literature in Yolles and Fink (2013a,
2013b). From the literature various trait systems, e.g., Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (Myers-Briggs, 2000); type systems (e.g., Maruyama, 1980, 2008);
and value systems (e.g., Schwartz, 1994, 2006) were stepwise compared and
related to the requirements of the theoretical cybernetic personality model,
as derived by Yolles and Fink (2009, 2011). The conclusion is that for the
personality model, the Schwartz value system developed by Sagiv and
Schwartz (2007) fits best. For the dominant orientations in the cultural
system, the bipolar value orientations developed by Sorokin (1937–42, 1962)
fit best, and for interaction with the social (task) environment, the value
orientations of Shotwell, Wolf, and Gardner (1980) fit best (Table 9.1).
These, then, offer the basis for cognition and affect symmetric configurations
that can become part of Agency Theory supersystem structure.
As a follow-up to identification of dominant value orientations, which
fit the normative personality model, eight extremal types emerged from the
analysis by Fink and Yolles (2016) and political orientations were identi-
fied, which fit these theoretical value orientations.

9.5 The Affective Agency Model

The Affective Agency is as much at the core of the personality as is the
Cognition agency, the two mutually influencing each other. The agency
 Affect and Cognition 305
personality impacts on the use of social/behavioural intelligence as the
agency pursues its goals and interacts with others in its social environment.
Cognitive Mindsets and interacting affective Mindsets are housed together
in a given system. Similar to the cognitive model, the affective model
consists of the ‘Affective Normative Personality’, which is (1) embedded
into a ‘Cultural Emotional Environment’ with an ‘Emotional Climate’;
and (2) displays emotions and observes the emotions of others in a ‘Social
Environment’.
As the cognitive model has five epistemic independent bipolar traits,
where the alternate poles have an auxiliary function for each other, for the
sake of a symmetry that embraces Occam’s razor, the same conditions must
apply to the affective agency model. Only this allows for a consistent living
systems model embracing cognition and affect. The affect agency is repre-
sented in Figure 9.3 as an autonomous system. It has five bipolar affect
traits which we derived from exemplars in the literature concerning emo-
tional climate, emotional intelligence, and emotion management, as
shown in Table 9.2 that reflects on the last chapter, and illustrates trait
ontological distinctions. The selection of these value orientations is
described in more detail in Fink and Yolles (2015).
It should be realised that Figure 9.3 is a living system cultural agency
model, with a sub-agency living system embedded in it (dotted lines)
thereby creating the basis of a Mindset agency model through its traits.

Cultural Affective
Figurative Intelligence
Normative Affective Sphere of operative personality intelligence
Personality
Sphere of observable
Figurative Emotional Operative Emotional
behaviour
Intelligence Intelligence

Imperative for
action
Affective Self- Figurative as a reflection Agency
Identification Affect Activation Operative Emotion of behaviour Operative System
System System Management Social Emotion
Emotional attitude Motivation activation System Management
Affect cognitive (Affective Activation Affect operative on others and self
orientation trait of feelings). orientation trait Imperative Affect social
Affect figurative for reaction orientation trait
orientation trait through
adjustment

Operative emotional
Figurative emotional intelligence adjustment
Cultural intelligence adjustment imperatives
Environment imperatives
Social
Emotional Environment
Climate
Cultural figurative
Affect cultural
intelligence
orientation trait Agency mindset
imperatives
based emotional
behaviour responses

Figure 9.3 The Affective Agency.

306 From Cognition to Affect
Table 9.2 Agency affect traits and their bipolar types

Affect agency trait Trait bipolar types Origin

Personality affect traits

Emotional attitude
Figurative affect activation
Operative emotion
management
Sociocultural affect traits
Emotional climate
Social emotion management
on others and on self
stimulation vs. containment Hirschman and Stern (1999);
Jallais and Gilet (2010)
ambition vs. protection Jallais and Gilet (2010);
Bradley (2000)
dominance vs. submission Knutson (1996); Klinnert
et al. (1983)
fear vs. security de Rivera (1977); de Rivera
and Grinkis (1986)
missionary vs. empathetic Sloan (2005, 2007)

This normative personality sub-system, we will recall, is ‘normative’

because its personality traits arise as normative collective processes. Since
the agency model is generic, the structure of the cultural agency and the
personality agency are ontologically similar. The environment for the
personality is the agency, with its cultural and operative contexts, while
that for the agency is its social environment. The arrows from left to right
indicate action/behaviour-oriented feed-forward processes and arrows
from right to left indicate feedback processes of intelligences that facilitate
adaptation and learning.

9.6 Connecting Affect and Cognition: Crossfire Model

Whether cognition and affect systems are autonomous or integrated has
been part of a continuous debate for a couple of decades since the 1970s
without resolution or progress. This lack is reflected by the recent republi-
cation of texts from the 1980s (e.g., Eisenburg, 2015; Ortony et al., 1994).
Some resolution has arisen with the work of Swann et al. (1987), who
consider an accommodation between the two paradigms. This accommo-
dation adopts the idea that affect and cognition are essentially independ-
ent, but are cross-connected to enable what they call cognition–affect
crossfire. This mechanism is reflected in agency theory, since crossfire
relates to processes rather than state conditions, essential for interaction
between affect and cognition. While Swann et al. (1987) did not theorise
how crossfire occurs, agency theory does.
 Affect and Cognition 307
The independence between affect and cognition suggests that, in cyber-
netic terms, they are ‘sufficiently’ autonomous with proprietary dynamics
that are adventitiously sensitive to each other as well as to environmental
contexts. This ‘sensitivity’ to cross system attributes may occur at various
levels. Swann et al. (1987) explore two theories, one of affect and the other
of cognition. Self-consistency theory assumes that people want others to
treat them in a predictable manner (cognition anticipation), while self-
enhancement theory contends that people want others to treat them in
a positive manner (affect anticipation). Swann et al. have reconciled the
two theories by testing the hypothesis that the two can be related through
different levels of interaction in human subjects.
To do this, they empirically examined certain cognitive processes like
recall and perceptions of the self-descriptiveness of feedback, findings that
support self-consistency theory. In contrast, measures with a more affective
flavour (e.g., pleasure or disappointment with feedback) seemed to support
the self-enhancement position. To characterise the interactions between
the cognitive and affective systems, Swann et al.’s (1987) cognitive-affective
crossfire refers to a possible conflict between different outcomes (products) of
the cognitive analytical processes and the affective system, rather than to
a conflict between the entire cognitive system and the entire affective
system. They note that the cognitive system mutes or transforms the
affective response, though provide no description of a crossfire mechanism.
However, it is worth noting that the James Gross (1998) model shows that
emotion management is based on cognitive considerations.
This work by Swann et al. (1987) is elaborated on and supported by
Joiner, Alfano, and Metalsky (1993) and Chang-Schneider and Swann
(2010), who use the model to predict certain types of behaviour of people,
given something of their psychological profiles. They found that affect–
cognition crossfire is a part of an inherent personality information process.
Consistent with Swann et al. (1987), cognition and affect should be taken
as two autonomous interactive agency systems, which interact through
their operative systems. Setting their model up in agency Cultural Agency
Theory, it is proposed that crossfire is constituted as a means by which
affect influences cognition and cognition influences affect according to the
interactions between the cognition and affect operative systems shown in
Figure 9.4. Here, both affect and cognition agency have the same sub-
structural model defined by the existential, noumenal, and phenomenal
domains. However, in the affect agency the systems that occupy each
domain relate to affect, and for cognition agency the systems are cognitive.
Consistent with traditional systems theory, interaction between affect and
308 From Cognition to Affect
cognition occurs only through the operative systems which directly drive
behaviour. In this way, the affect agency is a local environment for the
cognition agency, and vice versa. The consequence of these interactions is
that each sub-agency internalises impacts from its local environment
through its operative and figurative intelligences, this impacting on its
systemic states in one way or another and hence its traits and patterns of
behaviour. It is thus through the interaction of both cognition and affect
that patterns of behaviour can in principle be reduced to instances of
behaviour when contexts are properly understood. It should be noted
that to reduce complexification, Figure 9.4 does not show the cultural
and social environment of the Agency personality.
The cognition system internalises the affect trait Mindset information
that is delivered to its operative system, decomposing it into its elements as
it deems appropriate through its operative and figurative intelligences. This
occurs similarly for the influences of cognition on affect. Swann et al.
(1987) propose that the structures of the cognitive and affective systems are
consistent with their crossover connection involving a muting or trans-
forming activity. This is explained by realising that the affect system is

Cognition figurative
intelligence Cognition operative
(Noumenal intelligence (Phenomenal
(Existential domain) Domain)
domain) Figurative Operative Self-
Cognitive Self- Cognition Cognition
Self-regulation instrumental organisation
identification Personality system System
system couple
Cognitive schemas Cognitive decision-
Cognitive attitude Figurative orientation making
Cognitive orientation trait Operative orientation
trait Cognition operative
trait
intelligence feedback
Cognition figurative
The Cognition intelligence feedback
personality
Cognition personality
mindset type framing affect
Affect personality mindset
type framing cognition

The Affect
personality Affective figurative
Affective operative
intelligence
intelligence
(Noumenal (Phenomenal
(Existential Domain) Domain)
Domain) Figurative Affect Affective Operative emotion
Affective Self-Identification Activation System instrumental self-management
Affective Affective system
System couple
Personality Self-Regulation Action or adaptation
Emotional attitude
Emotion activation Motivation activation focused

Affective operative intelligence

feedback
Affective figurative intelligence
feedback

Figure 9.4 Interaction between cognition and affect personalities of the agency.
 Affect and Cognition 309
prepared for rapid decision-making processes, while the cognition system
is prepared for more reflective processes. This is consistent with Daniel
Kahneman’s (2011) recognition that thinking can be either fast and emo-
tional or slow and conscious.
From a theoretical perspective, one can argue that the cognition system
can operate within a self-affect context influenced by its affective personal-
ity Mindset, and similarly the affect system (through emotion manage-
ment) is influenced by the personality cognition Mindset. In other words,
when a personality is confronted with an external situation it has two basic
options:
1. To enable fast action, the operative system of the affect agency may
overwrite the slow considerations of the cognition agency (where both
affect and cognition agencies are sub-agencies of the personality) –
thus, affect personality Mindset type can deactivate the cognitive opera-
tive system.
2. When experience indicates a need/time for careful assessment of
a situation (e.g., because earlier action triggered by affect did not deliver
desired results) then the cognitive operative system may control the
outcomes of the affect system. The affect personality Mindset may
create an emotional context, through which the cognition personality
system can operate. This context (with respect to the whole agency)
works on a subconscious level. This cognition–affect relationship is
symmetrical with a corresponding affect–cognition relationship.
Neuroscience research supports this view. The ‘hippocampus’ plays an
important role in the consolidation of information from short- and long-
term memory. The ‘amygdala’ plays a central role in processing emotional
reactions, and ‘cognition’ is the mental process of acquiring knowledge and
understanding through thought and experience. In a similar vein,
Kahnemann (2011) distinguishes between slow (cognitive) processes of
thinking, and fast (affective) processes of thinking.
Related considerations were addressed by James Gross (1998) in his
theory of emotion management: Through cognitive processes,
a personality has the capacity to
1. avoid dreadful situations through situation selection, i.e., not to get
into similar trouble as in the past;
2. modify possible situations, e.g., through anticipation of situations and
developing new patterns of behaviour in recurring situations;
310 From Cognition to Affect
3. focus attention on selected aspects of a situation and not get over-
whelmed by a situation;
4. change interpretation of situations through cognitive analysis of
situations;
5. cognitively control displayed emotional responses.
Emotion management is likely to create affect/cognition frames of refer-
ence for the cognition/affect system that enables each system to better
anticipate the future, and hence creates the capacity to harmonise cogni-
tion and affect. Note that affect/cognition personality Mindsets arise from
generic type traits that constitute state descriptions of the affect/cognition
personality. This implies that in healthy personality systems affective
figurative system information would not be directly manifested into the
cognition figurative system, and vice versa. However, in personality with
pathologies, or when ‘brain is at default mode’ (Damoiseaux et al., 2006;
Fox & Raichle, 2007; Motschnig & Ryback, 2016) this could happen.
When this does occur, rationality may fail during emotional stress since the
manifestation of cognitive figurative information into the operative system
gets impeded (as in case of pathologies), or is standardised irrespective of
context (as in case of the ‘brain default mode’).

9.7 Trait Dynamics in the Affective Agency

It has been explained previously that culture creates a field of influence for
the cognition agency. In the same way (cultural) emotional climate creates
a field of influence for the affect agency which in turn in due course
impacts on the cognitive frames that create understanding of effects. By
the term frame is meant a cognitive ideate with affect attributes created
from the observation of an effect that has been internalised, and is repre-
sentative of it. The relationship between the ideate and the effect is
determined in part by the traits which are responsible for filtering infor-
mation. This applies not only to the traits of the cognition agency, but also
the affect agency. In the former, the interaction between the sensate and
ideational poles are important to the cognitive content of the frame
through their field of influence. Similarly, in the affect agency emotional
climate creates a field influence for the rest of the affect agency.
The affect trait for emotional climate has two poles, security and fear.
A climate of security implies stability, when agents may be more able to
tolerate diverse views and not run any real danger of fragmentation. In
contrast fear arises from projections of threat. Following de Rivera (1992),
 Affect and Cognition 311
a climate of fear can result in the isolation of agents from one another (or
subpopulations of them), atomising a society and polarising it, thereby
promoting social instability and adversely impacting on cultural agency
operative structures and processes. This is evidenced whenever the agencies
are unable to anticipate what will happen either politically or economically
in the near future. Together with cultural instability, it can also contribute
to the rise of liquid society (Bauman, 2003), a sort of social instability due
to the transience of cultural values, and where society becomes precarious
as agent relationships are continually in danger of disintegration. Fear can
also create perspectives that result in unshakeable adherence to incoherent
preferences that can provide a psychological basis that emotionally stimu-
lates cognitive bias. This can be supported by rational arguments built on
false premises – using the fanciful personal truths of advocates that in
a more objective world would be described as half-truths, blatant lies, or
pure inventions.
From Yolles (2019) one can distinguish between cultural stability and
cultural compliance. Within the context of the plural agency, culture
involves values and norms, a figurative strategic-symbolic dimension of
cognitive and affective regulatory structures and processes and attitudes
with projected norms, and an operative dimension that involves decision-
making structures and emotional management structures, and their inter-
action produces patterns of behaviour. The cultural value system of the
cognition agency might be homogeneous (resulting in a stable culture) or
heterogeneous (resulting in an unstable culture). Unstable culture gener-
ates conditions that are susceptible to the rise of Bauman’s (2003) notion of
liquid society which is complex and uncertain, and which embraces liquid
development. Cultural compliance is also susceptible to cultural instability,
as well as to attitude and emotional climate. By compliance is meant the
degree to which agents that are part of an agency submit to it cultural
norms. Cultural compliance might refer to either tight or loose cultures,
determined by the projection of regulative norms that interact with atti-
tude (towards deviance from norms) and emotional climate (feelings of
fear or security). With cultural stability, cultural compliance favours the
collective-social emotion of security, encouraging a tendency for the activ-
ity system to move towards becoming a loose culture with weaker norms
with an emotional climate that allows normative deviance. However,
under conditions of social fear cultural compliance tends towards a tight
culture coincident with the onset of cultural instability, favouring strong
norms and attitudes against normative deviance. The relationship between
cultural stability and cultural compliance has been shown to be predictive
312 From Cognition to Affect
of a political frame, with its set of declared policies and orientation (either
individualist or collectivist) that is likely to take administrative power in
a sociopolitical environment. This is explained by Bauman’s (2003, 2006,
2008) notion of liquid development. Here, during periods of cultural
instability, a population of agents (the society) may enter a ‘liquid’ state
that responds to circumstance without the benefit of cultural orientation,
maintaining the uncertainty by elaborating on unsustainable attributes
that are not to the benefit of the agency as a whole. In such situations
political processes are likely to tend towards cynicism as considered in
Chapter 5, when political advocates engage in nihilistic decadence, where
the sensate ethos itself undermines its own claims to truth, and where
insincere hedonists and social climbers safely operate without conviction or
redeeming merit. The relationship between emotional climate cultural
compliance and cultural stability is indicated in Figure 9.5, due to Yolles
(2019).
These advocates may well become representatives for populist political
parties who develop frames that promote policy that, when institutional-
ised, and accepted by a significant and fragmented component of a relevant
political sphere, can come to administrative power. Part of this process is
the evolution of institutions that create popular support of new norms,
though how this occurs is dependent on the stability of the cultural value
system.
In the same way that in the cognition agency the cultural trait creates an
influencing cognition field, so in the affect agency the cultural emotional

Cultural (Value)
Stability
Stability

Cultural (Normative) Compliance

Instability Tight culture Loose culture
Fear (normative compliance, well- (normative non-compliance,
defined norms) typically less well-defined
norms)
Emotional
Climate
Security

Figure 9.5 Potential for political empowerment interactively relating cultural sta-
bility, cultural compliance, and emotional climate.
 Affect and Cognition 313
climate creates an equivalent affect field. While the dynamic between
sensate and ideational poles of the cultural trait are in constant interplay,
so too one can envisage that the emotional climate poles are also dynamic-
ally interactive. Thus, one would expect to see constructs relating to the
interplay between fear and security. This has been explored, for instance,
by Schneier (2008) in his essay on the psychology of security. The interplay
between fear and security can be reflected in how individuals downplay or
exaggerate risk, as shown in Table 9.3. He explains that agency perceptions
of risk are deeply ingrained having the function of facilitating agency
survival.
Degges-White (2017) is interested in the relationship between fear and
emotional insecurity, where the latter may be a consequence of the former,
turning the intangible into a tangible danger. In other words, while fear
and emotional insecurity are a construct of the affect psyche, emotional
security can become manifested as a physical construct. In this way, from
intangible emotional security a physical security danger can be manufac-
tured as a ‘virtual tangible’. More generally however, while fear is
a construct of the psyche, security is a physical phenomenon. As
Oesterreich (2005) notes, the basic pattern of human response to stressful

Table 9.3 Relationship between fear and security as indicated by how risk is
downgraded or exaggerated

Exaggerated risks are Downplayed risks are

Spectacular Pedestrian
Rare Common
Personified Anonymous
Beyond their control, or externally More under their control, or taken
imposed willingly
Talked about Not discussed
Intentional or man-made Natural
Immediate Long term or diffuse
Sudden Evolving slowly over time
Affecting them personally Affecting others
New and unfamiliar Familiar
Uncertain Well understood
Directed against their children Directed towards themselves
Morally offensive Morally desirable
Entirely without redeeming features Associated with some ancillary benefit
Not like their current situation Like their current situation

Note. Adapted from Schneier (2008).

314 From Cognition to Affect
and uncertain situations that provoke anxiety and insecurity is to seek
security and shelter – in the political context this can be provided by
authoritarianism. So, whether insecurity is cognitively manufactured or
has an origin in reality, the relationship between fear and security is
ontologically similar to the relationship between Sorokin’s ideational and
sensate in that, as Bierstedt (1981) notes, it enables the nature of the
ideational-sensate relationship to be distinguished as the ultimate value-
reality construct. More broadly, Hinkle (1994; Sorokin, 1937–42: 1:58n)
explains that the ideational-sensate relationship is essentially a psycho-
logical/subjective to phenomenological/objective one, a dichotomy to
which the fear-security of affect also applies. Indeed, the same psycho-
logical-phenomenological dichotomy operates for all the ten traits and
their dual poles (Tables 7.1 and 7.5), five of which belong to each of the
cognition and affect agencies.

9.8 The Nature of Cultural Compliance

Norms define obligations and duties that condition agencies towards forms
of behaviour, and they exist in both cognition and affect agencies, having
cultural residence. Cognition culture (the culture in a cognition agency)
maintains beliefs that interact dynamically (through complex feedback
processes) with affect culture, and influence emotional attitude, motiv-
ational action, and emotion management. Affect culture not only involves
emotional climate, but also maintains affect/emotional norms that deter-
mine what emotions and emotional expressions are in/appropriate in
a given context, thereby creating obligations and duties that govern emo-
tional arousal, expression, and behaviour, and imply standards of compari-
son between experienced and contextually legitimate feeling (Scheve &
Minner, 2015). Affect norms are indicative of what are appropriate or
inappropriate emotions and emotional expressions in a given context:
those that govern emotional arousal, expression, and behaviour, and
imply standards of comparison between experienced and contextually
legitimate feelings (Scheve & Minner, 2015).
It is also clear that emotional climate is connected with cultural compli-
ance which is in turn concerned with affect and cognition norms, rather
than values. Cultural compliance occurs as either: a tight culture with
strong norms and an emotional attitude of low tolerance to deviant
behaviour, with many strong norms, rules and standards that determine
what is correct; or loose culture with weak norms and an emotionally high
tolerance to deviant behaviour, and few rules or standards (Triandis, 2017;
 Affect and Cognition 315
Gelfand, 2018; Gelfand et al., 2011). In tight cultures, when individuals
break norms, they are likely to be criticised or punished with specific
degrees of seriousness as determined socio-politically. In loose cultures
individuals have greater capacity to break norms. A tight culture has
homogeneous beliefs so that member of a social broadly agree with and
abide by normative patterns of beneficial behaviour; however, in a loose
culture, beliefs are relatively heterogeneous, and thus not widely shared
(Odor, 2018). Tight cultures are also likely to be more traditional and
repressive, and loose cultures are less so (Uz, 2014). It would be of interest
to reflect on whether norms operate in the same way as formative traits,
through a dichotomous interaction between tight and loose culture. The
distinction between them is that one has homogeneous and the other
heterogeneous beliefs, and they are therefore not epistemic. Though ‘epi-
stemic beliefs’ relate to knowledge, the core distinction between tight and
loose culture is order (i.e., homogeneous–heterogeneous) which is
a category of ‘being’ indicating that the distinctions are ontological.
Norms have a regulatory and compliance function and as such are
instrumental in their relationship with environmental events. Gelfand
et al. (2011) recognise that culture is susceptible to ecological and historical
threats through impacts on its culturally tight or loose tendency. After
Bauman (2008), in complex socials where there are conditions of uncer-
tainty, a general condition of anxiety (hence fear; Strongman, 1995; Riva
et al., 2014) may solidify perceptions of threat even where this is devoid of
empirical evidence. Social norms serve an essential role in blunting threat,
and perceived threat is a similarly powerful influence on conformist atti-
tudes and behaviours (Murray & Schaller, 2012). With complexity, it is
more valuable to consider perceived threat rather than threat.
Cultural compliance embeds a perceived threat to normative relation-
ships. Perceived threat coincides with authoritarian/autocratic governance,
and it is shaped by long-term threat (Feldman & Stenner, 1997). The
threat-authoritarianism connection arises through insecurity (Fromm,
1941). Agents faced with an uncertain world and lack of direction will ‘escape
from freedom’ through authoritarianism. For Rokeach (1960), anxiety (fear)
stemming from external threat is related to dogmatism and intolerance.
‘Conservatism’ (underpinning authoritarianism) is a response to general-
ised anxiety/fear of uncertainty (Wilson, 1973), arising from external and
intrapsychic causes (Feldman & Stenner, 1997).1 That intrapsychic causes
exist implies that personality and its capacity for change needs to be
considered. Adorno et al. (1950) have used and extended the five-factor
model of personality to include an ‘authoritarian personality’ scale,
316 From Cognition to Affect
implying that personalities differ in their dependence on authority. One
characteristic of personality is power-distance with degrees of preference
for hierarchy, and varying degrees of support for authoritarian tendencies
(Hofstede, 1983). In general, authoritarian predispositions manifest various
attitudes (like intolerance, prejudice, punitiveness) which become more
pronounced under threat, and threat appears to be critical to the perceived
need for authoritarianism. In principle agents become more punitive and
ethnocentric under conditions of threat.
A summary of characteristics for cultural compliance is provided in
Table 9.4. A high level of perceived threat (and thus fear) results in the
development of strong norms when members in the society are likely to
embrace authoritarian politics. It also affects the psychological condition of
situational strength – defined as the cues provided in given situations that
determine the un/desirability of certain behaviours. The situational
strength/weakness of everyday recurring situations within cultures simul-
taneously reflects and supports degrees of order and social coordination.

9.9 Framing
Earlier we referred to frames, which are mentally stored clusters of ideas,
often emotionally supported, that guide the processing of information by
agencies in decision-making (Scheufele, 1999). They can have unexpected
impact on stable attitudes (Druckman, 2003). Attitudes are stable when
the positive or negative predispositions towards an effect maintain con-
sistent perceptions. Consider an agency in which there is a population of
agents who at some time wish to make decisions about important issues.
Let us distinguish between cognition and affect framing. Cognition
framing occurs by defining social or political issues with the intention
of targeting a sub-population of agents in a political sphere, creating
a perspective that seeks to manage agent alignment in relation to
a subject (the salience of that subject in relation to another realigned
one; Leland & Schneider, 2016). A framing effect may occur that will
influence an agent’s subsequent cognitive judgements by activating
information already at their disposal (Nelson et al., 1997), thus creating
an imperative for susceptible agents to alter their preferred weighted
relationship between a set of their attitude objects. Affect framing occurs
when an issue is integrated with an idea or construct, and an emotional
effect occurs when it evokes the retrieval of emotional experiences and
object-related emotional responses (Williams, 2009; Wirz, 2018). The
integration of cognitive and affect framing will, for Kühne (2014), (1)
 Affect and Cognition
Table 9.4 Distinction between two extremes of cultural compliance
Characteristic Tight culture
Core nature
Norms and deviance Many strong sociocultural
norms that may coincide
with a stable culture with
clear values, and with low
tolerance against deviant
behaviour.
Subsidiary nature
Rules/standards Greater number
Value/beliefs Relatively homogenous
Causes
Distal threats Significant perceived
cultural exposure to distal
ecological and historical
social threats.
Proximal fears (from Generalised anxiety (fear of
distal threats) uncertainty) arising from
distal/external and
intrapsychic causes.
Consequences
Situational strength High degree that restricts
(situation cues the range of behaviours
determine desirability deemed appropriate
of certain behaviours) across everyday
situations. Individuals
require more structure,
are more dutiful,
maintain greater caution,
have increased self-
regulatory strength
(higher impulse control),
and increased self-
monitoring.
Behavioural options Favours more restricted
range of appropriate
behaviour; has high
censuring potential; little
room for individual
discretion; strong
sanctioning against
deviant behaviour.
Guidance More likely to prefer
guidance control through
distal social processes.
317
Loose culture
Weak social sociocultural
norms that may coincide
with an unstable culture
where challenging values
may confuse, and with
high tolerance and low
sanctions against deviant
behaviour.
Fewer
Relatively heterogeneous
Little perceived cultural
exposure to distal
ecological and historical
social perceived threats.
Low level of anxiety (fear of
uncertainty) arising from
external and intrapsychic
causes.
Weaker degree with a wide
range of permissible
behaviour across
everyday situations.
Individuals will thus not
be dutiful, be less
cautious, and have
reduced self-regulatory
strength (lower impulse
control), and a less self-
monitoring.
Favours few external
constraints on
individuals, with a wide
range of behavioural
options and room for
individual discretion;
weak sanctioning against
deviant behaviour.
More likely to prefer
proximal self-guidance.
318 From Cognition to Affect
Table 9.4 (cont.)

Characteristic Tight culture Loose culture

Socialisation Likely to favour narrow Likely to favour broad self-

institutional processes of guiding processes of
socialisation with socialisation in which
a restricted range of a whole range of
permissible behaviours. permissible behaviours
are available.
Governance Likely to favour autocratic/ Likely to favour less
authoritarian repressive authoritarian (more
governing systems, with democratic/social
dissents being anarchistic) non-
suppressed. repressive governing
systems that supports
civil society.
Media institutions Likely to favour restricted Likely to favour free media
media content and more content and few laws and
laws and controls. controls.
Criminal law Likely to favour higher Likely to favour less
monitoring, more severe monitoring, less severe
punishment (e.g., the punishment, and less
death penalty), and deterrence to control
greater deterrence to crime.
control crime.
Institutional challenge Likely to have passive Likely to have active
responses responses (through
demonstrations,
boycotts, strikes, etc.)

make certain cognitive appraisals more accessible and/or applicable; (2)

trigger specific appraisal patterns and encourage certain emotional
responses designed to elicit specific emotional effects that influence
attitude; and (3) enable frame-induced emotions that prompt emotion-
congruent information processing. Cognitive aspects of framing are
responsible for the assimilation by susceptible agents of a cognitive bias
under the influence of positive or negative semantics (Druckman, 2003),
also called a sematic field (Johnson-Laird & Oatley, 1989). It operates
through an emotional trajectory that manifests emotions in susceptible
agents normally unaware of the consequences (Ortony & Clore, 1989).
Framing can influence: ‘our feelings, changes them, empathises with us,
moment to moment, and so influences us subtly but profoundly, rapidly,
 Affect and Cognition 319
persistently and without our knowing’ (Garvey, 2016: 160). This can
result in a frame cult formation, but in its most extreme cases it can also
result in the formation of religious or ideological fundamentalism (cf.
Lis, 2019).
Those agents, caught in a semantic field realign their attitudes and
assimilate framing effects as non-rational, emotionally charged, and
stable attitude shifts that render previous positions meaningless, impact-
ing on behaviour. Thus, effective liquid (persuasion) framing can
manipulate political processes (Garvey, 2016), demolishing any assump-
tions that stable attitudes involving preferences are rational and invariant
(Druckman, 2003). Frames involve context from which meanings are
determined, and different framers establish alternative contexts.
Druckman (2003) notes that one political group is frequently incentiv-
ised to reframe issues from another that transform the previously framed
perspective contextually, this resulting in a dynamic process of framing
and counter-framing. Counter-framing refutes a previous frame by asso-
ciating that position with less desirable outcomes, though if these involve
rational messages, an emotional commitment to a given frame will not
be easily thwarted.
Cynical framing can be used within a political context to project polit-
ical positions and push illegitimate policies that, once accepted, are diffi-
cult to overcome due to emotional commitment. For Garvey (2016) it
involves agent internalisation of framed images creating a mental structure
from which issues are considered, this impacting on an ability to respond to
counter-arguments. It also involves the complex question fallacy in which
a statement made is loaded with an implicit meaning that if not spotted
directs the dialogue. Druckman (2003) explains that framing effects are
pervasive when the constructs on which agents base their political behav-
iours are different from what they have typically been presumed, but where
there is a psychological basis for political behaviour that is more volatile
and less consistent. Druckman further notes that where framing effects are
persistent, agents embed them in their assimilations thereby propagating
incoherent attitude positions.

9.10 Chapter in Brief

• Personality is a complex component of agency composed of interactive

affect and cognition that applies to both individuals and organisations.
320 From Cognition to Affect
• Understanding the relationship between affect and cognition is import-
ant because the personality that emerges from their complex interactions
is determined by mental reflection and self-reflection, with self-certainty
functioning as an important moderator.
• There are few models available that show how affect and cognition
explicitly interact to create personality, and they exist in a fragmented
literature.
• A generic cultural socio-affect trait theory of a ‘plural affect agency’ (the
emotional individual/organisation) is modelled.
• To do this, an Emotion Regulation model is integrated with Normative
Personality Theory in the context of Mindset Agency Theory to provide
an explanation of how a cognitive system and an emotion regulating
affective system relate interactively.
• Emotions emerge from an underlying emotional attitude connected
with self-identity personality, feelings used to self-regulate personality,
and from emotion management processes connected with self-
regulation.
• In a social environment, emotions are expressed through actions.
• The results of actions (feedback, goal achievement) are assessed through
affective operative intelligence in the light of pursued goals.
• Affect theory can provide guidance for analysis of cultural differenti-
ation within social systems (e.g., societies or organisations), with refer-
ence to identification, elaboration, and execution of emotion
knowledge.
• Understanding interdependencies between cognition and emotion
regulation is a prerequisite of managerial intelligence and strategic
cultural intelligence, in demand for interaction and integration pro-
cesses across social systems.
• The affect agency is defined in terms of a sociocultural orientations and
personality orientations.
• Sociocultural orientations derive from a cultural environment defined in
terms of emotional climate that can deliver fear or security penchants or
some mix of them, and this is defined in terms of and a social environ-
ment in which emotion is delivered through action.
• Personality orientations derive from emotional attitude oriented by the
penchants of stimulation and containment penchants, affect activation
through the penchants of ambition and protection, and emotion man-
agement that may adopt missionary or empathetic penchants or a mix of
them.
 Affect and Cognition 321
• The model provides finally a framework which links emotion expression
and emotion regulation with cognition analysis.
• Affect and cognition personalities are autonomous.
• Affect and cognition personalities interact through their operative
systems.
 Summarising Narrative for Part II

The cognition agency is a theoretical development that configures cogni-

tion with traits which determine its orientation. By cognition is meant the
nature and outcome of the immanent and adventitious influences that
impact agency. Immanent influences are the result of internal agency
dynamics, while adventitious influences are a result of external inter-
actions. Cognitive processes that result in behaviour are not always access-
ible to conscious agency reflection. The cognition agency has a character
defined through its traits. The traits refer to agency variables that are
formative in that they offer fundamental control and characterising
functions.
Traits have extreme/polar type values called enantiomers that define
their possible penchants. Cognition agency has five traits – three belong
to personality that together create personality types that define its
orientation and two to socioculture. The five traits together create
agency type that has an orientation determined by the collective trait
penchants.
Trait penchants are defined through their epistemic properties. Traits
establish regulatory processes that enable stable patterns of behaviour.
Different traits have different control functions thereby reflecting different
agency characteristics.
Agency has an internal and external environment, as does personality.
The environment of personality is its agency. The trait nature of personal-
ity interacts with its trait environment composed of sociocultural traits.
Agency ability to create performance is a function of its capacity to process
information efficaciously. This is dependent on trait type values that can
bias information. Agency cultural orientation controls what is culturally
legitimate in the agency, while social penchant controls how the agency
reacts to the perceived needs of what it identifies as its environment,
including others. Cultural orientation is core to agency contributing to
its durability. Culturally based agency are dynamic systems constantly in
322
 Summarising Narrative for Part II 323
a state of change generated by properties of the system. Cultural systems
have the capacity to convert cultural adaptations into evolutionary process.
Agency evolution is a distinct dynamic process operating as a complex
adaptive system that acquires information about its environment and its
interactions within it that are examined for regularities resulting in intern-
alised schemas.
The principle of immanent change explains the dynamics of culture
through its cultural trait. The principle states that a durable social system
changes by virtue of its own forces and properties, and it cannot help
changing even if all external conditions are constant. The same principle
applies to the other four agency traits. Agency has five formative traits
with regulatory ability. Of these, three belong to personality and two are
sociocultural traits. The sociocultural traits include the cultural trait that
may take types values of sensate or ideational penchants, or some mix
between them, while the social trait may take the type value of pattern-
ing or dramatising penchant, or some mix between them. A sensate
penchant is connected with material needs, while an ideational penchant
is connected with needs of the psyche. Patterning with needs from its
psyche, is connected with persistent curiosity about the world, and
dramatising which is connected with the material is concerned with
sequences of personal events. Personality is the home for the cognitive,
figurative, and operative traits. The cognitive trait involves intellectual
autonomy (connected with the psyche) that delivers meaning for self, or
embeddedness (connected with the material) which is concerned with
social order. There may also be some mix between these enantiomer
penchants. The figurative trait may take the trait type value of mastery
plus affective autonomy, connected with the material and relating to
social goals, or harmony which has a penchant in the psyche that is
connected with understanding and the avoidance of disturbance. There
may also be a mix between these penchants. The operative trait may take
the type value of hierarchy, a material penchant, where one must comply
with obligations and the role rules they imply. Alternatively egalitarian-
ism, with a penchant towards the psyche, is adopts the view that others
with related interests are morally equal.
The traits accumulate into a set of Mindsets that determine the character
of the agency. From this there also arises the idea that two measures can
arise, agency orientation and personality orientation. Eight stable cogni-
tion Mindsets types have been identified that identify agency orientations.
However, it is possible to combine these enabling an infinite variety
Mindsets due to the variable dynamics of the traits that compose them.
324 From Cognition to Affect
From this there also arises the idea that two measures can arise, agency
orientation and personality orientation.
Agency may be described in terms of a cultural, personality, and agency
operative system. The systems are ontologically distinct, but connected
through process intelligences. Operative intelligence is a form of autopoiesis
and connects the operative and personality systems as an operative couple. It
is concerned with the representation and manipulation of transformational
aspects of reality. It reflects all actions that are undertaken so as to antici-
pate, follow, or recover the operative transformations, as well as referring to
highly integrated and generalised sets of actions that are adaptive in nature.
Figurative intelligence is a form of autogenesis, and connects the personality
to the operative couple. It provides core relational explanations of reality as
a reflection of epistemic patterns of knowledge or cognitive information. It
is connected with states of reality, manifesting epistemic patterns in the
figurative system to enable strategic schema to arise or develop.
The normative personality can be seen as a strategic supersystem of
agency. It is a recursion of the agency model within a personality context. It
consists of the cognitive, figurative, and operative systems, connected
together by operative and figurative personality intelligences in ways that
are similar to the model of agency. Cultural (figurative) intelligence mani-
fests knowledge from agency culture to the cognitive system in the person-
ality as conceptual information as it also influences the operative system.
Through personality figurative intelligence this information is manifested
as a variety of strategic forms of schema like goals, ideology, ethics, and self-
scripts the latter of which connect strategic expectations with operative
structure and behaviour.
Mindsets may belong to agency and personality. Personality Mindsets
are extracted from the cognition agency, and can be formulated into the
two classes: individualism and collectivism. Individualism is the doctrine
that all social phenomena (their structure and potential to change) are in
principle explicable only in terms of individuals – for instance their
properties, goals, and beliefs. Collectivism in principle and ideally relates
to people coming together in a collective to act unitarily through norma-
tive processes in order to satisfy some commonly agreed and understood
purpose or interest. Agency may adopt one cognitive type of individualism
or collectivism under one context, and shift to the other as context changes.
This implies that the Mindset type that might characterise agency can also
change with context. In the same way that Mindsets can be mixed to better
characterise a personality or agency, so too can individualism and
collectivism.
 Summarising Narrative for Part II 325
The dualism of individualism and collectivism are good ways of distin-
guishing between agency orientations, so long as it is recognised that each
has a variety of variations on a continuous scale of distinction.
Individualism frames the development goals of autonomy and independ-
ence while collectivism frames relatedness and interdependence. Within
the context of Agency Theory, individualism is directly related to
Intellectual Autonomy and Mastery + Affective autonomy, while collect-
ivism is directly related to Harmony and Embeddedness. A simplistic use
of the terms individualism and collectivism does not take account of
possible variations, and thus constitutes a form of stereotyping.
Maruyama identified four dominant Mindscape types. Mindset Agency
Theory adopts Mindscape theory, so that these four Mindscape types are
the same as four Mindset types. However, Mindsets can be generated by
empirical means using the cultural values study of Sagiv and Schwartz
(2007). The cultural values study permits eight dominant Mindsets can be
generated. Mindsets characterise agency and its personality, and can be
mixed to deliver in an infinite possibility of agency/personality character-
isations highlighting individual differences.
Affect theory, like cognition theory, is fragmented. Affect may refer to
short-lasting emotion, long-lasting moods that represent predominant
emotion or conscious state of mind, temperament (character traits or
habitual inclination or mode of emotional response) and sensation (mental
process like seeing, hearing, or smelling resulting from the immediate
external stimulation of a sense organ). Emotions are often represented as
short-lasting feelings, while mood is represented as long-lasting feeling.
However, while feeling may be a consequence of affect, it is distinguished
from affect by the fact that it produces no perceptible physical innerv-
ations, i.e., neither more nor less than an ordinary thinking process.
Temperament refers to behavioural style which indicates how behav-
iour, while trait-based personality theories describe what behaviours can
and do arise, and why they do so. Affect personality adopts a temperament
approach to is defined by a set of affect traits that constitute temperament.
Affect traits, like cognition traits, are epistemically independent bipolar
affect types with particular penchants. Affect agency has a personality
system that can be represented by a cognitive/affect system that supports
emotional attitude with opposing penchants of stimulation and contain-
ment, a figurative/affect system that supports motivation activation (of
feeling) with opposing penchants of ambition and protection, and an
operative/affect system that supports emotion management through
opposing penchants of dominance and submission. Affect personality sits
326 From Cognition to Affect
in affect agency that has a cultural system involving cultural climate (with
extreme penchants of fear or security) and a social/operative system (with
extreme penchants of missionary and empathy). Like the immanent pro-
cesses of cognition, affect may occur independently of adventitious influ-
ences, where feelings have a major role in personality.
Cognitive development (the capacity to have elaborating knowledge-
based rational thought over time) occurs together with affective develop-
ment, these having mutual complementarity. Affect development is closely
connected with cognitive development. The motives and energising dyna-
misms that drive behaviour involve affect, and there is no purely intellec-
tual action. Similarly, there is not purely affect act. Affect and cognition are
integrally intertwined.
Affect traits coalesce into a set of Mindset types that can be related to the
classical four temperaments. Just as cognition agency has Mindsets that fit
into individualist and collectivist categorisations, there are four affect
Mindsets led by stimulation penchants, and four that are led by contain-
ment penchants. Affect Mindsets, like cognition Mindsets, can represent
an infinite number of individual differences as they cross mix. Different
affect types are supposed to differently regulate the stages of emotion
management. Affect types and cognition types provide mutual contexts
for each other and foster reciprocal affect and cognitive orientations. It is
possible to analyse cultural differentiation within social systems (societies/
organisations), with reference to identification, elaboration, and execution
of ‘emotion knowledge’ and ‘cognition knowledge’.
Personality is a complex component of agency composed of interactive
affect and cognition that applies to both individuals and organisations.
Understanding the relationship between affect and cognition is important
because the personality that emerges from their complex interactions is
determined by mental reflection and self-reflection, with self-certainty
functioning as an important moderator.
There are few models available that show how affect and cognition
explicitly interact to create personality, and they exist in a fragmented
literature. Here we have created a generic cultural socio-affect trait theory
of a ‘plural affect agency’ (the emotional individual/organisation) is mod-
elled. To do this, an Emotion Regulation model has been integrated with
Normative Personality Theory in the context of Mindset Agency Theory
to provide an explanation of how a cognitive system and an emotion
regulating affective system relate interactively. The emotions emerge
from an underlying emotional attitude connected with self-identity per-
sonality, feelings used to self-regulate personality, and from emotion
 Summarising Narrative for Part II 327
management processes connected with self-regulation. In a social environ-
ment, emotions are expressed through actions. The results of actions
(feedback, goal achievement) are assessed through affective operative intel-
ligence in the light of pursued goals.
Affect theory can provide guidance for analysis of cultural differenti-
ation within social systems (e.g., societies or organisations), with reference
to identification, elaboration, and execution of emotion knowledge.
Understanding interdependencies between cognition and emotion regula-
tion is a prerequisite of managerial intelligence and strategic cultural
intelligence, in demand for interaction and integration processes across
social systems. The affect agency is defined in terms of a sociocultural
orientations and personality orientations. Sociocultural orientations derive
from a cultural environment defined in terms of emotional climate that can
deliver fear or security penchants or some mix of them, and this is defined
in terms of and a social environment in which emotion is delivered through
action. Personality orientations derive from emotional attitude oriented by
the penchants of stimulation and containment penchants, affect activation
through the penchants of ambition and protection, and emotion manage-
ment that may adopt missionary or empathetic penchants or a mix of
them.
The model that connects cognition and affect provides a framework
which links emotion expression and emotion regulation with cognition
analysis. It assumes that affect and cognition personalities are autonomous
living agencies. Both agencies have personalities, and affect and cognition
personalities interact through their operative systems.
 part iii
Modelling Identity Types through Agency

Formative personality traits are always subject to tensions form both the
immanent and adventitious dynamics processes that occur in the agency
and its personality. These can alter the degree of attraction towards an
enantiomer force thereby influencing the resulting trait type, and thus re-
orientating the agency and its personality. These enantiomer forces, we are
reminded, arise from the interactive polar extremes that every trait has, and
that in the terminology of dynamic systems are referred to as attractors.
The consequence of the dynamic is that at times traits may change their
type values sufficiently to create recognisable adaptations resulting in
altered behaviour. The orientation changes are thus the result of either
new stable trait balances, or unstable chaotic positions that are consistent
with pathologies. It may also be the case that while some traits are balanced
by finding a stable value between their polar extremes, others maintain
unstable conditions. A consequence may be that pathologies are hidden
until they are exposed under conditions of stress, and the nature of the
relevant stress in psychotic terms will likely depend on which traits are
dysfunctional. This implies the possibility of creating diagnostic tools to
relieve psychoses that centre on trait analysis, and the application of
psychological techniques to create balance. This is because trait instabilities
resulting in psychosis generally affects the way in which information is
processed (since traits are information filters), so that agency experiencing
this creates an impaired relationship with reality. These psychoses may be
seen in plural agencies having a population of agents where normative traits
exist, or in unitary agencies that represent individuals. In the former case,
influence can occur in developmental and political processes of governance
(Yolles, 2019, 2019a, 2019b). However, in this part of the book our interest
will lie principally in unitary agencies (though this does not mean plural
agencies will be ignored). Their pathologies may be manifested in a variety
of ways, from incoherent behaviour, to psychological tensions that

329
330 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
endanger internal identity relationships. One consequence is the rise of
‘dark personality traits’ (James, 2015: 11), a triad which
refers to antagonistic personality traits that are related to psychological harm
and are destructive to others (Jones & Figueredo, 2013). These traits are part
of a socially injurious character with behavioural tendencies toward self-
promotion, emotional unresponsiveness, deceit, and aggression (Paulhus &
Williams, 2002). The Dark Triad encompasses three personality traits:
Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism (Paulhus & Williams,
2002). The underlying elements associated with these traits are interper-
sonal manipulation and callous affect (Jones & Figueredo, 2013; Jones &
Paulhus, 2014). Interpersonal manipulation involves lying, an inflated self-
worth, the use of coercion, and dishonesty (Jones & Figueredo, 2013).
Callous affect involves a lack of concern or remorse for others and their well-
being (Jones & Figueredo, 2013). These two characteristics comprise the
core of an antagonistic personality (Jones & Figueredo, 2013). Although
Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism share the same core char-
acteristics, each trait in the Dark Triad has distinct behaviours, attitudes,
and beliefs, and show unique correlates with different outcomes and should
thus each be considered independently.
The traits referred to by James are not formative, as has been the subject of
our thesis. Rather they are ‘local’ traits (McAdams, 2015) and that influence
how we interact with others on a daily basis. As already indicated, local
traits are ‘local’ determiners of day-to-day behaviour that influences how
one interacts with others on a daily basis, rather than the formative traits
which determine ones character. They constitute consistent behavioural
tendencies that result from innate features, or as the generalised result of
learning processes, delivering stylistic attitude, cognitive schemes (like
personal constructs, values and frames), dynamic motives (like the need
for achievement and power motivation), and it may also derive from
encoding strategies, self-regulatory systems and plans, and other cognitive
social learning person variables. They may also result from pathologies or
trait information inconsistencies.
Coupling theory concerning formative trait pathologies with identity
theory and the issue of multiple identities that permeates the literature,
such trait instabilities may become recognised through contradictions that
occur across the multiple identities that agencies maintain. This part of the
book will discuss these contradictions.
In Chapter 10 we propose a schema developed from the fragmented
literature for ontologically distinct classes of identity (perhaps seen in terms
of an identity hierarchy, following Turner, 1987), all of which may interact.
 Modelling Identity Types through Agency 331
This schema is related to Hijmans’ (2003) Dynamic Identity Model that
explains how identities can develop. This model will become a useful basis
for the next chapter, as a dynamic model of multiple identities is developed
as part of personality.
Identity theory will be explained to be in a state of ‘evolution’, with no
coherent ‘theory’ able to act as a generic frame of reference. The nature of
identity will be explored, and from this an agency dynamic model will
result that is bedded on complex adaptive systems. The approach will call
on ideas of multiple identities that an agency has while being able to
maintain its viability, and hence to adapt and survive in changing condi-
tions. To explain multiple identities in a coherent way there will be a need
to connect different independently derived theories that illustrate the most
unfortunate fragmentation in the field of identity theory. It will be
explained that personalities can maintain multiple identities, some of
which are epistemically distinct, and some being ontologically distinct.
The significance of differentiating between these classifications should not
be underestimated. Recognising these two distinctions enables the possi-
bility of integrating the theories, though this potential is not specifically
undertaken here since this would need the terminologies to be placed in
relative perspective, and this is beyond the scope of this book.
Beyond Chapter 10, this part of the book also involves empirical study of
identity, adopting novel methodologies that have required adaptation. The
methodology is a function of the Mindset Agency Theory variation that
distinguished between the set of five agency traits and the set of its three
personality traits, the important distinctions lying in the adoption of the
sociocultural traits that determine social behaviours. In developing the
approach, we also need to adopt the multiple identity approach, where
identities are underpinned by formative traits. Here, we distinguish
between ontologically distinct private, personal, and public identity, and
our interest lies in relating the latter two. We do not explore epistemo-
logical changes in these identities, since our interest lies only in a snapshot
of time with respect to political personalities within a well define unchan-
ging political context. There is evidence from studies in, for instance,
multi-racial contexts that in healthy individuals/agencies the distinction
between personal and public identities, while being ontologically differen-
tiable, are also epistemically consistent. Hence while personal and public
identities are epistemically similar in healthy individuals/agencies, signifi-
cant epistemic variation is indicative of analytic pathology that in severe
cases can lead, for instance, to the manifestation of ‘dark traits’.
332 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
In Chapter 11 we shall apply the Mindset theory developed in Chapter 7
to the 2016 election campaign of the now US president Donald Trump,
and use content analysis applied to his narratives in a variety of media areas
to assess the manifestation of his identities to determine if there are any
personality anomalies. We shall identify whether or not there are any
analytic pathologies, and explain how these may relate to the dark traits
that public literature clearly sees Trump to be possessed of.
In Chapter 12, Cultural Agency Theory is again used to posit the
relationship between personality and multiple identities. We will elaborate
on the theory by further considering Dynamic Identity Theory as it
explains how identities develop and change. An improvement of the
methodology used in Chapter 11 will be indicated and applied to
the evaluation of Theresa May’s identities, who was prime minister of
the United Kingdom until 23 July 2019. It will be shown that she has an
indicative personality condition that has a clinical explanation, but it is far
from the extreme case of Trump.
To undertake the empirical study on both Theresa May and Donald
Trump, various narratives delivered by each will be examined by a group of
coders using summative content analysis to identify variables relevant to the
Mindset model. They were studied through a group of coders, but a group
of coders are individuals who may not code in ways that are mutually
consistent. Thus, it would also be necessary to test whether the group was
coherent in its identification of variables, and to do this Krippendorff Alpha
was used to measure the reliability of the variables. Where the Alpha values
that resulted were less than 0.7, for the Theresa May study a Delphi iterative
technique was adopted so that the narratives were scanned again to look for
the variables that were unreliable. In both studies (Donald Trump and
Teresa May) it will be shown that there are pathological distinctions between
their personal and public identities. In the case of Trump the pathology will
be seen to be quite sever, more so than that of Theresa May. In both cases
iterative inquiry approaches were required. In the May study, the theoretical
approach required the use Occam’s razor filtering, and indicative results will
show a dominant personal hybrid Mindset. In both cases an analytic
pathology (i.e., one deriving from the theory as opposed to clinical observa-
tion) is exposed – one that appears to be quite severe in the case of Trump.
The analytic pathology implies a clinical condition that with psychoanalysis
provides confirmation that overcomes any possibility of data-analysis error.
Being able to distinguish between multiple identities and take qualita-
tive-quantitative measures is not the whole story. In studying both Donald
Trump and Theresa May, only cognitive attributes have been considered
 Modelling Identity Types through Agency 333
with no inquiry into personality affect. Affect attributes determine emo-
tions that impact on behaviour.
Models that are deemed to be a representation of reality are usually
constrained by their own propositions, thus creating some level of ‘simpli-
fication’. However, the propositions of Mindset Agency Theory are quite
broad, evident by enabling hybrid Mindset types to be represented, these
deriving from trait type balances. This complexity introduced into the
modelling process is necessary in order to facilitate explanations for multi-
faceted attributes of personality and identity.
 chapter 10

Identity as a Component of Personality

10.1 Introduction
Fragmentation in the academic study of identity theory extends to its
dislocated from personality theory. More, this fragmentation has not
done identity theory much service as explained from the social science
perspective by Abdelal et al. (2006: 695):
Multiple disciplines and subfields are producing an expanding literature on
the definition, meaning, and development of ethnic, national, linguistic,
religious, gender, class, and other identities and their roles in processes of
institutional development. … To the chagrin of the social scientific com-
munity, … [the] ubiquitous sprawl of scholarship … has undermined the
conceptual clarity of identity as a variable. The wide variety of conceptual-
izations and definitions of identity have led some to conclude that identity is
so elusive, slippery, and amorphous that it will never prove to be a useful
variable for the social sciences … [and] the current state of the field amounts
to definitional anarchy.
This is unfortunate for the field of politics, where determination of
empirical identity is one of the most normatively significant and behav-
iourally consequential attributes (Abedelal et al., 2006; Smith, 2004), an
area of application that will be considered over the next two chapters.
Here, we seek to explore this fragmentation through a literature review,
seeking commonalities using ontological principles that will create
a coherent schema for multiple identities. There are at least three signifi-
cant distinct theories on identity that one can find in the literature: identity
theory, social identity theory, and self-identity theory.
Identity/role theory is a theory of psychology (Hogg et al., 1995) that has
developed form microsociology – this being concerned with the study of
interpersonal interaction and behaviours normally for those in small
groups, and the analysis of their interactive patterns and trends. Within
335
336 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
this theory, self acquires a portfolio of multiple discrete identities, these
emerging from (1) the role relationships in which they participate; (2) an
organised systems of role relationships; and (3) in given circumstances
a personality may activate an appropriate identity (Stryker, 2007). Now,
identities are value based and knowledge relative (Berkman et al., 2017),
therefore embracing epistemically distinct knowledge mosaics, that are
always potentially transitional, and ontologically similar since they are
similar sorts of identities.
In contrast, social identity theory has arisen from the field of social
psychology, and is interested in different sorts of identity (cf. Tajfel, 1982).
For Ellemers (2010), it is the study of (1) the interplay between personal and
social identities (which we shall in due course show to be ontologically
distinct); and (2) has an interest in identifying and predicting the circum-
stances under which individuals think of themselves as individuals or as
group members, as well as considering the consequences of personal and
social identities for individual perceptions and group behaviour. It also has
a focus on how group membership guides intergroup behaviour and
influences the self-concept of a personality, while its extension into self-
categorisation theory proposes that people categorise themselves according
to the groups they believe they belong to, like nationality, gender, or
football teams (Trepte & Loy, 2017). These ‘sorts’ of personal and social
identity referred to are ontologically distinct since ‘personal’ and ‘public’
identities are different concepts that have a relationship. However, while
some ontologically distinct identities may be selectable, not all are. As
illustration, we can introduce private identity, taken as a function self-
worth and autonomy (Malik, 2010; Taylor, 1992), where self-worth is not
a selectable condition since it is a function of fear of failure (Valle et al.,
2007) which may not be controllable. In contrast, public identity is
selectable (Ramon, 2017), and as noted by Vigors (2010: 187), ‘media are
capable of creating personalities or public identities that are apparently
more ‘real’ than real life and more palpable than fiction’. There is also an
inherent relationship between private and public identity that has been
determined through psychoanalysis, and which we shall consider in due
course.
Self-identity theory has arisen from the field of clinical psychodynamics,
may be seen as a self-schema theory, and represents a cognition theory
concerned with identity within a cultural context (cf. Horowitz, 2012). It is
through the self-schema that social stimuli are perceived, interpreted, and
recalled, and can create a rich repertoire of behaviours that enables effi-
cient, competent, and consistent functioning. A self-schema is a cognitive
 Identity as a Component of Personality 337
framework that is stable and enduring and concerned with the self-
concept, integrating and summarising a personality’s thoughts, feelings,
and experiences about the self in a specific behavioural domain (Stein,
1996). Different experiences of self are a result of different unconscious
generalisations about self, these becoming dominant at different times and
in different social or cultural settings (Horowitz, 2012). Multiple self-
schemas may arise through conscious and unconscious immanent and
adventitious influences, and the personality may self-organise them in
a way that may be either inhomogeneous (fragmented and mutually
inconsistent) or homogeneous.
We shall consider the relationship between these theories again in the
next chapter. However, broadly speaking we can relate them by recognis-
ing that multiple identities may emerge from self-schemas (self-identity
theory) to create a set of ontologically distinct entities (social identity
theory), and a portfolio of epistemically distinct identities from social
interactions that become activated under appropriate conditions (identity
theory). Within this context, the three theories are commensurable, even if
their terminologies and modes of expressions create issues. It will be
explained that self-schemas may also be expressed in terms of trait-like
structures, this providing opportunity to create an agency trait type theory
of identity within personality.
Now, interest will lie in exploring how identity is a part of personality. It
will also seek to explore multiple ontologically distinct identities through
a literature review, determining the number of ontologically distinct
multiple personalities there are, and what their nature is. It will be
shown that five such identities exist, three of which belong to personality
and two socioculture. We shall then configure into the emerging theory
Hijmans’ (2003) Dynamic Identity Model and Marshall’s (1995) strategic
information model to connect personality and sociocultural identities.

10.2 Political Identity

We have already noted the importance of identity to politics. This is
because politics, in many democracies of the western world, appears to
have become increasingly personalised, and encompasses two processes
(Caprara et al., 2006): (1) personalities of candidates that become a focus
for voter attentions; (2) voter personalities which are decisive for political
choice. Interest here lies in the first of these. In what follows, we shall
explore elements of the theories that are relevant to our development,
without particular concern of which theory that arise from, while
338 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
considering commensurability. Here, configurations from identity theory
are relevant when during Agency Theory our interest lies in to epistemic-
ally distinct identities, from social identity theory when considering onto-
logically distinct identities, and from self-identity theory where immanent
and adventitious influences are of interest in the dynamics of identity
emergence.
Knowing something about personalities can be ascertained from the
narratives that they produce, and within the political sphere these can
provide the means by which candidates for positions of power achieve and
maintain public support. Narrative style is also important, and rhetorical
devices (Garvey, 2016) can be used to make messages appealing and
persuading. One attribute of such rhetorical devices involves the projection
of identity (Caprara & Zimbardo, 2004). The personal pronouns a speaker
uses can be used to refer to themselves and to others, and to evoke multiple
group/individual identities of themselves and others, these presented from
a range of perspectives (Allen, 2007). Multiple and transitional identities
can arise in changing contexts (Einwohner, 2002). This projection can be
indicative of political identity (an outcrop of social identity theory),
defined as the expression of an individual’s belief system and social affili-
ations (Ramon, 2017). Factors that can construct identity include race,
nationality, residence (where a person lives) and gender and sexuality.
Political identity is normally associated with a group affiliation and
describes the ways in which being a member of a particular group might
express specific political opinions and attitudes, and constitutes a public
face of identity.
So, if personality is so important to sociopolitical contexts, how does one
determine who a person really is? Personality may be defined in terms of
a set of characteristic ‘local’ traits, like an intolerance of ambiguity, a need
for coherence, or the absence of an openness to experience (Huddy et al.,
2013), and these are represented either as consistent behavioural tendencies
that result from innate features, or as the generalised result of learning
processes. While it is connected to identity, the two are more usually seen
as distinct, with identity concerned with what a person is, the qualities and
beliefs that are representative of self, and their choice of role behaviour
(Stryker, 2007). This leads to a question concerning self, which is
a person’s essential being with introspection or reflexive action, self-
understanding, self-esteem, and the self-concept. However, Simon
(2008) and Markus and Kitayama (1991) explain that self and identity
can be tightly bound suggesting that the inherent connection between
identity, self, and personality needs to be further explored.
 Identity as a Component of Personality 339
The connection between personality and identity is that the former
relates to individual formative traits, defined either as consistent behav-
ioural tendencies that resulted from innate features, or as the generalised
result of learning processes. The latter has interests in exploring role choice
behaviour. Having distinguished between the two, Yolles (2009, 2009a)
formulated a theory of personality that has the capacity to integrate
identity theory, further developed in Yolles and Fink (2009).
Personalities can create a public identity facade. Such situations can
occur where political candidates (through their collective teams) stand for
election and wish to appeal and persuade audiences. It can also occur for
instance in multiracial contexts where individuals have their own political
need to show that they ‘fit in’. In either case, multiple identities exist that
may be contradictory, perhaps in some cases suggesting a pathological
personality (see, e.g., Alcoff, 2006).
When referring to multiple identities, Vignoles et al. (2011) note that
there is often an underlying assumption that an individual has only a single
identity. It may be unclear, they say, whether this actually comprises
multiple and separable domains, or components that may shift in salience
(activation) in a way that depends on intergroup context. In discussing
multiple identities, Vignoles et al. further point to personal, relational, and
collective aspects of self that might either been seen as multiple attributes of
a single individual, or as ontologically distinct properties of a single
identity.
Multiple identities belong to agency which may be either a plural
coherent collective (with a stable culture) or a unitary individual. In either
case, they will have distinct ontological properties that combine as a whole
to create personality. Ontology is discussed at length by Carlsson and
Fullér (2013) and may be seen as an understandable domain consisting of
entities, attributes, relationships, and axioms. This domain refers to the
nature of being, becoming, existence or reality, and the basic categories of
being and their relations, and this may be explored in terms of domain
properties. While ontologies may be considered in terms of properties, they
do not have any functional attributes – which should be assigned to
systems that reside in an ontological domain. Ontological discussion
sometimes occurs about the entities of such a set of systems, how they
exist or may be grouped, how they are mutually related within a hierarchy,
and how they can be sub-divided according to similarities and differences.
Kelman (1958) was interested in social influences on identity, based on
a qualitative distinction between three processes: compliance, identifica-
tion, and internalisation. We note from the last chapter that in a social
340 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
setting compliance is determined by norms, identification is a concept of
self, and internalisation is a contextual consequence of personality. Kelman
(1974: 142) explains their connection in terms of influence:
Compliance can be said to occur when an individual accepts influence from
another person or from a group in order to attain a favourable reaction from
the other, that is, to gain a specific reward or avoid a specific punishment
controlled by the other, or to gain approval or avoid disapproval from him.
Identification can be said to occur when an individual accepts influence
from another person or a group in order to establish or maintain a satisfying
self-defining relationship to the other, in contrast to compliance, identifica-
tion is not primarily concerned with producing a particular effect in the
other. Rather, accepting influence through identification is a way of estab-
lishing or maintaining a desired relationship to the other, as well as the self-
definition that is anchored in this relationship. By accepting influence, the
person is able to see himself as similar to the other (as in classical identifica-
tion) or to see himself as enacting a role reciprocal to that of the other.
Finally, internalisation can be said to occur when an individual accepts
influence in order to maintain the congruence of his actions and beliefs with
his value system. Here it is the content of the induced behaviour and its
relation to the person’s value system that are intrinsically satisfying.
Since identity may be considered a consequence of processes of internal-
isation by personality (Stryker, 2007), if there are conflicts in the charac-
terisation by personality and processes of internalisation, then there will be
issues that impact on identity and personality that need to be expressible
through theory. According to Millon (2003: 4), ‘it is unfortunate that the
number of theories that have been advanced to ‘explain’ personality is
proportional to the internecine squabbling found in the literature’. Now
‘identity theory derives from a structural symbolic interactionist frame,
offering an explanation of the choices persons make in situations in which
they have the possibility of enacting alternative role-related actions’
(Stryker, 2007: 2). That identity theory is in crisis (Brubaker & Cooper,
2000) is supported by the continuing rush of interest in the subject in a way
that is conceptually fragmented (Brown, 2015; Lifton, 1994; Rockquemore,
Brunsma & Delgado, 2009; Schachter, 2005; Schwartz, Luyckx &
Vignoles, 2011). In particular, Brown (2015), who makes some considerable
effort in exploring the degree of fragmentation in this field of study, notes
that, as part of this, under-specification of conceptual terms has meant that
‘identity’ has not always fulfilled its analytical promise in either theoretical
explorations of identity issues or in empirical identity research. Thus, even
today the field has been unable to deliver a complete and coherent theory of
 Identity as a Component of Personality 341
identity that fully relates all of its attributes. Thus, for instance, some
research papers discuss the relationship between public and private identity
(Webb et al., 1998); some between public and personal identity (Onoroto
& Turner, 2002); some between collective and social identity (Luhtanen &
Crocker, 1992); and some personal, group, social, and collective identities
(Duncan & Stewart, 2007). However, perhaps with a few exceptions, like
that of Ashmore et al. (2004), which creates a general framework for
collective identity, there appears to be no general framework for identity
theory as such. Indeed, there is some significant difficulty in finding any
papers at all that refer to all the types of identity that exist around the
literature (including private, personal, public, relational. cultural, social
and collective), what their direct distinctions are, and how and if they
influence each other either directly or indirectly.
Fearon (1999), in her discussion of the nature of political identity as it
derives from social identity theory, also notes the confused historical nature
of the meaning ascribed to the word identity and then distinguishes
between role and type identity. Role identity refers to labels applied to
people who are expected or obligated to perform some set of actions,
behaviours, routines, or functions in situations. Type identity refers to
labels applied to persons who might share or may be thought to share
some characteristic or characteristics, in appearance, behavioural traits,
beliefs, attitudes, values, skills (like language), knowledge, opinions,
experience, historical commonalities (like region or place of birth).
Fearon (1999: 25) continues by also introducing personal identity as: a set
of attributes, beliefs, desires, or principles of action are expected to distin-
guish the individual in socially relevant ways, in which the person: takes
a special pride in; takes no special pride in, but which so orient behaviour
to be a loss about how to act and what to do without them; or the person
feels unable to change even if there is a wish to. So, the question may be
put, is there anything that can create some degree of coherence in identity
theory? Perhaps one approach may come from the sociologist Jürgen
Habermas, and which normally lies outside the bounds of personality
theory.
Habermas (1987), in his three worlds theory, distinguishes between the
internal, external and social worlds that provides a basis for explanations
about why an agency may differentiate its behaviour in each of the private,
personal, and public contexts that it experiences. The external relates to the
objective world of things, the internal relates to the subjective world of
feelings, and social world which relates the social world of people. There is
some synergy between this and Tajfel’s (1978) discussion of social identity –
342 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
which refers to the individual self-concept that derives from its knowledge
of its memberships in groups, and is connected with the values and
emotional significance associated with that membership. The private self
relates to self as self, the public self relates to self-in-relation-to the general-
ised other, and the personal or social self relates to an assessment of the self
by a specific reference group. As such: public can be influenced by behav-
ioural norms, values, and roles associated with a group and its culture that
acquires emotional significance (external world); private involves schemas
and is determined by cognitive conditions, and influenced behaviours of
a person’s individual psyche (internal world); and personal relating to
family, co-workers, tribe, society (social world).

10.3 The Nature of Self and Identity

Following Li (2006; James, 1890), who is interested in culture, every
human being has a sense of self that constitutes a construct of the con-
sciousness of oneself. This sense of self has two dimensions, the ‘I’ and the
‘Me’. The ‘Me’ self is the empirical or categorical self, and consists of the
material self (sensate), the social self (characteristics recognised by others),
and the spiritual self (the inner/subjective being, and the entire stream of
personal consciousness comprising thoughts, psychic dispositions, and
moral judgements, which contain the fundamental processes guiding our
behaviour). In contrast, the ‘I’ self is the subjective knower containing the
concepts of self-awareness, self-agency, self-continuity, and self-coherence.
The ‘I’ is the pure experience and the ‘Me’ as the content of the experience.
The ‘I’ self may be seen as responsible for constructing the ‘Me’ self. The ‘I’
self serves as the active agent that constructs, interprets, organises, and
synthesises experiences. Li (2006; Cooley, 1902) indicates that individuals
develop the self-system through internalising (1) their imagination of their
appearance to others; (2) the judgements of that appearance; and (3) the
self-feelings like pride or mortification, according to such appraisals.
However, this distinction between ‘Me’ and ‘I’ have in more recent years
dissolved into other structures like the self-concept, self-description, and
self-perception, these focusing on processes of self-evaluation related to
what has become an important concept of self-esteem. The concept of self-
esteem, according to Markus and Kitayama (1991), is better replaced by the
term self-satisfaction, due to its independence from a western orientation
that they claim the former term has.
Simon (2008) considers two disciplinary approaches to the study of the
self-concept. One comes from sociology/anthropology (e.g., Horowitz,
 Identity as a Component of Personality 343
2012) and the other from psychology/social psychology (e.g., Stryker, 2007;
Tajfel, 1982). The anthropological approach to self is interested in descrip-
tive elements in relation to social structure and its effects of the develop-
ment of social persons and social behaviour. These usually relate to self as
identity, usually within a cultural context. Here, for Li (2006), identity is
a cognitive structure guiding and organising how the person processes self-
related information. Human beings are social entities who interact with
each other constantly. One’s self-concept or self-identity is, more or less,
influenced by others and the society as a whole. Important to this is
identity theory, and central concepts to this include (1) identity – a set of
internalised role expectations; (2) social roles – social positions attached to
those role expectations; (3) identity salience – the probability that an
identity will be invoked across a variety of situations; and (4) commit-
ment – the social relationships associated with a particular identity, with
interactional and affective components. Simon (2008) notes that identity
theory also maintains five core propositions: (1) identities are relational; (2)
identities are socially constructed and have socially shared meanings; (3)
identities reflect the structured social context; (4) people have multiple
identities; and (5) identities have social consequences.
Interactional commitment relates to the number of relationships
affected if a particular identity is given up, while affective commitment
relates to the emotional cost involved in losing those relationships and
identities. Commitment influences identity salience and interacts with
behaviour. Other external influences connect identity with behaviour.
People organise or choose their behaviours to change situations and
bring the meanings of their behaviours into agreement with identity
standards, which is a set of culturally prescribed meanings defining their
identities in various situations. An illustration of the interactivity between
types of identity is illustrated by Onorato and Turner (2004), who explain
that the salience of social identity can inhibit that of personal identity, just
as the salience of personal identity can inhibit social identity. For Vignoles
et al. (2011), social identity is largely grounded in the work of Tajfel and
Turner (1986), who focused on the role of group identity processes in
intergroup relations. Following Luhtanen and Crocker (1992), social iden-
tity can be related to collective identity, this latter focusing on the extent to
which an individual’s sense of identity reflects the social groups to which
they belong.
Related to this, Parsons (1970) has identified AGIL1 sectors: Adaptation
(resources, including economic and informational), Goal attainment
(motivation and getting on with task at hand), Integrative (interpersonal
344 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
matters), and Latent pattern maintenance (underlying values). These four
sectors occur in a system hierarchy of control whereby L (one’s values)
‘control’ the other sectors through A (where information/resources are
‘easiest’ to modify).
The sociological/anthropological approach is also interested in how
identities change. Thus, Orbe (2004) explores identity development in
new contexts, and specifies four components:
1. Personal identity is the result of a person’s self-cognitions, self-concept,
and sense of well-being.
2. Collective identity is shared by relevant others of a group occurring
through group memory which creates bonds.
3. Enactment identity involves the enactment of identity to others, where
enactment occurs to others through communication, focusing on
(direct or indirect) messages that a person sends that express identity.
4. Relationship identity focuses on how identity emerges through our
relationships with others, as well as how relationships themselves
construct their own identities.
Bedford and Hwang (2003) consider that personal identity can lead to
counter-factual thinking of how to alter qualities of the self. For Heise and
O’Brian (1998) collective or group identity is the result of personal and
normative systems which unite when group members are deeply commit-
ted to their group identities. In this case, individuals spontaneously express
emotion, and act according to group norms so as to affirm the experience
of self through the reflected appraisals of others. Unlike components (1)
and (2) above, which indicate types of identity that have differentiated
ontological attributes, for Shorter (1971), these identity attributes are
associated with the whole personality. More, component (3) constitutes
identity processes, which have more relevance to the study of social
movements (e.g., Einwohner, 2002). In reference to component (4),
relational identity refers to the roles of others, including role nature like
child, spouse friend or co-worker, and it also refers to how they are defined
and interpreted by the individuals who assume them (Vignoles et al., 2011).
However, there is not too much clarity in differentiating between relational
and other types of identity. Thus, for Shorter (1971), relational identity is
intimately connected to personal identity seeming referring to personality
as a whole, and which incidentally he also considers being the seat of
consciousness.
In psychology/social psychology approaches to self and identity, the
term self can relate to the individualistic descriptive elements of self, or its
 Identity as a Component of Personality 345
group membership. Li (2006; Myers, 2002), notes that as part of this, self-
schemas (or self-representations) exist through which people define them-
selves. Self-schemas, Li notes, are derived from self-assessment, social
interaction, comparison, and feedback from others, and one’s cognitive
ability to process information. In self-schema/identity theory, self-schemas
are stable or trait-like self-representations facilitating information process-
ing. This enables individuals to quickly reject/accept incongruent/congru-
ent information.
Despite the isolated continuance of the distinct sociological/anthropo-
logical and psychological/social psychological strands of the self-concept
(of which identity theory is a part; Tajfel, 1982), Markus and Kitayama
(1991) explain that they can be integrated. To progress this view, they
explain that divergent construals of the self, others, and the interdepend-
ence of the two are different across cultures. Thus, in more individualist
cultures the self is highlighted through its distinction from others and
the importance of asserting self. In more collectivist cultures, self tends
to relates more to harmonious interdependence with others. The con-
struals of self and others are thus a function of cultural norms including
perception of what people should be doing with their lives. Both
anthropologists and psychologists assume that such construals can influ-
ence, and in many cases, determine the very nature of individual
experience.
Markus and Kitayama further note that models arising through the
psychology of self tend to adopt the so-called Western view of the individ-
ual as an independent, self-contained, autonomous entity which (1) com-
prises a unique configuration of internal attributes (e.g., traits, abilities,
motives, and values); and (2) behaves primarily as a consequence of these
internal attributes. However, construals of the self, of others, and of the
relationship between the self and others may also usefully embrace cultural
difference. The self can be viewed as autonomous and interdependent with
the surrounding context, where the other or the self-in-relation-to-other
becomes a focus of individual experience. This results in a self-construal
paradigm in which psychological processes (that may involve such attri-
butes as cognition, emotion, and motivation) that refers to self will vary
according to the exact form of self that is inherent in a given construal.
Such relational self-construals may be associated with personal identity.
Thus, knowledge and cognitive processes of those with more collectivistic
selves tend to be influenced by a pervasive attentiveness to the relevant
others in a social context, more so than those with a more individualist self.
Additionally, their expression and the experience of emotions and
346 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
motivations can be oriented by the reactions of others. More, emotions in
more collectivist individuals may be directed to other-serving motives.
Hitlin (2003) is another author who creates a join between the two
disciplines (sociology/anthropology and psychology/social psychology) of
identity theory. He recognises the two dominant theories: Stryker’s (1980,
1987) identity theory and Tajfel’s (1981) social identity theory. Each theory
links the individual to the social world through a conception of the self-
composed of various social identities, where the social world is often seen as
a focus on roles, and the latter on social groups. As part of these consider-
ations, Hitlin (2003) also recognises that personal identity is an under
analysed level of the self, often regarded erroneously as too idiosyncratic for
proper social psychological analysis. The two dominant theories both refer
to, but rarely explicate the concept of personal identity. In Stryker’s
construction, he notes that values act as the core of personal identity and
constitute a cohesive force for it (giving support to the idea that value-
based formative traits compose personality identity). This leads towards
understanding the cohesion experienced among the different social iden-
tities one may attain.
To explore self-identity theory, there is a useful entry point that comes
from Sherwood (1965), who discusses types of identity and relates it to
Lewin’s (1935) ideas concerning social psychology, and as represented for
instance in Lewin et al. (1944). However, it may be noted that the terms
adopted are outliers when considering modern terminology. An initial
overview of the types of identity that can be defined come from various
sources. So, one is able to determine (1) public identity, which refers to how
others know an individual (Webb et al., 1998) and perceptions defined by
referent others (Sherwood, 1965); and (2) private identity, which refers to
the internalised self-identity (Webb et al., 1998) and may be connected
with self-reference (Klein, 2012). For Hogg (2001) it also relates to self-
conception and the assimilation of all aspects of an individual’s attitudes,
feelings, and behaviours. Onoroto and Turner (2002, 2004) see two other
classifications: (3) personal identity (or the personal self), which refers to all
attributes coming from the interpersonal comparisons between a person
and their in-group members; and (4) social identity (or the collective self)
connect with the attributes of inter-group comparisons between a person’s
in-group and other out-groups, and related to a shared sense of identity
among members of some collectivity (Hitlin, 2003) where social connec-
tions become personalised bonds of attachment or impersonal bonds
derived from common identification with some symbolic group or social
category (Brewer & Gardner, 1996). More, social identity is data related
 Identity as a Component of Personality 347
(Kerby et al., 2005) and enables the identification of social identities. There
is also (5) cultural identity, which refers to a person’s sense of belonging to
a particular knowledge-based (Ward & Searle, 1991) culture or group, and
which involves the internalisation of attributes of one’s culture, including
beliefs, values, and cognitive and behavioural norms (Lustig, 2013; Smolicz,
1981). Additionally, Hitlin (2003) refers to collective identity – a shared
sense of identity among members of some collectivity. These seven types of
identity concepts considered involve conceptually overlap, and to create an
orthogonal set of multiple identities requires an ontological analysis. A step
towards this is to explore identity in terms of nature and relationships
(Welty & Guarino, 2001).

10.4 Interconnections between Multiple Ontological Identities

Personal and social identity are often related. Thus, for Jenkins (2008),
personal identity is the unique self, distinct from other selves, and different
from social identity which is the internalisation of, often stereotypical,
collective identifications. He notes that social identity is sometimes the
more salient influence on individual behaviour. Citing Vygotsky (1978)
and Mead (1934), Taylor (2011) explains that personal identity is the result
of an interaction between individual awareness and social identity, through
constructed discourse. For Yadov (1995), this awareness is related to the
experience of belonging to various socials, like a small group, a family, an
ethno-national group, a nationality or a country, or a constructed idealised
prototype. For Brewer and Gardner (1996), personal identity has social
identity integrated into it, even though discontinuities between self-
descriptions and social behaviour may occur with the two levels of con-
strual. Rejecting that personal identity might be used to refer to the whole
personality as implied by Shorter (1971), a connection between private,
personal, and public identity can be made and is expressed simply by
Taylor (2011: 40), who notes that, just as one cannot always say what one
thinks, our private identity is seldom communicated socially in its entirety,
and that ‘people are constantly caught between the desire to look compe-
tent – or incompetent, if that better serves them – and the need for social
approval’. As such, any intended social identity reflects the best comprom-
ise we can negotiate in our interactions.
Taylor continues by saying that the public self is determined by the
private self. However, it may be added that this, as indicated before, will be
mediated by the personal self at least. The dynamic relationship between
the private and public selves is evidenced when the public self can actually
348 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
change the private self. Thus, ‘act the part’ and it becomes incorporated
into the self-concept, occurring through a process of internalisation. It is
also through the public self that one’s social images can be represented with
realistic capacity through perceived competence and constant self-
monitoring.
Each of these selves are influenced by culture (Markus & Kitayama,
1991). While the inner or private self may be susceptible to culture, the
outer or public self-derives from an individual’s relationship with others,
including social institutions, which are also susceptible to cultural vari-
ation. The private versus the public self will therefore each contribute to
the regulation of behaviour accordingly to their natures (Triandis, 1989).
This brings out the view that the private self may not be the primary unit of
consciousness (Allen, 1985), since the sense of belongingness to a social
relation may be so strong that the relationship function becomes a central
attribute for conscious reflection.
What it is that constitutes the primary unit of consciousness is also
considered in other terms, for instance by Tafarodi (2012) and by Markus
and Kitayama (1991). There is some tendency towards differentiating
multiple selves ontologically by the latter authors, who note that the
independent self (constituted it seems as one of the multiple forms of
identity) is separate from social context, and is bounded, unitary, stable,
and focused on internal private features (like abilities, thoughts, and
feelings). It is quite distinct from the interdependent self that maintains
a social context that is flexible, variable, and focused on external public
features (like status, roles, and relationships).
Consistent with Einwohner’s (2002) view concerning the independent
and interactive nature of the different selves, Mohr (2002), like Kelman
(1958), sees it as being consistent with the internalisation of experiences,
and it interacts with public identity – defined as the way in which
individuals externally express their experiences. For Mordacci (2014), this
involves cognitive processes that are capable of being integrated in the body
of knowledge that the individual can use during the framing of personal
identity.
Turner (1982; Gergen, 1971) distinguishes between the self-concept as
a set of psychological processes and as a cognitive structure. As a cognitive
structure, a system of concepts is available to an individual as they come to
define themselves. Two groups related to the personal can here be distin-
guished. These are (1) social identity – membership of various formal and
informal social groups, illustrated by social categories like sex, nationality,
political affiliation, or religion; and (2) personal identity – more personal
 Identity as a Component of Personality 349
specific attributes of the individual like as feelings of competence, bodily
attributes, ways of relating to others, psychological characteristics, intellec-
tual concerns, and personal tastes. As such, the social and personal identities
are cognitive structures that together account for most of the self-concept.
Each of these identities is constituted through more restricted cognitive
elements such as particular social categorisations or personal characteristics.
For Hitlin (2003; Hewitt, 1989), personal identity is a continuity, an
integration, identification, and differentiation, these constructed by the
individual in relation to the self and its projects. Personal identity is thus
at the core of the self, is unique, but is subject to social patterning
through the concept of values. This relation to social and group iden-
tities differs from other models, in which social and personal identities
are viewed as the end points on a continuum (Tajfel, 1978), a hierarchy
(Turner, 1987), or a two-dimensional centre-periphery schematic
(Brewer, 1991), which, while separate, are fundamentally intertwined
structures. Hitlin (2003) further notes that personal identity refers to
an individual’s sense of who one is, including individual ‘local’ traits
(e.g., classificational traits like masculinity) as well as activities, and it
includes those aspects of self that are salient in that setting (e.g., ‘I am
a moral person’ or ‘I am a compassionate person’). Examining McAdams
(1995), it appears that such personal identity is dispositional, involving
stylistic attributes (like extraversion and friendliness), cognitive schemes
(like personal constructs, values and frames), and dynamic motives (like
the need for achievement and power motivation). It may also involve
encoding strategies, self-regulatory systems and plans, and other cogni-
tive social learning person variables (Mischel, 1973).
In contrast, for Hitlin (2003), social identity is also an individual-level
category, yet refers to an individual’s sense of self as part of a group. It may
promote such statements as ‘I am a feminist’ or ‘I am an environmentalist’.
Under some circumstances, social identity may link with collective iden-
tity – a shared sense of identity among members of some collectivity. It
may embrace, for instance, the shared definition of a group that results
from members’ common interests, experiences, and solidarity as reflected
in statements like ‘We are human rights activists’ and ‘We are people who
seek justice’. While these classes of identity are distinct, they are also
interactive. For instance, collective identity develops through the merging
of the personal identities of individual activists (White & Fraser, 2000),
and alignment often occurs between an individual’s personal identity and
the group’s collective identity (McAdam & Snow, 2000).
350 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
According to Olson and Maio (2003), identity can impact on behaviour
through attitudes and norms. The relationship between private self-
cognitions when made by self-allow attitudes to drive behavioural choices.
This is as opposed to the situation where collective self-cognitions occur
(through assessments by a referent group), when perceived cultural norms
become more dominant in respect of behavioural choices. This is due to
the realisation that attitudes derive from personal preferences that can be
related to personal identity, whereas norms arise from the internalisation of
stable social environments. The attitude-behaviour relationship also has
reflections with respect to self-consciousness. Private self-consciousness
relates to an individual’s awareness of their internal states, like moods,
values, and attitudes. It also relates to stable individual differences relating
to objective self-awareness. If attitudinal awareness increases, with the
consequential likelihood of attitude-consistent behaviour, then individuals
with such awareness tend to exhibit stronger attitude-behaviour connec-
tion than those who are low in private self-consciousness.
Baumeister and Twenge (2003) note that intrapsychic variables like self-
esteem/satisfaction can be represented in interpersonal terms. Thus, it can
be taken as a private inner matter. However, it can be assumed that self-
esteem/satisfaction varies in the person’s own inner world with minimal
connection to the environment. Thus, individuals can accept or reject
environmental input according their own choices, for instance through
denial of a problem, or through acknowledging and responding to the
needs of the problem. However, there is a view that self-esteem is not
purely personal, but rather relies on interpersonal connection (Baumeister
& Leary, 1995). Internal monitors like self-esteem/satisfaction contribute
towards an individual’s orientation towards goals. According to this the-
ory, strong emotional responses are connected with interpersonal relation-
ships, and people derive their self-esteem from the same ‘local’ traits that
lead to social acceptance like competence, likability, and attractiveness.
When people feel socially anxious, however, self-esteem suffers. The rela-
tionship between social anxiety and self-esteem is significant since there is
a significant link between worrying about social rejection and having low
self-esteem.
Burkitt (2011) notes that there is a duality between certain social expect-
ations and their reconfiguration as psychological controls, with tensions
emerging between what a person may really feel and the face they present
to others, a situation which involves the control of those feelings. This
moves the tensions between people onto that ‘inner’ plane, forming the
modern ‘psychological’ attitude in which we look for the little nuances in
 Identity as a Component of Personality 351
looks, glances and gestures for a ‘give away’ as to what a person really thinks
or feels.
According to Mordacci (2014), cognitive processes can be integrated in
the body of context sensitive knowledge of an individual when framing
personal identity, and can be elaborated through social activity. These
processes can facilitate the individual in developing an autonomous sense
of self with an appropriate self-image.

10.5 Personal and Public of Identities

From the above, and from further exploration of the relevant literature, it is
feasible to distinguish between two generic classes of identity:
1. personality (Gobe, 2001; Margalit & Halbertal, 2004), psychological
(Hijmans & Wester, 2009), or strategic (Baba, 1989; Reger et al., 2008)
identities, where personality operates through psychology and as
a strategic behavioural imperative (so the terms are equivalent), and
refer to direct behavioural influence;
2. contextual sociocultural identities (De Anca, 2012; Brown et al., 2005;
Huffer, 2006; Duncan & Stewart, 2007), which have indirect impacts on
behaviour being contextually responsible for psychological identities.
Within the context of ethnicity, it is often the case that identity is
referred to as a strategic phenomenon since ethnic groups are treated as
interest groups, and hence identity flows a strategic path to further interests
(Verkuyten, 2018). This posits an interesting recognition that in our
theory, personality can be seen as a domain of strategy when considered
in terms of behaviour in relation to agency interests. This realisation is
useful within the context in this part of the book since we are looking at
identity within the political context where interest is typically of import-
ance (Smith, 2004). Hence, when referring to strategic identity, we actually
mean personality identity. This is differentiated from sociocultural iden-
tities that influence the strategic/personality identities.
Psychological identities are influenced by sociocultural contexts, and it
is from these that social and cultural identities are acquired. This distinc-
tion is close to Hijmans’ (2003) Dynamic Identity Model. This operates
through two distinguishable classes of identity (Hijmans & Wester, 2009):
• an individual-personal class at which the experiences and definitions of
the individual have a place;
352 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Table 10.1 Indicative relationship between personality and contextual
sociocultural identities

Personality/ Contextual
Generic class basic/dimension psychological identity sociocultural identity

Sameness/affective-historical Continuity, biography Conformity, tradition

Emphasises as preservation of unity
Difference/relational-interactional Uniqueness, Distinction, inclusion/
Emphasis on process authenticity exclusion

Note. Adapted from Hijmans and Wester (2009).

• a collective-social level at which identity is expressed in group defin-

itions and group behaviour.
Indeed, it is quite possible to adapt the Hijmans model to embrace our own
personality/context model, as show in Table 10.1.
This suggests that we can adapt Hijmans and Wester’s (2009) explan-
ation to explain the consequences that result when elements of the two
classes interact, though broadening the individual to individual or
a collective agency. Both classes of identity are connected, and can be
examined separately and in relation to each other. The contextual class
concerns the sociocultural nature of psychological identity, and the psy-
chological aspects of sociocultural identity. The link between the psycho-
logical and the contextual can provide explanations for the affective
attributes of abstractions like national or ethnic identity. The interconnec-
tions that determine the identity interaction processes can also explain the
complexity of cognitive-affective phenomena. The connection between the
psychological and the contextual occurs as two poles in the process of
identity construction. One is an inward-looking reflexive process, and the
other as an outward-looking interactive process. The psychology-
contextual relationship is thus complementary. The historical-
continuous approach emphasises structure as the preservation of unity
and sameness, and the relational-interactional approach that emphasises
process and the notion of difference. The central idea that expresses the
complexity of identity is the dual presence of continuity/similarity and
differentiation from others. In both classes of identity, related processes
are at work. On a personality processes are typified as ‘continuity’ and
‘uniqueness’, and on the contextual as ‘conformity’ and ‘distinction’.
These processes are concretised as manifestations of identity, such as
 Identity as a Component of Personality 353
biography and tradition. There are possibilities for continuous change and
exchange between classes and their memberships, where we are dealing
with continuums and not discrete units. This model constitutes, for
Hijmans and Wester, the core of identity construction. One of the conse-
quences of this model is the recognition that identity is a symbolic struc-
ture that is based on a capacity for reflection, language, and culture, where
the construction of meaning in interaction with others is of importance.
Another is that identity is the product and expression of relationships with
others, and the psychological and sociocultural attributes are intercon-
nected. So, identity development is a dynamic process, and involves
situational flexibility, psychological and contextual comparison of same-
ness and difference. We shall demonstrate this dynamism more forcefully
in the next chapter, when we develop a more elaborated cybernetic model
of the relationship between multiple identities and personality.

10.6 Ontologically Distinct Multiple Identities

Recall that for Turner (1987), multiple identities can be seen to occur in
a hierarchy, implying that each connected identity is ontologically differ-
ent. This is supported, for instance, by Pozarlik (2013: 78), who tells us,

It seems evident that we need some kind of such a conceptual roadmap to be

able to integrate and synthesise constructively different theoretical
approaches to identity studies, [so] one must clarify what is the common
ontological and epistemological denominator of such inquiry. … [By]
adopting a symbolic interactionism perspective on studying identity forma-
tion enables us to move beyond the ontological dilemma that is exemplified
in the nominalism versus holism discourse on identity. Opposition between
the individual and the collective ontology of identity is transcended by the
introduction of the social as a space where the individual and the collective
meet, merge and transform each other. The social is the space where the
individual and the collective gain concrete meaning as they emerge as
a consequence of social role playing.
By symbolic interactionalism is meant that the social behaviour of a social
agency is a reflection of linguistic or gestural communication and its
subjective understanding, especially the role of language, a proposition
also adopted here. Pozarlik (2013: 80) finally notes,
One more important aspect of this very debate on the ontological and
epistemological dimension of identity formation needs to be taken into
account, namely the problem of multiplicity of identity formations. This
354 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
problem has been conceptualised in the scholarly debate as the ‘one identity
versus many identities dilemma’.
So, if we are to adopt a theory which assumes symbolic interactionalism
and identity hierarchy, ontology becomes an important attribute that is
able to differentiate one identity from another. It is this proposition that
we shall adopt here, enabling communication to be seen as a symbolic
attribute of behaviour. In the case, where we successfully distinguish
between classes of ontological properties that distinguish classes of identity,
we are creating some meta-ontology.
There is another attribute of identity that arises from management
theorists Marshall (1995) and Paris et al. (1998), who were interested in
how strategic decision-making processes occur in the military. They dis-
tinguished between three types of strategic information as part of the
personality: identification, elaboration, and execution. These types of infor-
mation are ontologically distinct where, private identity is associated with
identification, personal identity with elaboration within cognitive pro-
cesses, and public identity with execution – i.e., direction for structuring
through decision role specifications and related operative activities. This
suggests that the three strategic identities are each ontologically independ-
ent from each other. Within the context of self-identification, identifica-
tion information refers to the creation of patterns of recognition connected
with cognitive significance, which can be related to a given context. Within
the context of self-regulation, elaboration information relates to the devel-
opment of self-schemas and those relating to figurative purposes deter-
mined by a given identity context. Within the context of self-organisation,
execution information relates to the development of operative structures
(like role assignment) and processes.
As a result of this background on identity, it is possible to construct
a model of the nature of the different generic identities, as shown in Table
10.2. This lists various epistemic and ontological properties of each of the
five types of identity. The epistemic attributes distinguishing them typo-
logically (Love, 2009). The ontological attributes illustrate independence
of these identities. While the strategic identities are responsible for behav-
iour, in particular through public identity, social, and cultural contexts are
important. Social identity is the result of internalisation resulting from the
social environment, and cultural identity is the consequence of nurturing
processes. Indeed, we can identify five ontologically independent identities
that coincide with the residence of the formative traits discussed previ-
ously, and that may be distinguished into three strategic identities that are
 Identity as a Component of Personality 355
directly responsible for behavioural potential, and two related sociocultural
(or contextual) identities. The latter include collective and social identity
which are ontologically similar, relating directly to social structure and
belonging. Similarly, there is overlap between personal and/or public
identity, and relational identity. The five ontologically orthogonal mul-
tiple identities are shown in Table 10.2. As suggested by Turner et al.
(1987), since these identities are ontologically orthogonal/distinct, they will
coexist in some form of identity hierarchy, which we shall explore in the
next chapter.

Table 10.2 Ontologically independent types of identity, giving natural and

ontological properties for the multiple types of identity

Identity
type Epistemic and ontological nature of self Ontological identity properties

Strategic identity (information based)

Private Internalisation creating self-identity; self- Is identification information

reference; focus on features such as based. Schemas that underlie
abilities, thoughts, feelings; self-evaluation; personality as a whole that
self-concept, internal attributes; internal defines identity, self-
states awareness. Self-conception and the identification, self-
assimilation of all aspects of an individual’s referencing.
attitudes, feelings, and behaviours.
Associated with who the individual is – its
identification. Maintains identification
information.
Personal The unique ‘core’ self, distinct from other Is elaboration information
selves; personal specific attributes of the based. Self-schemas and those
individual like feelings of competence, of characteristics like personal
bodily attributes, ways of relating to others goals, relational identity, self-
(i.e., connected with relational identity), regulation.
psychological characteristics, intellectual
concerns, and personal tastes; comprises
thoughts, psychic dispositions, and moral
judgements; attributes deriving from
interpersonal comparisons between
a person and their in-group members;
subject to social patterning through values;
orientation towards goals; emotion and
motivation. Self-cognitions, self-concept,
and sense of well-being. Associated with
cognitive elaboration information, and the
seat of consciousness.
356 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Table 10.2 (cont.)

Identity
type Epistemic and ontological nature of self Ontological identity properties

Strategic identity (information based)

Public Refers to how others know an individual, and Is execution information based.
how individuals externally express their Self-schemas that define role
experiences (e.g., the roles of others as per structures, operative relations
relational identity). Projects social images with others, self-organisation
of competence; derives from relationship to satisfy the needs of social
with others, including social institutions, identity.
which are also susceptible to cultural
variation; status, roles, relationships;
responds to self-definition; defines an
ability to adjust, restrain self, maintain
harmony with social context. Associated
with the execution information providing
direction for operative activities. Maintains
some integration with social identity.
Sociocultural identity (influences strategic identity)

Cultural Sense of belonging to a particular culture or Knowledge deriving information.

group, and which involves the The overall agency as a whole
internalisation of attributes of one’s arising from cognitive schemas
culture, including beliefs, values, and like social self-identification
cognitive and behavioural norms. and self-referencing
Knowledge related.
Social Occurs through the internalisation of, often Internalised data information.
stereotypical, collective identifications, and Social operative schemas like
thus may imply collective identity; has social structures, and social
attributes of inter-group comparisons self-organisation, belonging.
between a person’s in-group and other out-
groups; membership of various formal and
informal social groups; may have more
salient influence on individual behaviour.
It includes as a subset collective identity
which is a sense of shared that focuses on
the extent to which an individual’s sense of
identity reflects the social groups to which
they belong. Data related.

10.7 Agency Identities

In Figure 10.1 we show the agency model as a personality system (Yolles &
Fink, 2014a). The agency model is recursive (Yolles & Fink, 2015b), and
 Identity as a Component of Personality 357

Figurative intelligence

Operative Intelligence

Cognitive System Figurative System Operative System

Attitudes, emotion
& conceptual information
(e.g., goal imperatives).
Self-identity. Self-reference.
Cognitive orientation trait
Figurative information as schemas Operative information
(e.g., goals) that include appreciative & investment structures
information, feelings & decision facilitating decision-making
imperatives. behaviour.
Self-regulation. Self-organisation.
Figurative orientation trait Operative orientation trait.

Operative Intelligence
Figurative Intelligence adjustment imperatives
adjustment imperatives

Figure 10.1 Basic Personality Model using Cultural Agency Theory (CAT).

can be applied to the cognitive system to explain how this can function in
terms of identity. The personality model has within its cognitive system,
self-identity, and we have already indicated that there are five ontologically
distinct types of this. The superstructural model (built into the agency
substructure) thus creates a link between personality theory and identity
theory, something that, according to Stryker (2007), is novel.
It arises from the proposition that multiple identities are internalisations
of personality that reside in the cognitive system of the personality, and it is
feasible to consider that the repertoire of ontologically orthogonal iden-
tities that populate a personality are independent and interactive (Beahrs,
1994), viable and survive together as an adaptive living system (Schwartz
et al., 2009). Here, we distinguish between strategic and contextual iden-
tities, where the term strategic refers to identities that are able to directly
influence behaviour, within sociocultural contexts. The strategic identities
are private, personal, and public. As discussed in the previous chapter, each
is ontologically distinct and allows a direct mapping to occur between
Table 10.3 and Figure 10.2 that defines an identity systemic hierarchy
(Turner, 1987). This matching enables us to set the multiple identities
recursively as part of personality, giving Figure 10.2. Inherently, the mod-
elling process could be extended to show how the cognitive multiple self-
identity model is able to interact with other attributes of the cognitive
system. This, other conjoint living systems like self-awareness, self-
reference, self-evaluation and self-conception may all be represented recur-
sively in the cognitive system, and all will influence the cognitive operative
system of the personality by delivering cognitive structures. The result is
that environmentally relevant contextual selections are made by figurative
intelligence that influence the rest of the personality.
Table 10.3 Type attributes that underpin MAT that enable personality and sociocultural characteristics to be defined in terms
of type enantiomers

Trait type Type enantiomer Nature Key words/values

Personality traits

Cognitive Intellectual People seen as autonomous, bounded entities who should find Autonomy, creativity, expressivity,
autonomy meaning in their own uniqueness and who are encouraged curiosity, broad-mindedness,
to express their internal attributes (preferences, traits, freedom
feelings, and motives). Autonomy encourages individuals to
pursue their own ideas and intellectual directions
independently.
Embeddedness People are viewed as entities embedded in the plural agency. Polite, obedient, forgiving, respect
Meaning in life comes through social relationships, tradition, self-discipline,
identifying with the group, participating in its shared way of moderate, social order, family
life and striving towards its shared goals. Such values as security, protect my public image,
social order, respect for tradition, security, and wisdom are national security, honour elders,
especially important. Embedded cultures emphasise reciprocation of favours.
maintaining the status quo and restraining actions or
inclinations that might disrupt in-group solidarity or the
traditional order. Embrace responsibility and duty and
commit to shared goals. Connected with Transactional
scripting that constitutes simple repetition and sameness.
Figurative Mastery Encourages active self-assertion to attain group or personal Ambition, success, daring,
+ goals and to master, direct, and change the natural and competence; enjoyment, pleasure.
affective social environment. It is basically monistic in nature.
autonomy Affective autonomy refers to the seeking of egocentric or altruistic
ends that respond to the meaningfulness in life, and involve
purposes that are either dependent or independent of self,
generating egoistic or altruistic fulfilment.
 Fulfilment through self-interest Exciting life, enjoyment, varied life,
pleasure, self-indulgence
Harmony Trying to understand and appreciate rather than to direct or Acceptance of position in life, world
exploit. This orientation emphasises the goals ‘unity with at peace, protect environment,
nature’, ‘protecting the environment’, and ‘world at peace’. unity with nature, world of beauty.
It is basically pluralistic in nature.
Operative Hierarchy People are socialised to take the hierarchical distribution of Social power, authority, humility,
roles for granted and to comply with the obligations and wealth.
rules attached to their roles. In hierarchical cultures,
organisations are more likely to construct a chain of
authority in which all are assigned well-defined roles.
There is an expectation that individuals operate for the
benefit of the social organisation. Sees the unequal
distribution of power, roles, and resources as legitimate.
This has an implicit connection with power and power
processes.
Egalitarianism Seeks to induce people to recognise one another as moral Quality, social justice, responsibility,
equals who share basic interests as human beings. People are honesty, loyal, equality, honesty,
socialised to internalise a commitment to co-operate and to helpful, cooperation
feel concern for everyone’s welfare. They are expected to act
for others’ benefit as a matter of choice. Organisations are
built on co-operative negotiation among employees and
management. This has an implicit connection with service
to the agency.
Table 10.3 (cont.)

Trait type Type enantiomer Nature Key words/values

Sociocultural traits

Social Dramatising Individual relationships to others are important, constituted as Sequenciality, communication,
sequences of interpersonal events. Communication and individualism, contractual,
narrative are important, as are individuals and their proprietary ideocentric.
belief systems, and individual social contracts. Goal formation
should be for individual benefit. Ideocentric agencies are
important, operating through social contracts between the
rational wills of its individual members.
Patterning Configurations are important in social and other forms of Configurations, relationships,
relationships. There is persistent curiosity. The social is symmetry, pattern, balance,
influenced by relationships with individuals. Some dynamics, collectivism,
importance is attached to symmetry, pattern, balance, and allocentric.
the dynamics of relationships. Goal seeking should be for
collective benefit, and collective goal formation takes
precedence over personal goal formation. Allocentric
collectives are important, where the members operate
subjectively.
Cultural Sensate Reality is sensory and material, pragmatism is normal, there is The senses, utilitarianism,
an interest in becoming rather than being, and happiness is materialism, becoming, process,
paramount. People are externally oriented and tend to be change, flux, evolution, progress,
instrumental and empiricism is important. transformation, pragmatism,
temporal.
Ideational Reality# is super-sensory, morality is unconditional, tradition Super-sensory, spirituality,
is of importance, there is a tendency towards creation, and humanitarianism, self-
examination of self. deprivation, creativity of ideas,
eternal.
 Identity as a Component of Personality 361

Strategic Identity Sub-Agency

Figurative intelligence Operative

intelligence
Strategic Instrumental
Identity Cognition system Strategic Strategic
Self-Reference, schemas of self- Identity Figurative system couple Identity Operative system
identity, self-concept, self- Self-regulation,strategic self- Self-organisation,
awareness, attitudes, beliefs, schemas (e.g., ethics, self- schemas of competences,
emotional attributes. cognitions, tastes). structural attributes.
Private identity Personal identity Public identity
Operative intelligence
feedback
Figurative intelligence Agency
feedback operative
intelligence

Agency Identity
cultural Identity Cultural Operative
system Analytical pathology
figurative Agency system
intelligence Agency self-reference, Agency cultural operative Self-organisation,
beliefs, norms. figurative intelligence intelligence behaviour,
Knowledge derived feedback feedback belonging.
information. Social identity
Cultural identity

Cognitive “Self-Identity” System

Figure 10.2 A CAT view of Identity Theory formulated as a Living System, with
strategic identities and contextual cultural and social identities.

The intelligences in Figure 10.2 indicate networks of processes that

enable each identity to interact with the others. Experiences from the social
identity become manifested through a process of internalisation into the
private identity, which in turn interacts with the personal agency. The
nature of the intelligences is that they are modes of communicative media
which vary in their transparency to others. Thus, for instance, personality
operative intelligence will involve processes in which psychic information
of the personal identity is manifested to the public identity through
internal agency networks of processes that transform its strategic attributes
into ones that are operatively possible. This intelligence is of two cybernetic
types, feed-forward manifests figurative system attributes operatively, and
feedback seeks to reinforce or adjust current figurative/cognitive attributes.
We recall that the bars on these intelligences are filters that indicate
possible (analytical) pathologies, where the networks fail to operate coher-
ently to manifest essences like information between the identities.
Now, the recursive model in Figure 10.2 makes an assumption. It is that
ontologically independent classes of identity of personality are intimately
and dynamically connected in a way that conforms to viable autonomous
complex adaptive ‘living’ systems. These interact through their network of
362 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
process intelligences (Yolles, 2009), thus allowing the agency to be adapt-
able to changing contextual situations. The model is also a reflection of
Lewin’s (1935) field theory, where in Figure 10.2 the cultural systems is
responsible for an attractor field that orientates the agency as a whole, just
as in the recursive strategic identity sub-agency the cognitive system
orientates strategic identity. This field influence can fail when agency
cultural figurative intelligence pathologies arise. In essence then, within
the context of identity theory, cultural identity provides an overall influ-
ence on private, personal, and public strategic identity, and on social
identity, the latter influencing the others through feedback that operates
as a process of internalisation. When cultural identity is confused or
unstable in cross-cultural contexts, for instance where there are multiracial
conditions, the strategic sub-agency operates independently, and is influ-
enced primarily by private identity.
In the strategic sub-agency shown in Figure 10.2, stable private identity
similarly orientates both personal and public identity through processes of
internalisation using operative and figurative intelligences. Private identity
is also the ‘deep’ self-referential driver for the personal and public iden-
tities. Of the latter two, personal identity is the cognitive dimension that
regulates the agency, and where schemas reside that are able to drive public
identity. These latter two taken together also represent an important
operative couple that works strategically. It is irrevocably influenced by
private identity, but when this becomes ‘confused’ or unstable, the opera-
tive couple becomes ‘instrumental’. In this case, personal identity and
public identity orientate each other through strategic operative intelligence
and its feedback. However, both are directly influenced by processes of
internalisation that occurs through agency operative intelligence feedback
from social identity. Confused identities indicate unstable states, and are
referred to as state pathologies (e.g., Pavey, 2014). They can result
in situations where, for instance, an individual’s private and public iden-
tities operate together as an instrumental system that ‘feed-off’ each other
in a way that is affected more by social influences that by internal
processes. One of the consequences of state pathologies is explained by
Gal (2002), through a broad semiotic analysis that initially explores the
boundaries of what it is that constitutes identity. She indicates that when
instabilities arise in (say) private identity, identity relationships become
confused. The consequences of this can, for instance, be found in issues
that arise in multiracial or gender contexts (Rockquemore, Brunsma &
Delgado, 2009; Davis, 2006; McClain-DaCosta, 2003).
 Identity as a Component of Personality 363
Cognition Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) traits are shown in
Table 10.4. They are formulated to have epistemic bipolar extremal
types, and while traits may take one or other extremal values, they
may also obtain a stable balance. The term balanced traits refers to a mix
of values that come from the degrees of ascendancy of each the alternate
poles of a given trait, influenced by an interactive and auxiliary process that
occurs through the interaction of traits. Such balances are possible since the
bipolar paired enantiomer types are epistemically distinct while also being
dynamically interactive, and more of one does not mean less of the other.
We might refer to the enantiomer ascendancy to agency dominance of trait
values as the trait outcome values that constitute for an agency its driver
towards situational responses.
We refer to the paired types as enantiomers since as already noted the
term reflects the dynamic interaction that occurs between them, the
principle of which is explained by Zhang (2009, 2011), referring to yin-
yang bipolar relativity. In an agency with traits having such bipolar
relativity, the traits adopt resultant values that is the result of dichotomous
interaction between the bipolar types. This bipolar interaction constitutes
an auxiliary process where each enantiomer pole is auxiliary to the other.
The result of this auxiliary process is that qualitative outcome values arise
that may either represent polar value dominance, or a continuity of
variation that is constituted as a balance between the two. Definition of
these trait types that arise with Sagiv and Schwartz (2007) are shown in
Table 10.4.
The pattern of ascendant MAT types that occur in a personality
indicates its character. There are two formulations, one defined in
terms of the three personality traits MAT3T (Yolles & Fink, 2014d),
and the other involving the sociocultural traits, thus having five agency
traits MAT5T (Yolles & Fink, 2014, 2014a, 2014b). MAT3T is represen-
tative of the cognition personality that an agency has, though affect may
have some influence (Fink & Yolles, 2017). The MAT3T traits and their
bipolar types are shown in the three-dimensional trait space of Figure
9.3, where each trait relates to one of the systems. Where MAT3T and
MAT5T may produce different empirical outcomes was explained
previously using Hijmans’ (2003) Dynamic Identity Model, and is
due to the inherent relationship between personality and sociocultural
traits.
Comparison between MAT3T and MAT5T traits is shown in Table
10.5. Only some of the Mindset types are listed. This is because thirty-two
Mindset types are possible for MAT5T using all the various combinations
 Table 10.4 Cognition personality traits (MAT3 T) and personality plus sociocultural traits (MAT5 T)

Trait Type enantiomer Nature

Cultural Sensate
Sensory. Pragmatic. Instrumental.
Ideational
Super-sensory. Moral. Creation.
Cognitive Intellectual autonomy
Autonomy. Uniqueness
(heterogenistic). Independent.
Self-development. broad-
mindedness, freedom, creativity,
curiosity.
Embeddedness
Social relationships. Traditional
(homogenestic). Status quo.
Order. Solidarity.
Figurative Mastery + affective autonomy
Self-assertion, monistic; fulfilment,
preference.
Reality is sensory and material, pragmatism is normal, there is an interest in becoming rather
than being, and happiness is paramount. People are externally oriented and tend to be
instrumental and empiricism is important.
Reality is super-sensory, morality is unconditional, tradition is of importance, there is
a tendency towards creation, and examination of self.
People seen as autonomous, bounded entities who should find meaning in their own uniqueness
and who are encouraged to express their internal attributes (preferences, traits, feelings, and
motives). Autonomy encourages individuals to pursue their own ideas and intellectual
directions independently (important values: curiosity, broad-mindedness, creativity).
Agencies will also tend to consider others as being independent with their own interests,
preferences, abilities, and allegiances. Others are seen to need autonomy to self-development
of their own ideas. When the cultural orientation trait is sensate, then cognition is influenced
by affect through the pursuit of positive experience (values: pleasure, exciting life, varied life)
and happiness seeking, quite distinct from an ideational cultural orientation which might
have more interests in serving principles, theory, or ethical positioning.
People are viewed as entities embedded in the collectively. Meaning in life comes through social
relationships, identifying with the group, participating in its shared way of life and striving
towards its shared goals. Such values as social order, respect for tradition, security, and
wisdom are especially important. Embedded cultures emphasise maintaining the status quo
and restraining actions or inclinations that might disrupt in-group solidarity or the traditional
order. Embrace responsibility and duty and commit to shared goals. Connected with
Transactional scripting that constitutes simple repetition and sameness.
Encourages active self-assertion to attain group or personal goals and to master, direct, and
change the natural and social environment (values are: ambition, success, daring,
competence). It is basically monistic in nature. Fulfilment responds to the meaningfulness in
life, and involve purposes that are self-dependent (values of exciting life, enjoyment, varied
life, pleasure)
 Harmony
Understanding. Unity, Pluralism.
Operative Hierarchy
Hierarchic. Inequality
(heterogenistic). Authority.
Humility. Power.
Egalitarianism
Moral equality. Cooperation.
Equality (homogenesitic). Social
justice. Responsibility. Honesty.
Service.
Social Dramatising
Relationalist. Sequential.
Communication. Contracts.
Individualist. Ideocentric.
Patterning
Configurations. Relational.
Pattern. Balance. Collectivist.
Allocentric.
Trying to understand and appreciate rather than to direct or exploit. This orientation
emphasises the goals ‘unity with nature’, ‘protecting the environment’, and ‘world at peace’.
It is basically pluralistic in nature.
People are socialised to take the hierarchical distribution of roles for granted and to comply with
the obligations and rules attached to their roles. In hierarchical cultures, organisations are
more likely to construct a chain of authority in which all are assigned well-defined roles.
There is an expectation that individuals operate for the benefit of the social organisation. Sees
the unequal distribution of power, roles, and resources as legitimate (values are: social power,
authority, humility, wealth). This has an implicit connection with power and power
processes.
Seeks to induce people to recognise one another as moral equals who share basic interests as
human beings. People are socialised to internalise a commitment to co-operate and to feel
concern for everyone’s welfare. They are expected to act for others’ benefit as a matter of
choice (values: equality, social justice, responsibility, honesty). Organisations are built on co-
operative negotiation among employees and management. This has an implicit connection
with service to the collective.
Individual relationships to others are important, constituted as sequences of interpersonal
events. Communication and narrative are important, as are individuals and their proprietary
belief systems, and individual social contracts. Goal formation should be for individual
benefit. Ideocentric collectives are important, operating through social contracts between the
rational wills of its individual members.
Configurations are important in social and other forms of relationships. There is persistent
curiosity. The social is influenced by relationships with individuals. Some importance is
attached to symmetry, pattern, balance, and the dynamics of relationships. Goal seeking
should be for collective benefit, and collective goal formation takes precedence over personal
goal formation. Allocentric collectives are important, where the members operate
subjectively.
366 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Table 10.5 Eight MAT3 T and eight (of up to thirty-two) possible MAT5 T
Mindset types for comparison

Personality trait types

Contextual trait
Mindset type MAT3 T type MAT5 T type types

HI: hierarchical Autonomy Autonomy Dramatising

individualism Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Sensate
autonomy autonomy
Hierarchy Hierarchy
EI: egalitarian Autonomy Autonomy Dramatising
individualism Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Sensate
autonomy autonomy
Egalitarianism Egalitarianism
HS: hierarchical Autonomy Autonomy Patterning
synergism Harmony Harmony Sensate
Hierarchy Hierarchy
ES: egalitarian Autonomy Autonomy Patterning
synergism Harmony Harmony Sensate
Egalitarianism Egalitarianism
HP: hierarchical Embeddedness Embeddedness Patterning
populism Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Ideational
autonomy autonomy
Hierarchy Hierarchy
EP: egalitarian Embeddedness Embeddedness Patterning
populism Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Ideational
autonomy autonomy
Egalitarianism Egalitarianism
HC: hierarchical Embeddedness Embeddedness Dramatising
collectivism Harmony Harmony Ideational
Hierarchy Hierarchy
EC: egalitarian Embeddedness Embeddedness Patterning
collectivism Harmony Harmony Ideational
Egalitarianism Egalitarianism

of the five trait types, though it is not currently known if all of these are
stable. The nature of the Mindset type entries set in terms of the trait types
can be explained by recalling that for the agency as a whole, cultural
orientation is a field attractor that promotes personality orientations.
When cultural instability occurs, personality orientation is only influenced
by cognitive orientation which becomes the attractor for personality.
Similarly, when both cultural and cognitive orientations are unstable,
figurative, and operative orientations are determined more by environmen-
tal factors than anything else.
 Identity as a Component of Personality 367
10.8 Measuring Identity through MAT
The ontology of a system describes its nature and attempts to organise and
explain what exists in reality in terms of the properties of, the structure of,
and the interactions between, real-world things (Shanks et al., 2003). Here,
we will adopt an ontological analysis to determine how multiple identities
can be represented through Mindset types. To do this, we shall first
consider ontological elements of MAT.
MAT can be used to create qualitative evaluations of identity, since both
Mindsets and identity are part of personality, and connected via their
context-independent relative ontologies. MAT3T is a strategic Mindset
type within the agency with an ontology represented through its potential
for behaviour though its self-regulated self-schemas. As such MAT3T and
personal identity have ontological correspondence, and the former may be
used to qualitatively evaluate the latter as a type. Respectively, MAT5T has
an ontology that reflects a system with an operative orientation, reflected
by the involvement of its self-organisational operative structures. Hence,
for ontological consistency, MAT5T can be applied to public identity. To
measure private identity, we must consider that an agency recursion is
possible. Private identity is therefore taken to be constituted as a collective
team. Depending on what is to be measured then, both MAT3T and
MAT5T can be applied at this level.

10.9 Chapter in Brief

• Identity is an essential component of personality.

• Theories of identity are fragmented, and since identity sits within
personality it leads to the idea that theories of personality are likely to
be inadequate.
• Identity theory, social identity theory, and self-identity theory arise
from different thematic tendencies, though the demonstrable fragmen-
tation that they embrace does not create contradictions. Configuration
methods can be used to relate them, leading to a more coherent schema.
• A coherent schema for multiple identities is proposed that adopts
ontological principles.
• Identity theory can be reduced from seven types of multiple identity that
can be found in the fragmented literature, to five, these being distin-
guished between three psychological identities and two contextual ones.
• The connection between the psychological and contextual identities can
be explained through Dynamic Identity Theory.
368 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
• Dynamic Identity Theory explains how identities develop and change,
and can be used to connect the sociocultural and personality identities,
and indeed traits.
• Agency framework is used to integrate personality and identity theory
dynamically to create a coherent complex adaptive system model.
• Agency is composed of a set of systems with a meta-ontology, and from
principles of recursion in agency theory, it can be shown how the set of
multiple identities fit into these.
• Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) can be used to evaluate identities.
• Two sub-classes of MAT exist, a personality three-trait (MAT3T) and
an agency five-trait (MAT5T).
• MAT3T which refers to personal identity, is a theoretical subset of
MAT5T which refers to public identity.
• MAT3T and MAT5T can be used to create measures for the multiple
identities that can not only indicate individual differences between
different others, but also indicate internal agency pathologies.
• As a result, we present a coherent dynamic theory of multiple identities,
and a direct means of measuring multiple identities.
• This provides entry to the development of a methodology.
 chapter 11

Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald

Trump

11.1 Introduction
In the last chapter we introduced three theories of identity, and some moves
have been made to relate them. To begin with, Hogg et al. (1995: 255) are
interested in the relationship between identity and social identity theory,
noting,
Against a background of metatheoretical similarity, we find marked differ-
ences [between identity theory and social identity theory] in terms of (1)
level of analysis, (2) the role of intergroup behavior, (3) the relationship
between roles and groups, and (4) salience of social context and identity.
Differences can be traced largely to the microsociological roots of identity
theory and the psychological roots of social identity theory. Identity theory
may be more effective in dealing with chronic identities and with interper-
sonal social interaction, while social identity theory may be more useful in
exploring intergroup dimensions and in specifying the sociocognitive gen-
erative details of identity dynamics.
Traditionally, identity theory (within microsociology) is a role theory that
rests on the supposition that society, seen as a complex of relatively durable
patterned interactions and relationships developing though an array of
groups, develops role expectations (Sluss et al., 2011). For Desrochers et al.
(2002) it connects identities/self-attitudes to the role relationships and
role-related behaviour of individuals. Identity theorists argue that the self
consists of a collection of identities, each of which is based on occupying
a particular role. In contrast, social identity theory emphasises group
process and intergroup relations rather than role behaviour. It posits that
the groups to which people belong (like political affiliation, club member-
ship, or nationality) can provide their members a definition of who
they are.

369
370 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Stets and Burke (2000) are also interested in relating identity theory to
social identity theory. They recognise that the two theories have a divide
that ensures their disconnection from each other. That the two exist
independently is yet a further illustration of fragmentation in the field.
Stets and Burke’s interests lies in seeking the possibility of a synergy
enabling some form of integration to arise. They explain the three main
differences between identity theory and social identity theory: (1) while
identity theory involves roles, social identity theory has categories or groups;
(2) in identity theory one refers to the activation of identities, while in
social identity theory one refers to salience; (3) the core processes of each
theory can be identified when an identity is activated, and the cognitive
processes that result involve self-esteem and self-efficacy in identity theory,
and depersonalisation and self-verification in social identity theory. To
enable both theories to integrate, there is a need to recognise the distinction
in the ‘different bases of identity (group, role, person), the different foci in
examining activation and salience of an identity, and the cognitive and
motivational underpinnings of the two theories’ (Stets & Burke,
2000: 234).
There is another theory of identity referred to as self-identity theory as
noted in the last chapter, where, according to Horowitz (2012: 1), ‘the
identity of a person, within a culture, is a topic of concern throughout the
humanities, cognitive science, psychology, and psychoanalysis. In psycho-
dynamic sciences the complexity of multiple self-experiences and social
presentations in an individual is addressed in terms of layers of person
schematisation (Horowitz, 1991). These person schemas can explain con-
flicted and perhaps dissociated self-concepts’.
It will be useful to relate these theories as an extension of the last chapter,
prior to considering our own approach to evaluating identities and identity
pathologies.

11.1.1 Identity Theory

Modelling identity through identity theory has historically stemmed
from two sets of ideas, one of which is perceptual control, and the other
is symbolic interactionism (Trettevik, 2015). Perceptual Control Theory
offered a general theory of functioning for living systems. Its essence is
that living things control their perceived environment by means of their
behaviour. As noted by Forssell (1940/2016: 3), ‘living organisms are
systems of control systems, which use their actions to control their
sensed perceptual input’. For Powers (1940/2016), the importance of
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 371
Perceptual Control Theory is that it explains how appropriate responses
may be made to adventitious input stimuli. The perceptions feed into
a control system enabling behaviour to be varied in order to match some
perceptions of a standard. Traditional control theory is deterministic and
arises from the very early days of cybernetics, making it deficient in its
capability to address non-deterministic complexity. This is because
under complexity, perceptions of an external effect (deemed to require
responsive action) may be inadequate (see Chapter 14), and therefore any
strategy to satisfy the needs that underpin that response may be inappro-
priate. Also, the proposed control process operates on the basis of
information inputs that create outputs, with the assumption that these
inputs are fully reflective of effects. The outputs need to be validated to
satisfy purpose according to some standard to which comparison can be
made, but with complexity there will be uncertainty about the continu-
ing validity of that standard. In other words, traditional Perceptual
Control Theory provides limited reliability in the nature and evaluation
of identity where uncertainty exists.
Its historical partner theory, symbolic interactionism, is about the devel-
opment of the self, the ability to communicate with others through
symbols, and the way these symbols are used to maintain interactions. It
is also connected with social structure. Symbolic interactionism is
a construction about social reality in which social structures (1) pattern
interactions and relationships that are stable durable and principally resist-
ant to change; and (2) create influences on agency, as it acts as a gatekeeper
that both promotes and inhibits social exchange. Structural Symbolic
Interaction emphasises the principle that social life is premised on the
assumption that society shapes self (Mead, 1934), which is incidentally
reflective of a complex society involving organised relations. The self then
needs to reflect this complexity.
There may be multiple identities in identity theory (Stryker, 1980). For
Trettevik (2015), identity theory seeks to explain why under choice options,
one identity might be invoked over another possible identities. In Identity
Theory, the self is differentiated from subsidiary identities. Identities arise
from roles that develop in a network of relationships from which expect-
ations develop, and where identity is internalised from those expectations.
Such roles have associated with them sets of appropriate behaviours con-
nected with a social position in that network. As Trettevik notes, a role
identity is an intrinsic acceptance of the identity associated with a specific
role. Since self reflects social contexts, there exist highly differentiated and
organised conceptions of self.
372 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Structural Identity Theory is concerned with a consequence of this,
enabling the formation of multiple identities, where internalised meanings
are attached to role relationships (Leveto, 2012). Multiple identities are
organised into a salience hierarchy, an organisation of identities created in
accordance with the frequency and how likely they are to be used in given
contexts. Identity salience refers to the importance an identity is to a self or
to the perceived perception of others. The more salient identities are those
where (1) role performances are consistent with the role expectations that
are tied to the identity; (2) situations are seen as the opportunity to enact
the identity; and (3) agencies look for situations that offer an opportunity
to enact the identity. Hence, there is an intimate relationship between role
choice and identity salience. Commitment to an identity is indicative of
the social structural context of identity of self.
It is now appropriate to elaborate on the descriptions provided in the last
chapter identity theory, social identity theory, and self-identity theory to
provide a context for the Mindset Agency Theory approach to be adopted
here.

11.1.2 Social Identity Theory

Ontologically distinct multiple identities also arise in social identity
theory. Thus, Ellemers (2010) distinguishes between personal and social
identity, the two differentiated in that one refers to conscious notions of
self, and the other to public or social representations of self. She explains
that Social Identity Theory is concerned with the relationship between
self as individuals or as group members. This is consistent with
Baumeister and Tweng (2003), who explain that in social identity
theory, the self-concept which lies between the personal and social
attributes involves self-esteem that normally focuses on personal attri-
butes within a context of group memberships. There is then
a relationship between high self-esteem (when important social groups
are valued) and compared positively to other groups. We recall from the
last chapter that for Markus and Kitayama (1991), the term self-esteem is
better replaced by the term self-satisfaction.
For Dovidio et al. (2003), social identity theory has developed as self-
categorisation theory, in which there is a concern that social categorisation
in which individuals are classified into groups reduces the significance of
individual differences, however important they may be. The theory
explains how categorisation enhances perceptions of similarities within
groups and distinguishes between different groups. A consequence can
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 373
be that within- and between-group pathological distortions occur. As the
salience of the categorisation increases, the distortions also increase.
Tamir and Nadler (2007), while not detailing the conceptual relationship
between personality and identity, informally expressed social identity with
a personality context. They argue that it relates to personality dispositions,
where some individuals with certain dispositions have a greater tendency to
anchor their identity in a social group than others. As such they will be more
affected by threats to social identity, especially within an intergroup context.

11.1.3 Self-Identity Theory

Self-identity theory, which, recognising the ontological relationship
between identity theory and social identity theory, perhaps offers a means
by which integration can occur. Horowitz (2012) tells us that self-identity
theory adopts the language of cognitive science, and uses as one of its
central concepts the idea of the self-schema – this referring to the uncon-
scious systematised generalisation of self. The self-schema involves three
attributes: scripts; future intentions and expectations concerning self-
realisation, and core values. They function as cognitive maps involving
past and current information. Schemas may embrace role relationship models
that can enable response to threats and opportunities. These role relation-
ships are cognitive representations of relationships that individuals have
with self and others, and which enable the exploration of how conflict
within and between these self-other representations can lead to maladaptive
patterns and contribute to personal distress (Baccus & Horowitz, 2005).
In the same way that identity theory allows for multiple epistemic iden-
tities and social identity theory multiple ontological identities, self-identity
theory allows multiple self-schemas, these being unconsciously coded in
a repertoire, and under certain conditions components of the repertoire
may be activated (Horowitz, 1998). Active self-schemas influence sense of
identity, and alternative self-schemas, when activated, can shift the state of
mind, this altering the psychological self-state and social self-presentation.
The self-state may include conscious identity experiences related to the
attributes of that schema. In the language of self-identity theory, the overall
assembly of self-schemas creates a process of identity self-organisation.

11.1.4 Relating Identity Theories

Despite the similarities and distinctions between the three theories,
broadly speaking they can be related by recognising that multiple identities
374 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
may emerge from self-schemas (self-identity theory) which may be onto-
logically distinct entities (social identity theory), and a set of epistemically
distinct identities from social interactions that become activated under
appropriate conditions (identity theory). We recall that self-schemas are
stable and enduring cognitive frameworks that are concerned with self, and
the integration and summarisation of thoughts, feelings, and experiences
about the self in a specific behavioural domain; they arise from the
unconscious systematised generalisation of self from which intentions
and expectations concerning self-realisation of self in a particular situation
and in a way that is related to the self-perception, and it is from the self-
schema that identities arise. Within this context, the three theories are
commensurable, even if their terminologies create issues. As we progress
theoretically on our journey, it will be explained that self-schemas may also
be expressed in terms of trait-like structures, this providing opportunity to
set identity in terms of agency trait theory.
In creating a comparative brief from Stets and Burke (2000) for identity
and social identity theory, we note their view that there is a need to (1)
distinguish between different bases of identity (group, role, person); (2)
recognise the different foci in examining activation and salience of an
identity; and (3) realise the cognitive and motivational underpinnings of
the two theories. However, there is no reason for identity theory and social
identity not to be considered as configurations that operate through
distinct ontological and epistemological contexts, thereby creating linkages
that enable them to function together. With respect to self-identity theory,
identities arise from self-schemas through unconscious and conscious
cognitive processes, and there may be a plurality of these that are activated
for context. The cognitive modelling of role relationship within their self-
schemas that relate self with others may be related to the roles in identity
theory. Again, we may here relate the rise of multiple identities from
a given self-schema to both ontologically different situations as in in social
identity theory, as well as to epistemically distinct circumstances as in
identity theory. This would be suitable approach here since our personality
theory is consistent with self-identity theory in its consideration of cogni-
tive processes with immanent and adventitious influences. These cognitive
processes are the result of formative trait interactions from which come
Mindsets.
In the last chapter we formulated personality trait theory in such a way
that it recognised the development of identities, and this theory can likely
be used by drawing in validated selective configurations from the three
identity theories. There, we distinguished between the ontologically
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 375
distinct identities of personality (private, personal, and public), and socio-
cultural identities. Here, we shall explore the ontological relationship
between private, personal, and public identities but our intention is not
to explore epistemic differences. We shall also provide an empirical
approach that is able to explore the pathological distortions that can
occur between personal and public identities. This will in particular be
applied to a political figure whose dual identities in his personality will be
assessed and compared, that of Donald Trump, the US president elected in
2016.

11.2 The Relationship between Ontologically Distinct Identities

Formative traits construct Mindset types that constitute ‘qualitative meas-
ures’ of strategic identities that are part of personality. Thus, when Mindset
types are arrived at it is because there is a coincidence of trait type
relationships that arise in a multi-dimensional trait space. In the last
chapter it was explained that MAT3 T can be applied to personal identity
since it involves elaboration information that is consistent with strategy
formation, while MAT5 T can be applied to public identity since it
involves execution information and is consistent with likely social behav-
iours. This brings one to the question of whether one might expect MAT3
T and MAT5 T to take similar type values, and what this means if they do
not. As explained by Di Fatta and Yolles (2018), there already exists some
theory concerning the relationship between these identities.
Dockens III (2012) distinguishes between strategic personality identity
involving public (p1), personal (p2), and private (p3) qualitative identity
Mindsets, each constituting qualitative ‘types’ that can be attributed to
a personality. They can then be formulated in a Mindset relationship as p1
:p2:p3. In a coherent personality, each of these identities will take on the
same qualitative value type. The rationale for this has been explained
previously as a recursive principle of agency theory, and it works for both
cultural agency and its personality. This is that private identity (p3) creates
an identity field that influences the strategic as a whole, i.e., the personal
(p2) and public (p1) identities. This influence is a manifestation of traits,
and it extends to the Mindset type values that the identities adopt. Where
the type values for each identity differ, it is because either private identity is
unstable, or because of analytic pathologies that occur in the process
intelligences that connect the strategic identities. During instability, situ-
ations can occur when identities can become confused (Weintraub, 1997;
Sheller & Urry, 2003; Wyatt et al., 2000). Each of the strategic identities
376 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
are able to undergo autonomous changes through degrees of certainty and
across instabilities (Yolles & Fink, 2015a).
When process pathologies arise, information that flows around the
strategic identity sub-agency is abnormally filtered, resulting in possible
misrepresentation for any of the pi, where i = 1, 2, or 3 (see, e.g., Alcoff,
2006). This can impact on the stability of the strategic process intelli-
gences, a condition referred to as a pathological block, and which can result
in an increase in state uncertainties and hence a move towards identity
instability. In a normal coherent individual, when there is an effective
private identity field in operation, one might find each strategic identity to
have the same Mindset type. This can be referred to as a well-balanced
agency with no pathologies. These Mindset types may be compromised,
however, when the intelligences have pathologies.
A significant aspect of the agency identity theory model is the recogni-
tion that agency is durable because of its viability, due to its capacity to be
adaptive. By this we mean that strategic personal identity is adaptable to
changes in contextual identity: i.e., private, personal, and public identity
can adapt to changes in social and cultural identity. This capacity for
adaptation, and hence towards maintaining viability, can be inhibited
when process intelligence pathologies occur, this resulting in different
qualitative measures for each of the strategic personality identities. This
is commented on by Alcoff (2006), who notes Sigmund Freud’s view on
identity attachment (how an agency thinks of itself first and foremost) are
based in psychological pathologies that are the certain symptom of ego
dysfunction. According to Kupfer and Regier (2013), personality pathology
refers to enduring patterns of cognition, emotion, and behaviour that
negatively affect a person’s adaptation, and can be characterised by adap-
tive inflexibility, vicious cycles of maladaptive behaviour, and emotional
instability under stress. Thus, an imbalance occurs between cognition and
affect.
Illustration of the relationships involving pathology between personal
(p2) and public (p3) identity has been provided by McClain-DaCosta
(2003) in multiracial society, where individuals feel that their racial identity
is contrasted with what they consider they should declare publicly. This has
resulted in individuals creating a multiracial facade of self-identity, having
a personal private identity and a different public one with a consequential
sense of inauthenticity. McClain-DaCosta (2003: 83) notes here that ‘this
sense of inauthenticity is revealed in many respondents’ likening of pub-
licly declaring their multiracial identity as “coming out” (“It felt like we
were coming out of the closet”, “You would have thought we were gay”),
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 377
suggesting chat before their true self was hidden behind a facade. Many
multiracials involved in organisations say that where they considered their
racial identity to be was often at odds with what they thought they were
supposed to declare publicly. This fostered in many of them a sense that
they had a personal private identity and a different public one’. The
consequences of this identity inconsistency can be significant. For
Kaufman and Johnson (2004) it can result in a sense stigma that works
as a personality authenticating process that solidifies the sense of self.
Stigma are defined as the as any physical or social attribute that devalues
an individual’s identity and hence disqualifies the individual from full
social acceptance (Goffman, 1963). Brown (2015; Goffman, 1963) explains
that research on stigma management strategies provides illustrations of
identity work that include feigning normalcy, retreating from society, and
managing information disclosure. Stigmatisation can result in the clinical
pathological condition of borderline personality disorder (Aviram,
Brodsky & Stanley, 2006) characterised by pervasive instability in
moods, interpersonal relationships, self-image, and behaviour that is
often disruptive. It can also result in devalued identity (Crocker &
Major, 1989). For Reisner (2006), this can even result in sociopathic and
narcissistic personality disorders that can tend, according to Blackburn
(1996: 19, cited in Skeem et al., 2011), towards psychopathic tendencies. For
Skeem et al. (2011; Karpman, 1948: 457), such personalities can
lie, cheat, and swindle . . . seemingly have no feeling or regard for others, and
no guilt feelings. Their affectionate relationships with others are fleeting and
undependable, and they seem not to profit by experience.
Crocker and Quinn (2001) explain that these psychological consequences
result from deep internalisation, emerging as a function of meaning
in situations, a condition of interest to psychopathology (Bos &
Ellemers, 2006) – this being the study of mental illness or the manifest-
ation of behaviours and experiences indicative of mental illness or psycho-
logical impairment.
So, the consequences of identity inconsistency/conflict can be serious.
Illustration of this can occur, for instance, by considering the relationship
between private and personal identities within the context of race. The
former defines the very nature of the individual, including capabilities,
while the latter involves a set of schemas that contribute to the definition of
what it is that constitutes race and who belongs to which racial group, only
important where this is a social issue. Thus, while private identity estab-
lishes a recognition of racial state, comparative racial states are a function of
378 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
personal identity since race identity is constituted through the cognitive
schema (internalised from social identity) that construes the nature of
a racial individual. However, instrumental couple analytical pathologies
can arise when the operative intelligence that self-produces public identity
is abnormally filtered, resulting in a manifestation of social identity that is
in some way adulterated. Having said this, there is a need in the extension
of the theory here to carefully relate analytical and clinical pathologies.
This is because clinical pathologies (which comes under the umbrella of
clinical psychology, focusing on diagnosing and treating mental, emo-
tional, and behavioural disorders) are identified through direct examin-
ation of an agency, while analytical pathologies are the result of theoretical
structures applied to indirectly acquired data. Thus, in reference to Kets de
Vries (1991), the distinction is equivalent to agencies being either on or off
the couch.
So, interest here lies in measuring (through MAT) the strategic iden-
tities of an agency, and determining their degree of similarity. Where they
are dissimilar, there is indication that an analytic pathology exists.

11.3 The Case Study

11.3.1 Background
The subject of this study is Donald Trump, who will be not be considered
as an individual, but rather as a collective team with a culture, involving
membership that has collective knowledge, values, and cognitive and
behavioural norms. The team may also be considered to be viable through
its ability to adapt. Having said that, this study was undertaken at the start
of Trump’s empowerment to presidential status in the United States.
Interest here lies in exploring a qualitative ‘type’ measure of Trump’s
personal identity, by exploring his narratives. This content analysis of
narrative is an indirect approach that uses qualitative selection of narrative
material to which statistical analysis to the occurrence of specific terms that
have been built into a coding frame. These terms are part of a qualitative
structure that is indicative of a personality type. This is distinct from direct
psychometric measuring process that might also be used to evaluate per-
sonality. A discussion of the distinction between the two can be found by
Cohen et al. (1996) and McAdams et al. (2004), and an illustration of the
techniques adopted can be found (Güçlütürk et al., 2016), where the Big
Five personality traits (Cobb-Clark & Schurer, 2012) of an individual are
assessed from audiovisual material. The narrative approach is related to the
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 379
audiovisual approach which also seeks to measure personality. The latter
approach used the Big Five personality traits to create an apparent person-
ality assessment, while here Mindset traits are adopted.
The structure of the chapter is a reflection of these considerations. In
Section 11.2 MAT will be re-introduced, explaining it derivation from
Mindset Theory. In Section 11.3 we will describe the selected qualitative
methodology (content analysis) explaining the relationship between pro-
jected and actual personality trait evaluations, the coding process through
which a coding frame is constructed that is applied to a variety of classes of
narrative. This is supported by inference tests of reliability, using
Krippendorff Alpha to explore Trump’s political personality. In Section
11.4 will present empirical results of Trumps political orientation.
A discussion and conclusion follow.

11.3.2 Methodology
Qualitative research can be devoid of objectivity, since by definition it is
characterised by the subjective point of view provided by the researcher in
the evaluations expressed by the coders during the coding process, though
according to Ratner (2002), reflection can be used to enhance objectivity in
the face of subjectivity. In any case, content analysis is able to moderate any
objectivity limitations by using appropriate inferencing techniques, as will
be adopted here.
The focus of many psychologists today is not so much on the traits and
long-term characteristics of the people who participate in our research as
on their reactions to events and situations. Psychologists are concerned
with changing transitory psychological states, but have not yet developed
fully effective techniques for their assessment. Content analysis of verbal
communications can be helpful in assessing such states (Viney, 1986).
Content analysis is based on the assumption that the language in which
people choose to express themselves contains information about the nature
of their psychological states. This assumption implies a representational or
descriptive model of language, in contrast to the instrumental or functional
model preferred by Mahl and Schultz (1964). Content analysis is usually
applied to narrative based communications. Although content analysis is
not usually applied to non-verbal communications, inferences can be made
about people’s states through objective and systematic identification of
specified characteristics of their verbal communications. Content analysis
of narrative provides opportunity to identify individual’s communicated
accounts of events, as well as attributes of their perspectives underpinned
380 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
by the personality traits. The need here is to establish a set of independent
interpretations of narrative projections are relate them to reduce inquire
noise, thus achieving intersubjective agreement.
According to McAdams (1995) and McAdams et al. (2004), one is able to
distinguish between three levels in evaluating personality:
• Level 1 refers to the dispositional (or here, formative) traits, the global,
internal, and comparative dispositions that account for consistencies
perceived or expected in behaviour from one situation to the next and
over time. Earlier, in Chapter 5, we indicated that this dispositional level
can be related to personality identity, and also to direct psychometric
analysis approaches.
• Level 2 refers to contextualised facets of human individuality that speak
to motivational, sociocognitive, and developmental concerns in person-
ality, including constructs such as current concerns and strivings, goals
and motives, defensive and strategic operations, conditional patterns,
and other constructs that are contextualised in time, place, or social role.
These also constitute an additional attribute of personal identity.
• Level 3 refers to integrative life stories, internalised and evolving narra-
tives of the self that speak to how a person understands oneself where
they are existentially. This level can be creatively elaborated to embrace
intentions to project stories that satisfy political purposes, even where
the elaborations may be contrived.
McAdams et al. (2004) were interested in connecting Level 1 personality
dispositions to level 3 narrative analysis. Using the Big Five trait schema
(also known as the Five-Factor Model), they found that the narrative and
dispositional traits were often closely connected within the context of
attributes of the trait schema adopted. In other words, the use of context
analysis applied to narratives can represent dispositional attributes.
In the three-level model of personality, dispositional traits (level 1)
indicate human individuality. Characteristic adaptations (level 2) fill in
some of the motivational, sociocognitive, and developmental details.
Narratives (level 3) indicate how an individual integrates and makes sense
of reality. Levels 1 and 3 are not necessarily reducible to one another,
though it may be possible to correlate them. To determine the degree of
correlation between narrative personality (level 3) assessment and disposi-
tional personality (level 1), both content analysis and psychometric analysis
and would be required (this validating the distinction between analytically
and clinically determined pathology). This of course requires that the
psychometric analysis is stable, enabling test and retest to give consistent
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 381
results, and some personality theories have trouble securing this (Pittenger,
2005). Thus, the Myers-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI), which purports to
evaluate personality traits, is inherently unstable since preferences may
easily change across time. This is not the case with epistemically based
traits (like those of Mindscape/Mindset theory) which are inherently
stable.
The McAdams et al. (2004) study, using the Big Five traits, adopts
undifferentiated measures for personality dimensions, and as they note,
this does not provide sufficient nuance to adequately examine personality
facets. The same argument applies to approaches like Myers-Brigg Type
Indicator. However, this is not the case with MAT, since the traits are
differentiated into collections of evaluable types that can be individually
identified and evaluated within narrative contexts. As such, one would
expect a better connection between narrative and dispositional analysis.
However, there is a caveat here. Where one is looking towards political
posturing, narratives are often designed by a personality to project stories
that are at variance from dispositional traits. It is for this reason that one
needs to distinguish between semantic content (or lack of it) and latent
content, where semantic content relates to meanings directly embedded in
narrative structures, while latent content refers to themes which constitute
underlying ideas, patterns, and assumptions. Where narrative may be
contrived in an attempt to adjust meanings that project contrived stories
about a particular personality, latent content analysis can be used to
identify dispositional attributes of the personality under investigation.
Building on the theoretical framework of Mindset Agency Theory, in
this section content analysis will be used in order to explore Trump’s
narrative personality. A widely used definition of content analysis is that
by Berelson (1952: 18) as a ‘research technique for the objective, systematic and
quantitative description of the manifest content of communication’. This
definition has been criticised by Berger and Luckman (1966), who argue
that it is not possible to produce totally objective results, because the
analysis will be always influenced by the interpreter of data. A necessarily
improved definition comes from Krippendorff (1980a), who says that
content analysis involves replicable and valid methods for making infer-
ences from observed communications to their context. It is thus considered
to be a qualitative research technique, supported by inference to test its
reliability. This conceptualisation is the most widely accepted in the
literature, having experienced a boom in content analysis usage in recent
years (Bernard, 2011; di Fatta et al., 2016; di Fatta & Musotto, 2017).
382 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Content Analysis can broadly refer to certain methods able to study and/or
retrieve meaningful information from different kinds of documents
(Krippendorff, 1980b; Tipaldo, 2014). Using the same line of thought,
Hodder (1994) argued that content analysis refers to a family of techniques
for studying the ‘mute evidence’ of texts and artefacts. Specifically, he sug-
gested five typical text-types adopted in content analysis: (1) written text, such
as books and papers; (2) oral text, such as speech and theatrical performance;
(3) iconic text, such as drawings, paintings, and icons; (4) audiovisual text,
such as TV programmes, movies, and videos; (5) hypertexts, which are texts
found on the Internet. In our analysis we shall adopt written text and
audiovisual texts.

11.3.3 The Method of Analysis

The approach in undertaking a content analysis here adopts the following
steps:

Step Name Nature

1 Coding frame A team coding frame is created

2 Selection External narrative data are identified by type and allocated
to the members of an inquiry team
3 Pre-processing All members of the team undertake their individual analyses
4 Pooling frame Inquirers come together in the team to pool the outcomes
information of the analyses according to the coding frame adopted.
5 Type analysis Types are assigned statistically, and traits determined

We adopt the traditional content analysis of Krippendorff (1984). Of the

three strategic (personality) identities, only public and personal identity
will be considered. This is because there is no access to the narratives
generated within the immediate private identity election team environ-
ment. Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) will be used to evaluate Trump’s
multiple identities during his presidential campaign.
The coding scheme for MAT3 T and MAT5 T requires consideration.
MAT3 T involves Intellectual autonomy, Embeddedness, Mastery +
Affective autonomy, Harmony, Hierarchy, and Egalitarianism. In con-
trast, MAT5 T takes in consideration ten trait enantiomers on the hori-
zontal axis: Sensate, Ideational, Intellectual Autonomy, Embeddedness,
Mastery + Affective autonomy, Harmony, Hierarchy, Egalitarianism,
Dramatism, and Patternism.
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 383
In the study of MAT3 T, the inquiry scheme takes in consideration the
six classes from Mindset Theory. Thus, on the vertical axis, five research
units (1 to 5) were provided referring to Hodder’s (1994) classification: (1)
written text – a book entitled Crippled America: How to Make America
Great Again by Trump (2015);1 (2) oral text – Trump’s first speech after
election results;2 (3) iconic text – Trump electoral campaign poster;3 (4)
audiovisual text – President-Elect Trump in a full interview with ABNN
(Almutaz Bur News Network);4 (5) hypertext – 100 posts extracted from
Trump’s official Twitter account.5 Following Hodder, this content analysis
emphasises the difference between different kind of text: oral, book,
written, blogs, and so on. Indeed, Caputo and Walletzký (2017) pointed
out the increasing relevance of technology and its effect on our life required
multi- and trans-disciplinary studies.
Given this premise, coders were asked to determine, for each research
unit (1 to 5), the corresponding Mindset trait types (Intellectual autonomy,
mastery + Affective autonomy, hierarchy, egalitarianism, harmony,
embeddedness) according to their being present, latent, or absent. The
term present refers to the semantic themes that can identify explicit mean-
ings of the data, and the inquirer simply identifies what is expressed as part
of a narrative. By absent is meant those semantic thematic of interest but
not found to be present. Latent refers to themes which constitute under-
lying ideas, patterns, and assumptions. It requires significant interpretation
of the data, so an inquirer might focus on one specific question or area of
interest. Ten coders were selected for this coding process constituted as:
two PhD students in economics, two PhD students in political sciences,
two PhD students in communication; one psychologist, two journalist
experts in US politics, one social media manager.
In the study of MAT5 T, five research units on the vertical axes were
considered: (1) a book titled Crippled America: How to Make America Great
Again by Trump (2015); (2) Trump’s first speech after election results; (3)
a Trump electoral campaign poster; (4) President-Elect Trump in a full
interview with ABNN (Almutaz Bur News Network); and (5) 100 posts
extracted from Trump’s official Twitter account.
Recalling that social identity (or the collective self) connect with the
attributes of inter-group comparisons between a person’s in-group and
other out-groups, usually personal and social identity are often related
(Jenkins, 2008).
In order to perform this shift from examining personal to public
identity, we build on the coding system adopted for MAT3 T, and made
adjustments that reflect the differences in trait types. We also changed the
384 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
research units in such a way as to eliminate any explicit reference to
Trump. In this way coders do not know (directly) the subject of the
analysis, but can guess some indirect information from the context. In
more detail: Research units (ii) Trump first speech after election results,
(iv) the Interview with ABNN and (v) Twitter posts were transcribed,
substituting any reference to newly elected president Trump with ‘Mister
X’ and any reference to the United States to ‘Country Y’. Research units (1)
the book Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again and (3) the
Trump electoral campaign poster were removed from the data set. Added
was research unit (4), the transcript of Trump’s speech in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania, on his first 100-day ‘action plan’.6

11.3.4 Reliability Analysis: Krippendorff Alpha

In order to test the reliability of a content analysis, the concept of agree-
ment should be taken in consideration. Generally speaking, agreement
depends on the one hand on number of categories and, on the other hand,
on the frequency.
This measure is, by definition, biased in favour of a small number of
categories: one would expect better agreement on a scale with 2 categories
than on one with 100 categories (Scott, 1955; Birkimer & Brown, 1979;
Krippendorff & Bock, 2009).
The classical index of consistency (so-called S) by Bennet et al. (1954)
takes into account this bias related to the number of classes. Setting k as the
number of categories and P0 the observed percentage agreement, the index
of consistency is
k
1
S¼ P0 ;
k1 k
where S increases as the number of categories (k) increases (for a given P0).
This index moves a step forward, but it is also biased: the main problem
is related to the assumption that all the k categories have the same
probability to be used (1/k). This condition is not always true, because in
some cases it may happen that one or more categories is not used or
a certain category is more used than others.
In order to solve these problems, this research applies Krippendorff
Alpha (2011): this concept, born in the content analysis field for communi-
cation studies, is widely applicable wherever two or more methods of
generating data are applied to the same set of objects, units of analysis, or
items and the question is how much the resulting data can be trusted to
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 385
represent something real (Krippendorff, 2012). In this way, Section 11.4 will
show not only the results, but also their reliability through an unbiased
index generalising several known statistics such as measures of inter-coder
agreement and inter-rater reliability (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007). The
Krippendorff Alpha is given by
D0
α ¼1 ;
De
where D0 is a measure of the observed disagreement and De is the disagreement
expected by chance (or simply expected disagreement). About the interpret-
ation of the result, it is important to note that
α = 1 indicates perfect reliability because the observers agree perfectly
and thus observed disagreement is zero;
α = 0 indicates the absence of reliability because the observers are unable
to distinguish among units or assign values to them drawn randomly
from a collective estimate of the population of data, in other words,
units and the values assigned to them are statistically unrelated, the
observed disagreement is equal to the disagreement expected by
chance;
0 < α < 1 when disagreements are systematic and exceed what can be
expected by chance. Indeed, we have to distinguish two kinds of
disagreements: the systematic disagreement and random one
(Krippendorff, 2008). Systematic disagreements rely on the structure
of the data, for instance ambiguities of particular terms or statistical
association among respondents (who should have been working
independently). Random disagreements introduce into the data ran-
dom variation which, by definition, cannot rationally explained.
Application of the methods adopted are applied to both MAT3 T and
MAT5 T, but there are three measure distinctions:
1. MAT3 T can in principle be applied to both personal and private
identities as discussed in the last chapter, though a limitation on the
latter is due to the fact that the set of narratives between Trump team
membership is not publicly available. Thus, only measures of personal
identity are possible, obtained as a coding set (deriving from the six trait
types) of the public narratives. In contrast, MAT5 T has a larger set
(from the ten trait types). It can also be applied to public identity since
there is ontological coherence – social orientations constitute
386 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
a potential orientation for modes of behaviour that are indicated by the
execution information (which incidentally underpin attitudes).
2. For MAT3 T direct access to the research units was permitted for the
observers. However, due to its additional complexity (with ten trait
types), for MAT5 T the research units were adjusted in such a way as to
eliminate any explicit reference to Trump. This makes the second
content analysis ‘more refined’ so that the subject is not easily identifi-
able (the electoral poster and the book were removed). While this latter
action is not crucial to the analysis, it is undertaken to enhance the
objectivity in the performance of the analysis.
3. MAT3 T involved the consideration of present/absent and latent attri-
butes, while MAT5 T considered only present/absent attributes. The
reason for this requires one to recall that latent content refers to themes
constituting underlying patterns and ideas, and this second step of the
content analysis requires a higher level of reliability. However,
a primary need is to maintain good agreement among the coders, and
this is provided more easily with a two-category scale rather than
a three-category scale, thus limiting the possibility of ambiguity and
explaining why the latent category is to be dropped (Birkimer &
Brown, 1979; Krippendorff & Bock, 2009).

11.4 Results

11.4.1 MAT3 T
In relation to the analysis of MAT3 T, the analysis of the semantics present
is divided in two parts: the first will show some descriptive statistics with
relative comments; the second will discuss reliability and validity of the
results.
Coders were asked to analyse each research unit (1–5) in relation to the
different typology of text (written, oral, visual, etc.) regarding Trump.
Thus, coders were asked to classify the corresponding Mindsets classes as
present, latent, or absent following the coding scheme. Table 11.1 shows the
frequencies about the evaluation provided by the coders.
The majority of the respondents identifying ‘present’ in the classes in
Trump’s narrative behaviour concerning the traits: mastery + affective
autonomy (84 per cent), hierarchy (64 per cent) and embeddedness
(60 per cent). They also considered the ‘absent’ classes as: egalitarianism
(84 per cent), intellectual autonomy (82 per cent), and harmony
 Table 11.1 MAT3 T class evaluation

% Frequencies

Intellectual autonomy Mastery + affective autonomy Hierarchy Egalitarianism Harmony Embeddedness

Present 2% 84% 64% 16% 0% 60%

Latent 16% 16% 36% 0% 32% 40%
Absent 82% 0% 0% 84% 68% 0%
388 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
(68 per cent). This is consistent with previous studies in MAT3 T (Yolles &
Fink, 2014c) which argued that Hierarchical Populism (HP) is character-
ised by Embeddedness, Mastery + Affective Autonomy, Hierarchy.

11.4.2 MAT5 T
Using the above described coding framework, a content analysis was
performed (Krippendorff, 1980), supported by the use of ‘Krippendorff
Alpha’ software (version 6) for the reliability analysis.
Ten coders were asked to analyse the selected research units and to
classify the corresponding trait enantiomers (sensate, ideational, intellec-
tual autonomy, embeddedness, mastery + affective autonomy, harmony,
hierarchy, egalitarianism, dramatism, and patternism) as present or absent.
Results are presented in the Table 11.2, showing that sensate, intellectual
autonomy, mastery + affective autonomy, hierarchy, and dramatism are
found to be present; ideational, embeddedness, patternism, harmony, and
egalitarianism to absent.
These results are consistent with Hierarchical Individualism (HI) char-
acterised by Sensate, Intellectual autonomy, Mastery + Affective auton-
omy, Hierarchy, and Dramatism. In order to support these findings,
Krippendorff Alpha (2011) was computed: as discussed in the previous
Part II (Yolles & di Fatta, 2017), K. Alpha is a synthetic index for measur-
ing reliability. Scores greater than 0.8 are strongly reliable. However, in
explorative analysis, values grater that 0.7 can be considered acceptable
(Krippendorff, 2004). Accepted this clarification, it is also important to
note that all the five enantiomers related to HI are reliably according to K.
Alpha scores, respectively, Sensate 0.86; Intellectual autonomy 0.86;
Mastery + affective autonomy 0.73; Hierarchy 1; and Dramatism 0.73.

11.4.3 Reliability and Validity

Reliability is defined as the degree to which some people concur on the
readings, interpretations and responses to converse, texts or data
(Krippendorff, 2012). Kaplan and Goldsen (1965) stated reliable data
remain constant in the measuring process. This is a measurement concep-
tion of reliability meaning that procedures (or data) are reliable when it
responds to the same stimulations in the same way. There is a big concern;
in truth, many phenomena are transitory. How you can replicate exactly
the same circumstances? From the theoretical point of view, this reasoning
could work, but in practice there are some limitations. The crucial point is
 Table 11.2 MAT5 T class evaluation

% Frequencies
Sensate Ideational Intellectual autonomy Embeddedness Mastery + affective autonomy

Present 80% 23% 80% 23% 78%

Absent 20% 78% 20% 78% 23%
K Alpha 0.8602 0.7292 0.8602 0.7292 0.7292
Harmony Hierarchy Egalitarianism Dramatism Patternism
Present 5% 75% 10% 78% 20%
Absent 95% 25% 90% 23% 80%
K Alpha 0,381 1 0.4922 0.7292 0.8602
390 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
that reliability does not imply validity, which concerns truths. It is impos-
sible to suppose ascertaining validity through repetition: in other words,
reliability does not guarantee validity. Let us suppose the situation where
two distinct observers watching the same event. They may well agree on
what they see, but it still be objectively wrong.
In contrast, the unreliability (lack of reliability) limits the chance of
validity. Let us consider again the above described situation for MAT3 T.
Two observers are watching the same event, but, this time, supposing
the two observers disagree about what is going to happen. Disagreements
make it difficult for third parties to know what actually happened.
This is the researcher dilemma, which this chapter aim to fix using
Krippendorff Alpha based on the idea that ‘reliability is the best safeguard
against the likelihood of invalid research results’ (Krippendorff & Bock,
2009: 356). With this in mind, Table 11.3 shows Krippendorff Alpha scores
for each class.
Scores greater than 0.8 are strongly reliable, but in explorative analysis
(as the present case), values grater that 0.7 are acceptable (Krippendorff,
2011). Thus, reliability is provided for all the classes, except ‘intellectual
autonomy’ this is due to disagreement among the coders regarding the
specific text evaluation. However, having a look to descriptive statistics,
there is a general agreement (82 per cent) in considering ‘intellectual
autonomy’ absent (16 per cent latent; 2 per cent present). It is important
to note that disagreement is due to an inference problem related to
2 per cent argued ‘present’: this is only a computational mistake, because
general agreement is confirmed by 82 per cent of the coders. In other
words, using Krippendorff (2004: 416) argument ‘agreement is what we
measure; reliability is what we wish to infer from it’.

11.5 The Outcome

Strategic personality identity types have been examined by compared the
measured determined by MAT3 T and MAT5 T, these respectively relating
to personal and public identity types. Inferences for personal and public

Table 11.3 Krippendorff alpha

Intellectual Mastery + affective

autonomy autonomy Hierarchy Egalitarianism Harmony Embeddedness

0.631 0.867 0.848 0.74 0.759 0.757

 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 391
identity types have been measured for Donald Trump during his US 2016
election campaign. There is a difference between psychometric personality
evaluation which explores Level 1 attributes of trait disposition (manipu-
lated through level 2), and level 3 narrative. This suggests that narrative
analysis, using say content analysis, is an appropriate approach by which
personal identity can be studied and evaluated.
Thus, Trump’s personal identity is represented by the narrative he
delivers, peppered as it is with occasional contradictions and tall stories.
It has been found that Trump projects a personality of Hierarchical
Popularism (HP). This means that he, in his personal identity, favours
hierarchy, is a conventionalist, likes neat classification of categories, is
a universalist, operates sequentially, is highly competitive, supports zero-
sum contexts, is oppositional, like to promote extension, sees only one
truth, is comfortable with optimisation, has ethics that support the dom-
ination of the weak, is a supporter of the in-group, is self-stereotyping, is
bounded by his group, and prone to collectivism. There may also be
a tendency towards repression within hierarchical zero-sum process, per-
spectives that support ‘not in my backyard’, a rejection of taking ownership
of problems that are seen as belonging to others, and an adherence to
personal agendas.
While there is a great deal of academic study of identity, including some
general agreements concerning the different natures of identity, there is no
comprehensive view of the different types of identity, and their overall
natures and relationships. In this sense, the field of study maintains some
confusions, inconsistencies, and fragmentations.
We have here explored different views of identity, seeking to assemble
them together in a way that generates some degree of coherence. To do
this, we have identified different types of ontologically independent
identity. Three of these trait-based private, personal, and public, and
as such they are information-based strategic identities which are together
responsible for social behaviours. Social identity is often stereotypical,
maintaining collective identifications for the individual, and when shared
with a collective may be referred to as collective identity. Cultural
identity involves the internalisation of attributes of an individual’s
culture, and embraces beliefs, values, and cognitive and behavioural
norms.
Agency Theory was used to model the relationship between these forms
of identity, which has been able to explain explicitly the relationship
between the different types of identity and their place within the overall
individual seen as a living identity system. The development of this theory
392 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
now requires, not just illustrative anecdotal indicators of real situations as
the multiracial one provided, but detailed in depth case studies that can use
the principles embedded in the theory to clearly explain the situations
identified and their pathologies (if and where) they occur. This has the
possibility of providing explanation for situations that have not yet been
identified and explained.
This research, given that the modelling approach is satisfactory, provides
evidence that Donald Trump displays discrepancy between his personal
and public identities in the instrumental couple that defines this identity
relationship. In terms of the model, this discrepancy constitutes an incon-
sistency/conflict that we call an identity pathology. By this we mean an
analytic pathology that applies to the process intelligences that manifest
information from one strategic identity system to another, and implies the
likelihood of a clinical pathological illness. This in the first instance
indicates a diminution in his capacity to adapt to changing context
identities. But there is another attribute of Trump’s identity which is
interesting to note. Trump’s HI public Mindset embraces intellectual
autonomy, uniqueness (heterogenistic), independence, self-development,
self-assertion, mastery monistic, hierarchic, inequality (heterogenistic),
authority, humility, power, relationalism, sequentialism, communication,
contractualism, individualism, and ideocentricity. Enjoying a sense of
power in a hierarchical setting, an agency having an HI Mindset is confi-
dent in self-assertion and in an ability to lead. However, those with an HI
Mindset, besides being highly individualistic, this Mindset may also be
compulsive, egocentric, and neurotic. Now, since HI is equivalent to the
Independent/Prince Mindscape type of Maruyama (2008), this identity
will be supportive of negative sum processes, and will ‘never give a sucker
and even break’, where such a ‘winning’ individual obtain benefits by
exploiting others (Beardsley, 1993).
Comparison can now be made to Trump’s personal identity Mindset,
which comes out as HP, with attributes of social relationships, traditional,
status quo, order, solidarity, understanding, unity, pluralism, hierarchical,
inequality, authority, humility, power, configurations, relational, pattern,
balance, collectivist, allocentricity, super-sensory, morality, creation, and
prone to ideational collectivism. Here, while still enjoying power, an agency
with an HP Mindset also has humility, is a traditionalist and supporter of
social relationships, and likes to work with others. While HI and HP
Mindset types are extremely close, HP is more directed towards the
community while HI more towards self. While both HP and HI are
strongly hierarchic, they are strongly at odds with each other leading to
 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump 393
an important inherent identity conflict. This implies a serious issue con-
cerning any ability to adapt, since the instrumental couple between the
personal and public identities are analytically pathological. This might
imply an interest in adjusting the system that agency (as Trump) oversees
so that it conforms to what agency (as Trump) knows, rather than being
able to adapt the system being overseen such that it responds creatively to
changing contextual identities, like fluxing ethnicity. For Caley and Sawada
(2000) creativity would normally arise out of crises when rules clash with
other rules. Angst is the basis of performance; mastery is the highest form.
The analytical pathology that has been uncovered here is consistent with
clinical pathologies identified elsewhere. Clinically, Trump has
a narcissistic personality (Ahmadian et al., 2016; Blum, 2016), amplified
by Nai et al. (2019) as being grandiose (McAdams, 2016), with a messiah
complex and no conscience or empathy (Hoise, 2017), and he possibly has
a condition of psychopathy (Olbermann, 2016), i.e., at least two of the
three dark personality traits.
The theoretical model developed in the present chapter is not a point of
arrival, but on the contrary, it should be considered as a starting point for
future research that will be continued in the next chapter. Additional
research could elaborate on explorations showing also the predictive
power of Mindset Agency Theory, recalling that this approach has the
capacity to anticipate future potentials for behaviour.
There are some implications for this research, in relation to the practice
of evaluating individuals in their social settings. Thus, for instance, identity
pathologies are relevant for such diverse contexts as intergroup conflicts in
organisations (Fiol et al., 2009), to the development of xenophobia
(Harris, 2002). Being able to evaluate the likelihood of such conditions,
provides socially constructive advantages.

11.6 Chapter in Brief

• Multiple identities may refer to the epistemically exchangeable identities

that agencies may activate as they embrace different role positions, or
ontologically distinct identities in a hierarchy of them, the former
a result of Identity Theory, the latter of Social Identity Theory. These
may be related to self-identity theory that arises from the psycho-
dynamic theory of self.
• Distinct can be made between personal and public identity.
394 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
• Where the characterisation of the two are significantly distinct, as can be
described through traits penchants and Mindset types, psychological
consequences result due to issues of deep internalisation that emerge as
a function of meaning in situations.
• When such psychological consequences become important, they may
result in mental illness or the manifestation of behaviours and experi-
ences indicative of mental illness or psychological impairment.
• Interest here lies in the application of Mindset Agency Theory (MAT)
to identities in a hierarchy, namely private, personal, and public.
• Analytic personality pathologies arise when these identities are not
consistent, and MAT can be used to evaluate them.
• MAT3 T involves personality traits of the cognition agency, while
MAT5 T involves sociocultural traits of the cognition agency.
• MAT3 T and MAT5 T are used to relate personal and public identities,
and evaluate whether contradictions between them might result in
pathologies.
• The technique is applied to Donald Trump’s personality by examining
his psychic contradictions, as discovered in narrative related to his 2016
US election campaign.
• Using MAT3 T and MAT5 T to explore his personal and public
identities, trait items were sought using content analysis applied to his
narratives.
• The methods that developed were connected with the conceptual ideas
of McAdams and analytical techniques of Krippendorff.
• The MAT3 T and MAT5 T results that emerge indicate important
analytical pathologies identified from the theory are consistent with
the narcissistic personality indicated by others undertaking distant
clinical evaluations.
• It is found that Trump’s MAT3 T and MAT5 T evaluations take
different values, this suggesting an analytical pathology.
 chapter 12

Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types – the

Case of Theresa May

12.1 Introduction
Here, we develop on the last chapter by elaborating on the theory relevant
to multiple ontologically distinct (i.e., private, personal, and public) iden-
tities, and then use this to explore the personality of Theresa May, the
prime minister of the United Kingdom in 2019. On 23 June 2016, the
British government, led by David Cameron, held a referendum on whether
the United Kingdom should remain in the European Union (EU) or exit
(British exit, or Brexit). His purpose was party political rather than for
national interest (Parker, 2016). The controversial outcome was that 52 per
cent of voters expressed their preference to leave the EU. David Cameron
resigned, and the then Home Secretary, Theresa May, was given the role of
prime minister.
May ideologically identifies herself as a one-nation conservative, though
her one-nation proposition appears to relate only to her views about the
nation (Wadsworth et al., 2016). Her political position has also been
historically inconsistent. While Home Secretary, she claimed that a cohesive
society required control of migration, but she was unable to deliver this
blaming the EU – a position that few accepted (Bennette, 2016). She
publicly stated her support for the United Kingdom remaining in the
EU during the 2016 referendum campaign, though did not campaign as
a ‘Remainer’. Following the referendum and her successful appointment as
party leader and prime minister, May’s perspective underwent a paradigm
shift: from critical support for EU membership, to support for an extreme
‘hard’ model of Brexit. It signalled her intention to seek full withdrawal
from the EU and all its attributes, whatever that might mean. Her appar-
ently arbitrary dramatic position on Brexit was that if she was unable to
achieve agreement with the EU for an exit strategy, she would adopt what
some would later call a ‘cliff edge’ strategy that many feared would result in
395
396 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
economic damage to the country (Bennette, 2016; Parker & Binham,
2017). As it was, the outcome of the referendum and the uncertainty
generated by her position resulted in a serious drop in the value of the
UK currency. This led to elevated anxieties by many, including the
business community who were concerned with May’s reckless approach,
and the degrees of uncertainty and economic volatility that this was already
delivering.
Wishing to shore up her power position as she moved into Brexit talks,
Theresa May called a general election on 8 April 2007. The outcome was
believed to be a sure thing, with May expected to take a strong majority
during the election process. In the end, however, she lost her parliamentary
majority altogether. This was caused by the type of election campaign that
she ran (Parker & Khalaf, 2017). It centred on her identity as a leader of
strength who could be trusted to deliver stable leadership. Like her
approach to Brexit, the campaign had a flawed management process
(Campbell, 2017), and suffered from her insistence on taking personal
control beyond that of party advisors, with a reluctance to delegate, and
running with a faulty manifesto (McTague et al., 2017). We can reflect on
the fact that May did not appear to recognise her failing performance until
it was too late. As a result, a delayed but significant surge for support for the
opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn occurred (Hunt & Wheeler, 2017).
While this surge was insufficient to elect him as the prime minister, it
was sufficient to result in a hung parliament for Theresa May. After the
election, she managed to retain power by creating a pact with the northern
Irish Democratic Unionist Party in exchange for extras social funding, at a
time when elsewhere she still supported austerity in her government
economic policies, resulting in policy inconsistency indicating party polit-
ical opportunism.
Our interest here lies in understanding a personality that creates incon-
sistency and delivers unnecessary uncertainties. To do this, as in the last
chapter, we will apply personality theory linked to identity theory. There is
only one theory that adequately connects the two to enable an analytical
identity study to develop (due to the fragmentation of both personality and
identity theory), and this is cybernetic Cultural Agency Theory (CAT) as
explored in Guo et al. (2016), and its offspring exemplar Mindset Agency
Theory (MAT) (Yolles & Fink, 2014, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). As explained in
the last chapter, personality is expressed in terms of formative traits types
that coalesce into Mindset types that classify individuals, and from which
psychological analysis is possible.
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 397
The methodological approach involves content analysis of May’s elec-
tion narratives. In the last chapter it was applied to Donald Trump (Yolles
& di Fatta, 2017, 2017a; di Fatta & Yolles, 2017), adopting the conceptual
framework of CAT and its extension into personality and identity theory.
However, here it will be developed further both theoretically and empiric-
ally. The study will permit an exploration of multiple identities, and seeks
similarities/differences between them. A primary proposition here is that
personality can create a potential for certain context related patterns of
behaviour, and that a healthy personality hinges to a significant extent on
multiple identity similarity. The obverse of this proposition is that lack of
consistency in behaviour is indicative of clinical personality issues that can
arise through multiple identity distinctions. The methodological approach
is qualitative-quantitative, using content analysis of selected election nar-
ratives of May. The specific hypothesis that will be tested is that a marked
lack of consistency in May’s behaviour is due to an analytic/modelling
pathology that can be assigned to a clinical explanation of her inconsist-
ency. The selection of data to be analysed will be identified, and the process
of content analysis explained. Results will then be presented and tested for
reliability. Indicative outcomes will then be discussed.

12.2 Theoretical Framework

Dynamic Identity Theory (DIT) explains how identities develop and
change. This will be set within a broader framework than that is provided
by its originator, Hijmans (2003), and explained. It will be followed by a re-
introduction to Cultural Agency Theory and its developments into per-
sonality and identity theory, explaining how personality and multiple
identities are connected. This theory will be enriched by DIT. The new
framework will explain how multiple identities can be assessed, and how
personalities can be evaluated.

12.2.1 Psychological and Contextual Identities

The DIT of Hijmans (2003) and Hijmans and Wester (2009) explain that
multiple identities (psychological and social identities) are not static, and
that psychological and social classes of identity interact, facilitating identity
development. This occurs, they say, through some undetermined mechan-
ism, though it can be explained cybernetically in terms of formative traits.
Yolles and di Fatta (2017) elaborated on Hijmans classification by
distinguishing between two generic classes of identity, psyche and physical,
398 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
both consistent with Mindset theory, and where the latter is subsumed
under a sociocultural context, from the last chapter it may be recalled that
there is a distinction between strategic (personality) identities and socio-
cultural identities:
1. Psychological personality (Hijmans & Wester, 2009; Gobe, 2001;
Margalit & Halbertal, 2004) or psyche context includes private, per-
sonal, and public identities, but it also operates as a direct strategic
(Baba, 1989; Reger et al., 2008) influence that creates imperatives for
patterns of behaviour.
2. Sociocultural context facilitates the acquisition of social and cultural
identities (De Anca, 2012; Brown et al., 2005; Huffer, 2006; Duncan &
Stewart, 2007) that condition behaviour.
Once acquired, sociocultural context identities and psyche identities
mutually influence each other. To explain how, we shall adapt a model
from Hijmans and Wester (2009), shown in Table 12.1.
While both personality/strategic and sociocultural contextual classes of
identity are intimately connected, they can be examined separately and in
relation to each other. The contextual class concerns the sociocultural
(including political) nature of psychological identity, and the psychological
aspects of sociocultural identity. The link between the psychological and
the contextual identities can provide explanations for the affective attri-
butes of abstractions, like national or ethnic identity. The interconnections
that determine the identity interaction processes can also explain the
complexity of cognitive-affective phenomena. The connection between
the psychological and the contextual identities occurs as two poles in the
process of identity construction. One is an inward-looking reflexive pro-
cess, and the other as an outward-looking interactive process. The person-
ality-contextual relationship is thus complementary. The historical-
continuous approach emphasises structure as the preservation of unity
and sameness, and the relational-interactional approach that emphasises
process and the notion of difference. The central idea that expresses the
complexity of identity is the dual presence of continuity/similarity and
differentiation from others. In each of these, related processes are at work.
In personality, psychological processes are typified as ‘continuity’ and
‘uniqueness’, and in context, sociocultural processes are typified as ‘con-
formity’ and ‘distinction’. These processes are concretised as manifest-
ations of identity, such as biography and tradition. There are possibilities
for continuous change and exchange between classes and their member-
ships, where we are concerned with continuums rather than discrete units.
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 399
This model constitutes, for Hijmans and Wester, the core of identity
construction. One consequence of this model is that identity is a symbolic
structure, based on a capacity for reflection, the influence of language and
culture, and where the construction of meaning in interaction with others
is of importance. Another is that identity is the product and an expression
of relationships with others, with psychological and contextual identities
being interconnected. So, identity development is a dynamic process, and
involves situational flexibility, and psychological and contextual compari-
son of sameness and difference. While DIT explains the dynamic nature of
multiple identities, Table 12.1 does not express the dynamics. We shall now
present some theory that cybernetically shows the dynamic relationship
between multiple identities.

12.2.2 Multiple Identities as an Agency Living System

We reflect that agency within Cultural Agency Theory is a learning cyber-
netic living system able to respond to its environments. The concept of the
living system sits on the foundational work by Miller (1978), and conforms
to the work of Maturana and Varela (1980) who were interested in the
biological basis of living. We recall that the concept was elaborated through
the work of Schwarz (1994), who explains that sufficient autonomy will
enable any autonomous system to survive by adapting to changing environ-
ments. Collateral attributes of adaptation in living systems include functions
like awareness, self-organisation, self-reflection, self-reference, and learning,
as the system acts and reacts to others in its environments. Any system that is
perceived to be autonomous in an interactive environment, and can survive
and adapt, can therefore be taken to be a living system. This includes non-
conscious systems, as well as social systems, business systems, personality
systems, and identity systems.

Table 12.1 Related personality and contextual identities

Personality/strategic Contextual sociocultural

Generic class basic dimension identity identity

Sameness: affective-historical Continuity, Conformity, tradition

Emphasises as preservation of unity biography
Difference: relational-interactional Uniqueness, Distinction, inclusion/
Emphasis on process authenticity exclusion

Note. Adapted from Hijmans and Wester (2009).

400 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
I3,1
Agency Operative
Intelligence is Social/Behavioural
Cultural Figurative influenced by Intelligence is
Cultural Environment Intelligence personality influenced by the
Cultural beliefs & values. mindset social orientation Social
Collective unconscious, Cultural trait Environment
identity, cultural self-reference.
Cultural orientation trait

Agency Normative Personality

I2,1 I1,1
Figurative Intelligence Agency
I4,1
Operative
Operative Intelligence System
Figurative System Structures that
Cognitive System Operative System
Figurative information as create operational
Identification knowledge, Operative information &
schemas (e.g., goals) that include performance as
Attitudes and conceptual structures facilitating decision-
appreciative information, efficient and effective
information and policy-making behaviour.
ethics & decision imperatives. directed action under
Cognitive unconscious, Cognitive conscious,
Cognitive subconscious, structural facilitation/
self-reference. self-organisation.
self-regulation. constraint. Agency
Cognitive orientation Operative orientation
Figurative orientation self-organisation
trait trait
trait Social
Operative Intelligence
Figurative Intelligence adjustment imperatives orientation
I4,2 trait
adjustment imperatives
I1,2
I3,2 Imperative for
I2,2
Operative Intelligence
adjustment, with impact
on personality mindset
Impulses for cultural adjustment

Figure 12.1 Cultural Agency Model with embedded personality and ‘process intel-
ligence’ bars indicating possible pathologies/filters (adapted from Yolles & Fink,
2014d).

The CAT model of the agency living system is provided in Figure 12.1.
The normative personality is a fractal recursion (Yolles and Fink, 2015b) of
the agency model, permissible since personality may be taken as a living
system that survives through adaptation. We recall that personality may
also be perceived as an agency figurative system, simplifying the model
considerably. Agency is composed of three ontologically distinct systems,
each with its own properties. These systems interact through process
intelligences that work to manifest information from one system to another.
These replace other terms like autopoiesis (Maturana & Varela, 1980) and
autogenesis (Schwarz, 1994) that are normally used to explain living
systems, and derive from the inherent cybernetician and child psychologist
Piaget (1950). The agency model is recursive, so that it may contain
subsidiary living systems within it with epistemologies that are contextually
defined. As an illustration, cultural agency consists of interactive cultural,
figurative, and operative systems. The cultural system is self-referencing,
the figurative system is self-regulating and the operative system that inter-
acts with agency environments is self-organising (Yolles & Fink, 2013).
Recall that each agency system also operates through formative traits.
The cognitive system in Figure 12.1 not only has identity knowledge, but
is also the residence of identity. Now, if we take the proposition, as implied
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 401

Psychological Identity Sub-Agency

Figurative intelligence Operative

intelligence
Strategic
Identity Cognition System Strategic Operative Strategic
Self-Reference, schemas of self- Identity Figurative System couple Identity Operative System
identity, self-concept, self- Self-regulation, strategic self- Self-organisation,
awareness, attitudes, emotional schemas (e.g., ethics, self- schem as of competences,
attributes. cognitions, tastes). structural attributes.
Private identity Personal identity Public identity
Operative intelligence
feedback
Figurative intelligence Agency
feedback operative
intelligence
Identity
Agency Identity
Operative
cultural Cultural Agency System
figurative System Agency cultural operative Self-organisation,
intelligence Agency self- figurative intelligence intelligence behaviour,
reference, beliefs, feedback feedback showing belonging.
norms. Knowledge linkage under DIT Social identity
derived between personality
information. and social traits

Cognitive “Self-Identity” System

Figure 12.2 A view of DIT formulated as a Living System, with psychological

identities (as strategic imperatives for behaviour) and contextual sociocultural
identities.

by Hijmans and Wester (2009), that multiple identities constitute an

adaptable system of learning, then they can collectively form a living
system contained within the cognitive system of the personality. So,
applying a recursion of the agency living system model (with its sociocul-
tural components) to the cognitive system, we generate Figure 12.2 (Yolles
& di Fatta, 2017a), where agency can be viewed in terms of a psychological/
strategic personality system (Yolles & Fink, 2014, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c).
This can explain the mechanism of identity development as described in
DIT through the feedback and feed-forward intelligences, these being
constituted as networks of processes. This approach also offers a direct
connection between personality theory and identity theory, which for
Stryker (2007) would be a novel achievement. In Figure 12.2, adapted
from Yolles and Fink (2015c), there as usual being five traits that define an
agency, three belonging to personality, and two to sociocultural contexts
for that personality. One aspect of this model is that the operative and
figurative process intelligences that connect the various systems can abnor-
mally filter processes required to make the agency work healthily, causing
analytic pathologies. These are theoretical pathologies that are represented
402 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
in the modelling process, likely associated with clinical conditions (relating
to the observation and treatment of actual patients) associated with per-
sonality issues. Pathologies can impact on the development of the traits,
and therefore on the personality. The model can also explain what happens
when system instabilities arise, and how can be represented through
analytic pathologies. While system instability might well result in patholo-
gies, it is not necessarily the case that a pathology will result in system
instability.
Now Figure 12.1 and indeed Figure 12.2 represent the cognition/think-
ing dimension of the personality. However, there is also an affect/emotion
dimension (Fink & Yolles, 2015, 2016). Cognition and affect interact
operatively in the personality, and it is through processes of internalisation
that mutual affect–cognition trait influences occur. This connection
embraces Hijmans’ (2003) affect proposition of DIT from Table 12.1.
DIT provides reflection on the distinct psychological and contextual groups
of identity. The psychological identity sub-system involves systems that pro-
vide behavioural potential through traits, and as such they are strategic. The
operative couple consists of interaction between the strategic identity figurative
system with the strategic identity operative system, linked together by the
autopoietic operative intelligence. This intelligence may be subject to an
analytic pathology when intelligence processes between personal and public
identity are in some way filtered or inhibited. The analytical pathology creates
a potential, given the right contextual and situational conditions for clinical
behaviour. Other analytic pathologies also arise, as indicated by the grey bars in
Figure 12.2, almost identical to Figure 10.3, though it is provided here again for
both completeness and to stress it capability to link it with DIT.
Yolles and di Fatta (2017a) note that personalities can create a public
identity facade. Such situations can occur where political candidates
(through their collective teams) stand for election and wish to appeal to
and persuade audiences. It can also occur in other situations, for instance in
multiracial contexts where individuals have their own political need to
show that they ‘fit in’. In either case, multiple identities may be contradict-
ory, perhaps suggesting psychological issues that coincide with clinical
behaviour (cf. Alcoff, 2006).
Each of the five traits in Figure 12.2 can take bipolar type values as shown
in Table 12.2. Trait types come together in a combination to form Mindset
types (Yolles & di Fatta, 2017a), and are defined in Table 12.3 (Yolles & di
Fatta, 2017; di Fatta & Yolles, 2017). This figure is a three-dimensional
personality Mindset space where personality traits are represented, includ-
ing type polar extremes. The Mindsets shown in this space are given in
 Table 12.2 Trait types and their characteristics, distinguished as personality and context classes

DIT system Trait type Nature Key words/values

Personality Traits
Psychological Intellectual People seen as autonomous, bounded entities who should find Autonomy, creativity, expressivity,
identity – autonomy meaning in their own uniqueness and who are encouraged curiosity, broad-mindedness,
cognitive to express their internal attributes (preferences, traits, freedom
feelings, and motives). Intellectual autonomy encourages
individuals to pursue their own ideas and intellectual
directions independently.
Embeddedness People are viewed as entities embedded in the plural agency. Polite, obedient, forgiving, respect
Meaning in life comes through social relationships, tradition, self-discipline,
identifying with the group, participating in its shared way of moderate, social order, family
life and striving towards its shared goals. Such values as security, protect my public image,
social order, respect for tradition, security, and wisdom are national security, honour elders,
especially important. Embedded cultures emphasise reciprocation of favours.
maintaining the status quo and restraining actions or
inclinations that might disrupt in-group solidarity or the
traditional order. Embrace responsibility and duty and
commit to shared goals. Connected with Transactional
scripting that constitutes simple repetition and sameness.
Psychological Mastery Encourages active self-assertion to attain group or personal Ambition, success, daring,
identity – + goals and to master, direct, and change the natural and competence; enjoyment, pleasure.
figurative social environment. It is basically monistic in nature.
Affective autonomy refers to the seeking of egocentric or
altruistic ends that respond to the meaningfulness in life,
and involve purposes that are either dependent or
independent of self, generating egoistic or altruistic
fulfilment.
Table 12.2 (cont.)

DIT system Trait type Nature Key words/values

Affective autonomy Fulfilment through self-interest, preference. Exciting life, enjoyment, varied life,
pleasure, self-indulgence
Harmony Trying to understand and appreciate rather than to direct or Acceptance of position in life, world
exploit. This orientation emphasises the goals ‘unity with at peace, protect environment,
nature’, ‘protecting the environment’, and ‘world at peace’. unity with nature, world of beauty.
It is basically pluralistic in nature.
Psychological Hierarchy People are socialised to take the hierarchical distribution of Social power, authority, humility,
identity – roles for granted and to comply with the obligations and wealth.
operative rules attached to their roles. In hierarchical cultures,
organisations are more likely to construct a chain of
authority in which all are assigned well-defined roles. There
is an expectation that individuals operate for the benefit of
the social organisation. Sees the unequal distribution of
power, roles, and resources as legitimate. This has an
implicit connection with power and power processes.
Egalitarianism Seeks to induce people to recognise one another as moral Quality, social justice, responsibility,
equals who share basic interests as human beings. People are honesty, loyal, equality, honesty,
socialised to internalise a commitment to co-operate and to helpful, cooperation
feel concern for everyone’s welfare. They are expected to act
for others’ benefit as a matter of choice. Organisations are
built on co-operative negotiation among employees and
management. This has an implicit connection with service
to the agency.
Sociocultural traits

Identity social Dramatism Individual relationships to others are important, constituted as Sequenciality, communication,
sequences of interpersonal events. Communication is individualism, contractual,
important, as are individuals and their proprietary belief ideocentric.
systems, and individual social contracts. Goal formation
should be for individual benefit. Ideocentric agencies are
important, operating through social contracts between the
rational wills of its individual members.
Patternism Configurations are important in social and other forms of Configurations, relationships,
relationships. There is persistent curiosity. The social is symmetry, pattern, balance,
influenced by relationships with individuals. Some dynamics, collectivism,
importance is attached to symmetry, pattern, balance, and allocentric.
the dynamics of relationships. Goal seeking should be for
collective benefit, and collective goal formation takes
precedence over personal goal formation. Allocentric
collectives are important, where the members operate
subjectively.
Identity cultural Sensate Reality is sensory and material, pragmatism is normal, there is The senses, utilitarianism,
an interest in becoming rather than being, and happiness is materialism, becoming, process,
paramount. People are externally oriented and tend to be change, flux, evolution, progress,
instrumental and empiricism is important. transformation, pragmatism,
temporal.
Ideational Reality# is super-sensory, morality is unconditional, tradition Super-sensory, spirituality,
is of importance, there is a tendency towards creation, and humanitarianism, self-
examination of self. deprivation, creativity of ideas,
eternal.
406 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Table 12.3 Comparison of eight possible MAT3 T types with eight of the
thirty-two possible MAT5 T types

Personality trait types

Illustration of
influencing
Mindset contextual trait
no. Mindset type MAT3 T type MAT5 T type types

1 HI: hierarchical Intellectual Intellectual Dramatism

individualism autonomy autonomy
Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Sensatism
autonomy autonomy
Hierarchy Hierarchy
2 EI: egalitarian Intellectual Intellectual Dramatism
individualism autonomy autonomy
Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Sensatism
autonomy autonomy
Egalitarianism Egalitarianism
3 HS: hierarchical Intellectual Intellectual Patternism
synergism autonomy autonomy
Harmony Harmony Sensatism
Hierarchy Hierarchy
4 ES: egalitarian Intellectual Intellectual Patternism
synergism autonomy autonomy
Harmony Harmony Sensatism
Egalitarianism Egalitarianism
5 HP: hierarchical Embeddedness Embeddedness Patternism
populism Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Ideationality
autonomy autonomy
Hierarchy Hierarchy
6 EP: egalitarian Embeddedness Embeddedness Patternism
populism Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Ideationality
autonomy autonomy
Egalitarianism Egalitarianism
7 HC: hierarchical Embeddedness Embeddedness Dramatism
collectivism Harmony Harmony Ideationality
Hierarchy Hierarchy
8 EC: egalitarian Embeddedness Embeddedness Patternism
collectivism Harmony Harmony Ideationality
Egalitarianism Egalitarianism

Table 12.3 in terms of Table 12.2. For any personality, trait types may be
balanced where they take some of each extreme polar value. These can be
manifested as hybrid Mindset types, when two or more Mindset types
combine to represent a broader personality. This indicates that an identity
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 407
1
Hierarchy

(7) HC (3) HS

Operative trait
(5) HP (1) HI

HS∩EI
(8) EC
Egalitarianism (4) ES
Cognitive trait 1
0
Harmony Embeddedness Intellectual Autonomy

Figurative trait (2) EI

(6) EP
Mastery + Motive
1

Figure 12.3 Personality Mindset Space showing eight Extremal Mindset types, and
when two become conjoint, a hybrid Mindset type emerges, indicated by ∩.

does not have a single extreme psychological orientation, but rather adopts
attributes of two (or more) Mindsets. An illustration of a hybrid Mindset is
shown in Figure 12.3, by the intersection between HS and EI represented
by HS∩EI. This is the result of trait types becoming balanced. Other
combinations may also possible, though not represented – to avoid visual
complexity.

12.2.3 True and False Identities

The many-selves model of Yolles and di Fatta (2017, 2017a) distinguishes
between personality and sociocultural contextual identities (Figure 12.2),
and derives from the psychology and social psychology literature.
Concerned with this literature, Hijmans and Wester (2009) noted that
personal identity is associated with psychological aspects like self-image,
the true or false self, and the emotions and opinions one has of oneself.
The notion of the false self is a theme of the psychoanalytic literature. It
refers to situations where individuals present themselves, not through
some ‘true’ personal identity, but through a ‘false’ one that is the result of
some internal personal identity pathology (Schlauch, 2016; Winnicott,
1954). This occurs at a deeper focus of inquiry than is depicted in Figure
408 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
12.2, when one would have to conceptually ‘drill down’ to explore the
nature of the personal identity. Modelling this is beyond the scope of this
chapter.
Those who maintain a false self may fall under the classification of
abnormal psychology (Girodo, Deck & Morrison, 2002), noting that the
false personal identity may be associated with Dissociative Identity
Disorder. Here however, the focus of interest in Figure 12.2 is part of
normal psychology, and related to the extrinsic relationship between the
interconnected multiple identities, each of which is assumed to be ‘true’. In
a normal healthy personality, both personal and public identities should
maintain the same characteristics, but when different psychological selves
have distinct characteristics, the pathology that this is due to is not that of
the false self. Normal psychology allows for instabilities that may occur,
say, in the private identity, but examining the nature of these is perhaps a
relegation to abnormal psychology. Such instabilities have consequences
for the relationship between the personal and public identities, as well as
the interconnection with the contextual identities. It may also be the case
that pathologies that are nothing to do with the false self that occur as filters
or blockages in the connecting channels between the multiple identities.
Typically, filters or blockages between personal and public identities will
result in clinical behavioural anomalies of varying severity that are context
and circumstance dependent (Yolles & di Fatta, 2017).

12.2.4 Distinguishing Types of Mindset Models

As in Chapter 11, Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) is used to create qualitative
evaluations for identities. Two forms of MAT have been identified. These
were MAT3 T and MAT5 T, the former being a Mindset model involving
three personality traits, and the latter involving five traits, the three from
personality and two contextual traits relating to sociocultural contexts. MAT3
T is a psychological Mindset type within the agency with an ontology
represented through its potential for guiding behaviour though elaborative
information and strategic schemas. MAT5 T has an ontology that reflects a
system with an operative orientation, reflected by the involvement of
execution information and operative structures. Hence, ontological consist-
ency permits MAT5 T to be applied to public identity. In Table 12.3 the
main difference between MAT3 T and MAT5 T are summarised. According
to Yolles and Fink (2014a, 2014b, 2014c) and explained earlier in this book,
the Mindset types that involve intellectual autonomy are variants on
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 409
individualism, while those that involve embeddedness are variants of collect-
ivism (Oyserman et al., 2002; Yolles & Fink, 2014).

12.3 Methodology
Having elaborated on the theoretical framework used in this study, we are
now interested in seeking data that can be analysed. Morgan and Harmon
(2001) provide a review of data generating approaches, but only one
provided is suitable here, principally due to its ability to evaluate remotely:
narrative content analysis.
The approach adopted here is synergistic with the approach in the
previous chapters of this part of the book, but will be repeated as appro-
priate for coherence. Content analysis of narratives can be defined as a
qualitative-quantitative technique capable of studying and f meaningful
information from distinct kinds of documents (Krippendorff, 1980a, 2012).
It is qualitative because it uses sensation and feelings, but at the same time
it is also a quantitative technique because it uses inference to test the
reliability analysis (Tipaldo, 2014). For Stepchenkova et al. (2009), content
analysis examines textual data for patterns and structures, identifies key
features of interest, adopts/identifies categories that can be used as con-
structs to create textual meaning, uses qualitative data to capture a richer
sense of concepts, and can be subjected to quantitative data-analysis
techniques. The qualitative analysis it adopts provides exploratory inquiry
methods involving inductive reasoning. The quantitative analysis is
deductive and refers to methods that provide statistical inferences from
populations of narrative words, where selected narrative words are classi-
fied into fewer content coding categories. The methodology involves
assigning or extracting narrative content categories, counting their occur-
rences in sampled narrative blocks, and analysing associations between
categories using a frequency matrix.
Broadly, there are three content analysis approaches: conventional, dir-
ected, and summative (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). In conventional content
analysis, coding categories are inferred directly from the textual data. In
directed content analysis, one starts with a theory or relevant research
findings that guide the initial coding. In summative content analysis,
counting and comparisons occur, usually of keywords or content, followed
by the interpretation of the underlying context. It is qualitative in that it
includes latent content analysis, which refers to the process of content
interpretation.
410 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Hsieh and Shannon (2005) note that conventional content analysis is
generally used with a study design, the aim of which is to describe a
phenomenon. This approach is normally appropriate when existing theory
or research literature on a phenomenon is limited. Here, preconceived
coding categories are avoided, allowing categories and names for categories
to arise from the data. This essentially results in an empirically driven
model, where insights and categories emerge from the data. An issue for
this approach is the possible failure in developing a complete understand-
ing of the context, thus failing to identify key coding categories. This may
derive results not accurately representing the data, which can have an
impact on credibility, trustworthiness and internal validity (Lincoln &
Guba, 1985). In directed content analysis, there is existing theory about a
phenomenon that requires pragmatic investigation, resulting in a descrip-
tion that can explain events. This constitutes a deductive use of theory, in
due course delivering research questions. It can provide predictions about
the variables or their relationships, thereby determining the initial coding
scheme or relationships between codes. In this case content analysis is
guided by a more structured process than in a conventional approach. This
is due to the theory pointing to key concepts or variables as initial coding
categories. Following on from this, operational definitions for each cat-
egory are determined. In summative content analysis, one identifies and
quantifies certain words or content in text to understanding the contextual
use being made to explore usage. In addition to creating word counts,
latent content analysis is involved, which refers to the process of interpret-
ation of content (Holsti, 1969), and where a focus occurs on discovering
underlying meanings of the words or the content (Morse & Field, 1995).
This can provide basic insights into the way in which words are used, and
hence contributes to sematic attributes. However, results may be con-
strained by lack of attention being given to the broader meanings present
in the data. Again, this approach centres on trustworthiness and credibility.
Qualitative researches can be devoid of objectivity since, by definition,
they are characterised by the subjective perspective of an inquirer in the
content analysis, where critical to it are the evaluations of the coders during
the coding process. For Ratner (2002), objectivity can be enhanced in the
face of subjectivity by moderating objectivity limitations using appropriate
inference techniques, such as Krippendorff Alpha (K.Alpha) to measure
reliability.
Here we adopt a summative inquiry to content analysis centring on the
political rhetoric of Theresa May. Direction is provided by agency theory
using keywords from Table 12.2. Once a word count and latent analysis is
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 411
determined, percentage frequencies found for each variable being explored
can be taken as a measure of influence for that variable in the identity being
explored. Data reliability (Lombard et al., 2002; Krippendorff, 2002) then
occurs, especially due to the latent analysis.

12.3.1 Narrative Data Sampling

Following Hodder (1994), content analysis refers to a family of techniques
for studying the ‘mute evidence’ not only from texts, but also from artefacts.
Specifically, Hodder indicates typical texts for use in content analysis, which
include (1) written text, such as books and papers; (2) oral text, such as speech
and theatrical performance; (3) iconic text, such as drawings, paintings, and
icons; (4) audiovisual text, such as TV programmes, movies, and videos; (5)
hypertexts, which are texts found on the Internet. Following this argument,
to perform the content analysis, we adopt
(1) leaked secret audio of Goldman Sachs talk in the month of May shows
Theresa May feared businesses would leave and wanted the United
Kingdom to take a lead in Europe (The Guardian);1
(2) video of Theresa May’s early general election speech (The Telegraph);2
(3) video of Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn Face off (Time).3
These narrative sources together constitute two sub-contextual election
populations: (1) business; (2) and (3) general. However, it is posited as
unlikely that substantial narrative adjustments occurred between them in
the heat of the election, especially since the business community is also part
of the general public.

12.3.2 The Coding Process

Following the previous chapter (originating in di Fatta & Yolles, 2017), the
approach in undertaking the content analysis is based on the following
steps:
1. A coding team is created, and narrative data are identified and allocated
to its members.
2. Pre-processing occurs when all members undertake their direct content
analyses individually; then inquirers come together in the team to pool
the outcomes of the individual analyses.
3. The ‘type analysis’ occurs through which the types have statistically
assigned frequencies.
412 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
4. After coding a reliability analysis is performed to determine which
results, indicative of variable values, are acceptable (Krippendorff,
2004, 2011).
5. Consequently, trait types (with frequencies) are determined, that are
able to form Mindset type classifications.
For the UK analysis of Theresa May seven coders were selected. These
include a UK journalist and six PhD students: two in economics, two in
political sciences, and two in communication. They were asked to analyse
the selected research units and to classify the corresponding trait types, as
shown in Table 12.4.
For each of these trait types, keyword identification was made in
accordance with Table 12.2, and narrative texts were examined to deter-
mine if they were either present or absent. The term present refers to the
semantic themes identifiable explicitly by the meanings of the data (in this
way, the inquirer simply identifies what is expressed as part of a narrative).
Here, summative analysis involves a word count and an interpretation of
key word equivalences that together deliver frequency values. By the term
absent is meant those semantic thematic interests not found to be present in
the research units.
As part of the analysis, two sets of frequency results are generated, as
shown in Table 12.4. One is indicative of public identity and uses MAT5 T
Mindset types that involve both psychological and contextual attributes.
The other is a subset of the data that allows personal identity to emerge,
and uses MAT3 T involving only psychological attributes. If it happens
that MAT3 T and MAT5 T types are the same, then the personality is free
of analytic pathologies and one would not expect to see any clinical issues
arising. This is because a balanced personality will have created behavioural
imperatives. However, where they have differences, analytic pathologies

Table 12.4 List of bipolar trait types, with indication (in bold) of cultural trait
influence on personality

Systemic class Bipolar trait types

Social system context Dramatism Patternism

Cultural system context Sensate Ideational
Personality system Intellectual autonomy Embeddedness
Mastery Harmony
Hierarchy Egalitarianism
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 413
exist. The nature of the analytical pathology should imply certain appro-
priate clinical psychological pathologies.
Results for personal and public identities arise through the identification
of trait types from which classification of Mindset types is possible. Using
content analysis, the frequencies of keywords by direct count and latent
analysis, relating to given variables, is determined. The results are then
examined for reliability4 using a K.Alpha (Krippendorff Alpha) as an index
(Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007; Krippendorff, 2011, 2011a). Reliability
criterion (Krippendorff, 2004) for variables with known narrative frequen-
cies are bounded as follows:
1 ≥ K:Alpha ≥ 0:8 :¼ strongly reliable; 0:8 > K:Alpha ≥ 0:7 :¼ acceptable ð1Þ

We shall here adopt the proposition that under reliability a variable is

significant with respect to its influence in a Mindset when it is either
strongly reliable or acceptable. K.Alpha is a statistical measure of agreement
that works on the value of variables, and is usually applied in psychological
testing where alternative tests of the same material need to be compared. It
generalises various statistics to create ‘inter-rater’ or ‘between-coder’ reli-
ability. It is also applicable to small samples. Under conditions of such
reliability, determined from an SPSS macro available from Hayes and
Krippendorff (2009), we can use frequencies as an indicator of variable
influence in Mindset types. This is particularly significant when dealing
with a conjoint set, when scaling becomes essential to deliver relative
meaning.

12.3.3 Dealing with Unreliability

The case of K.Alpha < 0.7 is problematic is due to inter-rater dissidence,
so that the frequency results for indicated variables are not reliable and
hence cannot be accepted. It is not appropriate to reject variables having
unreliable results, since this biases the results. The need then, is to
determine how to respond to situations involving unreliable results.
One way is to formulate an iterative inquiry approach that resolves
inter-coder dissidences, allowing dissidences to be incrementally reduced
and eliminated.
The iterative method adopted centres on the Delphi method (Linstone
& Turoff, 1975), a slight improvement on the study adopted in the last
chapter, useful when results need to iterated towards a stable result when
issues of uncertainty arise. Within the context here, this is a structured
414 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
communication technique in which a group of coders determine the latent
scores for variables. A first pass is made to determine variable frequencies.
The K.Alpha is then calculated, and unreliable results are identified. A
second pass centring on unreliable variables is then undertaken through a
facilitator who provides an anonymised summary of the coder’s latent
frequency evaluations from the previous evaluation pass. The coders are
encouraged to revise their earlier answers in light of the replies of other
members of their group. It is supposed that during this process the range of
the evaluations will reduce the degree of inter-rater dissidence diminishes,
and the group converges towards K.Alpha reliable results. The iterations
are halted when all variable frequencies have reliable outcomes (i.e., K.
Alpha ≥ 0.7).

12.3.4 Variable and Mindset Selection

Given a situation where all variables have frequency values that are con-
sidered stable, there is a need to select which collections of variables are
significant to enable Mindsets to be indicated. Several propositions are
needed for this. The first proposition relates to the selection of variable that
are to be considered relevant to represent the personality. Variables with
higher frequencies have a greater impact on the individual, and are thus are
considered better represented in Mindsets. A second proposition may be
that, in the same way that we have been looking towards convergence to
stable K.Alpha > 0.7 values in the Delphi iterative procedure, we might also
seek convergence to variables that move towards convergence towards
stable frequencies.
With respect to Mindsets, we can adopt the proposition that a person-
ality should be considered healthy, and only considered otherwise if
evidence is provided. This means that if there are options within which
personal and public Mindsets can be identified as being the same (given the
above propositions about variable selection), then where they are the same
the personality does not entail inherent pathologies. This is consistent with
the principle of Occam’s razor which states that: if you have two equally
likely solutions to a problem, choose the simplest (Mabkhout, 2003). We
shall adopt twin Occam’s razor principles, where the simplest outcome
assumes that (1) pathologies are minimum, allowing one to argue that
public and private identities should be as close as possible, and (2) where
options exist for multiple intersections between Mindset types, the least
number of intersections will be adopted for a given identity classification.
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 415
12.3.5 The Scaling of Variables
Scaling involves a systematic method for recasting a set of interrelated
variables so that they become dimensionless and comparative. Proper
scaling ensures that inherently connected variables take values that together
sum to the order one. This enables the magnitude of the dimensionless set
of variables to be assessed, simplifying assumptions that can be invoked in
explaining given situations.
When connecting ontologically related variables within a system, scaling
allows the variables to be compared in a single frame of reference. Scaling here
occurs across conjoint variables by using an appropriate norm relating to
frequency scores. There are a family of possible norms that can be used,
each of which relate to different interests. This family is represented by Lp,
for some p>0 (Chapra, 2012). Given the existence of bipolar trait values x1 and
x2 that each contribute to a Mindset type, the Lp norm ǁxǁp is given by
X
‖ x ‖ p ¼ ðn i¼1 jxi jp Þ1=p : ð2Þ

The most used Lp is the averaging Euclidean norm for p = 2, used (for
instance) in calculating means and standard deviations during statistical
analysis. However, the most appropriate for a linear conjoint influence on
intersection Mindset types is the L1 norm,5 since in this case more of one
bipolar trait type means less of the other:
X
‖ x ‖ 1 ¼n i¼1 jxi j; ð3Þ

where |xi| is the value of the bipolar trait type xi, and i = 1, 2. We now define
the conjoint trait type cxi as the scaled representation of xi, where
X
c
xi ¼ jxi j= ‖ x ‖ 1 ¼ jxi j=n i ¼ 1jxi j: ð4Þ

Now, the frequencies of the variables concerned are all positive, so this
reduces to
X
c
xi ¼ xi =n i¼1 xi ; ð5Þ

and where
X X X
n i¼1
c
xi¼ n x=
i¼1 i n
x
i¼1 i
¼ 1: ð6Þ

Recalling that we are dealing with two bipolar conjoint types for i = 1,2, and
that more of one bipolar trait type means less influence of the other on
intersecting Mindset types, scaling by the L1 norm Equation (6) gives
416 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
c
x1 þc x2 ¼ 1: ð7Þ
Once K.Alpha shows which variables are acceptable, one can examine their
scaled narrative frequencies to estimate level of importance/significance.

12.4 The Results: Personal and Public Identity Measures

The outcome of the content analysis narrative word frequency for trait
types for the public identity of Theresa May and K.Alpha indices for
reliability are shown in Table 12.5, and personal identity in Table 12.6. It
should be clear that in the identification of variables relating to public

Table 12.5 Class evaluation for public identity of Theresa May across ten
Mindset types for MAT5 T, where arrows indicate changes in percentage
frequency value during delphi iterations

Percentage Frequencies
Sensate Ideational Intellectual autonomy Embeddedness Mastery + Affective autonomy

Present 76.2 28.6 76.2 28.6 66.7

D0
Absent 23.8 71.4 23.8 71.4 33.3
K.Alpha 0.85 0.73 0.85 0.73 0.64 Zero
Harmony Hierarchy Egalitarianism Dramatism Patternism Delphi
Present 19.1 76.2 33.3 71.4 23.8 Iteration
Absent 80.9 23.8 66.7 28.6 76.2

K.Alpha 0.88 0.85 0.64 0.73 0.85

Sensate Ideational Intellectual autonomy Embeddedness Mastery +Affective autonomy

66.7
D1
Present 76.2 28.6 76.2 28.6
Absent 23.8 71.4 23.8 71.4 33.3 First
K.Alpha 0.85 0.73 0.85 0.85 0.64 Delphi
Harmony Hierarchy Egalitarianism Dramatism Patternism Iteration
Present 19.1 80.9 23.8 71.4 19.1
76.2
Absent 80.9 19.1 28.6 80.9
K.Alpha 0.88 0.85 0.73 0.73 0.88

Iteratively Further Improved Percentage Frequencies

Sensate Ideational Intellectual autonomy Embeddedness Mastery + Affective autonomy

Present 80.9 28.6 76.2 28.6 76.2 D2

23.8
Absent 19.1 71.4 23.8 71.4
Second
K.Alpha 0.88 0.73 0.85 0.85 0.73 Delphi
Harmony Hierarchy Egalitarianism Dramatism Patternism Iteration
Present 19.1 80.9 23.8 71.4 19.1

Absent 80.9 19.1 76.2 28.6 80.9

K.Alpha 0.88 0.85 0.73 0.73 0.88

 Table 12.6 Class evaluation for personal identity of Theresa May across eight Mindset types for MAT3 T

Percentage frequencies

Intellectual Mastery + affective

autonomy autonomy Hierarchy Egalitarianism Harmony Embeddedness

Present 80.9 71.4 80.9 71.4 23.8 23.8

Absent 19.1 28.6 19.1 28.6 76.2 76.2
K.Apha 0.88 0.73 0.88 0.73 0.85 0.73
418 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
identity, there three iterations (D0, D1, D2) were required to ensure
stability in K.Alpha. A ‘ground zero’ set of K.Alpha values was followed
by two iterations resulting in stable outcomes.
Table 12.5 also shows the frequency results after two Delphi iterations as
K.Alpha values converge, enabling us to create a decision schema by which
we can select relevant frequencies independent of the K.Alpha values – the
purpose of which is to indicate whether the frequency values provided are
valid. As expected, the results tend to converge to more reliable values
through the Delphi recursive rationale, which permits the analysis to be
pushed towards convergent results (Linstone & Turoff, 1975). In particular
through this process, sensate, embeddedness, mastery + affective auton-
omy, egalitarianism, and patternism all show increasing in K.Alpha scores
allowing us to accept the frequencies.
In the decision criterion we shall define three intervals into which per
cent frequencies may fall: (0–33, 34–66, 67–100). We shall consider that
frequencies falling into the higher interval are sufficient to significantly
influence identity. Thus, we have a cut-off for influential frequency values
below 66 per cent, thereby rejecting these variables as contributing signifi-
cantly to the Mindsets. As a result, we can compare MAT5 T and MAT3 T
outcomes as shown in Table 12.7. Since only three traits can be assigned to
a particular Mindset, it is clear from the results that in public identity there
is only one Mindset indicated, where in personal identity two are indicated
in intersection. To adhere to the Occam’s razor pathology principle indi-
cated earlier, that public and personal identities should be assumed to be
similar unless indicated otherwise, we establish two intersecting triple
combinations of variables for personal identity with one variable being
distinct Table 12.8), and one for public identity.

Table 12.7 Selected variables in the higher interval for MAT5 T

Type variable Personal identity (% freq.) Public identity (% freq.)

Identity indicator MAT3 T MAT5 T

Culture Sensate (80.9)
Personality Intellectual autonomy (80.9) Intellectual autonomy (76.2),
Mastery + affective Mastery + Affective autonomy (76.2)
autonomy (71.4)
Hierarchy (80.9) Hierarchy (80.9)
Egalitarianism (71.4)
Social context Dramatism (71.4)
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 419
Table 12.8 Resulting combinations of variables for MAT3 T

Type variable Personal identity (% freq.)

Identity indicator MAT3 T

Personality Intellectual autonomy (80.9) Intellectual autonomy (80.9)

Mastery + affective Mastery + affective
autonomy (71.4) autonomy (71.4)
Hierarchy (80.9) Egalitarianism (71.4)

Table 12.9 MAT3 T trait types with their frequencies, where cognitive entities
are private identity (MAT3 T) attractors for the traits

Personality trait types

MAT3 T type
Mindset type Cognitive Figurative Operative

HI: hierarchical Intellectual Mastery + Affective Hierarchy (80.9)

individualism autonomy (80.9) autonomy (71.4)
EI: egalitarian Intellectual Mastery + Affective Egalitarianism (71.4)
individualism autonomy (80.9) autonomy (71.4)
HS: hierarchical Intellectual Harmony (23.8) Hierarchy (80.9)
synergism autonomy (80.9)
ES: egalitarian Intellectual Harmony (23.8) Egalitarianism (71.4)
synergism autonomy (80.9)
HP: hierarchical Embeddedness (23.8) Mastery + Affective Hierarchy (80.9)
populism autonomy (71.4)
EP: egalitarian Embeddedness (23.8) Mastery + Affective Egalitarianism (71.4)
populism autonomy (71.4)
HC: hierarchical Embeddedness (23.8) Harmony (23.8) Hierarchy (80.9)
collectivism
EC: egalitarian Embeddedness (23.8) Harmony (23.8) Egalitarianism (71.4)
collectivism

Results and reliability for personal identity are shown in Table 12.6. In
Table 12.9 we formulate the possibilities for Mindset creation that occur,
including the outcomes from Table 12.7. Here it is clear that Hierarchical
Individualism (HI) and Egalitarian Individualism (EI) Mindsets are the
major contributors to personal identity, this is expressed as the intersection
HI∩EI. The other Mindsets have a more minor role to play in the
personal identity composition, for instance due to embeddedness having
a low value of 23.8 per cent influence. While it is feasible to consider
420 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
minority influences on personal and public identity according to the
percentage influences of the different variables using scaling, this is beyond
our interest here since we are seeking to determine if personal and public
identities are the same, or differ. Difference indicate a pathology, though
where the distinctions are not severe, these pathologies may be mild. As
such, we shall look towards the major variable influences, and the way that
they coalesce into Mindset types. Where we have conjoint variables, and
hence hybrid Mindsets, it is important to develop a way of coherently
referring to the personality that arises, this having significance where more
than one intersection occurs.
We note that in Table 12.8 the cognitive type cultural trait is an attractor
for the rest of the agency. Now, Intellectual autonomy (80.9) and Hierarchy
(80.9) are connected due to their common frequencies (80.9). Similarly,
Mastery + Affective autonomy (71.4) and Egalitarianism (71.4) are likely to
be directly connected, as are Embeddedness (23.8) and Harmony (23.8). The
first clarity from this is that Intellectual autonomy is dominant as the leading
trait type, while the non-dominant Embeddedness has a lesser influence. In
this case the MAT3 T Mindset type implied as active for personal identity is
Hierarchical Individualism (HI) since this has the highest average frequency
– consistent with Intellectual autonomy being an attractor for personal
identity. One explanation for the lower frequency value for Mastery +
Affective autonomy is that there might be an analytic pathology in say the
operative intelligence of Figure 12.1 (I1,1 or I1,2) that filters or inhibits
information flow within the personality. Another explanation is that the
strategic identity cognitive system is unstable, leaving the instrumental
couple (composed of the personal and public identity systems) to operate
dynamically without private identity influence, this resulting in personal and
public identities being driven purely by the contextual identities. There is
some additional support (through Occam’s razor) in identifying HI as the
MAT3 T Mindset type, since it is consistent with that of MAT5 T.
Once variables have been identified as significant, classification as
Mindset types can be determined using Tables 12.2 and 12.3. The distinc-
tion between personal and public identity is that the former adopts the
three-trait Mindset schema MAT3 T that measures personality, while the
latter adopts the five-trait Mindset schema MAT5 T that measures agency.
This is possible because of the ontological equivalence between the mul-
tiple identity and agency models (Figure 12.2), and the fact that public
identity is manifested at agency level through the intelligences. From their
ontological equivalence, we also note that personal identity (MAT3 T) is
indirectly concerned with influences from contextual system attributes,
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 421
while public identity (MAT5 T) is directly concerned with contextual
system attributes. This approach has some correspondence with the prin-
ciples of dimensional analysis (Sonin, 2001) in discussions concerning
similarity, referring to some equivalence between two things that are
ontologically related, connected, but different.
There is an issue with the names for MAT5 T classifications. MAT3 T
has eight possible Mindset types already identified, while MAT5 T has
thirty-two possible MAT5 T Mindset types not all named. The simplest
way to name these recognises that identity has two components, personal-
ity identities (public, personal and private), and contextual (sociocultural)
identities. One solution therefore, is to adopt the eight MAT3 T Mindset
type names, and to assign contextual classes to this since it is these contexts
that are the multipliers. We shall see this in action shortly.
The Occam’s razor proposition (2) informs us that in deciding the
composition of a hybrid Mindset, if more than one intersection is possible,
there must be compelling evidence to select more than one. This leaves
open the question concerning which Embeddedness Mindset type(s) will
intersect with HI. Since Embeddedness is an attractor for the personal
identity, we may be looking for trait type frequencies that are on par. This
might suggest Egalitarian Individualism (EI) since we see lower operative
type influences. From Table 12.8, EI has a larger value for egalitarianism
(71.4), which is the lowest value for operative types. This high value might
be due to some analytical pathology (e.g., an information filter) in the
operative or figurative intelligences, or may be the consequence of instabil-
ity in the cognitive system private identity. Having said this, the discussion
being expressed here is one of classification, less important than the scaled
trait types that determine the make-up of personal identity shown in
Tables 12.4 and 12.5.

12.5 Interpreting the Results through Identifying Mindset Types

Before interpreting the results, we recall our claim that other approaches to
profiling individuals are inadequate to respond to our research question
concerning Theresa May’s psychology and her capacity for political incon-
sistency. Of three evaluations that can be found on the web, one comes
from an astrologist, one from a political correspondent, and one from a
psychologist. While some might argue that an astrological view is not
scientific since it has no scientific conceptual base, it is in an identical
position to many of the empirical models that are academically supported
based on only their observational basis. Taking the three approaches as
422 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
comparatively acceptable, it may be pointed out that none explicitly expose
clinical personality issues that might explain inconsistency. An astrological
view of May, according to CG (2017), is that she is freedom oriented,
embraces travel, adventure, variety, meeting new people, longs to experi-
ence all of life, multi-tasks, does not like being restricted to one area of
activity, embraces change, and is adaptable and courageous. She is a good
communicator, and is highly disciplined, but tends not to complete tasks.
Despite this she is perseverant and an individualist. She is also highly
ambitious, stubborn, and clings to ideas and projects beyond their sell-
by-date. From a political analysis, DW (2017) indicates that she is often
characterised as robotic and awkward, and has refused to take part in
televised debates with other party leaders ahead of the election. She is
often seen to be humourless, severe, and unflinching. She also relies on
sound bites. She is a traditionalist, and socially conservative. She is also a
sceptic of the EU, immigration, and has a provincial outlook. Goodfield
(2016), looking at May from a psychological perspective, notes that she is a
systemic thinker, and can be quite patient when seeking to achieve her
goals. She is also trustworthy, but distrusts her own power, and is a
reluctant leader. She embraces humour with irony, ruminates, is logical,
and is open to difference. She also has a significant degree of understanding
of others with respect to maintaining high standards, which she also
embraces. She likes retribution when it is deemed appropriate, and is
responsible, compassionate, introspective and open to difference.
Another study of May by the political psychologist Barry Richards
(2019) sees that she is likely self-deceptive, this minimally involving a
person who seems to acquire and maintain some false belief in the face of
evidence to the contrary as a consequence of some motivation, but who
may also display behaviour suggesting some awareness of the truth
(DeWeese-Boyd & Young, 2016). Richards further notes that May has
made extraordinarily heavy use of projection, the psychological defensive
process in which others are seen in a way that you refuse to see in yourself.
When this occurs in a seriously disturbed mind it arises as extreme and
disabling phobias and paranoid delusions – though in the case of May it
appears not to have achieved delusionality. She also projects a sense of guilt
on to others, and disowns her dogmatic rigidity by attributing it to her
opponents whether or not with validity. This is beyond, says Richards, the
usual projection-based ritual of exchanging accusations between political
parties. May’s use of projection is also applied to identify and attack an
enemy within, perhaps politicians or the Westminster elite or the political
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 423
class, and in this sense there is some consistency with populism, a political
position she has been accused of brushing against (Barr, 2019).
While these profiles do not explicitly explain inconsistency, we shall
now see how MAT is able to do so.

12.5.1 Public Identity

Relating Table 12.5 to the trait types acceptable (due to K.Alpha ≥ 7.0, in
Table 12.2) a single Mindset type is indicated: Hierarchical Individualism
(HI). In Table 12.10 we list the traits that are responsible this with their
frequencies, where the scaled frequencies of 1 show that it is the only
influence as cxi.
Noting that personality traits are of significance to personal identity, we
extend this by noting also that contextual identities are significant to public
identity. The contextual trait type values arise from key terms for each of
dramatism, sensate and ideational values as shown in Table 12.2. Theresa
May’s public personality is indicated by the hybrid Mindset type HI(CIR)
where class CIR refers to Creative Instrumental Relationalist (Table 12.10).
This facilitates a means of labelling public identity Mindsets for Theresa
May, as shown in Table 12.11, abstracted from Table 12.1.

12.5.2 Personal Identity Mindset Types

Following on from the earlier discussion concerning which MAT3 T types
are engaged to create hybrid Mindsets, we formulate Table 12.12 by scaling
the values to indicate influences, noting that we have applied the principle

Table 12.10 Inferential traits for public identity of Theresa May, with the
importance of acceptable variables determined by percentage appearance in
narratives

Core public hybrid Mindset type HI

HS trait type (frequencies) Scaled frequencies for cxi

Intellectual autonomy (80.9) 76.2/76.2 = 1
Mastery + affective autonomy (71.4) 19.1/19.1 = 1
Hierarchy (80.9) 76.2/76.2 = 1
Contextual class
Dramatism (relational) (71.4) 71.4/71.4 = 1
Sensate (instrumental) (80.9) 78.9/78.9 = 1
424 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Table 12.11 The public identity HI(CIR) for Theresa May

Hierarchical individualism (HI)

Intellectual People seen as autonomous, bounded entities who should find

autonomy meaning in their own uniqueness and who are encouraged to express
their internal attributes (preferences, traits, feelings and motives).
Intellectual autonomy encourages individuals to pursue their own
ideas and intellectual directions independently.
Mastery + affective Encourages active self-assertion to attain group or personal goals and to
autonomy master, direct and change the natural and social environment. It is
basically monistic in nature. Affective autonomy refers to the
seeking of egocentric or altruistic ends that respond to the
meaningfulness in life, and involve purposes that are either
dependent or independent of self, generating egoistic or altruistic
fulfilment. Fulfilment occurs through self-interest.
Hierarchy People are socialised to take the hierarchical distribution of roles for
granted and to comply with the obligations and rules attached to
their roles. In hierarchical cultures, organisations are more likely to
construct a chain of authority in which all are assigned well-defined
roles. There is an expectation that individuals operate for the benefit
of the social organisation. Sees the unequal distribution of power,
roles and resources as legitimate. This has an implicit connection
with power and power processes.
Sensate Sensory. Pragmatic. Instrumental. Reality is sensory and material,
pragmatism is normal, there is an interest in becoming rather than
being, and happiness is paramount. People are externally oriented
and tend to be instrumental and empiricism is important.
Dramatist Relationalist. Sequential. Communication. Contracts. Individualist.
Ideocentric. Individual relationships to others are important,
constituted as sequences of interpersonal events. Communication is
important, as are individuals and their proprietary belief systems,
and individual social contracts. Goal formation should be for
individual benefit. Ideocentric collectives are important, operating
through social contracts between the rational wills of its individual
members.

(ii) of Occam’s razor to identify a dual hybrid Mindset type. Here then, HI
and EI are evenly influential within the identity. Here, we see that
hierarchy and egalitarianism have equal influence in this personal identity.
According to this, Theresa May has the traits shown in Table 12.13. So,
Hierarchical Individualism (HI) intersects with Egalitarian Individualism
(EI) as HI∩EI, and people are seen (for instance) as moral equals and who
are socialised to have collective interests who should also be seen to comply
with the rules imposed upon them. The implication of this is that her
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 425
Table 12.12 Inferential traits for personal identity of Theresa May, with the
importance of acceptable variables determined by percentage appearance in
narratives

Core Personal Hybrid Mindset Type HI∩EI

HI trait type EI trait type Relative scaled

(frequencies) (frequencies) Mindset influences frequencies for cxi

Intellectual Intellectual Intellectual 80.9/80.9 = 1

autonomy autonomy autonomy
(80.9) (80.9)
Mastery + affective Mastery + affective Mastery + affective 71.4/71.4 = 1
autonomy (71.4) autonomy (71.4) autonomy
Hierarchy (80.9) Egalitarianism Hierarchy and 80.9(80.9 + 80.9)
(80.9) egalitarianism = 0.5

governance should be a benevolent authority that works on behalf of its

social membership. This position can be problematic where government
policy initiatives work on behalf of only certain sections of society, thus
potentially resulting in internal personality conflicts.

12.5.3 Discussion: The Analysis of Theresa May’s Personality

A stable private identity orientates both personal and public identity
through processes of internalisation using operative and figurative intelli-
gences. Private identity is the ‘deep’ self-referential driver for the personal
and public identities. The relationship between the three psychological
identities is considered by Yolles and di Fatta (2017a: 8), who note that
personal identity is the cognitive dimension that regulates the agency, and
schemas reside there that are able to drive public identity. These latter two
taken together also represent an important operative couple that works
strategically as a driver for behaviour. It is influenced by private identity,
but if this becomes ‘confused’ or unstable, the operative couple becomes
‘instrumental’. In this case, personal identity and public identity orientate
each other through strategic operative intelligence and its feedback, and
both are influences by arbitrary (and thus sometimes popularist) social
perspectives. However, both are directly influenced by processes of intern-
alisation that occurs through agency operative intelligence feedback from
social identity. As noted in Chapter 10, confused identities indicate unstable
states, and are referred to as state pathologies (e.g., Pavey, 2014). They can
result in situations where, for instance, an individual’s personal and public
identities (Figure 12.3) operate together as an instrumental system and ‘feed-
426 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
Table 12.13 Trait types indicated for Theresa May’s balanced personal identity
(hybrid Mindsets HI∩EI)

Hierarchical individualism (HI)

Intellectual People seen as autonomous, bounded entities who should find

autonomy meaning in their own uniqueness and who are encouraged to express
their internal attributes (preferences, traits, feelings and motives).
Intellectual autonomy encourages individuals to pursue their own
ideas and intellectual directions independently.
Mastery + affective Encourages active self-assertion to attain group or personal goals and to
autonomy master, direct and change the natural and social environment. It is
basically monistic in nature. Affective autonomy refers to the
seeking of egocentric or altruistic ends that respond to the
meaningfulness in life, and involve purposes that are either
dependent or independent of self, generating egoistic or altruistic
fulfilment. Fulfilment through self-interest.
Hierarchy People are socialised to take the hierarchical distribution of roles for
granted and to comply with the obligations and rules attached to
their roles. In hierarchical cultures, organisations are more likely to
construct a chain of authority in which all are assigned well-defined
roles. There is an expectation that individuals operate for the benefit
of the social organisation. Sees the unequal distribution of power,
roles and resources as legitimate. This has an implicit connection
with power and power processes.
Egalitarianism individualism (EI)
Intellectual People seen as autonomous, bounded entities who should find
autonomy meaning in their own uniqueness and who are encouraged to express
their internal attributes (preferences, traits, feelings and motives).
Intellectual autonomy encourages individuals to pursue their own
ideas and intellectual directions independently.
Mastery + affective Encourages active self-assertion to attain group or personal goals and to
autonomy master, direct and change the natural and social environment. It is
basically monistic in nature. Affective autonomy refers to the
seeking of egocentric or altruistic ends that respond to the
meaningfulness in life, and involve purposes that are either
dependent or independent of self, generating egoistic or altruistic
fulfilment. Fulfilment through self-interest.
Egalitarianism Seeks to induce people to recognise one another as moral equals who
share basic interests as human beings. People are socialised to
internalise a commitment to co-operate and to feel concern for
everyone’s welfare. They are expected to act for others’ benefit as a
matter of choice. Organisations are built on co-operative
negotiation among employees and management. This has an
implicit connection with service to the agency.
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 427
off’ each other in a way that is affected more by social influences that by
internal processes. One of the consequences of state pathologies is explained
by Gal (2002), through a broad semiotic analysis that initially explores the
boundaries of what it is that constitutes identity. She indicates that when
instabilities arise in (say) private identity, identity relationships become
confused. The consequences of this can, for instance, be found in issues
that arise in multiracial or gender contexts (Rockquemore, Brunsma &
Delgado, 2009; Davis, 2006; McClain-DaCosta, 2003).
Thus, according to theory, Theresa May has a lack of personality stability
since her personal and public identities are different (which might imply a
private identity instability). Thus, identity relationships become confused as
are contexts, this delivering the potential for inherent contradictions
leading to the possibility of inconsistency in behaviour. If such a situation
arises for Theresa May, then this would validate the original hypothesis
which indicates that an analytic pathology can clinically explain her
behavioural inconsistency. Earlier it was explained that Richardson
(2019) had perceived that Theresa May was self-deceptive. This supports
the proposition that she has a personality instability since, for Monts et al.
(1977), self-deception is consistent with personality instability.
This research has shown that cognitively, Theresa May has an analytic
pathology between her public identity (HI) and her personal identity
(HI∩EI)(CIR). Her political positioning occurs through her public iden-
tity, intended to demonstrate her suitability as prime minister during
Brexit negotiations with the EU. The dominating trait type that emerges
is hierarchy, which depicts a connection with power and process, where
May wishes to show that she can sit at the top of a chain of authority. Her
public identity also involves dramatism, and this involves an ideocentric
orientation that denotes a self-centred interest related to doing things in
her own way, rather than placing reliance upon others or through their
ways. Publicly May has submerged her personal egalitarian streak. As part
of her personal identity, she supports the status quo. Egalitarianism plus
support for status quo might be consistent with an inner self that does not
adhere to Brexit since differentiation between Europeans and British is not
a prominent perspective, and if this is the case it could create inner conflict
as she pursues an extreme form of it publicly. However, such conjectures
would need to be better assessed through a more extended clinical analysis.
From the analysis conducted here, Theresa May has shown a rela-
tively balanced and integrated individual personality while still being
subject to personality instability. Her balance is explained by her hybrid
Mindset – showing an ability to straddle extreme cognitive positions.
428 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
She also has an analytical pathology that arises because her public self is
partly at divergence with her personal self, possibly through private
identity instability. One might deduce that this is part of the explan-
ation that lies at the basis of her failure to present herself suitably during
the election process. A system instability can result in an analytical
pathology, or an analytic pathology can result in an increase in system
uncertainties that provides a basis for a move towards identity instabil-
ity. In a normal coherent individual, a stable private identity influences
the personal and public identities, and one might therefore find that
each psychological identity will have the same Mindset type. When this
does not happen, one might then be interested in examining the stability
of the private identity. However, this may not be susceptible to remote
analysis, rather requiring psychoanalysis.
The difference that arises between May’s public and personal identity,
while not gross, might occur because the former indicates her ability to
‘command and control’. If this is correct, then perhaps her underlying stand
against Brexit that she demonstrated while she was Home Secretary in the
UK government, was now being compromised, and her underlying personal
identity mastery trait allowed her to dismiss the huge level of uncertainty and
its immense potential for socioeconomic harm. However, her personal
identity, while centring on hierarchy, also embraces attributes of collectiv-
ism. As such the command and control attribute is challenged, leading to
internal conflicts that must be reflected in some way through her behaviour.
There is a possibility that these contradictions might in the longer term
stimulate each other. To understand this, we refer to Sorokin’s (1964) idea of
idealistic society that constitutes an ‘ideal’ balance between the sensate and
ideational bipolar types reflective of Zhang’s (2011) notion of balancing
contradictions. In the same way, the individualism-collectivism of May’s
personality is the result of a hybrid intersection between two Mindset types
that embrace both individualism (due to the lead intellectual autonomy
trait) and collectivism (due to the lead Embeddedness trait). A strong
tendency towards one of these would enable her to exclude options that
may be essential for the constructive development of a society. Thus, hybrid
Mindset positions are likely to be socially desirable.

12.6 Chapter in Brief

• Dynamic Identity Theory, which explains how identities develop, is

used to show the relationship between the multiple identities (in a
 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types 429
hierarchy) which impact on personality creating imperatives for
behaviour.
• Mindset Agency Theory has also been connected with identity and
personality theories, and the outcome was elaborated on conceptually
to include Dynamic Identity Theory.
• Developing identities result in personality adjustments through trait
movements.
• The theory that results from such considerations is then applied to
Theresa May, the UK prime minister in 2017.
• As occurred with Donald Trump, a selection of her election narratives
was taken, and a summative content analysis is applied in order to
examine her public and personal identities using MAT.
• Mindscape analysis was conducted using MAT3 T and MAT5 T, the
former relating to her personal identity, and the latter to her public
identity.
• The result of the study demonstrated some distinction, suggesting a
mild analytical pathology.
• The pathology for Theresa May that occurs between her personal and
public identities may not be sever, but they create entry into explan-
ations for clinical pathologies concerning her political inconsistencies.
• The approach adopted here (1) explains the relationship between per-
sonality and identity; and (2) can evaluate personality using a qualita-
tive-quantitative approach, undertaking a comparative evaluation of
multiple identities to explain clinical psychological conditions.
• It is clearly shown that the relationship between affect and cognition
agency are characterised in the same way, through a duality between the
psyche and the material.
 Summarising Narrative for Part III

This part of the book has developed methodology able to use Mindset
Agency Theory as an analytic took to explore agency pathologies. It has
delivered two cases studies, one applied to the president of the United State
Donald Trump, and the other to the past Prime Minster of the United
Kingdom, Theresa May.
To do this, theory and methodology is provided that enables agency
pathologies to be explored. The methodology allows analytic pathologies
to be discovered, i.e., those pathologies determined from theory. Analytical
pathologies, if correctly determined, can lead to clinical diagnosis.
Identity is an essential component of personality. Theories of identity
are fragmented, and since identity sits within personality it leads to the idea
that theories of personality are likely to be inadequate. Identity theory,
social identity theory and self-identity theory arise from different thematic
tendencies, though the demonstrable fragmentation that they embrace
does not create contradictions. Configuration methods can be used to
relate them, leading to a more coherent schema. A coherent schema for
multiple identities is proposed that adopts ontological principles. Identity
theory can be reduced from seven types of multiple identity that can be
found in the fragmented literature, to five, these being distinguished
between three psychological identities and two contextual ones.
The connection between the psychological and contextual identities can
be explored through Dynamic Identity Theory. Dynamic Identity Theory
explains how identities develop and change, and can be used to connect the
sociocultural and personality identities, and indeed traits.
Agency framework is used to integrate personality and identity theory
dynamically to create a coherent complex adaptive system model. Agency
is composed of a set of systems with a meta-ontology, and from principles
of recursion in agency theory, it can be shown how the set of multiple
identities fit into these. Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) can be used to
evaluate identities. Two sub-classes of MAT exist, a personality three-trait
430
 Summarising Narrative for Part III 431
(MAT3 T) and an agency five-trait (MAT5 T). MAT3 T which refers to
personal identity, is a theoretical subset of MAT5 T which refers to public
identity. MAT3 T and MAT5 T can be used to create measures for the
multiple identities that can not only indicate individual differences
between different others, but also indicate internal agency pathologies.
As a result, a coherent dynamic theory of multiple identities is presented,
giving a direct means of measuring multiple identities. This provides entry
to the development of a methodology. Multiple identities may refer to the
epistemically exchangeable identities that agencies may activate as they
embrace different role positions, or ontologically distinct identities in
a hierarchy of them, the former a result of Identity Theory, the latter of
Social Identity Theory. These may be related to self-identity theory that
arises from the psychodynamic theory of self.
Distinct can be made between personal and public identity. Where the
characterisation of the two are significantly distinct, as can be described
through traits penchants and Mindset types, psychological consequences
result due to issues of deep internalisation that emerge as a function of
meaning in situations. When such psychological consequences become
important, they may result in mental illness or the manifestation of
behaviours and experiences indicative of mental illness or psychological
impairment.
Here, application of Mindset Agency Theory (MAT) has been made to
the hierarchy of identify differentiated through private, personal and
public. Analytic personality pathologies arise when these identities are
not consistent, and MAT can be used to evaluate them. MAT3 T involves
personality traits of the cognition agency, while MAT5 T involves socio-
cultural traits of the cognition agency. MAT3 T and MAT5 T are used to
relate personal and public identities, and evaluate whether contradictions
between them might result in pathologies.
The technique is applied to Donald Trump’s personality by examining
his psychic contradictions, as discovered in narrative related to his 2016 US
election campaign. Using MAT3 T and MAT5 T to explore his personal
and public identities, trait items were sought using content analysis applied
to his narratives.
The methods that developed were connected with the conceptual ideas
of McAdams and analytical techniques of Krippendorff. The analysis is
remote, identifying texts that correspond to an individual being analysed,
and applying content analysis to that text. The analysis adopted makes use
of key words that arise from trait penchants associated with MAT struc-
tures. Identifying keyword frequencies provides an indication of the
432 Modelling Identity Types through Agency
important of certain words to the subject, which in turn indicates if and
which trait penchants the subject has. Applying this to personal and public
identity provides an indication of whether, and how, they differ. The
MAT3 T and MAT5 T results that emerge indicate important analytical
pathologies identified from the theory that are consistent with the narcis-
sistic personality indicated by others undertaking remote clinical
evaluations.
It is found that Trump’s MAT3 T and MAT5 T evaluations take
different values, this suggesting an analytical pathology. Dynamic
Identity Theory, which explains how identities develop, is used to show
the relationship between the multiple identities (in a hierarchy) which
impact on personality creating imperatives for behaviour.
Mindset Agency Theory has a connection to both identity and person-
ality theories, the former able to be defined in terms of the traits that
occupy personality, and indeed, agency. The theory can be elaborated on
through Dynamic Identity Theory. This discusses how identity can
develop, where developing identities can be explained in terms of person-
ality adjustments through trait movements.
The theory that results from such considerations is then applied to
Theresa May, the UK prime minister in 2017. As occurred with Donald
Trump, a selection of her election narratives was taken, and a summative
content analysis is applied in order to examine her public and personal
identities using MAT.
Mindscape analysis was conducted using MAT3 T and MAT5 T, the
former relating to her personal identity, and the latter to her public
identity. The result of the study demonstrated some distinction, suggesting
a mild analytical pathology. The pathology for Theresa May that occurs
between her personal and public identities may not be severe, but they
create entry into explanations for clinical pathologies concerning her
political inconsistencies.
The approach adopted here (1) explains the relationship between per-
sonality and identity; and (2) can evaluate personality using a qualitative-
quantitative approach, undertaking a comparative evaluation of multiple
identities to explain clinical psychological conditions.
 part iv
Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory

Agency Theory has a fractal capacity through its immanent ability to vary
relative contexts. This fractal nature arises from the system hierarchy that it
supports, permitting living systems to recursively populate and agency at
different levels of focus. Thus, agencies as macro structures have micros
agencies that interact resulting in the emergence of meso simplexity that
provides imperatives for both agency and agent controls. These agents
themselves are living systems that have populations of sub-micro agents
that are living systems, and so on. One form of Agency Theory concerns
Mindsets as discussed in Parts I and III of this book.
The capability of anticipating behaviour through agency, even under
uncertainty, will now be considered, followed in the next chapter by
providing a foundation for the development of a psychohistorical approach
using Extreme Physical Information (EPI). This gives a promise to create a
theory of psychohistory that can explore the dynamic behaviour of indi-
viduals in social settings, given that they have a determinable psychological
profile. Not least, it provides a potential to create personality evaluation
using empirical instruments such as those described Appendices A and B.
Anticipating the future under uncertainty can occur through knowledge
and experience, but this often assumes that patterns of the past will be
repeated in the future which often is not the case because of variations in
conditions. Nor does it have to be a process of divination. It can also be
statistical given that the statistical theories adopted are adequate to respond
to the needs of complexity. Theories able to respond to this are necessarily
formal and can adopt a formal language involving a rational relational
approach to inquiry that exposes all assumptions that can then be fully
examined through disquisition. It will be explained that EPI is such an
approach that is capable of application in psychohistory, providing a
powerful utility in prediction under uncertainty. EPI is a unifying prin-
ciple of physics capable of delivering a whole variety of outcomes that
coincide with different formal theories. The caveat is, as with all formal
433
434 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
approaches, that its formal constraints must be recognised and responded
to, and with all assumptions and conditions made explicit and deemed to
be pragmatically reasonable. We should avoid the unfortunate position of
the game theoretical approaches that postulate unrealistic constraints that
make the development of a theory impractical for the prediction of real
situations, which after all is the intention for psychohistory. The form of
psychohistory proposed here is essentially a synergy between qualitative
and formal approaches, since EPI will be shown to be set within Agency
Theory. This will in particular be explored in Chapter 13. The qualitative
model defines the problem, and the formal model is structured to seek
solutions.
We apply the formal symbolic EPI to the formal Mindset Agency
Theory (its formality defined through its substructural cybernetic prin-
ciples and its superstructural migrated propositions), drawing out formal
relationships that can develop into structures capable examining socio-
cognitive contexts. This results in a clear illustration of the immanent
processes at work in relation to the development of agency type behav-
ioural orientations. The argument concerning this is that personality trait
values are influenced by attitudes which are tied to culture, and referred to
earlier work that shows that cultures shift between type (ideational and
sensate) values itself. Thus, following earlier chapters in this book, agency
is oriented through five traits, three of which correspond to personality.
They all create immanent dynamics that the agency maintains over its
durable existence. However, like all complex system, the traits dominate an
agency change values. In particular it will also be shown that it is possible,
given agency trait measures, that the anticipation of patterns of behaviour
is possible where they conform to a cultural state. To do more than
anticipate patterns of behaviour, context shifts and trait movements are
essential to know, and determining these provides an area of difficulty.
This is made even more complex with the realisation that agency patholo-
gies can arise that disturb potential anticipations.
 chapter 13

Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism

13.1 Psychohistorical Inquiry

Sociohistory refers to: social event history that occurs in the past or future
using appropriate formal theory; is concerned with the microcosms of
social interaction; describes and explains practical situations; and with
sufficient information, can predict either long-term large-scale or short-
term small-scale sociocultural events (Yolles & Frieden, 2006).
Sociohistorical inquiry involves wicked problems: those having a variety of
dynamic event states and essential variables with values and relationships
that may be hidden and therefore unknown or indeterminable
(Churchman, 1967). Sociohistory is therefore perspective relative. To be
convincing it thus requires multiple perspectives from a plurality of par-
ticipating inquirers (Reiss & Sprenger, 2014).
Sociohistory becomes psychohistory when it involves the interrogation
of agent personality psychology. The purpose is to seek the hidden motives
of historical movements (Scharf, 2000: 1), especially useful when socio-
history appears irrational. Lloyd DeMause (2005) supports this, saying
psychohistory is the science of historical motivation that chronologises
events in terms of the unconscious in relation to social and political
behaviour. It involves the explicit use of formal psychology in historical
interpretation rather than ‘common-sense psychology’ (Runyan, 1993: 36),1
as illustrated by Runyan (1988) and Iyengar and McGuire (1993). It may be
defined as the study of history through the use of any one of many different
psychological theories (or any combination of these theories) for the
purpose of historical analysis (Noland, 1977). It is affected by problems
similar to those affecting the broader discipline of sociohistory, personality
psychology, and the social sciences generally: ‘the heterogeneous compos-
ition of social movements, the phenomenon of discontinuity, and the
capacity of people actively to construct versions of the world from their
435
436 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
own idiosyncratic conflicts and in the context of the many different social
locations they occupy’ (Weintein, 1995: 299).
Like meta-history, which involves inquiry into the philosophy and
pragmatics of historical events and enables their elucidation and under-
standing through the explanation of the past and an anticipation of the
future (White, 1973; Costa-Lima, 1988; Krakauer et al., 2011; Rüsen, 2012)
sociohistory and psychohistory are interested in the pragmatics of historical
events but being devoid of the philosophical trappings. For Krakauer et al.
(2011), meta-history can be explored through patterning and/or narrative
processes, and this also applies to sociohistory and psychohistory.
Patterning is an enantiomer of the social trait, as is dramatising from
which narrative arises.
Suppose we wish to model a process of psychohistorical inquiry using
AT, when inquiry through agency has a social trait (Figure 13.1). This figure
involves social/behavioural intelligence which refers to agency cognition
and affect skills and abilities that can assist behavioural anticipation, and
through which behavioural outcomes can be shaped by making use of the
social traits. Inquiry perspective is influenced by agency cultural and
personality traits, and hence psychohistorical inquiry may be seen as a

Figurative intelligence
Operative intelligence

Operative
Cultural System Strategic System
System
Cultural values & Decision &
emotional climate Attitudes & purposes behavioural options
underpinning theoretical for psychohistorical for psychohistorical
& pragmatic inquiry inquiry
psychohistorical Personality traits Operative Social traits
knowledge. intelligence
feedback
Social/behavioural
intelligence
Figurative intelligence
feedback Environment
Social/behavioural Past and future history
intelligence feedback explored through
with adscititious patterns and dramatist’s
influences narratives

Figure 13.1 Plural agency as a living psychohistorical inquiry system.

 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 437
sociocultural process in which strategies for inquiry are determined
through a normative personality.
This chapter will consider in more detail the sociocultural traits relevant
to sociohistory. Then, in preparation for the next chapter, it will also
further consider psychohistorical inquiry process through formal theory.

13.2 Sociohistory Inquiry through Patterns and Narrative

By psychohistorical pattern is meant a conceptualised schema that can be
used to explain something historical, and which determines how selected
elements of history develop. An illustration is trope theory, where tropes
are entities having particular object/effect properties that can be repeti-
tively identified around history (Maurin, 2018; Wilson, 2014). In order to
identify historical patterns used to anticipate future history, for Davis
(2003), there is a need to explore and explain (1) long-term change; (2)
phenomenal change through morphogenesis and new forms of complexity
occur in social organisation; (3) particulars in the history of sociocultures.
The search for patterns is particularly useful in identifying distinction and
providing a capacity to distinguish between differentiable processes of
history. Distinctions are often related to processes of morphogenic change,
while differentiabilities may be linked of metamorphic/transformative
change when sociohistory has demonstrated a sudden change.
Narrative gives an account that connects events, is deterministic, and is
used to convey part of a spoken story. All meta-historical arguments that
are historical explanations are also narratives (Walker, 2002: White, 1973).
They involve rhetoric, since narrators normally wish to be convincing.
They are also teleological, explaining history in terms of purpose and
direction. A narrator of history chooses a mode of emplotment, argument,
and ideological implication, these arising from an interpretive paradig-
matic strategy that narrators have adopted, and from which their perspec-
tive is adopted.
Defining living systems in terms of communication (Luhmann, 1995),
consider that a group of inquiring agents as a population of agency, each
delivering narrative events that interact. Consider further that these events
construct a lifeworld of thematic intersubjective communication with
pragmatic motive (Schutz & Luckmann, 1974; Weigert, 1975).2 Within
this, they begin a sociohistorical process over a theme intending to deliver
story. The story should be ‘living’ so that it is able to survive under
changing conditions and be able to adapt to changes in an ongoing socio-
historical inquiry through changing narratives. When a living story is
438 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
framed, models may result that can explain specific or general relationships
and the event trajectories that they relate to.
During the formative stage of a lifeworld its agents do not deliver
narratives, but antenarratives (fragmented pre-narratives).3 Relative to
the lifeworld, antenarrative delivers story with some ‘arbitrary’ structure
that is un-patterned, and has an unexpressed or hidden narrative source
from which its arbitrariness appears to arise as a ‘pattern of chaos’.
Antenarratives may be distributed across space, time and event (Walker-
Rettberg, 2004), and deliver an incoherent collection of improper story-
telling. It is improper because it is a wager from which a proper narrative
can be constituted. The antenarrative lifeworld is non-linear, involves
fragmented storytelling, and is polyphonic (many voiced) creating group
cacophony. Improper storytelling arises from this complexity which, for
Gabriel (2000: 20–25), is distinct from proper or coherent stories as
delivered by narratives. Antenarrative has a quantum nature,4 being a
‘speculated’ fragment of narrative (Boje, 2012). Antenarratives are thus
isolated narrative quanta that project packets of fragmented thematic
story about wicked sociohistorical issues. They arise from applied individ-
ual observations that can now be called inquiry quanta that through
narrative quanta deliver story quanta.5 When narrative quanta interact in
the lifeworld they may coevolve, reducing uncertainty and delivering
narratives with relative stories that can contribute to living story.
Unlike the uncertainties associated with antenarrative, narratives are
deterministic. They are generalisations for the lifeworld used to refer to
part of spoken story concerning a particular subject projected onto objects
that may be animate, or even sometimes inanimate (through personifica-
tion). As such they provide the vehicle for story. The study of narrative
(narratology) explains how thinking processes can be structured to facili-
tate the emergence of stories. Within lifeworld, narrative seeks to deliver
thematic attributes of a story as a structured expression about an event or
set of connected events. An evolving lifeworld will develop a set of matur-
ing narratives. Each will have an antenarrative origin with relationships
that should enable them to adapt together in an evolutionary process
allowing their stories to develop and interconnect as living story.
Davis (2003) takes a ‘higher’ approach for sociohistory by recognising
that complexity can be responded to through systemic meta-theory. Meta-
theory provides dynamics that describe patterns of interaction (Edwards,
2014). Complex psychohistories develop through processes of transition
which can be explained through Mindset trait relationships. This consti-
tutes a simplexity structure which, as shown in Figure 13.1, facilitates
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 439
narrative about psychohistorical change. Psychohistorical inquiry involv-
ing a population of agent inquirers can be represented through agency. By
adjusting Figure 13.1 as 13.2, can illustrate the lifeworld of sociohistorical
event inquiry, this also applying to psychohistory. Here, agency constitutes
the meta-system that delivers lifeworld narratives about a sociohistorical
event space. Operative intelligence creates an operative couple between the
operative and cognitive/personality systems. Agency self-organisation is a
consequence of the processes arising in that operative couple where an
agency collective subconscious informs its collective consciousness. It
allows narrative to adapt to changes in a sociohistorical event space through
new discoveries, or through immanent processes delivering new recogni-
tions. It is through operative intelligence that interactions develop across
actor narratives, delivering narrative decision options to the operative
system. These interactions evolve through feedback when the systems of
thought need adjustment, this in turn impacting on operative intelligence
processes. A dominant system of thought may arise from dominant know-
ledge and meanings delivered from the cultural system which in turn
creates an impetus for dominant decision options to explain sociohistorical
events. Dominance reduces as uncertainty increases.
Evolving narratives coincide with processes of agency self-organising.
Their cognitive origin can either be supported, or where these decision
options are inadequate or contradictory, feedback provides imperatives for
change to the figurative systems of thought. This operative couple is
informed by the knowledge and meanings that underpin the evolving
narratives that arise within figurative intelligence, where feedback supports

Figurative intelligence Operative couple

delivering narrative
knowledge and Operative Operative inquiry
meanings intelligence seeking through social
narrative coherence intelligence
Cultural System Figurative System
Operative System
Beliefs, belief potential Ideate images, systems of
Decision options to deliver
& values, worldviews, thought, imagination, logical
sociohistorical explanation Sociohistorical
paradigms, understanding structures, schemas, rationality
Collective conscious event space
Collective unconscious & intention, ethics/ideology.
Narrative deliveries
Cultural identity, Self-reference Collective subconscious
Self-organisation
Knowledge Cultural trait Self-regulation, Information
Social trait
Personality traits
Operative intelligence Information
change imperatives or for decision
Figurative intelligence
support options
change imperatives or
support

Agency Lifeworld Meta-system

Figure 13.2 Agency Lifeworld Meta-system relevant to sociohistorical inquiry and

narrative taken to be communication behaviour.
440 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
or creates imperatives for adjustments. In its operative system we may in
particular note that by social intelligence is meant inquiry efficacy that
occurs when there is a task specific potency that refers to general effective-
ness across multiple tasks in a sociohistorical inquiry. It is here where we
can understand how patterns and narrative can come together in balance.
Since inquiry resulting in narrative is an immanent process that develops in
the meta-system of agency, and the search for patterns occurs in an event
space, the two are connected. Finding patterns by, for instance, tropes, in a
sociohistorical event space identifies new objects/effects, and the informa-
tion from this is internalised in an agency. The very internalisation process
is itself narrative-rich, but given that a trope is sufficiently important, for
instance by destabilising existing understandings through new uncertain-
ties, it is capable of triggering agency morphogenic or even meta-morphic
change.
Sociohistorical inquiry is complex because of the need to evaluate a
variety of possible past and future issue states once an understanding of
history occurs relative to some frame of reference. By variety is meant the
number distinguishable problem issue in a situation that are fundamentally
dependent on a set of essential variables. We have already explained that
complex sociohistories can often be organised using simple simplexity
models. This can be illustrated through Sorokin’s theory of sociocultural
dynamics.

13.3 Sociohistory through the Cultural Dynamic of Sorokin

To better appreciate the nature of the cultural trait, it is useful to explore
the work of Sorokin who was interested in civilisations as super-cultures.
Sorokin’s theory of sociocultural dynamic was originally published as a
four-volume set between 1937 and 1941, and is concerned with the rise of
different cultural supersystems, principally in the West, and it centres on
historical transitions. All cultures can be defined in terms of cultural
extreme polar trait types referred to as ideational and sensate enantiomers.
They have a transcendent function that, according to Jung,6 comes from
experiencing the conflict of opposites (see Wilson, 1984). These cultural
enantiomers are cultural trait attractor forces. Thus, ideational and sensate
enantiomers competitively seek to attract the cultural trait, resulting in a
trait trajectory towards a trait type-value. This means that essentially the
two enantiomers have the capacity to produce each other through their
attractions.
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 441
As a yin-yang process, the enantiomer forces of culture are in continual
interactive conflict and where they find balance one or other emerges in a
society with some degree of dominance to create a cultural disposition that
will determine the direction that a society takes.7 Another form of expres-
sion for cultural disposition is cultural mentality (Yolles, 1980; Kemp,
1997) or equivalently cultural Mindset (Yolles, 1999). Both cultural dispos-
ition and cultural mentality suggest a social collective with values and
shared norms. While the idea of the Mindset can be applied to large-
scale social groups like societies, it also has the capacity to be applied to
small-scale cultural groups like organisations. This brings us to consider
the validity of considering Sorokin’s sociocultural dynamic in the case of
small as well as large social agencies. Instead of cultural supersystems, one
can consider organisational cultural microcultures. These arise from an
ambient culture and reflect of its cultural values, only differing in beliefs in
organisational practices and processes (Ansah et al., 2019; Sirmon & Lane,
2004).
As in Agency Theory, Sorokin (1962: 4:590) perceives that social groups
with coherent cultures function as autonomous bodies. The principle
states that change in a socioculture occurs by virtue of its own internal
forces and properties, and it cannot help changing, even if all external
conditions are constant. Sorokin (1962: 4:600–601) tells us that any func-
tional sociocultural agency incessantly generates consequences that are not
the results of adventitious effects, but the consequences of the immanent
processes. Such adventitious effects can be ignored since they are normally
small and short lived relative to the cultural dynamics of super-agencies
(like civilisations) with super-cultures – those having very large popula-
tions where cultural inertia is very strong making cultural change slow and
without conscious recognition due to the slow time scales involved.
Agencies with a small population of agents will have less cultural inertia
enabling relatively faster change, with more susceptibility to adventitious
effects. One of the specific forms of immanent dynamics is an incessant
change occurring within the agency itself due to its continual state of,
mostly non-equilibrium, movement. Change is not a stationary condition
that agency cultures pass through. Rather, agency sociocultures are always
in a state of flux, with a past history of continuous development and a
future history that will evolve. Thus, cultures exist only as they are now
because of their histories, inertia and future potentials.
Sorokin (1962: 1:55) also identifies what we might call collective cultural
mentalities that derive from mind, value, and meaning. Sorokin defines the
cultural mentalities as the elements of thought and meaning that lie at the
442 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
base of any logically integrated system of culture, belong to the realm of
inner experience, and occur either in a coordinated form of non-integrated
images, ideas, violations, feelings, and emotions, or in an organised form of
systems of thought woven out of these elements of the inner experience.
Since agencies are agent based, a dominant cultural type emerges from
their interactions. Despite this, minority cultures always coexist within the
population of agents.
Agency dynamics derive from the characteristics of their polar meso
agent attractors, and these may be seen to include ontological and epis-
temological attributes (Sorokin, 1962: 1:70). The ontological attribute is
constituted by the cultural orientational perception (or at least those who
constitute it) of the nature of reality. The epistemological attributes
include the nature of the needs and ends to be satisfied, the degree of
strength in pursuit of those needs, and the methods of satisfaction.
Ontologically, belief within sensate orientation allows realities to be
deemed to exist only if they can be sensorially perceived. It does not seek
or believe in a super-sensory reality, and it is agnostic towards the world
beyond any current sensory capacity of perception. Its needs and aims are
mainly physical, that is that which primarily satisfies the sense organs. For
the epistemological attribute, the means of satisfaction occurs not through
adaptation or modification of human beings, but through the exploitation
of the external world. It is thus practically oriented, with an emphasis on
human external needs. With reality as perceived from senses, it also views
reality through what can be measured and observed rather than reasoned.
Sorokin identifies the degree of strength in pursuit of these needs as
‘maximum’.
Ontologically, belief within ideational orientation takes reality as non-
sensate and non-material. Epistemological needs and ends are mainly
spiritual, rather than practicable, and internal rather than external. The
method of fulfilment or realisation is self-imposed minimisation or elim-
ination of most physical needs, to promote the greater development of the
human being as a being. Spiritual needs are thus at the forefront of this
orientation’s aims rather than human physical needs. As with sensate
orientation, the degree of the strength in pursuit of these needs is also a
‘maximum’.
Since each sensate and ideational mentalities has a maximum degree of
desire to pursue their aims, worldview holders that maintain these polar
mentalities do not compromise with each other, and engage in conflict. For
Sorokin, in an agency where they coexist, they create ‘latent antagonism’
that can flare ‘up into open war’ (Sorokin, 1962: 1:75). The relationship
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 443
between sensate and ideational mentalities is a dynamic interaction
described as yin-yang contradictions that are antagonistic to each other
and hold different priorities, aims and needs for the social collective. They
also come to reflect the didactic of the cultural evolutionary process that
encourages social complexification.8
To understand the dynamic nature of agency culture from which
cultural evolution derives, it is of value to consider Sorokin’s (1957) dyadic
theory of sociocultural change – this fundamentally a description of order
among the dominant values held in a culture. Here, sensate/materialistic
and ideational/cognitivist cultural types exist as two unique interactive
value systems. They function as auxiliary influences on each other, rather as
in the yin-yang interactions described in Chinese Taoism (Robinet, 1979;
Fang, 2011).9 When one dominates, the other’s subordinate presence is felt.
The interaction indicates an immanent cultural dynamic that enables
transitions to occur from one dominant cultural type to the other as
subordinate value influences start to ascend in significance. This transition
results in either local value synergies (hence an integrated society) or
conflicts (hence cultural disorder and social uncertainty).10 These cultural
types have sub-types as illustrated in the transitions of Table 13.1 (Uebersax,
2012; Hoffman, 2014; Ohno, 2013; Sorokin, 1957; Nieli, 2008). The table
shows there to be alternate stable periods of dominant sensate and idea-
tional cultural types, interspersed with cultural transitions defined as
idealistic (balanced mix of the two types of value) and mixed (contradict-
ory/conflictual mix of the two types of values). Idealistic transitions occur
with sensate ascendance to dominance, and mixed transitions occur with
sensate decline. This facilitates ideational ascendance, but the complexity
of the process can result in pseudo-ideational ascendance, resulting in
agents tending towards having a passive pattern of mental helplessness
due to conflicts and oppression (Uebersax, 2014). Changes in sensate type
culture pass through active, passive and cynical sub-types, while Ideational
culture passes through active, ascetic and fideistic sub-types (Uebersax, 2014;
Hoffman, 2014; Ohno, 2013; Sorokin, 1957; Nieli, 2008, 2012). Not all sub-
types will be readily recognised in historical analysis, and the cycle of
change will not necessarily be linear and sequential. For Sorokin (1957:
29), during dynamic change in the cultural trait, when pseudo-ideational
ascendance occurs, it reflects an unintegrated essentially unstable and
largely sensate culture, and facilitates the rise of sensate sub-types.
The dynamics of cultural order can help understand cultural shifts
between stable dominant types. Cultural change can be represented as a
spontaneous cultural bifurcation, occurring with a sharp stability–
444 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
Table 13.1 Nature of cultural value types

Cultural trait type value Nature

Type/transition dominance Dominant orientations of cultural tendency

can rarely to be found in pure form,
unmixed with others, or distributed
identically in individuals or groups or
societies.
Sensate type Materialism: Relates more to forms of
with sub-types: institutional individualism.a
active, passive, and Active. Agents seek the consummation of its
cynical needs and ends mainly through the most
‘efficient’ approaches involving change,
including the use of technology. Values
relate to the energetic transformation of
the external world and include material
wealth, social status, bodily pleasure.
Passive. Agents tend to attempt to fulfil
physical needs and aims through a
parasitic exploitation and utilisation of
the external reality, centring on
enjoyment and self-gratification rather
than any kind of energetic
transformation of the external world.
Values include enjoyment, wealth and
self-indulgent gratification.
Cynical. Embraces nihilistic decadence,
insincere hedonists and social climbers
without conviction or redeeming merit.
Agents seek to satisfy needs through
donning/doffing ideational masks that
promise greater material profit. Truth
and fact to this mentality are variable
commodities as are hypocrisies and
manufacturing alternative realities, while
likely operating diplomatically. Produces
hypocrites and social climbers. When
triggered by Sensate social crises, it is
disdainful of accepted norms and
traditions seen as interfering with
resolving pragmatic tasks. Some values,
like seeking wealth as greediness, are
excessive sensate-passive.
Ideational type with sub-types: Cognitivism (or cognitive psychism referring to
active, ascetic, and the psyche): relates to spiritualism or
fideistic immaterialism, and to forms of
institutional collectivism.
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 445
Table 13.1 (cont.)

Cultural trait type value Nature

Active. Agents seek the realisation of the

needs and ends, not only through
minimisation of the carnal needs, but
also through the transformation of the
sensate world, and especially of the
sociocultural world, in such a way as to
reform it along the lines of the spiritual
reality and of the ends chosen as main
value. Values relate to the control of
human desires, like authority, but may
vary according to the politics of the time.
Ascetic. The highest level of Ideationalism.
Agents seek the consummation of needs
and ends through excessive elimination
and minimisation of the carnal needs,
supplemented by a complete detachment
from the sensate world and even from
oneself, viewing both as mere illusion,
non-existing, and corrupt.
Fideistic. Represents a late stage of
ideational culture (with sensate
ascendance) where intuition and the
ongoing testimony of the mystics,
prophets, and saints is replaced by a blind
and desperate will-to-believe on the part
of those agents who have lost any kind of
direct contact with the supra-conscious.
Idealistic transition Material-cognitivism: an inherently unstable
dual mix of cultural values that through
work creates integration.
Involves periods of creative balance between
the ideational and sensate cultural types
represented through local synergies
across the value system. These synergies
are responsible for the emergence of
relative coherence. Trust plays the role of
a synergistic relational value.
Mixed transition Unstable mix between ideational and sensate
cultural types.
Transitional period between stable
dominant cultures that may be low-
grade, highly eclectic, and with internally
contradictory combinations of sensate
and ideational values. Trust as a
446 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
Table 13.1 (cont.)

Cultural trait type value Nature

relativistic value likely emerging as

distrust underscoring value
contradictions. During sensate decline
pseudo-ideational ascendance may
develop (while manifesting sensate sub-
types) indicative of cultural value
heterogeneity accompanied by unstable
conflicts and social uncertainty.
a
Individualism/collectivism refer to societies and their institutions that are dominantly
individualist/collectivist (Triandis, 1988; Singelis et al., 1995). In individualist societies
agents focus on self-concepts that are autonomous from their in-groups. In collectivist
societies agents define themselves as a part or aspect of a usually stable in-group (e.g.,
family, band, tribe).

instability boundary (Rtedle & Kokotovic, 1985). Figure 5.1 illustrated this
over four modes of change, and we recall from Chapter 5 that mode 1 has an
essentially homogeneous normal value system involving value certainties
and indicative of a dominant stable culture. During change the homogen-
eity of the value system reduces as the dominant culture shifts to mode 2,
with post-normal reduction in value system certainties leading to value
conflicts. An increase in uncertainty in the value system coincides with
more heterogeneity, leading to mode 3 and crisis, leading to criticality in
the system structure when work is required to maintain stability. This leads
to trifurcation: either the demise of the culture occurs (e.g., Stromberg,
2012), more of the same, or a bifurcation to mode 4 and transformation
(transition towards a new dominant cultural state through metamorphosis
and complexification). More of the same only occurs if conditions arise
where the move towards value heterogeneity is either reversed, or increas-
ing local synergies arise.
The evolutionary process that agency culture undergoes is reflected in
the cultural trait type values acquired and that dominates an agency. Any
change in cultural trait will imply a shift in agency Mindset type. The
cultural trait is an attractor for personality and social orientations. This
influences agency strategy of goals setting and behavioural proclivity.
Thus, it creates a field of attraction that stabilises the agency. Table 13.1
refers to the stable ideational, sensate, idealistic (that latter also sometimes
called integral) states of culture as supersystems. While ‘the total
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 447
sociocultural world appears as an enormous arena of millions of systems …
[they are] subordinated to one another and yielding sometimes the vastest
supersystems [which are] now coordinated with one another’ (Sorokin,
1941: 4:58). Nieli (2012) notes that between the extreme polar values of
sensate and ideational enantiomer attractors there are other Outcomes
associated with the ideational and sensate enantiomers.
Phase states are shown in Tables 13.2–13.4. Table 13.2 indicates an
ideational culture, which can then will gradually decline during two post-
normal phases. While this occurs, there will be some growth in the
importance of the polar opposite sensate enantiomer. Table 13.3 shows
three phases representing movement away from a normal sensate cultural
state, resulting in two progressively post-normal phases as the importance
of the sensate enantiomer decays, with the likely growth of ideationalism.
Table 13.4 shows one phase that constitutes a stable idealistic cultural state,
but Nieli (2012) did not note any additional phases, which might illustrate
a movement towards sensate or ideational cultural states.
The movement from a predominantly ideational to a predominantly
sensate cultural state can occur via an idealistic culture, as is the case with a
movement from predominantly sensate to ideational culture. However,
there is no ‘automatism’, since conditions may arise that prevent an
idealistic culture from materialising.
These cultural phases can be set up across a dynamic of change that runs
from normal (under sufficient degrees of certainty such that rationality
applies) to post-normal to chaos to transformation (shown in Figure 5.1).
These phase shifts are consistent with a movement into cultural instability
that occurs with both growth and decline of a social system (White,
Tambayong & Kejžar, 2008; Houser, 1985). There are two forms of growth
and decline: incremental and transformative. Growth and decline will
normally occur together, arising from the inherent dynamic interaction
between the trait enantiomers. When culture is stable then this refers to the
attractor cultural trait, but when it is unstable and is therefore effectively
disconnected from the rest of the agency, it also applies to the personality
traits. In crisis, incremental changes can shift to transformative change, and
when decline is more significant than growth, death results, while if growth
dominates the result is transformation. When growth and decline are
unable to achieve any form of significant ascendancy, this would likely
mean the agency continues as it was before. The Outcome phases (Table
13.2–13.4) can be described according to this dynamic. Thus, when the
Outcome takes ideational, idealistic or sensate values, they are in a normal
phase. Beyond these they move through a post-normal phase, when the
 Table 13.2 Main characteristics of ideational culture and its decline

Stable ideational culture

Apparent
Mindset Illustrative Personality traits Individualism-
Outcome phases of cycle Explanation type no. Mindset type involved collectivism type

Ascetical An agency puts emphasis on 4 Egalitarian Intellectual Ideational Individualism

(Normal phase, disengaging any energies Synergism autonomy to do
equilibrium enabling and attachments from as one wishes,
determinism, attractor bodily pleasures and from Harmony with
for Harmony) the great temporal flux of humility,
the sensory order so that Egalitarian
they might draw nearer to loyalty to
a super-sensible reality ideationality

Entry to post-Ideational decline towards cultural instability

Active There is an emphasis on the 8 Egalitarian Embeddedness to Ideational or Sensate

(Entry to post-normal control of human desires, a Collectivism self-discipline Collectivism
phase, uncertainty condition that is Harmony with
diminished through disengaged from the social social power, and
institutionalisation, environment which it Egalitarian
attractor for Harmony) perceives to be corrupt. It loyalty to society
is proselytising and
transformative seeking to
remake the unredeemed
world according to the
tenets of the ideational
worldview
Fideistic A late stage of Ideational 7 Hierarchical Embeddedness to Ideational Collectivism
(Post-normal phase and culture where intuition Collectivism self-discipline,
attractor for Harmony and the ongoing Harmony to
and Hierarchy) testimony of the mystics, accept position in
prophets, and saints is life, and
replaced by a blind and Hierarchy to
desperate ‘will-to-believe’ accept spiritual
on the part of a people authority
who have lost any kind of
direct contact with the
supra-conscious.

Note. Adapted from Sorokin (1942) and Nieli (2012).

 Table 13.3 Main characteristics of sensate culture and its decline

Stable Sensate culture

Illustrative Personality traits Individualism-collectivism

Outcome phases of cycle Explanation Apparent Mindset type no. Mindset type involved type

Active Action to transform the 2 (environment harmonic) Egalitarian Individualism Intellectual Sensate or Ideational
(Normal phase, external environment and and autonomy to Individualism
equilibrium enabling to satisfy an agency’s 3 (environment aggressive) Hierarchical satisfy wants
determinism, attractor needs and desires. Synergism Mastery + affective
for Mastery) Illustrations are the autonomy to be
creation of business successful and
empires, innovators in excitement,
technology, political Egalitarianism with
organisers, pioneers in loyalty to
the wilderness and environment.
military conquerors. And, for 3, replace
Egalitarianism
with Hierarchy to
achieve wealth/
power.
Entry to post-Sensate decline towards cultural instability

Passive An agency focuses on self- 1 Hierarchical Intellectual Sensate or Ideational

(Post-normal uncertainty gratification and Individualism autonomy to Individualism
and non-equilibrium enjoyment satisfy wants,
 phase, Unstable Mastery + affective
cognition, attractor for autonomy
Affective autonomy) choosing own
goals and
pleasure,
Hierarchy to
achieve wealth/
power
Cynical Agencies maintain an 5 Hierarchical Populism Embeddedness Sensate or Ideational
(Post-normal phase, advanced state of supporting social Collectivism
increased uncertainty nihilistic decadence order, Mastery +
and non-equilibrium (moral degeneration or affective
Unstable cognition, decay through total autonomy
attractor for Affective rejection of established choosing own
autonomy) laws and institutions), goals and
where the sensate ethos pleasure,
itself undermines its Hierarchy to
own claims to truth, achieve wealth/
and produces insincere power
hedonists (pleasure/
happiness is the highest
good) and social
climbers without
conviction or
redeeming merit.

Note. Adapted from Sorokin (1942) and Nieli (2012).

 Table 13.4 Main characteristics of idealistic culture

Stable Idealistic culture

Outcome phases of Apparent Mindset Illustrative Personality traits Individualism-
cycle Explanation type no. Mindset type involved collectivism type

Idealistic/ Super-sensory and 6 Hierarchical Embeddedness with Sensate or

integrative creative aspects of Collectivism forgiveness and Ideational
(Stable mixed life balanced by reciprocation, Collectivism
culture, normal sensory and Mastery + affective
phase with material aspects, autonomy with
certainty and enabling internal ambition and
equilibrium orientations that varied life,
giving develop being to Egalitarianism with
determinism, be accompanied responsibility
attracts Mastery) by externally
directed interests
and instrumental
activities that
relate to
becoming.

Note. Adapted from Sorokin (1942).

 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 453
established patterns of relationships between cultural beliefs and values
start to lose their connections and dominant culture edges towards becom-
ing dysfunctional. In highly unstable cultures the cultural trait will be
losing its attractor function and unable to maintain stable relationships
between values. Thus, in the post-normal ideational condition, the active
and fideistic phase progressively tend towards more instability with
increasing uncertainty. In such circumstances there is a likely tendency
for personality inertia (Bailey, 1998) and by implication social orientation
inertia to occur when traits are not adapted and are kept at values they had
previously taken, simply because there is no other influence on them. In
relation to personality, most people develop inertia through fixed ideas,
fixed reactions to particular stimuli or situations, and fixed emotional
reactions (Wilson, 2011).
Agencies may also experience habitual depression, or may become
habitually anxious or fearful. These negative personality traits, which
usually arise during early development in the personality through nutri-
tional imbalances (or resource imbalances in plural agencies), or perhaps
traumas create inertia in the personality of many agencies that must be
overcome for complete healing to occur. Under normal stable cultural
conditions, the cultural phases are attractors for personality and social
orientation traits, and we have assigned the likely traits and related person-
ality Mindset types (type numbers coming from Chapter 6) to these
attractors. In addition, we have also identified different forms of
Individualism and Collectivism. Here, Sensate Collectivism and Sensate
Individualism refer to material attributes of Individualism and
Collectivism, while their Ideational qualifier refers to more cognitive
interpretations of Individualism and Collectivism that are not connected
with the (sensate) material world.
We have deduced Mindsets for each of the Outcome values by relating
Nieli’s phases of cultural change to Schwartz’s set of values. However,
outside stable cultural values of Idealistic, sensate and idealistic, these
Mindsets should be currently seen as a deducible guestimate, one reason
being that when cultural instability arises personality inertia may tempor-
arily take over until the personality traits determine their own internal
dynamics. The generic living system model can be used recursively to
generate a structure for personality. So, the generic properties of one
recursion can typically be applied to another. The capacity to apply
recursive applications of Agency Theory are consistent with investigative
principles into complex situations that display fractal properties. Hence,
using this principle of recursion, when the cultural trait becomes
454 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
disconnected from the agency, the cognitive trait plays its role, and
becomes an attractor for the rest of the personality. Thus, if the cognitive
trait takes the value of an Individualist oriented enantiomer (i.e.,
Intellectual autonomy), then it will be an attractor for the other traits of
the personality, which will take related values. The result to be expected in
this case would be the type 1 Mindset: Hierarchical Individualism. A
relatively similar situation applies if it takes a collectivist oriented enantio-
mer – that is a type 8 Mindset: Egalitarian Collectivism. However, there is
no attraction imperative for the social orientation trait, and its trait value
will arise from more arbitrary causes. As a result, personality and social
orientation may take conflicting values, resulting in dysfunction.
There is an illustration of such conflict for a plural agency. The break-up
of the US telecommunications group AT&T (American Telegraph and
Telephone) and the privatisation of BT (British Telecom) stimulated an
alliance process (Musso, 1998) that proved itself culturally unstable, with
disjointed relationships across the set of beliefs and values. The joint
alliance that formed was called Concert and resulted in failure after two
years of operation at a cost of USD800 million annually before it shut
down in 2001. The published rational for the closure was a downturn in the
global telecommunications market, but the dysfunction appears clear
(Jatras, 2001).
Nieli (2012) highlights that Sorokin divides both ideational and sensate
cultures into three distinct sub-types, and these are all prevalent in every
society in some mix. An ideational culture may be distinguished into
cultural sub-types. It may be ‘ascetical’, when agency carriers put emphasis
on disengaging their energies and attachments from bodily pleasures and
from the great temporal flux of the sensory order so that they might draw
nearer to a super-sensible reality. This condition is a stable one that is an
attractor for the trait type Harmony. An example is the Mohan Das Karam
Chand Gandhi, born in 1869 in Gujarat, India, who came to prominence
during the occupation of India by the British, and who earned the title
Mahatma indicating a kind hearted, all encompassing, self-sacrificing,
devoted, philanthropist, chaste and benevolent soul (Goyal, 2019). Other
representations of ascetic-ideational subculture are the pure state of
Chinese Taoism, Sufism and early Christianity (Sorokin, 1939: 1:39).
Ascetic-ideational subculture may turn to active ideational or mixed
culture.
An ideational culture may take an ‘active’ phase that cements the ascetic
institutionally, though this may happen even where the ascetic stage does
not occur. The active ideational subculture is a moral one, is stable, and
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 455
supports rules and empirical punishments and rewards, and delivers praise
and blame. The salvation of one’s soul becomes the salvation of the social
through transformation, this implying that it is an attractor for the
Egalitarian trait through loyalty to society. Here there is an emphasis on
the control of human desires, a condition that is disengaged from the social
environment which it perceives to be corrupt. It is proselytising and
transformative seeking to remake the unredeemed world according to the
tenets of the ideational worldview. Finally, an ideational culture may
become a fideistic ideational subculture, when the mentalities that carry
it represent a late stage of ideational culture where intuition and the
ongoing testimony of the mystics, prophets, and saints is replaced by a
blind and desperate ‘will-to-believe’ on the part of a people who have lost
any kind of direct contact with the supra-conscious. Carroll (2008)
explains that the irrational adherence to religious ideas fails in its ability
to adequately describe their thought. As an extreme ideational condition, it
is therefore a post-normal condition. It is also an attractor for the Harmony
trait within the context of accepting one’s position in life, and Hierarchy
where spiritual authority is absolute.
In contrast, a sensate culture may be ‘active’ when its carriers try to
transform the external environment to satisfy their needs and desires.
Illustrations are the creation of business empires, innovators in technology,
political organisers, pioneers in the wilderness and military conquerors. A
sensate culture may also be ‘passive’ when its carriers focus on enjoyment
and self-gratification. Finally, a sensate culture may be ‘cynical’ when its
carriers maintain an advanced state of nihilistic decadence, where the
sensate ethos itself undermines its own claims to truth, and produces
insincere hedonists and social climbers without conviction or redeeming
merit.
Recalling that the cultural trait is ontologically distinct from, and an
attractor for, personality and social orientation traits, we can propose the
following construction. Active sensate subculture is an attractor for mas-
tery, and is a normal phase of change. Passive and cynical phases of sensate
are post-normal phases. The passive sensate subculture is an attractor for
Affective autonomy, as is cynical sensate subculture where beliefs and
values lose their relationships, and attitudes become disconnected from
beliefs and values. Cynical sensate subculture is an extreme case of this, and
is consistent with the development of pathologies in the connection
between culture and the personality.
Idealistic culture is an important phase of cultural development being a
mixed balance between sensate and ideational cultures that takes the best of
456 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
both. To retain stability during this cultural phase, work is required that
arises from appropriate beliefs and attitudes. For Oliner (2008), it centres
on rationality, and it is an attractor of the trait type Mastery.
In the Tables 13.2–13.4 we provide illustrative identification of which
particular Mindsets might be susceptible to each of the cultural sub-types
given. Beyond the description provided above, we also connect key word
equivalences between cultural sub-type and Mindset types. However, the
lack of cultural sub-type keywords limits the utility of this technique. In
any case, it is clear that there will always be a broad mix of cultural and
personality types in any culture, where the term attraction refers only to
tendencies.
Sociocultural movements may occur over decades or centuries, this
depending on the cultural dynamic and the size of the population in the
culture (Yolles, Fink & Frieden, 2012). Table 13.5 shows the change in
western culture over millennia, where culture has oscillated between sen-
sate and ideational dominant trait type values (Zetterberg, 1997). Consider
now that the west has reached its third sensate period (rationalism and the
age of science) by 600 BCE, after which it emerges as a mixed culture
during the ‘post-Roman’ Barbarian period. As sensate culture declines,
cultural instability increase during this Roman period, and cynical senate
subculture arrives through the catalyst of social crises. Thus, for instance,
during one of Rome’s (many) crises of this period (Golden, 2008), political
development was interrupted by the rise of the demagogue Publius
Claudius Pulcher (died 52 BCE), who was elected to office to ‘wide
surprise’ (Livy, 2009) – he was a populist with a sensate-cynical sub-
cultural mindset who refused to adhere to the then current political rules
(Freeman, 2017). Another populist followed – Julius Caesar, who took
power from 49 BCE until his assassination in 15 BCE. The current Western
era reflects this with pseudo-ideational ascendance as part of its extended
postmodernism, and sensate-cynicism subculture accompanying its mixed
transitional phase (Goff & Smoker, 1997). The case of Publius Claudius
Pulcher describes a situation that is highly reminiscent of the current
situation of the US president Donald Trump, as considered in Chapter 11.
The rise of ideational culture in the Middle Ages led to senate culture
again in more modern times. In the current era, western sensate culture is
currently in decline (Sorokin, 1962: 4:312) and moving again towards its
ideational state. It is currently perceived to be in an extended postmodern
transitional culture that is sensate-cynical and mixed, these conditions.
When a cultural system moves from its dominant stable (ideational, sensate
or idealistic) trait type value, to cultural instability, so that dominant values
 Table 13.5 Proposed changes in cultural phase (with sub-phases) of the West

Period Cultural state Dominant cultural Begin End Years

Mycenaean and Greek Dark Age Stable Sensate 1200 BCE 1000 BCE 200
Greek Uncertaintya Transitional Mixed 1000 BCE 900 BCE 100
Archaic Greece Stable Ideational (Active then Ascetic) 900 BCE 550 BCE 350
Classical Greece Transitional Idealistic 550 BCE 320 BCE 220
Hellenistic – Roman Stable Sensate (Active, Passive and Cynical) 320 BCE 400 CE 680
Barbarianismb Transitional Mixed 400 CE 600 CE 200
Middle Ages Stable Ideational (Active then Ascetic) 600 CE 1200 CE 600
High Middle Ages to Renaissancec Transitional Idealistic 1200 CE 1600 CE 400
Rationalism, Age of Science Stable Sensate (Active, Passived) 1600 CE 1933 CE 333e
Extended post-modernismf Transitional Sensate-cynical and Mixed 1933 CE Ongoing 150?g

Note. Adapted from Uebersax (2012).

a
This period appears to have occurred with the decline of the Greek Dark Age, prior to the rise of the Archaic period of Greece, this seemingly a period of
uncertainty (Lloyd, 2012). bThe age of Barbarianism began with the demise of the Roman empire, but it likely involved other groups besides the German
Barbarians (www.studymode.com/essays/Rome-100-600-Ce-1288624.html). cThe cultural rebirth in the West after the cultural decline on the middle ages has
been called the Renaissance, estimated from 1400–1600 CE (www.livescience.com/55230-renaissance.html). dWhile the period was identified as Sensate-passive,
there was indication of Sensate-cynical with the populist People’s Party of 1892 that played a major four-year role as a left-wing force in American politics, then
merging into the Democratic Party (Trowbridge, 2018). While this may be an early indicator of a cynical cultural trend, it may also just be the result of crisis due
to the economic depression of 1893. eWe adopt 1933 as the start of extended postmodernism only because Adolf Hitler (and populism) came to power when he
became German Chancellor in 1933, approximately coinciding with the start of postmodernism. On the same cultural track, in 1842 the United Kingdom
published the Beveridge report introducing the Welfare state, implemented in 1945. fExtended postmodernism refers to post-modernity and liquid modernity.
g
The number of years that extended postmodernism might last as a mixed transitive culture can only be guessed at here by the perhaps dubious supposition of
there being some meaning in the ratio between previous periods of Sensate to Mixed transitions.
458 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
become lost across the culture, and the social develops a ‘disorderly stage’
(in reference to Confucius: Sorokin, 1962: 4:365; 4:725). This results in the
greater likelihood of social disruption and conflict.11
The dynamic process involved in sociocultural change may involve
metamorphosis enabling cultural sub-type replacement (Yolles &
Frieden, 2005).12 Idealistic and mixed transitional periods are meta-
morphic processes that occur with ideational/sensate ascendance and/or
decline. Metamorphosis may occur as (1) mixed transition – cultural
disorder created through local mix of heterogeneous values which broadly
conflict, this being collectively manifested as hazy (unstable and chaotic)
regions of bounded instability;13 (2) idealistic transition – regions of
cultural stability collectively representing an integrated culture created
through a local mix of heterogeneous values where socially dominating
synergies arise through agent interactions; or (3) combined transition –
complex dual sociocultural conditions of mixed-idealistic transitions and/
or sensate/ideational ascendance that may occur together across different
partitions/phases of a culture. Illustration of a combined transition is
indicated by Sorokin (1957: 375), describing twentieth-century China
having both an ideational and mixed culture. This leads to the question
of how a culture can maintain a dominant cultural type while simultan-
eously being in transition. The civil war of 1927–49 was between the
sensate power-seeking of Mao Zedong (Mao, 1937) and the Ideational
nationalist Kuomintang government (Rawnsley, 2014: 163), this resulting
in untrusted Sensate-Ideational local value interactions represented by
Mixed conflict. Culture is currently in a state of transition as it loses its
sensate stability and moves into a mixed sensate-ideational cultural phase
consistent with cultural decline.
While western culture is currently, according to Table 13.5, in sensate
decline, there are other cultural regions that might be in different phases of
change. Thus, for instance, Sorokin indicates that in the twentieth century,
China was partly Ideational and partly Mixed (Sorokin, 1957: 375), imply-
ing instability as it moves towards sensate culture. Also, in his foreword to
the same volume, he notes that the ‘stars of the next acts of the great
historical drama of the world’ are going to be the renascent great cultures of
India, China, Japan, Indonesia, and Islamic world. Now China is rising
today with a vigorous neoliberalism that reflects the early Sensate period of
the West with its new industrial revolution (Robinson, 2010). This clearly
suggests that China (like the Asian ‘tiger economies’) is in the vanguard of
an early rising sensate phase compared to the end of phase declining sensate
phase of the west. This recognition is also principally, if indirectly,
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 459
underscored by Bauman’s (2008) recognition that western society is cur-
rently in a liquid state of uncertainty, this being a representative descrip-
tion of Sorokin’s ideas of cultural instability and decline.

13.4 Psychohistory through Formal Inquiry

Noting that psychohistory involves formal personality psychology, such
formality can be extended to formulaic expression by configuring in to AT
through Extreme Physical Information (EPI) – a mathematical informa-
tion theory that centres on relationships and prediction under uncertainty
which shall be considered in the next chapter. The value of EPI, as
indicated in the introduction to this book, is that it can provide a standard
of validity and a means of assessing validity through its formalised mech-
anisms, though these mechanisms may be quite problematic to create. EPI
has been subsumed into Agency Theory (AT) through its configuration
approach as will be explained in the next chapter.
Frieden’s EPI approach is built on Wheeler’s (1994) conceptualisations,
which argues that
all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a partici-
patory universe. … Observer participancy gives rise to information; and
information gives rise to physics. (Frieden, 1998: 1)
So how do we acquire information? A proposition that has its history in
thermodynamics is that physical events have ‘bound’ information that may
or may not be acquired by an inquirer. Given that the event is sufficiently
well known such that a pattern of meaning can be created for it, then
information defines a difference in that pattern. This concept appears to
conform to Bateson’s (1972) notion that information is the difference
which makes a difference.
According to Yates (1994), mathematical order is found in measure-
ment, and consistent with this, EPI is a theory that is measurement
oriented. Frieden argues that the measuring process is a creator of the
noumenally formed physical laws that arise because of our participation in
the measuring process, a process that he calls creative observation. For
Frieden (1998: 108) EPI supports logical positivism which says that ‘all
statements other than those describing or predicting observations are
meaningless’, a statement that can be extended with epistemic construct-
ivism to creative observation, the nature of creativity being relative to the
observer. Here, observations are themselves meaningless except in so far as
they create local logical structures and processes that can be used to
460 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
represent interactor dynamics. Making a measurement is a quantitative
way of asking a question, and is responsible for defining the logical
relationships between the phenomena being observed. In particular, the
very act of measurement elicits a law (Frieden, 1998: 250) that constitutes
part of locally defined physics. Indeed, true to the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle, this implies that the observer is part of the observed phenomena
(Frieden, 1998: 252). Reality, from this perspective, is perpetuated by
requests for knowledge, and adds a new creative dimension to the normally
passive act of observation (Frieden, 1998: 108) that establishes a new
physical world (Frieden, 1998: 109).
So, each inquirer has the potential to create a particular dynamic system
just by making an inquiry. Where two autonomous inquirers undertake
independent inquiries, the dynamics that are created just through their
participation will be in some way differentiable. This is a different propos-
ition to the more usual epistemological one: that people adopt different
perspectives that result in distinct models from which hypotheses about
logical relational structures are generated, tested, and conclusions drawn.
Rather, it presupposes a mental model that provides the basis for an
evaluation of a set of measurements in the phenomenal domain of the
agency living system model.
These are then migrated back by inference to the noumenal domain,
which becomes manifest as a logical dynamic structure that is local to the
creative observer. The dynamic structure is then manifest as a probability
distribution. In this way a measuring process creates the probability
distribution whose outputs are the measurements. The probability distri-
bution describes the local physical reality of the noumenon behind the
measurements. Thus, the observer achieves the highest form of creativity
that is possible by creating a local reality. The notion of creative observa-
tion also has an implication for how one sees the future. Frieden holds that
like physics, prediction is local, but it requires that people are prepared to
constantly modify their views of their world, and consistently reassess the
dynamics of the phenomena that they see around them and measure.
Frieden’s idea of the notion of creative observation provides a reversed
perspective about the connection between the logical dynamic relation-
ships that underpin our conscious reality and the models that we create
about them. The ontological representation of the creative observation
process seen as an autonomous holon is represented in Figure 13.3. Here,
the ontological representation is symbolic, and the processes within each
domain are epistemological in nature. It should be noted that the concep-
tualised process of observation is much more complex than that
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 461

Noumenal domain
Basis for logical coherence for phenomenal/physical experiences

Operative intelligence and

production of probability
distributions that manifest
dynamic phenomenal
Figurative intelligence (physical) systems
and principles of Noumenal domain
inquiry

Information
Interactive Phenomenal domain
coupling Formal or informal
Existential domain with logical dynamical
Logical model from shared structure of phenomena
thematic elaborating past & (e.g., formal laws of
knowledge about future motion like systems
physical system history Cognitive model of
dynamics or quantum
creative observer
physics)

Operative intelligence:
Figurative intelligence regeneration of network that
guiding manifests dynamic structure
adjustment to knowledge
Fractal deriving creation and deployment
knowledge through
figurative intelligence

Figure 13.3 Elaboration of Frieden’s proposition of creative observation in physics.

represented, involving recursive patterns. Graphic total representation of

this topological pattern cannot be represented in an integrated way in two
dimensions. Indeed, the complexity develops further because Figure 13.4 is
also a fractal of the measuring process itself as shown in Figure 13.5.
The cognitive model in this figure develops through an iterative autop-
oietic process that enables an inquiry to develop. It is part of the noumenal
ideate that defines through consciousness the nature of the logical dynam-
ical structure of the phenomena that will be acquired through thematic
inquiry, and that may be argued to exist as a theoretical pattern of reality.
This logically formed pattern of reality, when adopted normatively in a
population of agents belonging to an agency, is the basis for physical/
phenomenal events. As such this can have greater significance for the
agency than the experiences of phenomenal reality itself, because it pro-
vides an explanation that satisfies rational, ideological or ethical needs, and
also offers coherence as opposed to non-interpretable sporadic experiences.
In other words, such a mental construction can develop more significance
than the experiences of phenomenal reality. It may be noted that this
logical structure, if formally defined, is unlikely to be both internally
462 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory

Figurative intelligence through

Operative intelligence and
knowledge creation and
production of inquiry
deployment
processes

Noumenal domain Phenomenal domain

Existential domain Iteratively developing Qualitative inquiring
Paradigm cognitive model of observation
creative observer

Potential for
coupling

Operative intelligence and

network processes for the
production of qualitative
information

Existential domain
Worldview of
observer and
motivation for Figurative intelligence feedback
inquiry

Figure 13.4 Nature of the qualitative inquiry process by a creative observer.

consistent and complete (following Gödel’s theorem; Yolles, 1999: 60–61).

The nature of the logical structure is that it creates a potential for the
acquisition of information. It may therefore be referred to as ‘bound
information’ in that it is bound to the noumenon. Information is
‘migrated’ from the phenomenal to the noumenal domain, enabling the
information model to develop.

13.5 Predicting Complex Behaviour in Social Collectives: Laws

of Social Form
The expectation that social behaviour is predicable has some credence. For
instance, Ball (2003) has explored the phenomenal nature of large groups of
people whose behaviour can be understood on the basis of very simple rules
of interaction. In support of this there have been a series of recent papers
attempting to provide evidence of large-scale human behaviour. For
instance, in financial markets, crashes and large corrections are often
preceded by speculative bubbles with two main characteristics: a power
law acceleration of the market price decorated with log-periodic
 Autogenesis: Autopoiesis: production of
principles of systemic measuration process
information

Noumenal domain
Existential domain Logical dynamic
of physical system Phenomenal domain
Fisher’s theory of
Measuration
information

Autogenesis: feedback Autopoiesis: data

adjusting the guiding feedback, creating data
principles information through a
network of processes

Figurative intelligence through Operative intelligence and

knowledge creation and production of inquiry
deployment processes

Noumenal domain Phenomenal domain

Existential domain Qualitative inquiring
Iteratively developing
Paradigm observation
cognitive model of
creative observer

Potential for
structural
coupling
Operative intelligence and
network processes for the
production of qualitative
information

Existential domain
World-view of
observer and
Figurative intelligence feedback
motivation for
inquiry

Figure 13.5 Illustration of the measuring process and its connection with system dynamics using recursion.
464 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
oscillations (Johansen & Sornette, 2000; Yu, 2004). It has also been shown
that crowd behaviour has complex phenomenological properties with
fractal patterns (Still, 2000; Widyarto & Shafie, 2008).
These ideas would at first seem to support a ‘behaviourist’ formulation
of social processes in which individuals act essentially as automata respond-
ing to a few key stimuli in their external environment. Such behaviourism
has been decried by many systems thinkers (e.g., Koestler, 1967), so one
should always seek a more extended explanation for such apparent effects.
Firstly, it should be realised that all complex autonomous viable organisa-
tions (whether animate or inanimate) have internal structures,14 and
related to this they also have structural conditions from which automative
criticalities arise. It is these structures that are ultimately responsible for
their behaviour and enables organisations to be viable (and therefore
survive durably) and to obey complex automative structural reflexes.15 It
should therefore be recognised that while behaviourism sees animate
objects in purely inanimate terms in relation to an external environment,
this provides only a partial view of the situation. This is because it does not
account for an internal environment defined by its inherent structure and
the potential of that structure for morphogenesis. This very structure, the
organisation’s social morphology, determines the capacity for behavioural
responses to the external environment. What appears, therefore, to be an
automative response to stimuli is often simply an indication of the capacity
of an organisation to respond to stimuli given its current structure and
facilitated behaviour. The capacity for morphogenesis may not only be
determined by the inherent composition of a particular organisation. In
some organisations, the capacity to change that composition is also rele-
vant, and it is this that ultimately determines the inherent structure. In
social collectives, this capacity is often referred to as transformational or
dramatic change, and it normally accompanied by metamorphosis. In
many cases the metamorphosis is self-determined through the meta-system
(e.g., the privatisation of public companies like British Telecom), but in
many cases it is not (as in the case of corporate hostile takeovers). The
capacity to change composition is fundamentally existential. In biological
organisations, composition and therefore structure (and hence the poten-
tial for behaviour) is determined by DNA, an existential map of morph-
ology that is susceptible to evolutionary change. In contrast, in agency
populations of agents, composition is largely due to culture, and this
similarly maintains a capacity for structural definition and change. It is
ultimately culture that provides the capability for an autonomous social
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 465
collective to self-determine its morphology and hence its inherent potential
for criticality.
An agency that has developed and maintains a durable structure involv-
ing consciousness has a meta-system within which simplexity occurs. This
acts for the agency to control its structure and processes in some way.
Given that agency has a population of agents that it represents, then it is
through the meta-system that a collective mind arises. The notion of the
collective mind is also consistent with that of the noumenon identified by
Kant, which refers to ‘the intellectual conception of a thing as it is in itself,
not as it is known through perception’ and which he took as the unknown
realm of mind.
The notion of the collective mind was originally proposed by Espinas in
1878 and more recently re-asserted by Le Bon (van de Sande, 2004: chapter
1). This is not exactly the same as Jung notion of the collective unconscious,
which is inherited and is associated with psychological archetypes (Yolles,
2005). However, it leads to the argument that there is a difference between
individual (or unitary) and collective (or plural) agents in that the former
has a personal unconscious while the latter has a collective psyche for which
cultural structures emerge and give rise to normative perspectives and
normative processes of rationality. In this sense it may well be seen that
plural agents have a constructive frame of reference that occurs through the
function of collective associative projection. This occurs when the collective
mind is active in forming an image of phenomenal reality (rather than
being simply a passive receptor) through its reasoning and perspective
generating capacity (Yolles, 2005), and results in patterns of behavioural
coherence. That plural agents have a collective mind can be posited once it
is convincingly argued that it has associative projection through its norma-
tive reasoning and perspective generating capacity. Coherent plural agents
are commonly considered in this light, at least metaphorically, and there
are consequences of this view that also arise in the academic literature (e.g.,
Kets de Vries, 1991). This idea has also filtered through to civil governance,
where legal systems commonly recognise corporate bodies as legal persons
with corporate responsibility and a capacity of associative projection that
can result in criminal offences.
The emergence of a collective mind involves the development of col-
lective culture that establishes a capacity for the collective to develop a
global noumenon. This idea is consistent with that of van de Sande (2004),
who notes that some organisational psychologists (e.g., Weik & Roberts,
1993) argue that organisations are not things, but processes. The collective
mind can be used to explain organisational performance in situations that
466 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
require nearly continuous operational reliability. Weick and Roberts con-
ceptualise the collective mind as a pattern of ‘heedful’ interrelations of
actions in a social system (i.e., agency). Principally, an organisation can be
seen as a plural collective of local autonomous agents that construct their
actions within a field of interaction, and through which agent actions are
interconnected. This field of interaction is manifested as a part of the agent
population. One can understand the rise of an agency noumenon as the
agent population develops, perhaps with imputed purposes and degree of
formalisation. In this case heedful processes are often the result of inten-
tion, coordination, integration, and hence coherence. However, as van de
Sande noted, crowd behaviour occurs with seemingly little formal organ-
isation, and little is understood about how far the behaviours of crowd
members are heedfully coordinated, and what facilitates this coordination?
There is some indication, however, that one factor that plays a role is
emotional climate (Kaklauskasa et al., 2019).

13.6 The Suitability of Agency Theory as a Formal Framework

AT is a suitable framework for creating a social physics. The evolution
across its various forms is described in Chapter 1. The core theory uses three
ontological categories that are types of reality attributable to archetypical
rational beings: believing, thinking and doing (Figure 1.2).
Epistemologically speaking, believing is connected to knowledge while
thinking is connected to information and doing is data related; these
ontological connections may not be immediate and linear however. In
the archetypical emotional being we have seen that processes of thinking are
complexified by feeling. While the ontological natures of the three attri-
butes of the agency model are different, they do have a mutual relationship
in the autonomous being. AT is able to be used to explore aspects of these
complex relationships.
The AT schema, as already indicated, has its origin in the work of
Schwarz (1997, 2001). In developing his notions, he explains how persistent
viable systems are able to maintain themselves, change and die. Viable
social collectives participate in the self-development of their own futures,
and are self-organising and adaptive to perturbations that arise in their
environment. They have structures that facilitate and constrain their
behaviour, and they are responsible for the manifestation and maintenance
of that structure. A viable collective is able to support adaptability and
change while being able to maintained desired stability in its behaviour,
and this is affected by incoherence and pathology.
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 467
Schwarz’s (2004) approach was to create a general theory of viable autono-
mous systems, and its creation was stimulated during the preparation for a
course of lectures on the Introduction to Systems Thinking at the University
of Neuchâtel, in particular using Prigogine’s dissipative structures theory,
Erich Jantsch’s self-organising universe, Maturana and Varela’s (1979) autop-
oietic approach and of course cybernetic concepts. Schwarz tried to extract the
basic common features of these different approaches and produce a unique
meta-model that constitutes a transdisciplinary epistemo-ontological frame-
work, from which other phenomenological models could be constructed
through a combination of logical deduction and intuition. The meta-model
itself can be described as a means for the generation of simplexity (in Cohen
and Stewart’s terms), operating with some internal dynamics, coherence and
self-referential character, and it also had resonances with philosophia peren-
nis.16 While many (phenomenological) models show that the evolution of
systems go through the successive stages of emergence, growth, stability, and
decay, the interest of this meta-model is its global coherence and its question-
ing of the foundations of the usual materialistic, dualistic, realistic, reductionist
and mechanistic approach that, for Schwarz, provides the basis for a language
for a new holistic paradigm.
AT is presented as a model with a substructure that defines the axiomatic
principles of living systems, and a superstructure that is able, through its
configuration approach, to accumulate appropriate theories into it that
create a context, an epistemic content, and a theoretical disposition that
defines the substructure. Just as the concept of system is a metaphor for
expressing the complexity of the universe (Szymański, 2002), AT similarly
elaborates on exploring complexity through cybernetic and recursive pro-
cesses. Metaphors have scientific significance in that they provide narra-
tives that suitably explains a concept that can then find pragmatic utility
(Brown, 2003), and its cybernetic and recursive nature means it establishes
a relative theory of contexts that results in epistemological variety (Yolles,
2006). This occurs because the knowledge that it claims to express is
relative to changing contexts.
The modelling approach of Schwarz (1997, 2001) provides a capacity to
explain why chaotic events should not just be seen as temporary accidental
fluctuations that occur in our complex social systems, but are rather caused
by the inadequacy of our worldview and our methods to manage complex
situations. He argues that explicative frameworks like religious or political
ideologies are not pertinent tools to understand these developments, and
that mono-disciplines like economic science, sociology, psychology, and
anthropology are unable to apprehend hybrid systems. A linguistic
468 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
framework that comes from a suitable coherent model is needed that is able
to describe and interpret complex situations that are part of more or less
autonomous complex systems. He further argues that various theoretical
developments have occurred to address such approaches, including general
systems theory, non-linear dynamics (chaos theory), complex adaptive
systems research, cellular autonomata, recursive and hyperincursive sys-
tems, and artificial life. The frame of reference developed by Schwarz is
intended to interpret complex systems with more or less autonomy or
operational closure (like self-organisation), and which possess other related
facets such as self-regulation, self-production, and self-reference.

13.7 Chapter in Brief

• Sociohistory is a social event history that occurs in the past or future

using appropriate formal theory; is concerned with the microcosms of
social interaction; describes and explains practical situations; and with
sufficient information, can predict either long-term large-scale or short-
term small-scale sociocultural events.
• Sociohistorical inquiry involves wicked problems: those having a variety
of dynamic event states and essential variables with values and relation-
ships that may be hidden and thus unknown or indeterminable.
• Sociohistory is therefore perspective relative. To be convincing it thus
requires multiple perspectives from a plurality of participating inquirers
• Sociohistory becomes psychohistory when it involves the interrogation of
agent personality psychology. It seeks hidden motives of historical move-
ments, using any one of many different psychological theories (or any
combination of these theories). The approach is especially useful when
sociohistory appears irrational. It is the science of historical motivation that
chronologises events in terms of the unconscious in relation to social and
political behaviour. It involves the explicit use of formal psychology in
historical interpretation. It is affected by problems similar to those affecting
the broader discipline of sociohistory, personality psychology, and the social
sciences generally: the heterogeneous composition of social movements, the
phenomenon of discontinuity, and the capacity of people actively to
construct versions of the world from their own idiosyncratic conflicts and
in the context of the many different social locations they occupy.
• Sociohistory is related to psychohistory, firstly because both are inter-
ested in the pragmatics of social events.
 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism 469
• Like meta-history, which involves inquiry into the philosophy and
pragmatics of historical events and enables their elucidation and under-
standing through the explanation of the past and an anticipation of the
future, sociohistory and psychohistory are interested in the pragmatics
of historical events but being devoid of the philosophical trappings.
• Psychohistory can be examined through narrative or patterning
approaches.
• A psychohistorical pattern that a conceptualised schema, like Trope
theory, that can be used to explain something historical, and which
determines how selected elements of history develop.
• Patterning approaches seek to examine long-term change, phenomenal
change through morphogenesis and new forms of complexity occur in
social organisation, and particulars in the history of sociocultures.
• Narratives connects events, are deterministic, and are used to convey
part of a spoken story. They involve rhetoric intended to convince
others, and teleology that provides explanation of history in terms of
purpose and direction.
• Narration involves a mode of emplotment, argument, and ideological
implication, these arising from an interpretive paradigmatic strategy
that a narrator has adopted, and from a perspective is comes.
• Inquiry using narrative and/or patterning can be formulated in terms of
Agency Theory.
• Sociohistory and psychohistory can both make use of Sorokin’s theory
of sociocultural dynamics, which has been extensively explored in terms
of the value dynamics of large-scale cultures. This explains how cultures
move through a cycle of change from one penchant to another, but
under uncertainty the dynamics may be far from deterministic.
• The development of psychohistory can also be considered in terms of
Agency Theory, explaining how historical and possibly future events can
be explored.
• An exploration is made of the use of formal structures of inquiry that are
able to predict sociopsychological events under uncertainty.
• Formal formulaic structures that adopt mathematical or logical language
can benefit inquiry because of the deductive and simulation power that
well-constructed theory has.
• It explains that this formal approach arises with Roy Frieden’s Extreme
Physical Information (EPI) that operates as configuration schema
with MAT.
 chapter 14

Illustrating Psychohistory

14.1 Formal Psychohistory

Mindset Agency Theory delivers a formal trait psychology linked with
Frieden‘s (1998) formulaic Extreme Physical Information (EPI). Recalling
that there are two types of agency, cognition and affect/emotion that
interact to create behaviour, both are deemed to be adaptive complex
systems with trait movements that satisfy non-linear dynamics – such
dynamics usefully described by Levin (2002). The intention here is to
deliver only a snapshot of what a formal psychohistory might deliver by
exploring the relationship between the interactive meso agents of a general
formative trait that vie to attract that it.
To deliver this snapshot, EPI will be harnessed to anticipate the trait
types predilection value that agency might adopt, thereby anticipating the
personality psychology of actors in an inquiry into future history. This is
shown in Figure 14.1, where to conform with Figure 13.3, the cognitive basis
of the theory of EPI is identified as part of the noumenal system (cf. Clark
et al., 2008). Here, then EPI mathematical structures can be related to
agency trait structures with adequate cognitive input. EPI operative intel-
ligence is constituted as a network of processes, selecting relevant expres-
sions to use in an analysis, and determining conditions for the prediction of
likely trait growths in given situations. Once the likelihood of trait state
emergence is predicted, Mindsets can be determined through the network
of processes that constitute operative intelligence. A set of behavioural
options will result from which context sensitive patterns of behaviour can
be anticipated. The anticipations of these behaviours occur using behav-
ioural intelligence explained in the last chapter.
We shall apply a general approach to explore the way in which traits may
change using the Lotka–Volterra growth law, this enabling prediction of
trait trajectory towards one meso agent or the other. Moving from the
470
 Illustrating Psychohistory 471

Noumenal System

EPI operative intelligence

EPI figurative predicting trait growth Operative intelligence
intelligence determining Mindscape
EPI
configuration

Noumenal Agency Psychohistorical

Cultural System Noumenal Figurative System Operative System
System
Theoretical and Agency formative Mindscape
Cognitive Axiomatic traits (under Behavioural options
pragmatic
Basic of Theory of immanent dynamic (under adventitious
knowledge
Extreme Physical change) influences)

Operative Behavioural
Figurative EPI figurative intelligence EPI operative intelligence intelligence intelligence
intelligence feedback feedback feedback Interactive
Environment
Cultural System Behaviour/Patterns
Theoretical and Figurative of behaviour
Behavioural
pragmatic intelligence Having relevance to
intelligence feedback
psychosocial feedback sociocultural
with adscititious
knowledge past/future history
influences

Figure 14.1 Formal psychohistorical inquiry: using EPI to predict agency trait values
under change, and hence behaviours from mindsets.

generality to the specific would require extensive analysis involving ten

traits in total of which five belong to affect and five to cognition. From this
Mindsets can be determined thereby creating behavioural anticipation.
Mathematical schemas can be used to explore relationships under different
parametric conditions that indicate possible psychohistorical outcomes. As
an illustration, Carmichael and Hadzikadic (2013) have used Complex
Adaptive Systems (Eidelson, 1997; Holland, 2006) to examine non-linear
growth under complexity of emergent features in a general Food. We
rather adopt EPI which has the advantage that it is both broad and is
already propositional coherent with AT. Such approaches, like that under-
taken by Carmichael and Hadzikadic, involve simulations that are able to
track psychohistorical processes and deliver narrative outcomes with living
stories as discussed in Chapter 13. Such approaches can benefit from
computer visualisation techniques, which can improve the understanding
of the dynamic processes (Wegenkittl, 1997; Hause, 1999; Efroni et al.,
2005; Korotka & Rott, 2019).
Agency orientation is defined by its traits (cognition traits from Table
6.1, and affect traits from Table 8.6), and summarised in Table 14.1. During
dynamic change, these take trait type numerical values that are bounded by
their meso agents acting as dynamic attractors, and are described as below,
though in the remainder of this chapter, due to the need of brevity, we shall
 Table 14.1 The ten traits and their meso agent (yin-yang) polar attractors

Type Agency Opposite polar

agency system Trait Polar attractor Summary of nature attractor Summary of nature

Cognition Personality Cognitive Intellectual Leads an agency towards Embeddedness Centres on group
autonomy individualism identification
Figurative Mastery & Concerned with self- Harmony Accept situations as
Affective assertion & Motive they are
Autonomy
Operative Hierarchy Supports ascription of Egalitarianism Others seen to be equal
individuals to given
roles
Sociocultural Cultural Sensate Seeks material things Ideational Seeks cognitive values like
like money or power friendship or love
Social Patterning Social relationship Dramatising Interpersonal relations,
configurations, self-interest and
collective benefit, individual benefit,
action delay through action oriented
observation
Affect Personality Cognitive stimulation May be context positive Containment Supporting self-discipline
(emotional or negative and continuance
attitude)
Figurative Ambition Aspirations and goals Protection Safety or preservation
(motivation
activation)
Operative Dominance Control and supremacy Submission Compliance and
(emotion subordination
management)
Sociocultural Cultural Fear Insecurity and Security Trusting, solidarity,
(emotion uncooperative hopeful
climate)
Social Missionary Imposing and promoter Empathetic Accepting and
sympathetic
 Illustrating Psychohistory 473
consider only the general trait Ԏ and its dual meso agents. Having said this,
it is worth remaining ourselves that by the symbol Ԏ we can represent any
of the traits indicated below, each of which have their attractor pole meso
agents.
The traits play a part in internalising observed information deriving
from some effect or interest, and forming a representative schema from
which behaviour in relation to that effect is decided. The nature of traits is
that they define agency orientation, and in doing so operate as selective
information receptors and transmitters. That selectivity creating agency
orientation is responsible for the nature of the ideate that results from
processes of internalisation of some observed effect, and this creates
a proclivity bias in the agency’s patterns of behaviour, since the ideate
image will have information that is at variance with that of the effect.
Consistent with the ideas of Sorokin (1962) that traits are dynamic, they
have two epistemically opposite polar extrema that function in contradis-
tinction to one another, thereby acting as opposing attractor forces. Given
that a trait can be numerically measured between the bounds created by the
poles to which they may be attracted, then change in dominant cultural
values result in and evolutionary process through which the character of
culture is altered.
Now, AT has a recursive nature that arises from the idea of system
hierarchy that it supports, and as defined in Chapter 1. This enables an
explanation for living systems to populate an agency wherever it can be
theorised that entities exist that have the property of living and which have
attributes of self. Here we shall in due course explain that not only may
cultural dynamics be established through a cultural trait in a living system
that has a culture, but indeed so can all of the agency formative personality
traits that define agency with a personality. For our focus of examination,
and consistent with Simon’s (1962) notions of system hierarchy discussed in
Chapter 2, consider that an agency is a macro entity with a population of
micro agents, each of which may be a micro agency in its own right. An
agency and its micro agents experience imperatives for behavioural control
due to the emergent meso agents that arise from the population of micro
agents. This meso dimension is Cohen and Stewart’s (1995) simplexity and
Gribbin’s (2004) deep simplicity. Knowing that active meso agents at play
in agency provide a basis for control imperatives that guide both agency
and micro agent behaviour, patterns of behaviour can be anticipated.
Recall that meso agents are attractors, and culture creates a field of influ-
ence through the cultural formative trait CԎ with meso agent attractor
values (CԎI, CԎJ) that orientate the agency towards respectively sensate and
474 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
ideational behavioural proclivities. Kashima (2000; Sperber, 1996) explains
that culture undergoes dynamic change when meaningful cultural repre-
sentations are communicated between micro agents in their population as
though they are a contagion that has epidemic properties. Some individ-
uals become infected while others are immune, but overall, the distribution
of cultural representations changes in an agency. The central tendency of
the distribution may be that over time and within a multi-dimensional
space determined by values, cultural movement occurs such that cultural
tendencies may stabilise at one point, remain in one area of the space, or
move around chaotically. These movements, called trajectories, can be seen
as attractor dynamics in a nonlinear dynamical system. It suggests a theory
of cultural evolution in which cultural values and practices self-organise
within an agency.
Now, the trajectory that the cultural trait (as do the other traits) takes
between its two meso agents shapes agency. However, each of the two meso
agents (one with a sensate and the other an ideational value system) has the
capacity to create control imperatives when the cultural trait is attracted to
it. The rational for this is clear. Cohen and Stewart (1995) explain that
complex situations can simplified through simplexity. In the last chapter
we explained how simplexity arises. Within the context of the modelling
process of this book, the traits come to form that simplexity structure, and
the trait poles now become meso agents that define the dynamics of
simplexity. The emergence determines that cultural values that the cultural
trait adopts within the agency.
While each of the micro agents in a population belonging to an
agency may have personalities, the agency too has a normative personal-
ity that emerges from the pattern of agent interactions. We remind
ourselves that agency orientation occurs through the five formative traits,
which are fundamental in orientating the agency and which create
imperatives for its behaviour. We are aware that of the formative agency
traits that determine an agency orientation belong to personality and
socioculture. The sociocultural traits involve a cultural orienting influ-
ence, and a social orienting influence that constrains or facilitates social
interaction in particular ways. Both influence and are influenced by the
personality traits.
Agency behaviour is determined by the imperatives and conditioning
created by the meso structure that resides in its meta-system. Agency
orientation creates behavioural proclivity resulting in patterns that are
sensitive to context. Determining the relationship between elements of
the meso structure and behaviour within multi-agency contexts is
 Illustrating Psychohistory 475
a function of psychohistory. EPI is suitable to the task of exploring these
relationships, though only a snapshot entry to this will be made here.

14.2 Configuring EPI with Agency Theory

To configure EPI with AT, one needs to recognise a consistency in their
philosophical positions: both adopt critical realism (Mason, 2015; Norris,
1997), which involves a combination of epistemological relativism and
ontological realism, and recognises that ontological commitments must
be taken into account during processes of conceptualisation. This is
inherently the case with AT through the distinction between its behav-
ioural system and its meta-system, and is also the case for EPI which
embraces ontological realism through observer uncertainty (Srivasatava,
2009), and coupled with AT can be formulated in a space of epistemic
relativism. As noted in Chapter 1, critical realism posits that effects exist
independently of their being perceived through our theories about them.
Reality is determined by the structures creating the effects and this is
independent from our perception of them. Critical realism constitutes
a means by which an intermediate position can be achieved that reflects
various relationships between an effect and an observer.
This position can be elaborated on. First consider that an agency, as
a normative observer, observes an effect, defined as a pattern of informa-
tion that is associated with a context. When connecting information with
context, meaning arises. Context is dependent on phenomenal experience.
However, what constitutes context for one agency may not be the same for
others, particularly under conditions of complexity. In such cases context is
better defined through a collective of agencies, emerging from their inter-
active processes through which meaning and cognitive ‘truth’ can arise
from which rational validity may develop. Context has epistemological
content, it is values laden through its collective norms, and it is subject to
change. So, context is relative to the collective.
The observation of an effect by an agency results in its acquiring
information. This is then internalised resulting in schemas which create
imperatives for behaviour under given contexts. The relativity involved in
this acquisition process implies that the internalised patterns are part of
a horizon of meanings that can be approached but not embraced. The
internalisation process can be explained in terms assimilation and accom-
modation introduced in Chapter 2. Recall that assimilation is the act of
incorporating new information into an existing thematic knowledge
scheme, while accommodation occurs when a knowledge scheme is
476 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
adjusted to ‘accommodate’ the knowledge that has been assimilated,
a process from which adaptation can result. This new information,
bounded as it is by context, is formulated as an ideate schema expressed
as an image or pattern of thought. The ideate is housed in a noumenal
system, is figurative in nature, and may be deemed to have an implicit and
explicit component. The implicit component is the ‘hidden’ unmeasurable
component of a complex behavioural system that will exist as an informa-
tion potential beyond the horizon of meanings, and so it will not be known
or recognised. Its explicit part is recognised and is measurable, and might
be represented as logical or rational structures formulated as, or associated
with, sets of relatable but not necessarily coordinated symbolic images. The
root of the ideate schema is the knowledge gleaned by the agency originat-
ing with observation. We are now in a position to explain EPI before
connecting it with AT. EPI has two forms of information, I and J and these
together act as indicators of complexity.
To understand their natures, firstly, consider there to be some abstract
Kantian noumenon in which the total information of an effect is held. This
noumenon is some unknown, perhaps unknowable, absolute statement of
the nature of the effect. The absolute content of a noumenon cannot be
known, but the phenomena associated with it can be within the limited
dimensionality of some sensory framework (Frieden & Gatenby, 2007).1
This ontological realism takes reality to be complex, and recognises the role
of both agency and structural factors in influencing human behaviour
(Given, 2008). Now, critical realism, which distinguished between a real
effect and the observation of that effect, is central to EPI through its
recognition that there is a difference between acquired information I and
acquirable information J. These types of information, when represented by
numerical values, are expressed in terms of Fisher information
probabilities:
• Information J is about an effect that is contextually bound to the
noumenon, where its explicit component is measured as a numerical
value determined by the maximum Fisher information.
• Information I is about what is ‘known’ of an effect, where the captured
information takes into account information loss during observation, and
where the numerical value of I is given by the Fisher information for the
observed effect.
There is also a relationship between I and J that is useful in generating
outcomes for EPI configurations. In this, for any EPI configuration that
models an aspect of complex reality, one seeks
 Illustrating Psychohistory 477
I ðacquiredÞ  J ðacquirableÞ ¼ Extremum ð1Þ
thereby closing the gap between observation and reality. This condition is
approached when a probability law is found such that the value of infor-
mation I is as close to the maximum possible value J (I ≤ J) as is needed to
describe it. It has been indicated that the I and J numerical values are
related to Fisher information (from the 1920s statistician and geneticist
Ronald Aylmer Fisher) – this being a measure under uncertainty that tells
us how much information about an unknown parameter we can obtain
from a sample, i.e., how well we can measure a parameter, given a certain
amount of data. According to Zegers (2015), Fisher information regulates
how well it is possible to determine the internal structure of a system,
indicating how they are composed and what they are. Martin (2015)
provides an illustration for the use of Fisher information. Thus, consider
the population of registered voters in a region, then one might be interested
in the unknown proportion that would vote for one given party in an
upcoming election. The goal would be to ‘estimate’ this proportion from
a sample. However, the issue is that the population/distribution of interest
is not completely known.
Now, the effect is the source of the information, and the observed
information arises from this as an effective flow of information during
the process of observation, where I derives from J as
J ! I: ð2Þ
To demonstrate that EPI can be configured with AT, there is a need to
demonstrate that its basis, the noumenon, fits both theories. Now, within
the physical universe Kant’s idea is that a noumenon is some abstract
metaphysical phenomena to which unknown attributes can be assigned.
While agency has a physical dimension where it generates behaviour, it also
has a metaphysical dimension referred to as a meta-system, and this houses
agency meso structure. Hence, there meta-system is a local agency attribute
that takes on the properties of Kant’s metaphysical noumenon. In other
words, the noumenal principles that define EPI also fit well with AT.
At this point it is of value to replace (I, J) by (ԎI, ԎJ). This is because
when information is internalised by an agency, it is filtered through its traits
Ԏ, this biasing J and hence influencing the relationship between (I, J). We
thus use the symbol Ԏ to remind us that the noumenon occurs within
agency psyche, and that through processes of internalisation an ideate
schema (mental model) is constructed that has been subject to information
perturbation caused by the filtering function of the traits. Thus, while
478 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
information (I, J) are directly represented as (ԎI, ԎJ), ԎI is the result of
a dual observation-internalisation process and ԎJ is a result of the informa-
tion bound to the noumenon. We refer to (ԎI, ԎJ) as a manifestation of (I,
J), where the dominance (or strength of attraction) of either ԎI or ԎJ one to
the other is indicated by the values of I and J determined from Fisher
information. These Ԏ variables play a significant role in the construction of
internalised representations of the effect, as shown in, as shown in
Figure 14.2.
Since the observed effect is internalised, the capability to internalise that
observation by an agency is indicated by its efficacy κ. This efficacy
parameter may be influenced by a number of factors, but agency trait
derived orientation will be one of these. Since the traits are elements of
a living system, and ԎI and ԎJ are components of the noumenon, we take it
that Figure 14.2 represents the relationships that indicate the efficacy of
internalisation. Here for the sake of illustration, we have distinguished κ
into two components, κJ(Ԏ) and κI(Ԏ). These are both measures of effi-
cacy, representing agency capability to acquire and maintain information
from an effect. The coefficient κI(Ԏ) is responsible for the generation/
regeneration of the ideate, while κJ(Ԏ) is the efficacy through which the
ideate may be related to the effect thus contributing to the maintenance of
the relationship between ԎI and ԎJ. The values of these κ coefficients will
vary from agency to agency. The relationship between ԎJ and ԎI shown in
the noumenal domain of the figure is indicative of an interactive couple –

Production of meaningful Efficaciousness KJ( ) as a network

principles of self-production processes
Immanent
dynamic
structural
Existential domain couple
J
Phenomenal domain
Conceptual and
its related Noumenal The effect
information domain
patterns
I

Ideate regeneration for

Paradigmatic adjustment efficaciousness KI( ) through
feedback

Figure 14.2 The development of immanent (trait) dynamics in an autonomous

system.
 Illustrating Psychohistory 479
an agency dialectic where the relationship between ԎJ and ԎI is constantly
reconfigured.
Now, since κ is the efficacy measure connected to internalisation, it is also
a measure of the way in which information is manifested in the agency (as
observer) from the effect. Here, κ indicates capability in manifesting infor-
mation, but when it takes the value κʹ = κI(Ԏ) = κJ(Ԏ), it becomes a requisite
capability, when the generation/regeneration of the ideate is equally
related back to the effect, giving confidence that the observation is
suitably perceived. This does not of course mean that the effect is fully
perceived. In agencies with pathologies there is usually a deficit between
the two when κI(Ԏ) ≠ κJ(Ԏ) with the bound that κ< κʹ. One might claim
that essentially, an agency with a specific orientation, i.e., a biased agency,
is necessarily one that has inherent pathologies due to that orientation.
This is avoided if the traits become balanced (Chapter 6). In our socio-
cognitive application the value of κ will vary from agency to agency. This
is because an agency’s κʹ is ultimately culturally determined, and different
agencies maintain distinct cultures. Since cultures also change, κʹ is time
dependent.
While κ is a measure of the efficacy of the internalisation process, it
emerges from interactions between the agency traits. In the case that κ≈1
(is close to the value 1) then the traits filter out very little information
and the internalisation will be highly efficacious with limited trait biases,
but that κ = 1 might occur is virtually impossible. This is because given
that there are two agencies with different traits, even in the unlikely
event that the traits in both agencies are identical, their cognitive and
affective processes and the interaction between cognition and affect may
be different. This will reduce the value of κ and limit the full informa-
tion acquisition potential during the internalisation process. In general,
then, κ < 1 relative to each agency. Now, agency has its proprietary traits
that reduces its capacity to internalise the full information potential, this
in essence constituting an inherent pathology. There may be other
internal pathologies that will complexity this, for instance in the situ-
ation described in Part II of this book where personal and public
identities are different, and where we may find that κ ≪ 1 (κ much
less than 1). In other words, the efficacy κ may be considered to be in
some way inversely proportional to the seriousness of an agency path-
ology. Hence κ→1 suggests weaker pathologies while κ → 0 indicates
stronger ones.
The EPI principle, shown in Equation (1) can be represented as
480 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
ԎJ ðimp&exp Þ ! ԎI ; ð3Þ
where ԎJ(imp & exp) refers to the implicit (imp) and the explicit (exp) trait
information, this occurring through the phenomenal domain in
a cybernetic loop from the figurative structures that define a personality
ideate to the effect via a process of agency internalisation. As such the
‘acquired’ information ԎI is generally some fraction of ԎJ(imp & exp),
reminding ourselves that the numerical type values taken by ԎI and ԎJ
(= ԎJ(exp)) indicate the dominance of each attractor, this indicative of the
degree of attraction each has on Ԏ.

14.3 Some Principles of EPI

At this point it may be of use to offer some principles that underlie EPI
these providing some basis for the approach.

14.3.1 The EPI Principle of Observation Error

Generally, ԎI and ԎJ have numerical value, the former being determined
by the information I, and the latter the bound explicit acquired informa-
tion J. Note that ԎI does not satisfy the potential that manifestation (i.e.,
observation plus internalisation) offers. Consider that manifestation is
generally imperfect, so that ԎJ ≠ ԎI. Suppose that an effect has information
indicated by a, the agency wishing to gain information about the effect
extracts information that is indicated by the value a, a fixed and definite
number as shown in Equation (4). Consider further that the information
manifested is z. Realistically, this does not generally equal a but departs
from it by a random value χ, with
z ¼ a þ χ: ð4Þ
The error χ in the measurement generally consists of random observation
‘noise’ that may be due to sociocultural or behavioural factors that influ-
ence the observation, plus any fluctuation that is characterised by the
agency’s trait biases– this being called the measured effect.
Consider next a special measurement of a. This occurs through the use
of an ideal or noise-free measuring device. In the absence of noise during
detection, χ is now a fluctuation that is purely characteristic of the
measured effect. It is intrinsic to the measured effect whose fluctuations
x define the physics of the effect. So, χ is now no longer regarded as mere
noise but is rather a consequence of the observational agency pathology,
 Illustrating Psychohistory 481
like trait bias. Suppose that the totality of possible intrinsic fluctuations χ
define a probability law p(z|a). Suppose further that the law is unknown.
How may it be found?
The Fisher information value for I in ԎI for a typical such measurement
y is defined to obey
ԎI ¼ h½ðd=d χ Þlog pðzjaÞ2 〉 : ð5Þ
This is the expectation < > over all x of the square of the derivative of log
p(z|a). The expectation may be evaluated as a simple integral over all χ
(Frieden, 1998). Hence, if p(z|a) is known so is ԎI, and differently shaped
laws p(z|a) give rise to different values for ԎI.
Equation (3) holds for the usual case where the probability law p(z|a)
obeys shift invariance, i.e., it holds regardless of any shift that might occur
in the relative connection between the observation and the effect. If it
doesn’t, and if more generally a vector of measurements is made, a slightly
more cumbersome definition exists – the trace of the Fisher information
matrix. (The trace is the sum of elements down the diagonal.) The trace
form also amounts to a ‘channel capacity’ or maximised form of the Fisher
information. Thermodynamically, this corresponds to an ‘unmixed state’
of the measured system, i.e., one of maximum order. For simplicity, this
general case will not be further considered here.
In evaluating Equation (5) for various laws p(z|a) it becomes apparent
that
ԎI is a measure of the width of p(z|a).
For example, if p(z|a) is a normal law its use in Equation (5) gives ԎI as
simply 1 divided by the variance. The variance is roughly the squared width
of p(z|a). Hence the wider the law p(z|a) is the smaller is the information
value. What does the width of a probability law signify?
The wider or broader the probability p(z|a) on the fluctuation is, the more
‘random’ the values of χ are, therefore, the less accurately can parameter a be
estimated from an observation y. We would expect this to define a case of
small value of information associated with ԎI. This is precisely what
Equation (4) gives in this scenario. Hence, Fisher information that deter-
mines that value of ԎI measures the information about an unknown param-
eter a that is present in a typical data value y, i.e., an indicator of the
information possibilities that might be extracted by observing an effect.
Consider now a system with the intrinsic fluctuation χ following the law
p(z|a) (‘intrinsic’ meaning, as above, noise in the presence of ideal, noise-
free, detection). Thus, the system might refer some hypothetical truth
482 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
a defined at some horizon of meanings, this deriving from the pattern of
information that an effect has, but observed at a position in some multi-
dimensionality of meanings z = a + χ. Besides giving rise to inaccurate data
y as indicated above, such a system is also said to have a high degree of
‘disorder’. Thus, the ‘width’ of a probability law associates with the degree
of disorder of the system it describes. This is on the face of it a qualitative
statement. However, by Equation (5) the information ԎI allows the degree
of disorder of the system to be quantified, i.e., represented by a number.
One usually measures the disorder of a system by its level of entropy
H. Does H relate to ԎI? Consider that the level of disorder of the system
monotonically increases with time.2 The level of disorder is determined
by the entropy H which by the second law of thermodynamics, must
increase.3 This corresponds to a decreasing Fisher information:
dԎr =dt ≤ 0; ð6Þ
where ԎI is a trait whose dominance is determined by I and operates
through trait proclivity implying filtering bias.
The information in ԎI also determines how well the hypothetical true
observation can be estimated by an imperfect observation. The mean-
square error e2 in any unbiased estimate obeys
e2 ≥ 1=ԎI : ð7Þ
This (called the ‘Cramer–Rao inequality’) shows that the larger the level of
Fisher information is, the smaller the mean-square error e tends to be in an
evaluation determined from the pattern of information of the effect.
Combining this relation with the preceding one shows that, as time
progresses, information progressively drops and errors e increase! This is
generally true of diffusive systems.4

14.3.2 Order and Disorder

Evaluations of ԎI for various probability laws via Equation (5) discloses that
the broader and (by a normalisation requirement) lower it is as a function of
the z the smaller is ԎI. A broad, low likelihood function indicates close to
equal probability for all values of the z, i.e., a maximally disordered system
resulting in an unintegrated or uncoordinated system of thought. Thus,
a small value of ԎI indicates a high level of disorder in so that internalised
information is not coherent; similarly, it can be shown that a large value of ԎI
indicates a small level of disorder indicating greater internal information
coherence.
 Illustrating Psychohistory 483
The Second law of thermodynamics states that disorder must inevitably
increase leading to internal agency cognitive and affective incoherence,
unless internal processes occur to reverse this. Disorder can be measured in
many different ways. Entropy increases when disorder increases, so
the second law is usually expressed by the statement that the rate of change
of entropy with time is positive (i.e., it increases).
However, the state of disorder, as we discussed, may also be expressed in
terms of Fisher information I. For probability density functions in space-
time that obey a Fokker–Planck (diffusion) equation, the rate of change of
ԎI for changing I is negative (Frieden, 1990; Plastino & Plastino, 1995):
ΔԎI =Δt ≤ 0: ð8Þ
That is, with an increase in time Δt ≥ 0, the change in information must be
negative so that
ΔԎr ≤ 0 ð9Þ
when Fisher information monotonically decreases with time.
On the level of the observables or data z this means that ever more
randomness monotonically creeps into them. The system defined by the
z becomes ever more disordered.
The transition in Equation (1) represents a change in internalised
information I that satisfies
ΔԎr ¼ Ԏr –ԎJ : ð10Þ
Combining Equations (4) and (5) gives the result ԎI – ԎJ ≤ 0, or
equivalently,
ԎI ¼ κ ԎJ ; where 0 ≤ κ ≤ 1: ð11Þ
This indicates one of the two equations composing the EPI principle. The
coefficient κ is a measure of the requisite manifestation with which the
internalised information is transferred from the figurative ideate ԎJ to its
representation ԎI. It is thus a parameter of manifestation always having
a value between 0 and 1, and is dependent on agency capacity to effica-
ciously internalise information obtained from an effect.
Equation (11) states that the value of the trait information ԎI from
acquired information I through internalisation via a trait has the ‘poten-
tial’ to equal the value of ԎJ at most. In situations where ԎI = ԎJ,
internalised potential information is fully manifested in the agency.
Thus, the probability law p(z|a) that occurs as an output from EPI
now describes the figurative as well as the operative. This law arises
484 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
because, given a system specified by an unknown but estimable param-
eter value a, an observer collects data y = y1, …, yn from the system. The
assumption is that the data contain ‘information’ in some as yet
undefined way, about the value of a.
Information in ԎJ varies in form across different effects as it does across
different agencies. However, it is always found by the use of an appropriate
invariance principle, i.e., an invariance that is appropriate in characterising
the particular measured effect. This invariance principle must therefore be
known. We will use a very simple invariance principle in our problem below,
that of unitarity (invariance of length).
Now K is defined to be the change ΔԎI in the trait related informa-
tion that is incurred during its transit from effect through to
internalisation,
K ¼ ԎI –ԎJ : ð12Þ
By Equation (12), K is always zero or negative, indicating that it there is
generally an internalising loss of information. This means that the state of
disorder of the system increases resulting in meaning disarray.

14.4 Immanent Trait Dynamics

Here, rather than discussing the general trait Ԏ we shall consider the
cultural trait CԎ, one of the sociocultural agency traits. This is because
the cultural trait is very well known compared to the other traits, and has
been discussed at length in Chapter 13. This is external to personality,
orientates the agency culturally, and can constrain the way in which other
traits emerge. Under change it may adopt a sensate (CԎI) state value that
allows realities to be deemed to exist only if they can be sensorially
perceived, or it may take an ideational value (CԎJ), from which reality is
seen to be non-sensate and non-material. In the next section, however, we
shall return to the general trait.
Trait dynamics imply that simplexity undergoes change over time.
Consider simplexity processes occurring through the meso agents.
Consider the cultural trait dynamic arising from Sorokin (1962) theory of
sociocultural change that is the result of a yin-yang relationship between
designated meso agents. Since Sorokin’s interest lay principally in cultural
dynamics, we have called this the cultural trait CԎ with meso agents CԎI
and CԎJ. The meso agents are in constant dynamic interaction, and if one
ascends to dominance the other diminishes. During this process of change,
stable periods of trait ascendancy arise, and between these periods of
 Illustrating Psychohistory 485
Figurative efficacy: Operative efficacy: network of process to
Figurative principles produce autonomous patterns of thought; it
Figurative efficacy: of cognitive may involve the elaboration of contested Trait
Figurative governance difference between the agents, due to distinct interaction
principles images or systems of thought between TI and
of cognitive TJ cognitive
governance Figurative structures
System
Cultural System Perhaps unintegrated
C I indicative
Collective cognitive or uncoordinated
of ideational
preconscious system of thought agents with
I sensate Information C I cognitive
attitudinal/emotive structures & Coupling with
dispositions implied common
Noumenal domain behaviours conflictual
Existential domain Phenomenal domain behaviour
having past and
future history.
C J indicative There may be
Cultural System
of sensate agents facilitating or
J ideational values. Figurative System
cognitive constraining
Collective cognitive Perhaps uncoordinated
structures & effects
preconscious /unintegrated implied
J attitudinal/emotive system of thought behaviours
dispositions InformationC J

Operative efficacy and

Figurative efficacy. re/generation of networks of
Evolving principles of rational/appreciative system
cognitive governance processes

Figure 14.3 Basis of the immanent dynamics between distinct agency with trait value
CԎI and CԎJ.

instability occur when, for instance, values and norms conflict. Let us now
consider the meso agents as living agencies in their own right. As such we
can represent the interaction between the ideational meso agent (CԎJ) and
sensate meso agent (CԎI) agencies as in Figure 14.3.
Now the sensate meso agent with trait value CԎI is grounded in the
operative system concerned with material attributes, and tends to be
concerned with operative survival and external relationships. In contrast
the ideational meso agent with trait value CԎJ is tied to ideates that are
grounded in a figurative system, and they connected with figurative attri-
butes that are independent of immediate needs and internal conditions.
The immanent cultural dynamics of the agency is determined by the
interactions between the sensate and ideational meso agents represented
by the relationship between CԎI and CԎJ. These agents should be seen to be
both agency implicit and preconscious since they are in the meta-system.
The distinction between these agents is that they have ontologically
distinct derivations that arise from different driving patterns of attitudes
and emotive imperatives that emanate from different cultural value
systems.
486 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
Now, the dynamics of Figure 14.3 occur within the noumenon, where
the sensate agent with its cultural trait value CԎI tends to be concerned
with survival, external relationships, and with a principal interested in
phenomenal matters. In contrast the ideational agent with value CԎJ is
grounded in an agency figurative system, and connected with figurative
attributes that are independent of immediate needs. Agency immanent
dynamics is determined by the interactions between the interaction
between the ideational and sensate agents represented by CԎI and CԎJ.
Since they operate culturally, they should be seen to be both implicit and
preconscious within the agency. Thus, the distinction between them is that
they have ontologically distinct derivations that arise from different driving
patterns of attitudes and emotive imperatives that emanate from different
cultural value systems.
The traits with values CԎI and CԎJ create cognitive orientations that
maintain their mutual enantiomer (meso actor) dialectic distinctions, and
enables one to differentiate between what an agency might aspire to
figuratively, and what it actually achieves operatively. The natures of the
sensate and ideational agents CԎI and CԎJ can vary absolutely or relatively.
Firstly, let us consider the absolute. The dialectic orientations change in
their levels of complexity, or at least degrees of order. Interest lies in
identifying the nature of that degree of order when it has an impact on
the way the agency orientates (typifies) itself, and creates a regulative
imperative from which behavioural proclivity can result. Since CԎI and C
ԎJ are measures of these orientations, we wish to evaluate their change
relative only to themselves. A low numerical value in I for CԎI implies
a simple operative agency, while a high value of J for CԎJ implies a complex
figurative agency. We shall refer to these conditions as primitive, since CԎJ
primitiveness suggests a low operative level and hence an inability to cope
well with complex change; and CԎI primitiveness suggests an agency that is
so bound up by complexity that it dominates agents’ lives, either by its
conspicuous absence or its conspicuous presence. Also, with CԎI ≪ CԎJ
the high order/complexity of the CԎI regulation is not applied to CԎJ
contexts. Here, where CԎI is very low it describes a noisy, chaotic agency,
where sensory experience randomly and widely diverges from the social
norms of the ideational aspect. This might be manifest in a figurative
reduction. As such the trait orientates the agency personality away from
strict adherence to its own regimen, and consequently it will be non-viable.
When the CԎJ trait is dominant in an agency it will be too oriented towards
the ideate, and will run out of figurative elements that may impoverish its
capacity to comprehend operative requirements. At the other extreme,
 Illustrating Psychohistory 487
when a CԎI trait is dominant in an agency it will be too oriented towards
the figurative, and be unresponsive to correcting impetuses. In either case
the agency will lose any robustness it may have and become ‘structurally
critical’, increasingly unable to cope with demands on it. In this increasing
critical state even small perturbations in the system may affect it in
a major way.
In summary, CԎI and CԎJ dominated agencies will each fail to meet all the
needs of their whole population of agents. This will lead to a loss of confidence
by the population of micro agents that compose the agency with respect to the
personality orientation that it maintains. The debate and conflict will re-open,
other mentalities will reassert themselves, and the chaotic state will return.
This period may be described as chaotic in the sense that it appears to have no
direction, and conflict has a greater likelihood of becoming manifested
phenomenally as social discord or even wars. Since the chaos results from
the inabilities of one orientation to meet that crisis, one would expect the
alternative orientation to gain adherence and ascendancy within that chaotic
period. This may not happen, and an existing dominant cognitive orientation
may simply reassert itself, but in doing so, agency will still remain structurally
critical. Inevitably, the agency will in due course re-orientate its trait values and
hence engage in a cultural orientation shift. There is some evidence that this
actually does happen in individual migrants from one culture moving to
another (Rosenberg, 1990).
One of the outcomes of the innate conflict is that it can become resolved
through the emergence of a balanced cognitive orientation as the agencies
establish an alliance resulting in a transformed and hence new cognition
agency. By this we refer to Sorokin’s (1939) integral notion, but broaden it
so that it can develop a variable cultural orientation determined not only by
the ԎI and ԎJ orientations, but also by the mix that results between them
when this can occur. This notion is consistent with the development of joint
alliances in small-scale societies (Yolles, 2000a; Iles & Yolles, 2002, 2003a), and
there is no apparent reason to argue that it cannot also be valid for all durable
collective agencies that survive sufficiently long. The emergence of such
a balance (represented as CK = min|CԎI – CԎJ|) occurs initially through
operative processes that enables the cognitive types for any given trait to
mutually coexist, and which may become stable if it develops its own figurative
and cultural systems. This does not assume that the CԎI or CԎJ orientation
disappears, but rather that as a yin-yang interactive couple they each maintain
their independent existence and interact with the emergent balanced form, as
illustrated in Figure 14.4. It is supposed here that a balance is always
488 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
Coupling in an integrated system between Coupling in an integrated
balanced cognitive mentality and I cognitive system between balanced
mentality. noumenon mentality and
Operative efficacy: network of process to
Figurative efficacy: produce autonomous patterns of behaviour; it sensate I mentality.
individual principles of may involve the elaboration of contested
governance difference with other agents, due to distinct
images
Interactive
Suprasystem
Figurative
Cultural System System Images or C I indicative

I sensate attitudes system of thought of ideational

Information C I agents with
and emotives,
cognitive
Agency structures & Coupling with
unconscious Noumenal domain implied common
behaviours interests that
Existential domain Phenomenal domain override
conflict
C J behaviour,
indicative of having past and
Cultural System sensate agency future history.
Balanced attitudes Figurative System with cognitive These interests
& emotives, Images structures/ may facilitate
Agency or system of thought behaviours with or constrain
unconscious Information CK its own fractal conflicts

Figurative efficacy Operative efficacy and regeneration of

figurative cognitive attributes
Evolving principles of
governance

Figure 14.4 Relationship between CԎI and CԎJ cognitive orientations and a balanced
cognitive orientation.

maintained between traits CԎI and CԎJ. This continuous maintenance of

balance directly means that the theory is one of general non-equilibrium.
The application of EPI principles results in a number of additional
sociocognitive principles that create constraints for the immanent dynamic
possibilities of normative personality traits. Thus, the following postulate:
An agency in which κ is close to zero or to unity is dominated either by CԎJ or
CԎI type. With a CԎJ type, the ideational agency will not adequately respond to
corrective feedback processes and likely will be unable to respond requisitely/
appropriately to new challenges and may even have difficulty conceptualising
them. At the other extreme an ideationally dominated sensate agency with trait
value CԎI will likely be unable to adequately respond to operative requisites.
In either case the agency is likely to become ‘structurally critical’, and thus
unable to cope with problems that it needs to address. In this increasing
critical state even small perturbations in the system may affect it in
a major way.
 Illustrating Psychohistory 489
14.5 Modelling Normative Personality
So far we have explored the epistemic relationships between ԎJ and ԎI
information that relate to an arbitrary trait within the personality system,
with the immanent trait dynamic that arises from the values that the trait
takes.
However, because of the recursive nature of the modelling process and
hence the symmetry of the relationships, we can apply the same equations
to the relationships for each of the traits. So far we have taken Ԏ to be
representative of any of the agency trait, namely operative trait oԎ with
type options (oԎJ, oԎI), figurative trait fԎ with type options (fԎJ, fԎI), and
cognitive trait cԎ with type options (cԎJ, cԎI).
Now, in the normative personality each of the subsystems that are
defined through the traits oԎ, oԎ and G Ԏ may be considered to be in
ontologically distinct spaces, each having its own epistemic processes.
Since EPI is epistemic in nature, we can take it that the same EPI
principles can be established autonomously at each ontological level
that we take to its frame of reference. The only caveat is that the
cybernetic processes that influence each of the subsystems should be
considered as epistemic inputs/outputs that reflect the other trait
variables. Hence, allowing that Figures 14.2 and 14.3 are related but
simply representing a different ontological level of the dynamic pro-
cess, the κ(Ԏ) feed-forward operative manifestation of information
between fԎ and oԎ is a first-order cybernetic relationship in which
fԎ is figurative relative to its operative oԎ. As a result we can reformu-
late Equation (6) as
f τ ¼ κ f ðτÞf τðo τÞ 0 ≤ κ f ðτÞ ≤ 1; ð13Þ

where κf (Ԏ) is the operative manifestation that permits operative trait and
figurative trait communication. Note also that the relationship between fԎ
and oԎ involves cybernetic feedback and feed-forward. From Figure 14.2
there are two other relationships that also need to be taken into account.
These are given in Equation (13a):
cτ ¼ κ c ðτÞf τðc τÞ 0 ≤ κ c ðτÞ ≤ 1; ð13aÞ

where κc(Ԏ) is the second-order operative manifestation between the cԎ

trait and the fԎ trait, and where oԎ(fԎ) exists as an operative couple with
f Ԏ(oԎ) in a cybernetic loop. We recall, however, that in respect of the
modelling process, any feedback processes between fԎ and oԎ, or between
oԎ and cԎ may be considered to occur in a different cycle of observation.
490 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
There is another consideration that we shall make that requires us to
reconsider Equation (13). It requires the recognition that oԎ both condi-
tions and is conditioned by cԎ and fԎ, but it ultimately acts on behalf of the
agency in relation to the social environment. We can recognise this by
reformulating Equation (13) with a reorganisation of Equation (13b) as
oτ ¼ κ f ðτÞf τðc τ; κ c ðτÞÞ 0 ≤ κ c ðτÞ ≤ 1: ð13bÞ

We can reaffirm that the normative personality is strategically centred, and

hence the operative function of oԎ is to strategically position the agency in
relation to its social environment – as part of this it enables decisions that
facilitate social orientation to develop in a particular way, resulting in social
behaviour.
At this point it is useful to recall that the traits Ԏ take values ԎJ and ԎI that
represent personality types, with values that arise as penchants. This means
that all the κ(Ԏ) are actually indicators of requisite manifestation of infor-
mation between trait systems. In other words, an agency pre-consciously
selects requisite manifestations such that trait types can be acquired and
maintained. This says nothing about how such penchants are created or the
nature of the agency immanence that may be responsible for it.

14.6 Evaluating Cultural Trait Dynamics

In the context of Mindset Agency Theory, formal psychohistory requires
that under uncertainty one can appreciate that from a determined
Mindset, behaviour can be determined for a known situation and context.
Now Mindsets constitute meso functionality from which behavioural
imperative arise, and since trait changes result in an agency’s Mindset
variation, so its behaviour will also alter. Interest, then, lies in determining
the likely emergence of the trait states for an agency in a non-equilibrium
complex situation. Here, we present a general stochastic model of system
change dynamics using EPI that explores the immanent agency processes.
This looks at the growth towards one meso trait or the other, important
because as indicated in Chapter 6, culture operates as a field attractor for
the agency through which other traits are influenced. One consequence is
that norms are affected and change, and both figurative and operative
intelligence respond through adjustment. It also influences the emotional
management processes, this feeding back to the affective agency and indeed
its traits, this ultimately impacting on the way in which affect emotively
conditions patterns of behaviour.
 Illustrating Psychohistory 491
One wonders how much cultural trait movement in a population of
agents, i.e., cultural ‘growth’ towards sensate or ideational cultural values,
might imply a shift in cultural state of the agency. While the relationship
between the number of agents in an agency having one trait type as
opposed to the other is not linear, the emergence of an agency culture
adopting one or the other trait types has some implications for agency
culture CԎ (ranging between CԎJ and CԎI) that emerges from the values
that dominate agency institutional interactions. Recall that the state values
of CԎJ and CԎI are indicative of their power to attract CԎ. One may
presuppose that the trait type value in an agency is in some way relative
to population size of each type group, and there is a statistical relationship
between any emergent cognitive balance that may occur (and which is
represented by K) and the population sizes of each type represented by ԎI
and ԎJ. This is because the value that the trait Ԏ takes emerges from the
interactions between the micro agents, and with more micro agents having
one meso actor type there will likely be a weighting towards interactions
that reflect that type. In a dynamically stable agency, a balance may also
develop between ԎI and ԎJ, and where one develops it becomes the
dominant cognitive type. When emergence occurs, it is necessarily
a function of the non-linear complex social that provides an illustration
for psychohistory.
Ideally, one might envisage that regulative power is allocated to those
who uphold the values and needs of the dominant cognitive type.
Population dynamics can also establish the foundation for the dynamics
of political processes from which regulative power is assigned, especially
when population is related to the capacity to mobilise regulatory power.
However ideal such a proposition might be, there may be more complex
aspects at work than this proposition would support. Firstly, we can note
that micro agents that normally achieve consensual regulative power in
a given agency do so when they have a personal cognitive disposition (seen
by those who support a given assignment) that is consistent with the values
and attitudes that dominate in a given agency culture. In other words,
attitudinal orientation creates a proclivity from which traits take their type
assignments, thereby satisfying a cognitive inertia that contributes to the
security for assigners. It is also likely to support stable political processes
that contribute to agency structural stability.
Secondly, it may be supposed that a balanced culture is determined
statistically by type cognitive components. However, it can also occur
when members of an executive class, who manage the political process,
hold regulatory power independently of population densities adhering to
492 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
one trait type or the other. This executive class does not have to be
maintained in their position by popular support that derives from pro-
cesses of open meaningful/semantic communication. Following Habermas
(1987), an agency can be steered through other means (like the use of
motivating resource or direct or indirect regulatory power) while suspend-
ing the semantic communication processes. Enforced regulatory impera-
tives can act as a steering medium in that they encourage sub-agencies to
structure their potential for behaviour in certain ways subject to a penalty,
perhaps like the imposition of structural violence.5 A form of indirect
regulatory power can be provided through the creation of powerful emo-
tive incentives for sub-agencies to agree. Whether the use of these or other
steering media are able to enable the executive class to maintain their
regulatory power base for extended periods of time is not a question that
will be considered here.
To explore the trait growth potential towards one meso agent or the
other, we will use EPI to deliver the well-known Lotka–Volterra equa-
tions of growth that allow for emergence, where the population of one
group varies in a non-uniform aspect to that of the other group (Schaff,
2018).
To begin, consider an agency with N kinds of micro agents at popula-
tion levels (masses) mn, where n = 1, …, N populations. In the case of the
cultural trait, if we were to exclude all variations of cultural type between
the two cultural sensate and ideational meso agents, then n = 2. The total
number of micro agents in the system is
X
M≡ mn :

The situation is generally dynamical, and over time the agents interact
causing various population levels (masses) m to grow and recede. Hence,
the population sizes mn vary with the time t. The total population M can
vary as well. We can define relative population sizes as
mn =M ≡pn ; where all pn; n ¼ 1; …; N :
The relative sizes pn = pn(t) then vary with time as well. Now, for suffi-
ciently large M, the relative population size (mass) is
mn =M ≡ pn ≡ pn ðtÞ;
and where
pn ðtÞ ≡ pðnjtÞ; ð14aÞ
 Illustrating Psychohistory 493
which is the probability that the nth population type will be observed in
the random drawing of an agency from the system at the time t, and where
the vertical line in n|t means ‘if’. The pn(t) thereby define the dynamical
evolution of the agency, and interest lies in examining this. Here, n is taken
to be random, and here t deterministic. The p(t) are temporal growth
functions of the agency, and the pn(t) are population level for each n.
Consider first the general motion and growth of each population com-
ponent n, with a general probability pn(x,t) of the two-dimensional surface
position x = (x,y) of the nth population type at the time t. This arises out of
a generally complex probability amplitude function ψn (x,t), as the ampli-
tude times its complex conjugate ψ*n (x,t), as
pn ðx; tÞ ¼ ψ n ðx; tÞ ψ  n ðx; tÞ: ð14bÞ
By elementary probability theory (Frieden, 2001), this probability relates to
those required, pn(t), as
ð
pn ðtÞ ¼ dxpn ðxjtÞ ; ð14cÞ

where
pn ðxjtÞ ¼ pn ðx; tÞ=pT ðtÞ; pT ðtÞ ¼ U ð0; T Þ: ð14dÞ
Equation (14c) states that the probability of finding the nth population
component at a time t is its probability of being anywhere over space (x,y)
at that time. The first equation (14d) is by definition of pn(x|t) and
the second states the a priori probability of a time value is uniform
U over the total fixed time interval (0,T). Now, we first establish the
dynamics of the pn(x,t), and then use Equations (14c) and (14d) to get the
dynamics of the desired pn(t).
Consider that agencies are very complex and contain a large number N of
interacting ‘populations’ (in the generalised sense above). One way of recog-
nising this is to categorise small variations in the set of five traits Ԏ for agents
as separate populations. Among the interactions referred to, some will be
strong and some weak. In order to keep the calculation tractable, the dynamics
are assumed to be defined to a good approximation by only those populations that
most strongly interact. This defines a smallest number N of effectively interacting
populations. Thus, the derived dynamics will only describe this smallest set of
populations. Also, these dynamics are necessarily approximate to the extent
that the effects of other, more minor, contributors have been ignored. It may
be noted that the N interacting populations measures the degree or scope of
the interactions. In particular it measures the complexity of interactions rather
494 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
than their individual ‘strengths’ in any sense.6 The strengths might perhaps be
measured by gradients of the populations.
Let us suppose that the dynamics are driven by N change coefficients,
denoted as gn and dn, n = 1, …, N. These describe respectively growth and
depletion as functions of time t. These change coefficients are assumed to be
known functions
gn ðp1 ; …; pN ; tÞ and dn ðp1 ; …; pN ; ; tÞ ð15aÞ
of the probabilities and of the time. Being a ‘growth’ coefficient, gn is
positive, and likewise the ‘depletion’ dn must be negative:
gn ≥ 0: and dn ≤ 0: ð15bÞ
As examples of growth dependencies, the growth g1 of population n = 1
could depend upon the level p2 of population 2, as in the case where p1
represents the relative number of purely sensate agents in a developing
agency and p2 represents the relative number of purely ideational agents,
and at any time t more purely sensate agents imply fewer purely ideational
agents. However, in the more complex case for pr for some number
r = (3, …, N), there will be some proportional mix between the two
extremes, though fewer sensate agents will still likely imply a greater
tendency for there to be more ideational agents, though the proportions
are not easily determined. The probabilities listed in Equation (14d) could
depend upon t or, even, upon t at previous or future times, thereby
exhibiting ‘memory’ or ‘anticipation’, a concept discussed by Dubois
(2001) and Yolles and Dubois (2001).
Consider that there exists a potential that permits the observing agency
to input into a theory the cause or source of the dynamical changes that will
accrue to the system. Here the changes are due to the population change
coefficients in Equation (15a). Hence, a special potential function will be
sought that mirrors their effects. The simplest form of potential that
depends upon these change coefficients is linear in them. Thus, assume
that the general nth population component has a ‘potential for population
change’ that is of the linear form
Vn ðx; y; tÞ ¼ 21 i
hðgn þ dn Þ; ð16Þ
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where the symbol h  denotes Planck’s constant and, i ¼ 1 . Thus, the
potential is artificially given units of h, i.e., ‘physical action’. This is
arbitrary, but is done so that the growth phenomenon and the dynamics
phenomenon can be treated by one unified theory. The indicated propor-
tionality to i in Equation (16) is well known to give rise to general
 Illustrating Psychohistory 495
absorption (including growth) effects, whereby particle number is not
preserved. This fulfils our above requirement that coefficients gn and dn
correspond to the general growth and death of individuals of the popula-
tion. The additional proportionality to  h in Equation (16) indicates that
the potential is a very weak one. It is present so as to later cancel from the
resulting wave equation for the dynamics, thereby giving rise to classical, and
not quantum, dynamics in the ensuing Lotka–Volterra of growth that we shall
present in due course in Equation (19).
Notice that the potential in Equation (16) allows the ideational rules of
the agency to be quantitatively entered into the growth theory, in the form
of their effects upon the growth. (Ecological growth theory has a similar
structure, whereby the effects of the environment enter the growth equa-
tions indirectly as population growth coefficients.)
We could also have included in the potential of Equation (16) an added
term that is an explicit function of position x,y, say a spring potential going as
x2. This is the usual potential function of the physics of purely particle motion
(rather than motion plus growth as here). However, for simplicity we choose
to focus attention on growth effects alone, i.e., ignore motion and positional
structure, and, so, ignore the use of such a potential term in this analysis.
The question of the size of the information efficacy κ must now be
addressed, and this involves ԎI and ԎI. The value of κ = 1 can only occur when
ԎI and ԎI are ‘entangled’ in a quantum sense. Since a sociocognitive agency
consists of agents and resources that are not quantum objects, so κ < 1. This is
consistent with the earlier discussion about internalisation of an effect indicat-
ing the relationship between ԎI and ԎI. In past applications of EPI a value
κ ðτÞ ¼ 1=2 ð17Þ
was found appropriate for describing classical, macroscopic objects. This
describes 50 per cent of the total available information. The implication is
that the remaining 50 per cent of the information describes the purely
quantum aspect of the object, which is not observed under macroscopic
observation such as due to the unaided eye. It seems at first intuitive that
socio-cognition agency, principally composed as they are of macroscopic
objects, should likewise act purely classically. However, some investigators
have hypothesised that the human brain operates on the quantum level,7 so
that the human components of such systems might ultimately prove to
obey a value of κ(Ԏ) closer to 1 than to 1/2. For such reasons there is no
universal value of κ(Ԏ) in this sociocognitive application. It is intrinsically
variable from one agency to another. Serendipitously in this regard,
the EPI solution we will find below does not depend strongly upon the size
496 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
of κ(Ԏ). We note that merely for purposes of a demonstration, it will prove
convenient to assume the value in Equation (17).
In general, the EPI principle of Equation (8) is more than a computational
tool. It also has reality, as the reaction of an observed system to a perturbing
event. The perturbation is due either to observation of the system or inter-
action of the agency with other objects during the observational time interval.
In our EPI application, we assume that at a given time t agency popula-
tion of type n is randomly sampled for its position, this enabling the
acquisition of information of level I manifested as ԎI. For the cultural
trait, the value of CԎI is an indication of agency sensate dominance creating
an attraction to CԎ. It will reflect the agency with respect the diversities of
its populations and strategic resources. These diversities quantify the
complexity of the agency and therefore, by implication, that of CԎI, its
ideational nature. This is in the same indirect sense that the potential for
change equation (16) allows the agency ideational generic meso rules to be
effectively entered into the theory. Both allow non-quantitative rules and
ideals to be measured by their observable effects.
Hence, we identify this particular information level with the sensate
level of the agency in Equation (11). The agency is also perturbed by
making an observation and, as we saw, the EPI equation (13) is activated.
What is its solution?
The derivations (Frieden, 2004; chapter 4) are of the Klein–Gordon
equation and the Schrodinger wave equation. These equations
describe the dynamics of pure motion (without growth) of a particle
in a field of potential. However, here the problem is slightly broader
in scope, encompassing both the motion and growth of a population
of agents.
As already mentioned, the level of source information that manifests ԎJ is
unchanged since the same type of observation is made. This is the random
space and time position x,y,t of an agent in a population of fixed type n with
mass mn.
In this sociocognitive problem we allow κ to be any general value.
Hence, here ԎI = κ(Ԏ)ԎJ, as compared with ԎI = ԎJ. The effect upon
the derivation is that ԎI is here replaced by κ(Ԏ) multiplied by its ԎJ value.
Other than use of the particular potential in Equation (16), well-explored
resolution techniques can be used.
Repeating that derivation with these departures simply results in
a multiplication of the squared particle mass m2 by κ = κ(Ԏ). The resulting
Klein–Gordon equation (which is Frieden’s (2004) equation (4.28)) is then
 Illustrating Psychohistory 497
   2
∂2 2
∂ ∂ iVn
h2
c 2  2
þ 2 ψn þ h2 þ ψ n þ κ mn 2 c4 ψ n ¼ 0: ð18Þ
∂x ∂y ∂t 
h
This is the general answer for agents in a population that are small enough
to be affected by quantum mechanics. The notion that life on the quantum
level, i.e., ‘nano life’, exists is not just a fiction, however. It has been found
that they do exist, in the 50–500 nm range of sizes, and was first observed in
kidney stones and then in blood (Åkerman et al., 1993; Kajander et al.,
1994; Çiftçioglu et al., 1997; Åkerman et al., 1997; Çiftçioglu et al., 1997a;
Kajander et al., 1997). It is anticipated that this nano life will obey Equation
(17) for the particular potential given by Equation (16), an imaginary
potential. How such an imaginary potential comes into existence is pres-
ently unknown, although it could be conferred by a special particle that is
not yet known. The speculation is that such a particle confers life upon an
otherwise lifeless particle analogous to the way the Higgs particle confers
mass upon an otherwise massless boson.
One can question whether meso agents defined as value set attractors
may also exist as quantum level phenomena. To respond, in our modelling
approach, micro agents have interactive behaviour which is too massive to
constitute quantum phenomenon. An alternative would have been to
formulate a communication theory, perhaps like that indicated in
Chapter 13 in reference to Luhmann (1995). As discussed in Chapter 13,
consider the context of a wicked (complex) problem that involves multiple
agents participating in conversational interactions about a complex source
effect (Yolles, 2020). Suppose further that there occurs an initial stage of
a communication process with multiple agency narratives each involving
story fragments, called story quanta (as a part of quantum storytelling). If
the conversation evolves, it may result in the emergence of a coherent
‘living story’ (Boje, 2012). Relative to the evolving living story, quantum
level events may occur. To see why, consider that it is feasible to track the
growth of a trait towards one or the other of its meso agents (the attraction
depending on the state value that the meso agents achieve) by following the
cultural values embedded in story fragments attached to antenarratives in
a conversation as it evolves towards narratives and hence to deliver a living
story. If the story fragments truly have a quantum nature (story quanta),
then in this case ԎI = ԎJ giving κ = 1. This may occur when there is no
difference between the effect and its observation/internalisation, simply
because it is a tiny fragment without interpretative possibilities, and with
only a potential future connection to an evolving living story.
498 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
As already indicated, since our interest in this modelling approach refers
to micro agents and their interactive behaviours, one is talking about non-
relativistic processes. In this case the non-relativistic limit of (18) should be
taken (Frieden, 1998), when m2 is replaced by κm2 since efficacy now
becomes important. Taking the limit as the masses mn become macroscop-
ically large, substituting in the particular potential function (16), and using
Equations (14b)–(14d), gives the final ‘replicator equation’, or Lotka–
Volterra growth law,
dpn
¼ ðgn þ dn Þpn ; pn ¼ pn ðtÞ: ð19Þ
dt
where the coefficients gn, dn are expressed in terms of the probabilities pn
(see below). Planck’s constant h
 has cancelled out, as it should have since
L-V growth is classical. The L-V law is well known to describe biological
systems (Maynard Smith, 1974). Hence, the EPI approach predicts that
sociocognitive systems obey L-V growth as well. It is from this that one can
explore the emergence of a resilient, system-level pattern (Carmichael and
Hadzikadic, 2013).
Mathematically, Equation (19) is a simple, first-order differential
equation. Such an equation can often be solved analytically, and is
always soluble by numerical finite differences. Regardless of the
chosen approach to solution, the latter must always obey a condition
of normalisation:
X
N
pn ðtÞ ¼ 1 ¼ const: ð20Þ
n¼1

This can often be used as a check on a solution.

The following is a well-known solution to Equation (18) that provides
insight into a particular sociocognitive problem. Suppose that there are
effectively only N = 2 populations competing. In this scenario it is simplest
to express the change coefficients gn, dn in terms of the ‘fitness’ coefficients
wn arising from genetic population theory as
gn ¼ wn ; dn : ¼ – <w>¼ –ðw1 p1 þ w2 p2 Þ; n ¼ 1; 2; where w1 ≥ w2 : ð21Þ
For simplicity, let w1, w2 be constants.
We have arbitrarily chosen population 1 to have the larger of the two
change rates. Here the EPI solution to Equation (18) is analytically
known as
 Illustrating Psychohistory 499
p1 ð0Þ
p1 ðtÞ ¼
p1 ð0Þ þ p2 ð0Þexp½ðw1  w2 Þt
ð22Þ
p2 ð0Þ
p2 ðtÞ ¼ :
p2 ð0Þ þ p1 ð0Þexp½þðw1  w2 Þt
As a check, notice that the left and right sides of both equations balance at
t = 0, after normalisation of Equation (21) is used. Note that Equation (22)
is a unique solution. Hence, the minimum that is achieved by the differ-
ence ԎI – ԎJ = K(Ԏ) is here the absolute minimum as well, K(Ԏ) = K(Ԏ).
However, this does not define an alliance minimum but, rather,
a domination-type minimum.
So, here we have developed an approach to show how EPI can
model trait changes under uncertainty, this illustrating the substantive
issues involved in formally anticipating the outcomes in a cultural
dynamic process, and hence the difficulties in creating a formal
psychohistory.

14.7 Chapter in Brief

• Agency modelled as a sociocognitive system has a normative personality,

where patterns of behaviour occur through underlying trait control
processes, and from which specific behaviours can be predicted.
• Agency Theory has adopted Frieden’s Extreme Physical Information
(EPI) as a configuration, and it has been explained where the linkages
occur.
• The formal symbolic/formulaic approach of Frieden’s EPI has been
harnessed to explain the immanent dynamics of the agency, and explore
the likelihood of predicting agency behaviour.
• The propositions adopted constitute an entry into the task of exploring
psychosocial processes with respect to MAT.
• A future development that is required the ability to represent the
cognitive processes of personality in a way exposes agency imperatives
for behaviour from simplexity under uncertainty, even where agency has
pathologies.
• There are differences between informal and formal theory. Informal
theory is more flexible in that it is can create different contexts to explain
a variety of situations. Formal theory is more restrictive, but it is easier to
validate statements made by it.
500 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
• Psychohistory can be usefully developed by creating a synergy between
formal and informal approached.
• An illustration has been provided to explore in a general way the non-
linear cultural dynamics of a plural agency to illustrate how a dominant
sensate or ideational culture may emerge.
 Summarising Narrative for Part IV

Sociohistory is a social event history that occurs in the past or future using
appropriate formal theory; is concerned with the microcosms of social
interaction; describes and explains practical situations; and with sufficient
information, can predict either long-term large-scale or short-term small-
scale sociocultural events. Sociohistorical inquiry involves wicked prob-
lems: those having a variety of dynamic event states and essential variables
with values and relationships that may be unknown or indeterminable.
Sociohistory is therefore perspective relative. To be convincing it thus
requires multiple perspectives from a plurality of participating inquirers
Sociohistory becomes psychohistory when it involves the interrogation
of agent personality psychology. It seeks hidden motives of historical
movements, using any one of many different psychological theories (or
any combination of these theories). The approach is especially useful when
sociohistory appears irrational. It is the science of historical motivation that
chronologises events in terms of the unconscious in relation to social and
political behaviour. It involves the explicit use of formal psychology in
historical interpretation. It is affected by problems similar to those affect-
ing the broader discipline of sociohistory, personality psychology, and the
social sciences generally: the heterogeneous composition of social move-
ments, the phenomenon of discontinuity, and the capacity of people
actively to construct versions of the world from their own idiosyncratic
conflicts and in the context of the many different social locations they
occupy.
Sociohistory is related to psychohistory, firstly because both are inter-
ested in the pragmatics of social events. Like meta-history, which involves
inquiry into the philosophy and pragmatics of historical events and enables
their elucidation and understanding through the explanation of the past
and an anticipation of the future, sociohistory and psychohistory are
interested in the pragmatics of historical events but being devoid of the
philosophical trappings.
501
502 Formal Possibilities in Mindset Agency Theory
Psychohistory can be examined through narrative or patterning
approaches. A psychohistorical pattern that a conceptualised schema,
like Trope theory, that can be used to explain something historical,
and which determines how selected elements of history develop.
Patterning approaches seek to examine long-term change, phenomenal
change through morphogenesis and new forms of complexity occur in
social organisation, and particulars in the history of sociocultures.
Narratives connects events, are deterministic, and are used to convey
part of a spoken story. They involve rhetoric intended to convince
others, and teleology that provides explanation of history in terms of
purpose and direction. Narration involves a mode of emplotment, argu-
ment, and ideological implication, these arising from an interpretive
paradigmatic strategy that a narrator has adopted, and from
a perspective is comes. Inquiry using narrative and/or patterning can
be formulated in terms of Agency Theory.
Sociohistory and psychohistory can both make use of Sorokin’s theory
of sociocultural dynamics, which has been extensively explored in terms of
the value dynamics of large-scale cultures. This explains how cultures move
through a cycle of change from one penchant to another, but under
uncertainty the dynamics may be far from deterministic. The development
of psychohistory can also be considered in terms of Agency Theory,
explaining how historical and possibly future events can be explored.
An exploration has made of the use of formal structures of inquiry that
are able to predict sociopsychological events under uncertainty. Formal
formulaic structures that adopt mathematical or logical language can
benefit inquiry because of the deductive and simulation power that well-
constructed theory. The application of Extreme Physical Information to
psychohistorical contexts provides has some potential for behavioural
prediction under uncertainty. This approach, which was developed by
Roy Frieden, is formulated as a configuration with MAT.
Agency modelled as a sociocognitive system has a normative personality,
where patterns of behaviour occur through underlying trait control pro-
cesses, and from which specific behaviours can be predicted. Agency
Theory has adopted Frieden’s Extreme Physical Information (EPI) as
a configuration, and it has been explained where the linkages occur. The
formal symbolic/formulaic approach of Frieden’s EPI has been harnessed
to explain the immanent dynamics of the agency, and explore the likeli-
hood of predicting agency behaviour. The propositions adopted constitute
an entry into the task of exploring psychosocial processes with respect
to MAT.
 Summarising Narrative for Part IV 503
A future development that is required the ability to represent the
cognitive processes of personality in a way exposes agency imperatives for
behaviour from simplexity under uncertainty, even where agency has
pathologies. There are differences between informal and formal theory.
Informal theory is more flexible in that it is can create different contexts to
explain a variety of situations. Formal theory is more restrictive, but it is
easier to validate statements made by it. Psychohistory can be usefully
developed by creating a synergy between formal and informal approached.
An illustration has been provided to explore in a general way the non-linear
cultural dynamics of a plural agency to illustrate how a dominant sensate or
ideational culture may emerge.
 part v
Conclusion
 chapter 15

Overview

This book delivers a general living system theory of personality psychology

for complex agencies. It has defined and explored the formative traits,
accumulated into Mindsets, that are able to explain agency behaviour.
These traits are both agency and personality formative, the personality
being subject to sociocultural traits that create an immanent agency
context that may overlay personality orientations. Through Agency
Theory they can be used to explain the rise of the dark personality ‘local’
traits like Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy, as well as other
forms of pathology, and can also be used to explain identities and their
pathologies and distortions. Since traits are value based, they are therefore
stable, but they are always subject to a potential for change, that is, they are
essentially dynamic. While attention to the trait dynamics has centred on
the cultural trait due to the extensive work in this area by Pitrim Sorokin
(1939), all traits are susceptible to their own dynamics. It is therefore
tempting to consider a theory referring to the internal dynamics of agency
personality psychology systems might be best described by the term
psychodynamics. This is a term that has been used historically to refer to
Sigmund Freud’s (1856–1939) clinically derived psychological theory. It
explains the origins of human behaviour, in particular with respect to the
unconscious, though a more general definition is that it refers to all the
theories in psychology that see human functioning based upon the inter-
action of drives and forces within the person and between the different
structures of the personality (McLeod, 2017). Now, drawing away from the
tradition, in essence we could coin the term psychodynamic trait theory to
summarise the nature of our perspective, this is defined as a theory in agency
psychology that sees human functioning in terms of trait dynamics, able to
explain agency drives and forces across the different structures of agency and its
personality. However, the theory is not only trait psychodynamic, but
extends from a version of Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory to a parallel
Social Affect Theory. The result is an intimate relationship between Social
507
508 Conclusion
Cognition–Affect Theory that explains the connection between sociocog-
nitive and socio-affect processes, creating a more integrated theory of
behaviour.
The original purpose of this book was to provide a theory of personality
psychology from which behaviours can be anticipated. Personality is
represented through Mindsets, providing a summary of its characteristics.
Mindsets are trait dependent, and given an evaluation procedure for some
unitary or plural agency that enables trait type values to be determined,
then that agency’s Mindset can be determined. Mindsets have both
a cognition and an affect interactive dimensions from which imperatives
for agency behaviour arise.
Cognition Mindsets can be broadly classed as conforming to some mix
between the dual poles of individualism or collectivism, and similarly affect
Mindsets conform to some mix between stimulation or containment
(Table 15.1). For the cognition agency there are four variations of individu-
alism (determined by its mastery trait) and four for collectivism (being
harmony directed). In the affect agency Mindsets have four variations in
stimulation (through the trait ambition) and the other four to containment
(with a penchant towards protection). From this it becomes clear that the
traditional dyadic cognition agency distinction between individualism and
collectivism is far too simplistic to be of very useful, and not a good
indicator or cultural orientation. It also underscores that the equivalent
dyadic affect agency distinction between stimulation and containment is
quite simplistic.
Mindsets are summary representations of simplexity/deep simplicity.
Simplexity creates imperatives to regulate agency behaviour. While it is
useful that Mindsets may be adopted as regulatory simplexity summaries
for behaviour, their real usefulness lies in the formative traits that construct
them. This is because without their trait origins, they may as well act as
stereotypes to which personalities can be assigned, whether or not they are
a good fit. With trait evaluations, new intermediary Mindset types can be
constructed to better represent individuals, this possibly equivalent to
creating Mindset combinations. There are five traits in each of the affect
and cognition agencies, and each trait takes an epistemic value set that is
the result of a continuous interaction between two extreme/polar epistemic
values. Discussion of this interaction defining trait dynamics has occurred
at length for the cognition agency, and particularly for its dimension of
culture. This is because it is very well set out in Sorokin’s (1937–41)
empirically supported theories on cognitive sociocultural dynamics.
These operate through the cultural trait yin-yang dynamics the state values
 Table 15.1 Trait relationships between affect and cognition Mindsets

Mindset type Affect Mindset type Trait Cognition Mindset type Trait

Affect agency with stimulation orientation Cognition agency with individualism orientation

1 DS: dominant Stimulation HI: hierarchical individualism Intellectual autonomy

sanguine Ambition Mastery + Affective autonomy
Dominance Hierarchy
2 MD: moderate Stimulation EI: egalitarian individualism Intellectual autonomy
sanguine Ambition Mastery + Affective autonomy
Submission Egalitarianism
3 RM: reformer Stimulation HS: hierarchic synergism Intellectual autonomy
melancholic Protection Harmony
Dominance Hierarchy
4 Stimulation ES: egalitarian synergism Intellectual autonomy
SM: subversive Protection Harmony
melancholic
Submission Egalitarianism
Affect agency with containment orientation Cognition agency with collectivism orientation

5 EC: expansive Containment HP: hierarchical populism Embeddedness

choleric Ambition Mastery + Affective autonomy
Dominance Hierarchy
6 DC: defensive Containment HC: hierarchical collectivism Embeddedness
choleric Protection Harmony
Dominance Hierarchy
7 CP: compliant Containment EP: egalitarian populism Embeddedness
phlegmatic Ambition Mastery + Affective autonomy
Submission Egalitarianism
8 PF: dormant Containment EC: egalitarian harmony collectivism Embeddedness
phlegmatic fatalism Protection Harmony
Submission Egalitarianism
510 Conclusion
of which may move periodically between stable sensate and ideational
polar extremes, through intermediate periods of instability. Similar
dynamics apply to the affect agency for its cultural emotional climate
with its polar extremes of fear and security. However, the functionality
of stability varies across cognition and affect systems. It is from these ideas,
set within Schwarz’s (1997) living system theory and Gross’ (1998) emotion
regulation theory, that Mindset Agency Theory develops.
Cognition agency has yin-yang cultural dynamics that occur between
sensate and ideational trait type poles, these also being referred to as meso
agents since they are in competition to attract the trajectory of the cultural
trait. Affect agency can be theorised to have similar internal dynamics, but
these occur for the cultural affect trait between fear and security. The
immanent dynamics that occur for both cognition and affect are onto-
logically consistent in that for each, one pole resides in the physical (the real
world) and the other in the psyche (the internal constructed world), and
the two always retain a mutual tension. Thus, the immanent dynamics
envisaged by Sorokin for cognition also apply to affect. It may be noted
that in Chapter 12, when we referred to the dynamic movements of
identity, the physical to psyche relationship is represented as
a sociocultural context to psychology. In general, then, as would be
required, theory for cognition agency and affect agency are symmetrical,
and both usefully connect with identity theory through trait dynamics in
a way that would satisfy Mayer’s interest in reducing personality psych-
ology fragmentation.
In the affect agency, it has been said that the cultural emotional climate
trait may take type values of security or fear. These are both epistemically
and ontologically distinct, with security having a phenomenal origin and
fear a cognitive one. Security creates cognition agency stability, while fear
creates cognition agency instability (Yolles, 2019). Fear is also responsible
for social fragmentation that can result in a liquid society (Bauman, 2006),
as agent relations are continually under stress and in danger of dissolution.
A trait that adopts a fear or security orientation determines how agency
with either a sensate of ideational cultural orientation trait will respond to
situations due to its information filtering power. The potential variations
in the values that traits are able to adopt means that any two personalities,
while perhaps broadly similar, are unlikely to be exactly the same. As such,
while patterns of behaviour may be broadly anticipated under given
contexts, specific instances of behaviour may require more detailed ana-
lysis, for instance, by recognising the occurrence and consequence of
particular pathologies. Agencies also demonstrate anomalies of the psyche
 Overview 511
in that they can create local contextual partitions in which they maintain
local regulative structures, resulting in different and contradictory behav-
iours under each context (the state executioner at work would not hurt a fly
at home). In identity theory, this is explained through the creation of
multiple identities, where the identities are substitutable in a way that
depends on role expectations within the complex pattern of interactions
and relationships develops in a social context. Identity substitution does
not require conscious recognition, and it can occur without internal
contradiction. However, in some circumstance, where the identities con-
flict and conscious leakage might occur across the partitions so that
distinctions are recognised, emotional responses may result. Thus for
instance, Rabinovich and Morton (2015) explain that activation of con-
flicting identities can lead to a decrease in well-being and self-esteem
among those who see self to be stable, but not among those who adopted
flexible representations of self.
In responding further to the theme of fragmentation, complex systems
of interdependency occur between schemas that may be modelled
together and collectively configured, when core orchestrating themes
and identifiable characteristics are together able to create coherence
within the superstructure of our Agency Theory. The systems of thought
that constitute the explorations in this book are mostly configurative
components of personality psychology extended socioculturally to
agency, and they have been orchestrated into a coherent Mindset
Agency Theory (MAT). We have already explained that there are various
ways of validating configurations through a meta-analysis. These
included: the interrogation of the propositions of their elements; legit-
imate adaptive process to enable them to be suitably related and har-
monised where feasible; and through epistemic mapping, where schema
meaning differences are interrogated to enable orchestration. All
approaches have been used here.
For us, agencies are recursive entities allowing the modelling of fractal
effects. While agency is a living system with macro-behaviour, it has
a population of micro agents that may be sub-agencies in their own
right. Between the macro and micro foci lies the meso structures that,
when generic and thus defining simplexity, create regulatory imperatives
for behaviour. When not generic, they are perhaps responsible for the
‘local’ traits that influence how agencies interact with others on a daily
basis, rather than the generic regulation of cognition and affect character.
Consistent with the idea of system hierarchy, at this focus, meso agents also
exist as living systems that may themselves be sub-agencies. These meso
512 Conclusion
agents represent trait psychodynamics, and operate as attractors to traits as
they are influenced to change their type value.
With its simplexity construct, agency is an entity with behaviour that
is controlled by personality psychology constituted as a meso structure,
the latter term suggested by Dopfer et al. (2004). For Pin e Cunha and
Rego (2010), simplexity is represented in terms of the Taoist method of
knowing, where behaviour is the result of tensions between the forces of
yin and yang. This purports to what they refer to as a paradoxical tension
that can create harmony, or with imbalance dysfunction results. The yin-
yang forces create an interactive field, and each trait has one of these
created by its attractor poles. This creates trait dynamics that with
stability results in harmonic balance, or chaos with instability.
Interactions in the yin-yang field achieve trait harmonic stability only
after processes of transformation through which it is subject to dysfunc-
tional instabilities (Zhang, 2009), and dysfunctional traits do not serve
the constructive needs of agency. This scenario has implications for the
correction of dysfunction. If dysfunction is the result of trait imbalances,
and Mindsets arise as an emergent matrix of traits, then this suggest that
treatment to correct dysfunction requires psychoanalysis that looks for
and treats trait imbalances.
Seeing meso structures in terms of the dyadic meso agent attraction
relationships tells us that change is unavoidable, and inherent to any
complex system. Meso structures are, for Dopfer et al. (2004) in their
study of evolutionary economics, constituted as generic rules that have
both meso-macro agency and meso-micro agent control imperatives. Thus,
the fundamental thesis of this book is that agency personality psychology
creates that deep simplicity referred to by Gribbin that is created by agency
formative traits. The meso structures that these create form regulatory
mechanisms for behaviour. We summarise the nature/properties of these
(formative) traits that arise as a consequence of the theory created here:
(1) Traits are abstract constructs that explain personality psychology.
(2) Traits arise as dispositions that are inferred from, and can anticipate
and account for, patterns of thoughts, feelings, and actions.
(3) It is through the long-lasting values that the embody dispositions of
the traits that arise.
(4) There are five formative traits for each of the cognition and affect
agencies that together create behavioural imperatives.
(5) Imperatives may be unclear, perhaps being represented as indirect or
displaced causes.
 Overview 513
(6) Trait instabilities arise naturally, perhaps from immanent trait
dynamics that may be due for instance to process intelligence limita-
tion, or though interactions in the social environmental with other
agencies resulting in adventitious influences.
(7) Traits are information filters, and instabilities that they experience
may impact on cultural, emotional, and other forms of intelligence
due to resulting contortions in their functionality.
(8) A stable trait contributes to a healthy agency, an unstable one to
psychosis.
(9) Traits orient the agency towards one of the two polar (yin-yang)
attractor positions to some degree through the states that they adopt,
thus resulting in a psyche-physical dynamic tension.
(10) The attractors have epistemic natures, so, for any trait, the type value
it takes may be proportional between the polar extreme attractors, or
not; if some degree of proportional balance may arise.
(11) Cultural traits (for both cognition and affect agencies) anchor
agency.
(12) With cultural trait instability, personality may take up arbitrary
short-term stability cues from the environment leading to long-
term behavioural inconsistencies; these cues may be related to cogni-
tion or affect.
(13) Traits are under dynamic tension and inherently change over time,
collectively delivering new agency orientation.
(14) Traits interact creating Mindsets, and as traits change so do repre-
sentative Mindsets.
(15) Trait evaluations are better at describing personalities than are
a given fixed set of Mindsets which may only work as stereotypes,
unless they are reconstructed as the traits change.
(16) There is an intimate relationship between unstable traits and agency
pathologies.
(17) Personality traits may be represented through symbolic identity
structures, and there may be multiple identities that may change
with the traits.
(18) Two important classes of trait determined identities are public
(sociocultural context) and personal (psychological/psyche), and
for a balanced agency, they need to be coherent together.
(19) Coherence is a reflection of the construction of meaning in relation
to interaction with others, with identity as a product and expression
of resulting relationships, giving interconnection between the psy-
chological and sociocultural; this is reflected as consistency between
514 Conclusion
the strategic elaboration information of personal identity with the
execution information of public identity.
(20) Pathological behaviours (deriving from the dark triad of
Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy) may be traced to
identity cleavages that may be linked to unstable traits.
So, (formative) traits are causal devices that can mutually interact in an
agency creating Mindsets. Mindsets represent personality mirrors, and
were developed from Maruyama’s (1965, 1980) cybernetic ideas of
Mindscapes. He identified four types of Mindscapes that are fully equiva-
lent with four of our Mindsets, arising from different causal meta-type
formulations. While Maruyama provides a solid rationale for the creation
of his Mindscapes, there was a lack. He originally identified several
Mindscapes, only finally reducing this to a core four that coincidentally
conformed to Harvey’s (1966) four rather similar but independently found
classifications. He also notes that there are many more Mindscape types,
but does not provide a means by which they can be determined. This lack
of transparency concerning the generation of Mindscape types has been
overcome by transforming them into an empirically based Mindset frame
of reference that is embedded in Agency Theory. MAT defines agencies in
terms of traits – these having a Mindset generative capacity. The ante-
cedent of these traits is the Sagiv and Schwartz (2007) cultural values study.
In Part II of this book, we developed theory that links cognition
Mindsets to Schwartz’s value set, formulating a trait theory from which
Mindscapes, or using our own term, Mindsets, could result. An issue we
had in developing Part II of the book is that Mindsets are principally
concerned with cognitive processes, with affect/emotion having little or no
involvement. For us, this was inadequate since affect plays a major role in
behavioural responses to given situations. Resolving this has required some
novelty due to the lack of coherent theory concerning affect and its explicit
relationship with cognition.
For the cognition agency, certain combinations of traits result in the
same four Mindsets as Maruyama’s cognitive Mindscapes as indicated
(using italics) in Table 15.2. Beyond this, there are four further cognitive
Mindset types. In Table 2.3, we provided narrative descriptions of
Maruyama’s Mindscapes, these each being consistent with one of our
Mindset types. The other four Mindset types have so far only been defined
in terms of key word value definitions, as provided in Table 6.2. For
consistency, therefore, in Table 15.2 we provide narrative descriptions for
all eight cognitive Mindsets, giving generalised description of personality
 Table 15.2 Personality cognition Mindset types (set against Maruyama’s
Mindscapes)

Cognitive Mindset
Mindset type (Mindscapes) Explanation

Individualist oriented

1 HI: hierarchical Society is valued, though individuals are

individualism independent. Networking is important,
especially where this brings influence.
Wealth and power are valued, as is authority.
There is a tendency towards self-indulgence.
Freedom for inquiry due to an active
curiosity and a passion for creativity is
important. A broadminded approach exists,
and challenge is encouraged hopefully
leading to ambition being fulfilled. This
ambition occurs by the selection of one’s own
goals that will hopefully lead to an exciting,
varied and pleasurable life.
2 EI: egalitarian Only individuals are real, even when
individualism aggregated into society. Emphasis on self-
(I: independent/ sufficiency, independence, and individual
prince) values. Design favours the random, the
capricious and the unexpected. Scheduling
and planning are to be avoided. Non-
random events are improbable. Each
question has its own answer; there are no
universal principles.
3 HS: hierarchical Responsibility is important, as is honesty and
synergism social justice. Freedom to be curious and
creative is important so long as it enables
a daring, exciting life to be achieved that is
varied and pleasurable. Influence and
recognition are important, as is loyalty. Self-
determining in identifying purposes and goals
is important, as is an independent
broadminded self-indulgence in satisfying
ambition. A prevalent helpful attitude can
normally be discerned.
4 ES: egalitarian Heterogeneous individuals interact non-
synergism hierarchically for mutual benefit, generating
(G: generative/ new patterns and harmony. Nature is
revolutionary) continually changing requiring allowance for
change. Values interact to generate new values
and meanings. Values of deliberate
(anticipatory) incompleteness. Causal loops.
Multiple evolving meanings.
Table 15.2 (cont.)

Cognitive Mindset
Mindset type (Mindscapes) Explanation

Collectivist oriented

5 HP: hierarchical Parts are subordinated to the whole, with sub-

bureaucrat categories neatly grouped into super-
(H: hierarchical/ categories. The strongest, or the majority,
populism) dominate at the expense of the weak or of any
minorities. Belief in existence of the one truth
applicable to all (whether values, policies,
problems, priorities, etc.). Logic is deductive
and axiomatic demanding sequential
reasoning. Cause–effect relations may be
deterministic or probabilistic.
6 EP: egalitarian A polite moderate, forgiving attitude, who is self-
populism disciplined, traditional, and obedient. There is
a strong belief in social order and justice, and
family security is important as is honouring of
elders. Public image is important, as in national
security. Favours are not forgotten, and there is
a need to reciprocate. Ambition is important,
but it is directed towards successful
independence and social recognition. Self-
indulgence is a characteristic, as is directing
one’s own trajectory. This hopefully should
result in a varied, exciting, pleasurable, and
enjoyable life. Loyalty, equality, responsibility,
and honesty are all important characteristics.
7 HC: hierarchical See the world as beauty which should be at peace,
collectivism and there needs to be unity with nature. The
environment needs to be protected, as does
family and national security. A traditionalist,
elders must be respected as one’s position in life
needs to be accepted. Politeness, obedience,
and forgiveness are all important. Favours need
to be reciprocated, and moderation and self-
discipline are valued. Authority, wealth, and
social power are important.
8 EC: egalitarian Society consists of heterogeneous individuals who
collectivism interact non-hierarchically to mutual
advantage. Mutual dependency. Differences
(S: social/ are desirable and contribute to the harmony of
reformer) the whole. Maintenance of the natural
equilibrium. Values are interrelated and cannot
be rank-ordered. Avoidance of repetition.
Causal loops. Categories not mutually
exclusive. Objectivity is less useful than ‘cross-
subjectivity’ or multiple viewpoints. Meaning
is context dependent.
 Overview 517
profiles. It cannot be stressed more that taking these eight Mindset types as
fixed options results in their being seen as stereotypes, which was neither
the intention of Maruyama nor the purpose of this book. The affect agency
also has eight Affect Mindset types, the first four of which are more
associated with stimulation, and the other four with containment, as
shown in Table 15.3. Cognitive and Affect Mindset types relate across
rows according to the Mindset numbers in the left-hand column. It does
need to be recognised that to be able to address a full range of personality
(and indeed agency) options, Mindset synergies or intersections may be
required, as illustrated in Figures 7.1 and 12.3.
Attempting to evaluate a personality using Mindsets requires qualitative
observation and classification. However, this can result in finely tuned
differences being observationally missed, and hence invisible. Therefore,
for specific evaluation, it is much better to measure the traits that define the
Mindsets. To seek Mindset synergies, traits need to be directly evaluated,
and then mapped onto Mindsets structures. One technique for doing this
was provided in Part III of this book.
While Mindsets are meso structures that define personality summaries,
their traits (when having acquired stable state values) inherently constitute
a set of generic meso rules, thereby creating simplexity or deep simplicity.
This regulates the meso-macro and meso-micro relationships that create
imperatives for agency and micro agent behaviours. The meso structure
only creates behavioural imperatives, and recognising the nature of
a changing behavioural environment will determine whether and to what
extent these imperatives will result in behaviours. The meso structure may
encounter immanent faults when personalities are subject to psychic
pathologies, when the trait states become in some way compromised,
perhaps through the development of trait instabilities. Illustrations of
such perturbations are represented through Machiavellianism,
Psychopathy, and Narcissism which, for Perry and Miller (2017), have
negative associations which are invariably linked with counter-productive
behaviour. Duspara and Greitemeyer (2017) associate these negative attri-
butes with everyday sadism (associated with the need to harm others
physically or emotionally while feeling joy), and political extremism
which is incidentally also connected with the affect cultural attribute of
fear – associated with uncertainty (van Prooijen & Krouwel, 2019).
Duspara and Greitemeyer’s interest lay in political processes where they
found that Machiavellianism is the most important predictor of personal-
ity negativity, being associated with misanthropy, antisocial tendencies,
cold-heartedness, and immoral beliefs. Narcissism and psychopathy are
518 Conclusion
Table 15.3 Personality affect Mindset types

Affect
Mindset type Affect type Explanation

Stimulation oriented

1 DS: dominant Context positive as an assertion for dominance in

sanguine emotional attitude: agency is passionate,
emotionally sensitive, joyful and is exuberant,
being full of delight, enjoys excitement and
ecstasy, emotionally elevated and jovial, in
addition to being open, serene, intense,
independent, creative. Alternatively, the context
negative as a demand for conjoint balance with
containment: agency has anger, hostility, panic,
paranoia, annoyance, rage, disgust, panic, grief
(emerges also as outburst from containment).
With either of these, has aspirations for
improvement, with intention, enthusiasm, uses
initiative, creates goals that relate to desire,
stimulated by hope or wishes, is enterprising, has
cravings or longings, a great appetite, ardour,
aggressiveness, and a killer instinct. Seeks to
control or dominate, wanting supremacy,
hegemony, power, pre-eminence. Wants
authority and command or dominion.
2 MS: moderate Context positive as an assertion for dominance in
sanguine emotional attitude: agency is passionate, emotionally
sensitive, joyful and is exuberant, being full of
delight, enjoys excitement and ecstasy, emotionally
elevated and jovial, in addition to being open,
serene, intense, independent, creative. Alternatively,
the context is negative as a demand for conjoint balance
with containment: agency has anger, hostility, panic,
paranoia, annoyance, rage, disgust, panic, grief
(emerges also as outburst from containment). With
either of these, has aspirations for improvement,
with intention, enthusiasm, uses initiative, creates
goals that relate to desire, stimulated by hope or
wishes, is enterprising, has cravings or longings,
a great appetite, ardour, aggressiveness, and a killer
instinct. Seeks to comply with the wishes of others.
Likes conformity and is obedient to it. Subordinates
to others, and is subject/defers to their will.
Maintains allegiances, does not resist, is loyal,
devoted, has fealty/fidelity to others, and pays
homage when necessary.
 Overview 519
Table 15.3 (cont.)

Affect
Mindset type Affect type Explanation

Stimulation oriented

3 RM: reformer Equivalent theory arises for Affect Agency Theory.

melancholic Some consideration has been made, however, in
Chapter 8, concerning the relationship between
the cultural trait of the cognition agency and
the emotional climate trait of the affect agency.
While the cultural trait is able to shift between
the Sensate and Ideational meso agents, so the
emotional climate trait can shift between fear
and security meso agents. When the emotional
climate trait takes the value fear, then this is
able to influence the cognition agency by
creating destabilising uncertainty (Yolles, 2019).
Security has the opposite consequence. It is
responsible for social fragmentation that can
result in the instabilities of liquid society as
agent relations are continually under stress and
in danger of dissolution. A trait that adopts
a fear or security orientation determines how an
agency with either a sensate of ideational
cultural orientation trait will respond to
situations due to their information filtering
power.
4 SM: subversive Context positive as an assertion for dominance in
melancholic emotional attitude: agency is passionate,
emotionally sensitive, joyful and is exuberant,
being full of delight, enjoys excitement and
ecstasy, emotionally elevated and jovial, in
addition to being open, serene, intense,
independent, creative. Alternatively, the context
is negative as a demand for conjoint balance with
containment: agency has anger, hostility, panic,
paranoia, annoyance, rage, disgust, panic, grief
(emerges also as outburst from containment).
With one or the other of these positions, seeks
safety, stability, security. Wants to be shielded
from potential dangers. Seeks immunity and
safekeeping. Seeks to comply with the wishes of
others. Likes conformity and is obedient to it.
Subordinates to others, and is subject/defers to
their will. Maintains allegiances, does not resist,
is loyal, devoted, has fealty/fidelity to others,
and pays homage when necessary.
Table 15.3 (cont.)

Affect
Mindset type Affect type Explanation

Containment oriented

5 EC: expansive Is dependable, with restraint, self-possession, self-

choleric containment, self-control, self-discipline, and self-
governance. Attitude is towards self-mastery, self-
command, is moderate and likes continuity. Has
aspirations for improvement, with intention,
enthusiasm, uses initiative, creates goals that relate to
desire, stimulated by hope or wishes, is enterprising, has
cravings or longings, a great appetite, ardour,
aggressiveness, and a killer instinct. Seeks to ensure
control of situations, and dominate them. Embraces
supremacy, hegemony, power, and pre-eminence.
Wants to rule with authority, to dominate and
command.
6 DC: defensive Is dependable, with restraint, self-possession, self-
choleric containment, self-control, self-discipline, and self-
governance. Attitude is towards self-mastery, self-
command, is moderate and likes continuity. Seeks
safety, stability, security. Wants to be shielded from
potential dangers. Seeks immunity and safekeeping.
Seeks to ensure control of situations, and dominate
them. Embraces supremacy, hegemony, power, and
pre-eminence. Wants to rule with authority, to
dominate and command.
7 CP: compliant Is dependable, with restraint, self-possession, self-
phlegmatic containment, self-control, self-discipline, and self-
governance. Attitude is towards self-mastery, self-
command, is moderate and likes continuity. Has
aspirations for improvement, with intention,
enthusiasm, uses initiative, creates goals that relate to
desire, stimulated by hope or wishes, is enterprising, has
cravings or longings, a great appetite, ardour,
aggressiveness, and a killer instinct. Seeks to comply
with the wishes of others. Likes conformity and is
obedient to it. Subordinates to others, and is subject/
defers to their will. Maintains allegiances, does not
resist, is loyal, devoted, has fealty/fidelity to others, and
pays homage when necessary.
8 DF: dormant Is dependable, restrained, self-possession, self-contained,
phlegmatic self-controlled, self-disciplined, and supports self-
fatalist governance. Attitude is towards self-mastery, self-
command, is moderate and likes continuity. Seeks
safety, stability, security. Wants to be shielded from
potential dangers. Seeks immunity and safekeeping.
Seeks to comply with the wishes of others. Likes
conformity and is obedient to it. Subordinates to
others, and is subject/defers to their will. Maintains
allegiances, does not resist, is loyal, devoted, has fealty/
fidelity to others, and pays homage when necessary.
 Overview 521
more associated with political extremism. This is likely, they argue, because
narcissists have a tendency of focusing on their own interests, neglecting
the needs of others, and psychopathy is associated with tendencies for little
empathy towards others – since they are sociopathic, impulsive, and unable
to suppress behavioural tendencies unsupported by society. However, an
alternative view might be that fear is a central factor in both narcissism and
psychopathy. For instance, fear is a motivating factor in narcissistic per-
sonality functioning (Ronningstam & Baskin-Sommers, 2013), while psy-
chopaths have not only difficulty in recognising fear-related cues
(Karasavva, 2019), but have maladaptive behaviour that reflects
a constitutional fearlessness which may be interpreted as a fear deficit in
the emotional climate trait (Schultz et al., 2016), this indeed suggesting an
affective cultural trait instability. Another condition that can be associated
with trait instability is described by Laraa et al. (2006), who explain that
many pathologies relating to hyperthymic, depressive, cyclothymic, and
labile individuals (connected for instance with bipolar disorder) have either
an excess or deficit of fear. The inability to achieve stability in such feelings
has its roots in instability.
That such pathologies can be applied to unitary agencies is well known
in the psychological literature. That they may also apply to the plural
agency is less well considered, for instance, with respect to narcissism.
Thus, Chaguan (2020) refers to the exhaustingly narcissistic mood of
China during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also, Miyake (2018) postulated
that the United States is historically narcissistic in the way it has
delivered its international policies. Wan (2018) takes this further noting
a study by Putnam et al. (2018). They undertook a psychological study of
2,800 residents in various US states, finding a ‘collective narcissism’ (an
emotional investment in an unrealistic excessively high regard for their
own group), respondents having inflated perceptions of their state’s role
in American history. Adopting a narcissistic index and extending their
measurements to nation states, they found collective narcissism in the
United States with beliefs that their country contributed 29.6 per cent to
the world’s history, while Portugal had 38 per cent, Malaysia 49 per cent,
Canada 40 per cent, the United Kingdom 54 per cent, and Russia
60.8 per cent. The idea of collective narcissism had previously been
explored by Golec de Zavala and Cichocka (2011), who undertook two
studies concerning the relationship between collective narcissism and
anti-Semitism in Poland. They found that the relationship is mediated
by both a belief that the in-group is constantly threatened by hostile
intentions of other groups, and a belief that the Jews are a particularly
522 Conclusion
threatening out-group because they are seen to secretly aim to dominate
the world. These results confirm that collective narcissism predicts preju-
dice against social groups perceived as threatening, a result which under-
pins the rise of populism (Marchlewska et al., 2018), supporters of which
combine anti-elitism with a conviction that they hold a morally superior
vision of what it means to be a true citizen of their nation. This theme
has been considered by Yolles (2019a), who notes that populism achieves
power through leaders with certain characteristics such as: having
a tendency to be charismatic, have sensate-cynical sub-type cultural
mentalities, and a tendency to advantageously reframe knowledge when
they rise to political challenge, this usually occurring during extended
periods of sociocultural instability (e.g., in the cognition cultural trait)
and/or social crisis. They tend to have a cognitive pathology of malignant
narcissism (a sub-type of narcissism), while being agreeable, conscien-
tious or emotional stable, and have observable traits of extraversion –
while perhaps being Machiavellian, this supporting the idea that popu-
lists are calculated provocateurs (Nai, 2018). Successful narcissist politi-
cians are good at cynical framing (perhaps to be expected during periods
of senate decline), using psychological effect where cognitive bias is
emotionally massaged, and following this to project a distorted and
fanciful rationality built on false premises involving personal truths
that in a more objective world would be described as half-truths, blatant
lies, or pure inventions (Vaknin, 2015). Narcissistic populists are good at
targeting inherent collective narcissists, activated by stimulating an emo-
tional state of nostalgia in the framing process.
In the culmination of Part II of the book, the relationship between affect
and cognition elaborates Mindset Agency Theory through the introduc-
tion of affect as a conjoint dimension with cognition. While cognition is
responsible for patterns of behaviour, these two aspects of personality
(cognition and affect) interact and become jointly responsible for behav-
iour, though reflection may also be required concerning individualistic
processes of effect internalisation as discussed by Mischel and Shoda (1995)
that are necessarily influenced by agency traits. This provides a framework
to show how emotion regulation can be linked with cognitive self-reflective
analysis, and indeed, delivers a typology of affect types that have corres-
pondence with cognitive types in a whole personality.
Chang-Schneider and Swann (2010) explored agency self-evaluative
processes like self-verification and self-enhancement. Their interest lay in
personality decision processes that determine whether cognitive or affective
responses, or a combination them, occur as a reaction to a situation. It led
 Overview 523
to Swann’s (1987) cognition–affect crossfire model, which determines
under what conditions personalities select affective verification over cogni-
tive enhancement. The interaction facilitates processes of internalisation
that occurs in both affect and cognition agency, allowing affect and
cognition self-processes to develop independently, though under mutual
influence, through cognitive decision-making connected to self-
organisation, and emotion management. Thus, for instance, consider self-
reflection. This has a degree of depth that is influenced by motivation and
available cognitive resources, and it is linked to interests and goal achieve-
ment. The consequence of this was to produce a new model that for the
first time could show in some detail how cognition and affect influence
each other through traits.
While agency has an environmental context that informs its personality
about outcomes of interaction with the environment, the two parts of its
personality also act as contexts for each other, and they do this through
their affect and cognition Mindsets. Adaptive personalities should there-
fore be represented through both adaptive affect and adaptive cognition
Mindsets. This said, since Mindsets constitute generic/state conditions
that arise from trait numerical values, they must therefore be susceptible
to change in the type value sets that they adopt. The only way in which this
can occur, it seems, is through a crossfire process. This happens through
the network of processes that constitute the process intelligences that
connect the generic/state systems within affect and cognition.
Having referred to the intelligences, it may be noted that from our affect
agency theory, the traditional notion of emotion intelligence is modified to
be expressed in terms of two components, one that drives the relationship
between attitudes and emotion management, the other that controls the
way in which emotional climate affects this relationship. These two classes
of process intelligence are living system drivers. Similarly, for the cognition
agency, we show where cultural intelligence fits into the whole agency,
again in terms of process intelligence. Referring once again to Mayer’s
realisation that systems approaches can deal with fragmentation, this is the
first time that explicit connections have been made between emotional and
cultural intelligence.
The cognitive and the affect agencies are living systems that create
anchors of viability through stable culture, but they always have
a dynamic potential for adaptation. The cognition personality model
consists of three distinct systems: cognitive self-identification, figurative
self-regulation, and operative self-organisation, which are connected by
figurative and operative intelligences. The affective personality model also
524 Conclusion
consists of three distinct systems: affective self-identification, affect activa-
tion through figurative self-regulation and operative emotion manage-
ment, which are also connected by figurative and operative intelligences.
Agency maintains self-reflective, self-regulative, and self-organisational
processes and it is interactively connected with an environment. The
dynamics of living systems arise through self-reflection comparing goals
with achievements and its process intelligences. In cybernetic agency
theory, self-production (operative intelligence) is put into effect through
guidance, strategy implementation and behaviour externalisation. It is
not self-reproduction, which constitutes a process of self-duplication or
self-repetition. It implies that underlying assumptions, espoused values
and emotions, strategies, and operations are recreated in the same way as
they existed before. Thus, the dynamics of an agency emerge from self-
reflection: self-reflection is about assessment of situations with respect to
survival (viability), achievement of desired goals and alternative goals of the
personality. Self-reflection is concerned with the consequences of the
values and the emotions, the agency adheres to, the strategic options it
might have if changing the dominant paradigm. It can (1) cognitively
change goals; and/or (2) change emotional situations; and/or (3) change
emotion displays through operative emotion regulation. This implies
adapting the operative capabilities it might have to realise different
options. In a way the personality struggles with itself, that is, it’s alter
ego. It enters into a sort of self-negotiation processes, which involves
figurative intelligences: cognitive figurative intelligence and affect figura-
tive intelligence. For future research, elaboration is needed for the processes
of self-reflection within the cognitive and the affective personality system
and across the two systems.
The theory presented also has a potential to
• guide the analysis of cultural differentiation within social systems (e.g.,
societies or organisations);
• frame multi-level interaction where smaller collectives are embedded
into larger social systems with a culture and an emotional climate, and
a ‘Social Environment’;
• recognise that personality sets action in pursuit of goals and receives
feedback to its actions.
Theory has been provided in Part III of this book to model pathologies
in terms of identity cleavages which arise with conflicting multiple person-
alities. To explore how such cleavages might occur, two classes of Mindset
have been identified: agency and personality. The latter is a subset of the
 Overview 525
former, with agency Mindsets including cultural traits that orient the
agency towards certain attitudes, and social traits that determine social
proclivity. Thus, agency Mindset is deemed to represent public identity,
while the personality Mindset is deemed to represent personal identity.
Distinction between public and personal identities suggest identity cleav-
ages, and can indicate pathologies resulting in behavioural inconsistencies
due to psychopathy. These distinctions will be the result of trait instabil-
ities. Future research should explore the trait instabilities that might occur
for each trait in Table 14.1, and mapping them to various clinical patholo-
gies. As an illustration, cultural trait instabilities for the plural cognition
agency has been discussed at length in Chapter 13, and comment has been
made above with respect to the cultural trait (emotional climate) of the
affect agency.
Identity has been shown to be empirically determinable, not by explor-
ing Mindsets, but rather by evaluating the traits that define them. So, while
the eight Mindsets identified may be regarded as personality stereotypes, to
actually evaluate, personality trait measurements are required. These meas-
ures come by examining the trajectory of a trait, that is, identifying where it
lies between its polar attractors, and whether it has achieved a position of
stability. The most important cognition trait trajectory is culture since it
can create a stability field for the other traits. Cultures become unstable
during periods of cultural transition when sub-populations of its agents
adopt cultural values that are in conflict. As a result, no emergent cultural
orientation emerges from patterns of agent interactions. Cultural stability
is ultimately dependent on the agency cultural trait, and this will determine
which cultural values will dominate. Other traits must similarly find their
stability points. To evaluate the cultural state of an agency, a measuring
instrument is provided in Appendix A, this deriving principally from
Shalom Schwartz, though it also includes consideration of affect attributes.
In affect agency, emotional climate takes a role equivalent to that of the
cultural trait in the cognition agency, where it can be responsible for
cognition agency stability/instability from its security/fear attractors.
Emotional climate instability indicates an inability to coherently emotion-
ally influence the cognition agency, perhaps allowing emotional impera-
tives (through personality’s emotional attitude, motivation activation and
emotion management, and sociocultural emotional climate and social
emotion management) to emerge arbitrarily from the environment. This
creates difficulty for the agency to self-regulate its emotions, the purpose of
which is to enable it to influence which emotions to have, when to have
them, and how they may be experienced and expressed. Thus, for instance,
526 Conclusion
instability in emotional climate means that cues to determine which
emotions to have are missing. In an unstable and dynamically changing
social environment, externally sourced emotional inconsistencies and
mood swings might result for the agency. It is feasible that evaluation of
emotion self-regulation may assist the understanding of the emotional
condition, and in Appendix B, we list the emotion regulation measuring
instrument developed by Gross and John (2003).
A primary intention in this book was to explore personality psychology
to create a general model from general theory that is capable of creating
coherent explanations of complex situations. The intention has also been
to effectively show that personality psychology is responsible for the
creation of meso structures that generate control imperatives for behaviour.
It was logical to therefore consider one step further, and to develop
a psychohistory, delivered in Part IV of this book, and developed from
Yolles, Fink, and Frieden (2012). Psychohistory was defined by Lloyd
DeMause (2005) as the science of historical motivation, being the chron-
ology of why events happen centring on the human unconscious. It can
embrace formal approaches that respond to inquiry into the overall reac-
tions of large groups of human beings to given stimuli under given
conditions (Chan, 2004). We recall from the introduction to the book
that Agency Theory can appear as a narrative theory through its super-
structure of schemas imported through configurations. Its formal dimen-
sion occurs through its substructure that defines a set of axioms for the
nature of living. Here we have imported Extreme Physical Information
(EPI) as a formal symbolic theory into the superstructure. It has connec-
tions to the idea of sociophysics (Urry, 2004: Wallerstein 1996: 61, 63)
which has emerged together with other formal theories of complexity (Sen
& Chakrabarti, 2014). Psychohistory may also be seen as an amalgam of
psychology, history, and related social sciences and the humanities that
examines history in multidisciplinary terms. This includes the psyches that
drive it.
In Part IV of the book, we also explored Extreme Physical Information
(EPI), a unifying mathematical theory designed to measure disorder, and
from which other theories in other fields can be derived from principles of
Fisher information, from which information can be created about an affect
under uncertainty. EPI is eminently suited to finding non-equilibrium
solutions to problems, having already done so, for instance, for statistical
mechanics (Yates, 1994) and thermodynamics (Galatzer-Levy, 2002) and
quantum mechanics (Frieden, 2004), enabling the study of emergence in
complex systems where internal interactions between entities results in the
 Overview 527
creation of something new and unexpected. There are also various other
potentials for its development in the social sphere, like the growth in
markets, or in the study of macroeconomics with the attendant question
of whether or not economic intervention should be utilised in order to
foster beneficial economic movements. Areas such as growth and depletion
are also of interest here, as well as capital and labour as forms of resource.
Having noted the significance of EPI, it should also be realised that it has
not been without critical comment, apparently due to the arbitrary formu-
laic manner in which it has been presented, and the ad hoc metaphysical
assumptions required to phrase it (Srivastava, 2009). However, such criti-
cisms were resolved by Frieden and Gatenby (2007) and are of no conse-
quence to the significance of the approach. It has been integrated with
Agency Theory to create a potential for psychohistory that has its back-
ground in Yolles, Fink, and Frieden (2012).
Linking informal and formal inquiry approaches creates a potential for
a great deal of modelling power. The former is able, through configur-
ations, to generate intuitive narrative schemas relating to identifiable issues
from which a formal approach can take its cues. Beyond Agency Theory,
there do not appear to be any dominant synergies in the literature. To
configure the relationship between EPI and Agency Theory, there was an
issue that needed to be explored. This arose because of the way in which
EPI connects with Agency Theory. As indicated in the last chapter, both
conform to critical realism (Yolles, 2018), defined through a series of
philosophical positions including ontology, causation, structure, persons,
and forms of explanation (Archer et al., 2016). Critical realism comes from
the idea that effects exist independently of their being perceived, or
independently of our theories about them. Reality is determined by the
structures that create these effects which exist independently of us, and
distinction can be made between experiences, events and causal mechan-
isms, epistemic process (for knowledge), and ontology (types being) under
praxis. Miller (2012) notes that realism conforms to two general and
macroscopic aspects, existence and independence. The first claim supposes
that the effects (relating to material objects) in the external world that
constitute reality exist independently of their being perceived, and
the second claim asserts that objects in the external world exist independ-
ently of what is thought about them. Most realists argue that causal
processes in the mind mediate, or interpret, directly perceived appearances.
Thus, essentially the effects remain independent, although the causal
mechanism may distort, or even wholly falsify, the individual’s knowledge
of them. Scientific realism is the view that ‘theories refer to real features of
528 Conclusion
the world. “Reality” here refers to whatever it is in the universe (i.e., forces,
structures, and so on) that causes the phenomena we perceive with our
senses’ (Schwandt, 1997: 133). More detail is provided by Balick (2014),
about how external world effects are subjectively internalised (i.e., being
adventitious). Assuming existence, effects as objects of attention are
brought into the subjective agent’s internal world of the unconscious,
becoming an internalised assimilated cognitive effect ideate, referred to
by Mielkov (2013) as a meta-object,1 which forms relationships with other
such ideates and with the agent’s ego. This enables the development of an
internal relational representation of the external world. This internal fabric
is deeply dependent on the agent’s experiences of the external object. As
such, there are mutual influences between the internal and external worlds.
This enables us to distinguish between the external world of objects, and
the internal world of subjects with its meta-objects, and it leads to the
recognition that the object–subject relationship is directly contingent on
the external–internal world relationship. Bhaskar (2008) notes that our
understanding of reality is determined by the real structures that exist
independently of us, and there is a distinction between (1) experiences,
events, and causal mechanisms and (2) epistemic process (for knowledge)
and ontology (types of being) under praxis. For Modell (2007: 3), critical
realism ‘has evolved into a much broader program that stresses issues of
agency, authority, power and emancipation’. Taken as a generic paradigm,
critical realism constitutes a means by which an intermediate position can
be achieved that reflects various relationships between an effect/object and
an observer. For Cupchik (2001), an alternative name for critical realism is
constructivist realism.
Within critical realism, there is an issue of what it is that constitutes
observation. All phenomenal effects share a common property of being
observed. The observation of any effect, be it physical or sociocultural in
nature, gives rise to a flow of information from the effect that is assembled
in the noumenon of the observer. A concept of Immanuel Kant (Weed, 2002),
the noumenon was defined as being at an epistemological horizon, unknowable
and indescribable, consummate as a perfect expression of a positivist material
reality, universal and maintaining absolute truth. Guo et al. (2006) adopted
the term representing it in a constructivist form as an agency’s cognitive
reservoir potential for information. There is a flow of information from the
effect to the observer where it is internalised as part of an immanent nou-
menon, and this follows a mathematical principle from EPI. Use of the
principle gives the mathematical description of the effect as a law of physics,
making EPI epistemological. We have already commented on this with respect
 Overview 529
to psychohistory, with its potential to explore future history, something that
would coincide with an ability to make predictions.
A suitable theory is capable, in principle, of prediction. Attempts to
quantify and predict history date approximately from nineteenth-century
France, with the idea originally posited by Auguste Comte (1798–1857).
Since then, a voluminous amount of literature has amassed on the subject.
Recent attempts appear sufficiently instructive. Work in the 1960s exposed
a caveat that any such theory must address. At that time, ambitious social
scientists tried to mathematically quantify a number of ill-defined social
benefits and costs. These were then used to advise President John
F. Kennedy on forming policies with ‘scientific’ merit on issues of economics,
the budget and natural resources. Even the Vietnam War was to be run partly
on the basis of such computerised models. Unfortunately, the extrapolation of
trends is an exceedingly hazardous process. The administration learned too late
that the predictions from mathematical models are only as valid as their inputs
(assumed degrees of freedom and boundary conditions). In particular,
unanticipated factors can greatly alter the actual course of events.
The particular themes of cultural change and change in relative emo-
tional climate have been central to this book, especially with respect to
cultural psychology. While Sorokin’s theories are directed towards provid-
ing an understanding of cultural condition and change in large-scale
cultures as occur in civilisations, the application of the sociohistorical
theory indicated here is also potentially useful for the exploration of small-
scale cultures as they occur in corporate environments, and here the
principle of social inertia with respect to population mass plays a part.
 appendix a

Inventory for Cognition Agency

We shall initially identity the elements of Schwartz’s Value Inventory

(Sagiv & Schwartz, 2000), and then move to the measuring instrument
used to acquire this. The inventory consists of a set of value types.
A development of this inventory by Sagiv and Schwartz (2007) enables
a configuration that, together with the Maruyama’s (1965) Mindscape
configuration, emerges as Mindset Agency Theory. This delivers a set of
formative traits that together constitute a configuration which together
result in Mindset structures. A summary of the original Schwartz value
types, adapted from Changing Minds,1 is given as below.
In addition, we shall elaborate on the Schwartz personality inventory by
including sociocultural aspects. Furthermore, we shall explore an instru-
ment that would be required for affect agency, including affect personality
and affect socioculture.

A.1 Embeddedness versus Autonomy

A.1.1 Embeddedness
This focusses on sustaining the social order, avoiding change and main-
taining tradition. It is important where people are living or working closely
with others, and where in tight cultures there is need to conform to group
norms. Embeddedness values tradition, security, obedience.

A.1.2 Autonomy
In autonomy individuals have control over their choices as opposed to
having to consider others and shared rules. Pragmatically, autonomy is
about freedom as compared with policing embeddedness cultures. It is
distinguished into two types: affective and intellectual.

530
 Appendix A 531
Affective Autonomy is the independent pursuit of pleasure, seeking
enjoyment by any means without censure. In many societies there are
limits when affective autonomy leads to taking banned substances or acting
in ways that distresses or harms others.
Intellectual Autonomy is the independent pursuit of ideas/thoughts that
may be theoretical, political, pragmatic, etc. In embeddedness cultures it is
hard to police what people are thinking, though actions can be taken to
monitor intellectual activities.

A.2 Mastery versus Harmony

A.2.1 Mastery
Individuals seek success through personal action to their benefit or that of
others or the groups to which they belong, and this perhaps occurring at
the cost to third parties. Mastery needs independence, courage, ambition,
drive and competence.

A.2.2 Harmony
Rather than seek self-improvement, individuals are happy to accept their place
in the world, putting greater emphasis on the group over that of the individual.

A.3 Hierarchy versus Egalitarianism

A.3.1 Hierarchy
There is a clear social order, with some individuals placed in superior
positions. Individuals accept their position in the hierarchy, and are
expected to be modest and have appropriate self-control.

A.3.2 Egalitarianism
All individuals are considered as equals and are expected to show concern
for everyone else.

A.4 A Trait Measuring Instrument for the Cognitive Agency

The original measuring instrument was due to Shalom Schwartz that has
been taken to define agency personality traits. It has been extended to
532 Appendix A
include extended traits for the agency arising from the theoretical and
empirical work of Sorokin (1962) and Shotwell et al. (1980). While the
Schwartz instrument for personality values is extremely well tested, the
cultural and social interaction traits are not at all tested, and require further
exploration.
In Chapters 7 and 8 these were distinguished into the MAT3T person-
ality instrument and the MAT5T agency instrument. The list of traits and
were they reside in which system of the agency model is that derives from
Yolles and Fink (2014) is listed in Table A.1.
The sociocultural traits are part of agency but outside ‘personality’ as such.
The others define the personality itself. Dramatist/Patterner is adopted from
Shotwell, Wolf and Gardner (1980), Dramatist emphasises that social struc-
tures support the pursuing of goals for individual benefit; self-presentation and
communication with others is of importance. Patterner emphasises that social
structures support the pursuing of goals that should be for collective benefit;
configurations are important in social relationships (symmetry, pattern, bal-
ance, and the dynamics of relationships).
The link of these values to the bipolar traits can be found Yolles and Fink
(2014) on Mindset Agency types. It is important to note that in Table A.2
there are forty-three values. However, that issue is easily resolved: one
either retains the full list or deletes the four overshooting items. Here, the
long list is adopted. Four items are nothing to bother about. In any case, if
one wants to make comparisons, one has to use the same structure of Likert
Scales as in the main questionnaire, i.e., 1–6 + ‘don’t know’.
So, agency theory has five traits. Three of these belong to Personality and
two are sociocultural. All five are required in Cross-Cultural contexts, but
in a single cultural context only three are required. The additional two
items beyond personality (reflecting ‘culture’ and the orientation towards
behaviour) are as follows, involving ‘cultural orientation’ and ‘social
orientation’.

A.5 Personality Trait Questionnaire

Use a 6-point Likert scale for the questionnaire given in Table A.3. The
reasons are as follows:
1. Single responses are not necessarily stable. Variation by 1 point is likely
to emerge. A 6-point scale allows to group respondents into either two
(high 4–6, low 1–3), or three categories: high (scores 5 and 6), medium
(scores 3 and 4), low (scores 1 and 2).
 Table A.1 Agency personality and extended traits

Function System Traits Orientation of Traits and the Intelligences

Personality Traits

Personality Cognitive System Cognitive orientation General orientations of trait: Autonomy/

trait
Figurative System Figurative orientation
trait
Operative System Operative orientation
trait
Embeddedness
Contrast of own figurative images of the world (own
worldview, own ethics) and others ethics and
worldviews.
General orientations of trait: Mastery/Harmony
Contrast of own strategies and interests with competing
strategies and interests of others.
General orientations of traits: Hierarchy/Egalitarianism
Contrast of own technical and organisational
capabilities with competing technical and
organisational capabilities of others.

Agency Traits

Sociocultural Cultural Environment Cultural orientation trait
(Sensate and Ideational)
Operative Environment Social orientation
Trait
(Dramatist and Patterner)
General orientations of trait: Sensate/Ideational
Contrast of own cultural knowledge and orientation
with others’ cultural knowledge and orientation.
General orientations of trait: Dramatist/Patterner
Contrast between action orientation (change the world)
and learning orientation (learn from others).
534 Appendix A
Table A.2 The bipolar personality traits by Sagiv and Schwartz (2007) and
their forty-three values

Traits Dimensions/Poles Values/Items

Cognitive Intellectual Autonomy [broad-mindedness, freedom, creativity,

curious]
Embeddedness [polite, obedient, forgiving, respect tradition,
self-discipline, moderate, social order,
family security, protect my public image,
national security, honour elders,
reciprocation of favours].
Figurative Mastery [successful, ambitious, independent,
and influential, social recognition, choosing
Affective Autonomy own goals, daring, capable]
[exciting life, varied life, pleasure, enjoying life,
self-indulgent]
Harmony [accept my portion in life, world at peace,
protect environment, unity with nature,
world of beauty]
Operative Hierarchy [authority, wealth, social power]
Egalitarianism [loyal, equality, responsible, honest, social
justice, helpful]

2. To find out whether a group has a balanced attitude, the mean of the
6-point scale is 3.5. Thus, respondents with a preference towards the
mean would have to make a choice. These choices very likely will vary
across respondents and fluctuate between 3 and 4. However, for
a balanced attitude the mean should remain between 3 and 4 and
would be rather close to 3.5.
3. From the 6-point scale we can derive, (1) the eight basic types, with scores
1–3 as low and 4–6 as high; (2) the centre balanced type with scores of all six
value constructs of either 3 or 4; (3) the twenty-seven-type frame indicating
the intensity of population within these twenty-seven types.

A.6 The Questionnaire

The questionnaire below has fifty-eight item statements. Please indicate
whether you support or do not support this this statement. The strength
or weakness of the support is indicated in the right-hand side columns
below.
These questions relate to the traits as shown in Table A.4.
 Table A.3 Personality questionnaire

6 Point Likert Scale

Supportive Unsupportive

Question Very Somewhat Somewhat Very

number Question Strong Strong strong Weak Weak Weak

01 equal opportunity for all

02 at peace with myself
03 control over others, dominance
04 gratification of desires
05 freedom of action and thought
06 emphasis on spiritual not material matters
07 feeling that others care about me
08 stability of society
09 stimulating experiences
10 a purpose in life
11 courtesy, good manners
12 material possessions, money
13 protection of my nation from enemies
14 belief in one’s own worth
15 avoidance of indebtedness
16 uniqueness, imagination
17 free of war and conflict
18 preservation of time-honoured customs
19 deep emotional and spiritual intimacy
Table A.3 (cont.)

6 Point Likert Scale

Supportive Unsupportive

Question Very Somewhat Somewhat Very

number Question Strong Strong strong Weak Weak Weak

20 self-restraint, resistance to temptation

21 the right to have a private sphere
22 safety for loved ones
23 respect, approval by others
24 fitting into nature
25 filled with challenge, novelty and change
26 a mature understanding of life
27 the right to lead or command
28 close, supportive friends
29 beauty of nature and the arts
30 correcting injustice, care for the weak
31 self-reliant, self-sufficient
32 avoiding extremes of feeling and action
33 faithful to my friends, group
34 hard-working, aspiring
35 tolerant of different ideas and beliefs
36 modest, self-effacing
37 seeking adventure, risk
38 preserving nature
39 having an impact on people and events
40 showing respect
41 selecting own purposes
42 not being sick physically or mentally
43 competent, effective, efficient
44 submitting to life’s circumstances
45 genuine, sincere
46 protecting my ‘face’
47 dutiful, meeting obligations
48 logical, thinking
49 working for the welfare of others
50 enjoying food, sex, leisure, etc.
51 holding to religious faith and belief
52 dependable, reliable
53 interested in everything, exploring
54 willing to pardon others
55 achieving goals
56 neat, tidy
57 doing pleasant things
58 to maintain face
538 Appendix A
Table A.4 Distribution of questions across personality traits

Traits Dimensions/Poles Question numbers

Cognitive Intellectual Autonomy 5,16,35,53

Embeddedness 8,11,13,15,18,20,26,32, 40, 46, 47, 51,
54, 56
Figurative Mastery 23, 31, 34, 37, 39, 41, 43, 55,
and 4, 9, 25, 50, 57
Affective Autonomy
Harmony 17, 24, 29, 38
Operative Hierarchy 3, 12, 27, 36, 39
Egalitarianism 1, 30, 33, 45, 49, 52

A.7 The Two Agency Traits

The two traits that are additional to personality in agency are described in
Table A.5 through their keywords.
These have not yet been tested. There is a need to test how some of these
would be received by a respondent, so they have been reduced. Bold
indicate questions, italic indicates doubt.

A.7.1 Cultural Orientation Trait

Sensate
(30)
1. Meanings are only taken from the senses (Kemp 1997).
2. Utilitarian and materialistic society
3. Visualism and antenarratives
4. Lack of integrated thought and judgement {empiricism?}
5. {but, there is also mention of a single dominant worldview}
(31)
6. Sensate supports material and practical matters.
7. Sensate promotes individualism
(32)
8. Appreciating the nature of the needs and ends that are to be
satisfied
9. Emphasis on human external needs
10. Exploitation of the external world
11. Practically oriented
12. Reality is what can be observed and measured.
 Appendix A 539
Table A.5 The two agency traits and their keywords

Trait Nature Key Words

Dramatism Individual relationships to others are Sequentially, communication,

important, constituted as individualism, contractual,
sequences of interpersonal events. ideocentric.
Communication is important, as
are individuals and their
proprietary belief systems, and
individual social contracts. Goal
formation should be for
individual benefit. Ideocentric
agencies are important,
operating through social
contracts between the rational
wills of its individual members.
Patternism Configurations are important in Configurations, relationships,
social and other forms of symmetry, pattern, balance,
relationships. There is persistent dynamics, collectivism,
curiosity. The social is influenced allocentric.
by relationships with individuals.
Some importance is attached to
symmetry, pattern, balance, and
the dynamics of relationships.
Goal seeking should be for
collective benefit, and collective
goal formation takes precedence
over personal goal formation.
Allocentric collectives are
important, where the members
operate subjectively.

(35)
13. Material and this-worldly
14. Capability to survive here and now.
15. Action orientation
(36)
16. Importance of desire and enjoyableness.
(38)
17. Reality is sensory and material
18. Pragmatism is normal
19. Interest in becoming rather than being.
20. Happiness is paramount
21. External orientation
540 Appendix A
22. Instrumentalism
23. Empiricism
24. Change
25. Flux
26. Progress
27. Evolution
28. Transformation
29. Temporal
In the idealistic state
(30) Culture is always pluralistic.

Ideational
(29, 38)
1. Creation of ideas
2. Humanitarian
3. Spiritual, super-sensory.
4. Meta-narratives
5. Harmony and idea centred
(30)
6. Pursuit and maturation of a variety of ideas
7. Unable to apply their ideas, lack of practical capabilities
(32,38)
8. Appreciating the conceptual and internal nature of objects
and intentions.
9. Fulfilment through self-imposed minimisation, Self-
deprivation
10. Fulfilment through elimination of most physical needs
(35)
11. Otherworldly
12. Securing future survival
13. Developing concepts/ideas
14. Schemata of thought emerging from reflection of changing
situations.
(36, 38)
15. Importance of humane values /and strength of character
(38)
16. Reality is super-sensory
17. Morality is unconditional
18. Tradition is of importance
 Appendix A 541
19. Creation and examination of self.
20. Spirituality
21. Eternal

A.7.2 Social Orientation Trait

Dramatist
(29) Gell-Mann (1994:7):
1. Feedback (to) influence competition among schemata or
models
2. Setting limitations to schemata, influencing which sche-
mata might become successful (schema control)
3. Frequent repetition of petty acts (Schaller, Conway and
Crandall, 2008; Sumner 1906?)
(34, 38)
4. Individual relationships
5. Sequential, sequences of interpersonal events
6. Communication
7. Contractual: Individual social contracts between the
rational wills of its individual members
8. Individualism with proprietary belief systems.
9. Ideocentric
10. Related to extroversion
(37)
11. Who we are!
12. What we can!
(38)
13. Goals serve individual benefit

Patterner
(29) Gell-Mann (1994:7):
1. Identifying regularities in information about the environ-
ment (seeking patterns)
2. Condensing regularities into a schema or model
3. Competing schemata (generating competing schemata)
(30)
4. Creating complex systems of meanings
5. Pursuit and maturation of ideas
542 Appendix A
Table A.6 Keywords for affect agency traits

Trait Bipolar
Generic System Type Nature

Affect Personality Traits

Emotional Stimulation Context positive as an assertion for dominance in

Attitude emotional attitude: passionate, emotional
sensitive, joy, exuberance, delight, exiting,
ecstasy, elation, joviality, open, serenity,
intense, independent, creative.
Context negative as a demand for conjoint
balance with containment: anger, hostility,
panic, paranoia, annoyance, rage, disgust,
panic, grief (emerges also as outburst from
containment).
Containment Dependable, restraint, self-possession, self-
containment, self-control, self-discipline,
self-government, self-mastery, self-
command, moderateness, continence.
Figurative Ambition Aspiration, intention, enthusiasm, initiative,
Motivation aim, goal, desire, hope, wish, enterprise,
Activation craving, longing, appetite, ardour,
aggressiveness, killer instinct.
Protection Safety, stability, security, shield, defence,
immunity, salvation, shelter, safekeeping,
conservation, insurance, preservation,
safeguard.
Operative Dominance Control, domination, supremacy, hegemony,
Emotion power, pre-eminence, rule, sovereignty,
Management ascendancy, authority, command,
dominion.
Submission Compliance, conformity, obedience,
subordination, subjection, allegiance,
deference, observance, non-resistance,
loyalty, devotion, passiveness, fealty,
resignation, homage, fidelity.

Affect Agency Traits (external to Personality)

Cultural Fear Isolation, non-co-operative, insecurity,

anxiety, aggression, concern, scare.
Security Trust, confidence, satisfaction, solidarity,
encouragement, hope.
Social Missionary Imposing, proponent, converter, herald,
promoter, propagandist, revivalist.
Empathetic Accepting, compassionate, sensitive,
sympathetic.
 Appendix A 543
(34, 38)
6. Configurations are important in social and other forms of
relationships
7. Relationship patterns
8. Balance
9. Collectivism
10. Allocentric collectives
11. Humane orientation
12. Related to introversion.
(38)
13. Persistent curiosity
14. Symmetry, patterns, balance and dynamics of relationships
15. Goal seeking for the collective benefit
16. Collective goal formation takes precedence over individual
goal formation

A.8 Affect Measuring Instrument

The affect measuring instrument has neither been fully explored nor
tested. It is summarised here for completeness. From Chapter 7 we collect
both the personality affect traits, and the affect agency traits of emotional
climate and emotional management.
To create a measuring instrument, these key words need to be explored
in a way similar to those of cognitive agency.
 appendix b

Emotion Regulation

B.1 Background
This instrument comes from Gross and John (2003), who explains that
emotions have long been viewed as passions that come and go, more or less
of their own accord. However, there is a growing appreciation that indi-
viduals exert considerable control over their emotions, using a wide range
of strategies to influence which emotions they have and when they have
them (Gross, 1998).
The Emotions Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) items were rationally
derived, and indicated clearly in each item is the emotion regulatory
process intended for measurement, such as ‘I control my emotions by
changing the way I think about the situation I’m in’ (reappraisal) and ‘I
control my emotions by not expressing them’ (suppression). In addition to
these general-emotion items, the Reappraisal scale and the Suppression
scale both included at least one item asking about regulating negative
emotion (illustrated for the participants by giving sadness and anger as
examples) and one item about regulating positive emotion (exemplified by
joy and amusement). Moreover, care was taken to limit the item content to
the intended emotion regulatory strategy, and to avoid any potential
confounding by mentioning any positive or negative consequences for
affect, social functioning, or well-being. The final ten items are rated on
a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7(strongly agree).

B.2 Psychometrics
Alpha reliabilities averaged 0.79 for Reappraisal and 0.73 for Suppression.
Test–retest reliability across three months was 0.69 for both scales. Results
replicated closely across samples and were consistent with the hypothesis
that minority status is associated with greater use of suppression to regulate
emotion. There were no ethnic differences in Reappraisal.

544
 Appendix B 545
B.3 Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ)
The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire is designed to assess individual
differences in the habitual use of two emotion regulation strategies: cogni-
tive reappraisal and expressive suppression.

B.4 Instructions and Items

We would like to ask you some questions about your emotional life,
in particular, how you control (that is, regulate and manage) your
emotions. The questions below involve two distinct aspects of your
emotional life. One is your emotional experience, or what you feel
like inside. The other is your emotional expression, or how you
show your emotions in the way you talk, gesture, or behave.
Although some of the following questions may seem similar to one
another, they differ in important ways. For each item, please answer
using the following scale:

1–––––––––2––––––––3––––––––4––––––––5––––––––6–––––––––7
strongly neutral strongly
agree disagree

1. When I want to feel more positive emotion (such as joy or amuse-

ment), I change what I’m thinking about.
2. I keep my emotions to myself.
3. When I want to feel less negative emotion (such as sadness or anger),
I change what I’m thinking about.
4. When I am feeling positive emotions, I am careful not to express them.
5. When I’m faced with a stressful situation, I make myself think about it
in a way that helps me stay calm.
6. I control my emotions by not expressing them.
7. When I want to feel more positive emotion, I change the way I’m
thinking about the situation.
8. I control my emotions by changing the way I think about the situation
I’m in.
9. When I am feeling negative emotions, I make sure not to express
them.
10. When I want to feel less negative emotion, I change the way I’m
thinking about the situation.
546 Appendix B
Note
Do not change item order, as items 1 and 3 at the beginning of the
questionnaire define the terms ‘positive emotion’ and ‘negative emotion’.

Scoring (No Reversals)

Reappraisal Items: 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10; Suppression Items: 2, 4, 6, 9.
 Notes

Introduction
1. Psychodynamic theories tend to be concerned with the drives and forces within
the person, particularly unconscious, and between the different structures of the
personality.
2. Trait theories are normally concerned with habitual patterns of thought and
emotion, and consider linkages between traits that influence a personality and
resulting behaviour.
3. Humanistic theories tend to be connected with the whole personality and, for
instance, free-will, self-efficacy, and self-actualisation (as opposed to dysfunction).
4. This view coincides with Kuhn’s (1970) recognition that independent paradigms
arise from different perspectives and propositions. Paradigm holders invest in them,
and become so committed that paradigm boundaries become impermeable to
a flow of ideas while stakeholders engage in cross-paradigm wars.
5. This definition of the principle of parsimony is adapted from the Oxford
Reference: www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority
.20110803100346221
6. By adventitious is meant happening as a result of an external factor rather than
an immanent one. It is derived from Latin adventicius, meaning ‘coming from
outside’, which in turn comes from adventus, the past participle of the verb
advenire, meaning ‘to arrive’ or ‘to happen’.
7. The five evolutionary stages of consciousness and the sixth also indicated are as
follows:
The null stage of cognition: refers to self-maintenance that is either
unaltered or superficially deformed by the irruption of a new envir-
onmental factor without assimilation, this corresponding to the
passive incorporation of the neutral molecule into a self-producing
agent, be it a vesicle system or a bacterium.
Stage 1 of cognition: involving assimilation, it concerns the integration of an
environmental factor (obstacle or molecule) within a living agent that can
make use of it as part of its defining network. This is a minimal condition
for cognition and constitutes a basic condition for life. As such the normal

547
548 Notes to Pages 8–41
metabolism maintains a cognitive status that maintains its identity and
implies dynamical interaction with the environment.
Stage 2 of cognition: involving accommodation, it implies an enduring
modification of self-production. Accommodation is thus based on
stable molecular or dynamic support that may yield strongly antici-
pative behaviour such as motricity, with memory-like structures and
adaptive features important to cognition.
Stage 3 of cognition: relies on highly complex types of accommodative changes
resulting in representation-like types of behaviour, this reflecting the view
of an external observer without awareness of an external independent
world.
Stage 4 of cognition: involves social aspects that transforms it to know-
ledge by ascribing properties to intersubjective invariants (objects)
enabling intersubjectively shared predictive rules to emerge within
a collective conscious, enable an agent to evolve.
Stage 5 of cognition: radical shift in conscious self-realisation, as agencies
no longer automatically internalise every outer experience, and a sense
of self moves beyond the limits of the mind to explore identity
beyond the collective consciousness and its associated conditioning.
8. A meta-analysis is a higher order examination of the elements that construct
a schema to ascertain its validity for a superstructure, as discussed for instance
by Nescolarde-Selva et al. (2017). They refer to a meta-analysis as a ‘Doxical
Superstructure’, where the word doxic refers, relates, or is based on intellectual
processes that can include belief or opinion
9. The Five Factor Model (FFM) developed by McCrae and Costa (1999) is an
empirical generalisation of the covariation of a group of statistically identified
personality traits.

Part I Cybernetic Sociopsychology

1. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_pathology, these are
characteristics of pathological personalities.

Chapter 1 Mindset Agency Theory – an Underview

1. While the object/effect is part of the external objective world, a meta-object is
the result of the internalisation of properties of the effect which, through
assimilation, becomes represented in the subject.
2. For Spencer-Brown (1969) distinctions provide a capacity to differentiate
between an observer and the observed, thus giving understanding about the
idea that one can observe effects and create explanations that explain them.
 Notes to Pages 41–68 549
Thus, given that there exists a mark and an observer of that mark, then the two
are interchangeable since the mark is a projection of the observer who both
creates and therefore inherently is the mark, and to which the observer can
assign a value (Markley, 1996). Recognition of conceptual distinctions allows
for the definition of ontologies that facilitate configurations.
3. In particular, ontological analysis has been defined as the process of eliciting
and discovering relevant distinctions and relationships bound to the very nature
of the entities involved in a certain domain, for the practical purpose of
disambiguating terms having different interpretations in different contexts
(Guarino, 2012).
4. Following Fink and Yolles (2018), consider two interactively connected entities in
a defined space. If they are epistemically distinct then the volumes of knowledge
they reflect are mutually independent, so that where they coexist one does not
bound the other, so that sensate and ideational attributes may occur together in
a balanced way; if they are epistemically similar then the volumes of knowledge that
they reflect are mutually dependent, so that more of one means less of the other. In
the former case the entities may be taken as extreme points on a single linear axis,
while in the latter they cannot. Ontological distinction indicates that they have
a different origin while being conceptually related. Thus, senate is phenomenal
while ideational is cognitive.
5. The term lifeworld originates with the sociological perspective of Edmund Husserl,
and refers to a collective intersubjective pool of perceiving through which
meaningful thematic communication occurs. This gives meaning to events with
respect to life experience and understandings. Where the theme concerns issues that
require resolution consensus or agreement may occur. For Schutz (1971), lifeworld
the intersubjectivity of the social world is concrete and involves practical action. It
has many objects with specific properties, and as we act among these objects they are
sometimes seen as having to be dominated. While the everyday lifeworld itself
appears as the scene of action, it may rather appear as an object of action so that
a need arises to modify the world.
6. Figurative intelligence was perceived by Piaget to be static, an unnecessary
condition noting that knowledge grows through reflection. Reflection is
dynamic since it uses unique patterns of activities steered by continuous
awareness (Jobst et al., 2020), and it representative of what has been
extracted through the operative intelligence.
7. Meta-types are combinations of epistemic values that are constituted as elements of
human culture, material objects, or human practice (Maruyama, 1988).

Chapter 2 An Exercise in Configuration

1. FFM (also called the ‘big five’) is an empirically based classificatory trait
approach, where the traits take on single pole and bipolar values (Cattel, 1945;
Costa & McCrae, 1992; Goldberg, 1993). It uses factor analysis to identify the
five factors of neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and
conscientiousness (Goldberg, 1990).
550 Notes to Pages 72–85
2. See for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits.
3. This term (administrative) hierarchy is different from Simon’s term system
hierarchy. It refers to a structure arising from a population of interrelated
agents that emerges through their network of relational interactions. It enables
the rise of an internal operative authority of administration and responsibility
that oversees behaviour. Its nature implies some figurative intangible controlling
attribute that, for instance, houses a set of rules that regulates behaviour.
4. For a definition of these terms see for instance the Tai Chi Chuan Lun
(Discourse) at the websites www.taichichuan.co.uk/information/classics_lun_
commentary.html, or the Toowoomba Buddhist Centre, T’ai Chi, and www
.fwbo.org.au/toowoomba/tai_chi_chuan.html.
5. Operational closure means the existence of closed loops in the network of its
organisational processes that are driven by system itself. This permits an agency to
be self-determining, and hence autonomous, allowing self-functionalities to
develop.
6. Piaget has talked of two cognitive functions: assimilation and accommodation
(Sternberg, 1996), that may be constructed within an autopoiesis/autogenesis
relationship. Assimilation is related to autogenesis in that it refers to the active
transformation of information so that it may be integrated into already
available mental schemes. Accommodation is related to autopoiesis in that it
refers to the active transformation of the mental schemes so that the attributes
of a particular context may be accommodated.
7. The word enantiodromia has been used by Heraclitus, and later by Jung as a key
concept used in his notions about consciousness (e.g., www.endless-knot.us/fea
ture.html), and (from the OED Online) it is the process by which something
becomes its opposite, and the subsequent interaction of the two: applied especially
to the adoption by an individual or by a community, etc., of a set of beliefs, etc.,
opposite to those held at an earlier stage. For Jung the word enantiodromia
represents the superabundance of any force that inevitably produces its
opposite. In particular, according to Heraclitus who also advocated the term,
things tend to move toward an extreme, and then a reactional counter movement
sets in. Consequently, the word enantiodromia often implies a dynamic process
which is not necessarily implied by the word enantiomer. Jung used it particularly
to refer to the unconscious acting against the wishes of the conscious mind, that
which is responsible for one’s thoughts and feelings, and the seat of the faculty of
reason (as indicated in www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/E/En/Enanti
odromia.htm see Jung’s book Aspects of the Masculine, chapter 7, para. 294; Jung,
1989). Yolles (2006) uses the simpler derivative enantiomer which means a mirror
image of something, an opposite reflection. It derives from the Greek enantios, or
‘opposite’, and is used in a number of contexts, including architecture, molecular
physics, political theory, and computer system design. By using the simpler word
enantiomer we shall not exclude the possibility of any dynamic action that may
have been implied by the term enantiodromia and its connection to the idea of yin-
yang interaction.
 Notes to Pages 85–106 551
8. Also see for instance www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/psy/per
son5.html.
9. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trait.
10. There is a very close connection between behavioural style and learning style
(explored by Pearlman & Saakvime, 1995; Knippen & Green, 1996), which have
developed from learning theory (for the individual in the famous paper by Kolb,
1974; and for the group by Nanoka & Takeuchi, 1995) and learning style theory
(made well known by Honey & Momford, 1986). This connects directly with
likelihood estimations for future behaviours within given contexts. Behavioural
styles sometimes may classify people according to whether they are relationship
or task oriented. Direct measuring techniques can be created to assess this.

Chapter 3 Mindscapes Theory and Balanced Personality

1. A paradigm can be thought of as a formalised worldview (Yolles, 1999). It is
not only a personal or social lens that we use to shape the world, but also
determines how we think (Inayatullah & Wildman, 2006). It is a social
phenomenon supported by a plurality of individuals (Kuhn, 1970), and it
operates normatively through the collective standards that have been
implicitly or explicitly agreed, and through modes of practical behaviour
that conforms to these standards. The notion of a ‘personal paradigms’ also
exists (Grattan, 2008), but sometimes this is referred to as Weltanschaung – an
informal social or individual worldview (Yolles, 1999) that may be thought of
as being constituted through the empirical psyche made up of personal
experiences that create patterns of primary knowledge. It also provides
a structure of reasoning, cognition, perception, conceptualisation, design,
planning, and decision making that may vary (according to the normative
standards) from one individual, profession, culture, or social group to
another.
2. For S-MBTI we have referred to paired enantiodromia trait states as enantypes
3. An illustration of this, shown prior to the development of quantum mechanics
(Hoffman, B., 1947) occurred when corpuscular and wave theories of light
competed, but later became integrated.
4. A definition of structural coupling, according to the Cybernetics and
Human Knowing – Thesaurus pilot project (www.imprint.co.uk/the
saurus/structural_coupling.htm) which cites Encyclopedia Autopoietica as
one source, structural coupling is the term for structure-determined (and
structure-determining) engagement of a given unity with either its
environment or another unity. The process of engagement which effects
a ‘history or recurrent interactions leading to the structural congruence
between two (or more) systems’ (Maturana & Varela, 1987: 75) – though
one of the systems may be an environment for the other. It is ‘a historical
process leading to the spatio-temporal coincidence between the changes of
state’ (Maturana, 1975: 321) in the participants. As such, structural coupling
has connotations of both coordination and co-evolution.
552 Notes to Pages 106–114
5. The definition of economical is ‘the functional arrangement of elements within
a structure or system’ (www.dtl.org/trinity/misc/glossary.htm). So
socioeconomical relates to social structure or system. It can be related to
intention, as for instance in the ‘token economy’ designed as an environment
designed to modify behaviour – to increase desirable behaviour and decrease
undesirable behaviour through the use of tokens that have that are rewards for
the former. The tokens have value as a meaningful object or privilege (www
.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Token-economy-system.html).
6. The kinematic stream refers to the social and economic imperatives that
develop within any system. They include economical attribute that is ‘the
functional arrangement of elements within a structure of system’ (www
.dtl.org/trinity/misc/glossary.htm). It can be related to intention, as for
instance in the ‘token economy’ designed as an environment designed to
modify behaviour – to increase desirable behaviour and decrease undesirable
behaviour through the use of tokens that have that are rewards for the former.
The tokens have value as a meaningful object or privilege (www
.minddisorders.com/Py-Z/Token-economy-system.html).
7. Appreciations refer to those attributes that guide a social group operationally.
These are meant as a somewhat reflective view of a situation, with both
cognitive and evaluative aspects. They might also be called attitudes with
reflection that under special conditions may be formulated into goals.
Formulated systemically, appreciative systems (Vickers, 1965) are generalised
versions of appreciations that allow members of a culture to give accounts of
a variety of situations. Vickers (1965) idea of an appreciative system is an
interconnected set of more or less tacit standards of judgments by which we
both order and value our experience. An individual’s appreciative system will
determine the way situations are seen and valued, and hence how instrumental
judgements and actions are taken. It thus constitutes a process that interprets
and transforms perceptions to enable behaviour to develop. Thus, the
appreciative system determines the way an individual sees and values
different situations, and how instrumental judgments can be made in respect
of actions. An appreciative system may occur prior to goal formation.
8. Structural coupling is the term for structure-determined/determining
engagement in an interactive family of systems (either systems in mutual
interaction or so with an environment) in what we shall refer to as
a suprasystem. According to Maturana and Varela (1987: 75) the
engagement creates a history of recurrent interactions that leads to the
structural congruence between the systems, and it leads to a spatio-
temporal coincidence between the changes that occur in the family of
system (Maturana, 1975: 321). Each system in the family reciprocally serves
as sources of perturbations for each other. These perturbations are
‘compensable’, meaning that (1) there is a range of ‘compensation’
bounded by the limit beyond which each system ceases to be a functional
whole; and (2) iterations of the reciprocal interaction are affected by those
iterations previous to it and their influencing trajectories (Varela, 1979:
 Notes to Pages 120–139 553
48–49). This leads to the understanding that a self-producing family of
interactive systems can only take advantage of any possibilities offered by
their interactions if their structures are capable of facilitating and
supporting actions that can make use of the advantages.
9. Boje (2004) and citing Maruyama notes the possibility of additional clusters
in http://peaceaware.com/mindscape/XYZ_Mindscape_intro.htm.
10. See www.uia.org/strategies/stratcom_bodies.php?kap=53.
11. Irreconcilable epistemological differences, for which Maruyama’s system was
originally designed, is crucial in explaining how, and why, Dockens III (2008)
morphogenesis model differs from Eric Berne’s phenomenological approach,
Freud’s philosophical (Id, Superego and Ego) approach to transactional
formulate games and the Jung/Wilhelm approach to The Secret of the
Golden Flower. Though mindscapes and games deal with similar
phenomena, and similar conclusions, their approach and definition of games
differ. However, in mindscapes as one of five factors controlling dynamic
changes, determining a point on a path across morphogenesis’ behavioral
surfaces leads to epistemological divergence as well as conclusions, radically
different from Freud’s–especially in relation to gender differences.
12. As indicated by Dockens III, www.ceptualinstitute.com/genre/dockens/cybe
rscenario.htm.

Chapter 4 Normative Personalities

1. Neurosis in psychology is a functional disorder in which feelings of anxiety,
obsessional thoughts, compulsive acts, and physical complaints without
‘objective’ evidence of disease, occur in various degrees and patterns, and
dominate the personality. Following Strelau (2002), neuroticism (for which
emotionality is used as the synonym) has the following components: anxiety,
depression, guilt feelings, low self-esteem, and tension. The opposite pole of
neuroticism is emotional stability. Psychoticism, the opposite of which is
impulse control, consists of such primary traits as aggression, coldness,
egocentrism, impersonality, and impulsiveness.
2. There are two forms of intelligences that are slightly adjusted from the
notions proposed by Piaget. Operative intelligence provides information for
the personality to assist it in its decision-making operations, and thus relates
to the potential for phenomenal and observable behaviour and ‘to what
actually is happening’. It frames how the world is understood, and if
understanding is not successful, operative intelligence is able to change. It
does this through two forms of adjustment. Assimilation is the active
transformation of information so that it may be integrated into already
available mental schemes, while accommodation refers to the active
transformation of the mental schemes to engage with the particularities of
its environmental object of attention. Operative intelligence manifests
figurative thematic information and decision imperatives through
a selectable network of processes to the personality’s operative structures in
554 Notes to Page 150
relation to a specific environmental context. This plays a facilitating and
condition role for any strategic, ethical or ideological decision behaviours that
might develop. The figurative information comes from a set of figurative
schemas like mental models and abstractions, and other forms of appreciative
information and decision imperatives, and the operative information is set
into operative personality structures that condition decision making
behaviour. Operative intelligence manifests figurative information into the
operative personality system to enable thematic decisions to be made in
relation to interactions in the environment that facilitate behaviour.
Operative adjustment imperatives to the figurative personality system are
used to either re-emphasise available figurative images (including mental
models and abstractions) or to adjust/reformulate figurative structures.
Operative intelligence is a form of first order autopoiesis (Schwarz, 1997;
Maturana & Varela, 1987) which explains how a ‘living system’ self-produces
its core relational explanations of reality that influence behaviour. This
defines for the personality system its own boundaries relative to its
environment, develops its own unifying operational code, implements its
own programmes, reproduces its own elements in a closed circuit, obeys its
own laws of behaviour, and potentially satisfies its own intentions (Jessop,
1990). It also self-produces the network of processes that enable it to produce
its own personality components that exist in cognitive, figurative and
operative bases. Figurative intelligence helps to construct strategic, ethical
and ideological figurative schemas that defines a potential for decision
making behaviour, and contributes to the solidification and formation of
personality as a whole. It decides what kind of information assembled
through operative intelligence will be considered to be conceptually
significant and thematically relevant, or whether conceptual adjustments
should be made to its patterns of knowledge in its cognitive base. Where
conflicts arise, imperatives can be directed to the operative couple that are
responded to by operative intelligence, enabling figurative and operative
structures to be adjusted. Figurative intelligence can be taken as a form
of second order autopoiesis called autogenesis (Schwarz, 1997) through
a higher level of processes, that is, meta-processes that may be represented
for instance as guiding personality convictions, principal influences, or even
spirit. It occurs when a selectable network of these meta-processes is able to
project into the operative couple a set of espoused values as attitudes and
mental schemas and operative personality patterns. Figurative intelligence
will reflect on operative couple information by relating it to its cognitive base
and the patterns of feelings, beliefs and knowledge held there. It is thus able
to integrate precise adjustment imperatives into its cognitive base of
information about states of reality provided by the operative couple.
Figurative intelligence has the thematic responsibility of creating, through
its information imperatives, a capacity by the figurative and operative bases to
reflect the significant cognitive base elements for a given environmental
context and interaction set. The notion of figurative intelligence developed
 Notes to Page 152 555
here should be seen as a development of that proposed by Piaget. Rather than
figurative intelligence being seen as a passive notion, we take it to be second
order active by recognising that its actions occur through a meta-dynamic
that arises from a higher order coupling between a personality’s cognitive
metasystem composed of attitudes and feelings and conceptual information,
and operative couple involving operative intelligence. It is then responsible
for the influence that is created by the network of cognitive principles that
define ‘I’, and result in the agent’s own rules of personality production.
3. Wollheim (1999) defined cognitive state in terms of impulses, perceptions and
instincts, imaginings, and cognitive dispositional drives in terms of beliefs,
knowledge, memories, abilities, phobias and obsessions. Mental disposition
consists of beliefs, knowledge, memories, abilities, phobias and obsessions, and
has duration and history. Both mental states and dispositions are causally
related, mental state being able to instantiate, terminate, reinforce and
attenuate mental disposition. Mental dispositions can also facilitate mental
states.
4. The notion of migration is constructivist, and relates to the recognition that
there is a distinct difference between knowledge, information and data
(Biggiero, 2007). Migration has a lateral and transverse interpretation,
though the latter involves the former. Consider an illustration of the lateral
form: information migration (a notion that has also been discussed in other
terms by Miller (1978) and Luhmann (1995)). This involves understanding
the distinction between bound and free information. Information that arises
from the interaction between specific phenomena and thematic knowledge
becomes bound to the noumenon. Where this is to be communicated
between two autonomous but thematically related agencies, messages are
structured noumenally through the creation of free information that has
the capability of entailing a description of bound information. The
messages are communicated phenomenally through the creation as a set of
coded signals that have the potential to create new bound information that
when related to both the specific phenomena and thematic knowledge may
be understood. The message is communicated laterally between the creating/
transmitting and receiving/interpreting agencies. The transmitting agency
locally constructs the coded signals from its free information to create the
message, and the receiving agency locally deconstructs these and reconstructs
the new free information that it now bounds to its noumenon through its
thematic pattern of knowledge. Since the transmitting and receiving agencies
are autonomous as are the construction and reconstruction processes, their
respective free information is distinct. As a consequence, any attempt to
relate the constructed and the deconstructed information in the source and
sink agencies must involve some degree of uncertainty, which may be
magnified as bound information. Consider now the transitive notion of
ontological migration for the organisation as an agency with a personality
that is separated into three ontologically distinct sets of generic (trait related)
functions that deal respectively with conceptual, appreciative, and operative
556 Notes to Pages 153–162
information. Further consider that the agency is composed of a number of
humanly populated autonomous generic functions that are connected with
each of these classes of information, and that there is an interest in the agency
to map information from a sub-agency concerned with only appreciative
information to one that is only concerned with operative information. This
mapping requires a network of processes that derives from the appreciative
sub-agency as a source, and is delivered to the operative sub-agency as the
sink. Since the source and the sink sub-agencies are constituted as different
autonomous functional components of the agency, so the communication
reduces to a process of information migration. Ontological migrations thus
define the symbolic capacity for the transverse reality of one generically
distinct sub-agency to be manifested in another, for example through the
creation of channels. In our models here, these channels exist as networks of
first and second order processes that have been respectively referred to as
autopoiesis and autogenesis. In the social psychological terms developed here
these are respectively referred to as operative and figurative intelligence.
5. The term figurative intelligence is generic to the model, but when migrating the
concept from the individual personality to the organisational level, it takes on
a normative significance. Figurative intelligence has the capacity to represent the
cultural belief system (of values, attitudes and beliefs) as a coalescence of
normative ideological and ethical standards of the culture that ultimately
defines what it is that constitutes legitimate modes and means of pragmatic
behaviour.
6. Agency traits are allocated to ontologically distinct systems that are connected
by intelligences. These intelligences are constituted as a network of processes
that manifest information between the trait systems. Bandura (2006: 165)
explains that efficacy resides in the minds of group members as the belief
they have in common regarding their group’s capability, and in a collectivity
members acting on their common beliefs contribute to the transactional
dynamics that promote group attainments. The collective performance of
a social system involves interactive, coordinative, and synergistic dynamics
that create emergent group-level properties not reducible solely to individual
attributes. Intelligence in an agency is a transaction dynamic that contributes to
coherence, and consists of a network of changing processes involving
a complexity of transactions used to manifest information between two trait
systems. As such processes of intelligence are subject to conditioning by
people’s emotive impulses that need ideally to be controlled efficaciously.
7. While values are culturally defined, for Schein (1985) they are espoused when
they can be used to distinguish between observable and unobservable elements
of culture.

Chapter 5 Understanding Formative Traits and Behaviour

1. Strictly speaking the word type is representative of static schemas like Byers-
Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) since type typically indicates a discrete
 Notes to Pages 164–204 557
classification. However, for dynamic theories one needs to read ‘variable type
continuous on a continuum’.
2. The case of the migrant individual may be different from that of the non-
migrant. Is would appear to be the case that cross-cultural migrants experience
personality changes where the cultures to which they shift take on distinct
orientations (Rosenberg, 1990). Similarly, social revolutions also create culture
shifts, which likely affects the personality orientations of individuals.
3. The term complex adaptive systems is often associated with Complex Adaptive
Systems (CAS), which is a particular theoretical approach for responding to
questions about complexity, expressed formally and normally associated with
simulations. Sometimes an alternative term has been adopted: adaptive complex
systems. This ensures that there is not confusion. However, here we will remain
with complex adaptive systems.
4. These ideas have synergy with Structuration Theory, in which a network of
interrelated and interdependent position-practices (Cohen, 1989; Stones, 2005)
is theorised as a web of power relations that structure network relations
hierarchically and asymmetrically where higher degrees of power are assigned
to some agents (Christie & Sidhu, 2018). In using the term position-practices,
one is referring to the observation of behaviours (and practices) at an
‘intermediate zone of position practices’, and, by examining them coming to
some understanding of the way influence is exerted and constrained to impact
on the dynamics and the way structures are both maintained and changed
through these interactions (Britton, 2015).

Chapter 6 Cognition Agency

1. Visualism is an epistemological bias toward vision, which in particular is
predominant in postmodernism.
2. In critical theory, a meta-narrative is a globalising or totalising cultural
narrative schema which orders and explains knowledge and experience.
Antenarrative is a pre-narrative, and a bet (ante) that an antenarrative that
will become a living story that is world-changing. It is a bet that a narrative will
change the extant hegemonic narrative. An antenarrative is a proto-story that is
not yet, a before narrative (Boje, 2011).
3. In a letter on 3 May 1939 that discusses Psychological Types. The simpler term
enantiomer (also enantiomorph, which in particular relates to form or structure)
means a mirror image of something, an opposite reflection. This term derives
from the Greek enantios or ‘opposite’ and is used in a number of contexts,
including architecture, molecular physics, political theory, and computer
system design. We use it in the sense of complementary polar opposites. The
related word enantiodromia is also a key Jungian concept used in his notions
about consciousness (e.g., www.endless-knot.us/feature.html), and (from the
Oxford English Dictionary Online) it is the process by which something becomes
its opposite, and the subsequent interaction of the two: applied especially to the
adoption by an individual or by a community, etc., of a set of beliefs, etc., opposite
558 Notes to Pages 205–383
to those held at an earlier stage. For Jung the word enantiodromia represents the
superabundance of any force that inevitably produces its opposite.
Consequently, the word enantiodromia often implies a dynamic process
which is not necessarily implied by the word enantiomer. By using the
simpler word enantiomer, we shall not exclude the possibility of any dynamic
action that may have been implied by the term enantiodromia.
4. Following Oyserman, Coon, and Kemmelmeier (2002), individualism is the
doctrine that all social phenomena (their structure and potential to change) are
in principle explicable only in terms of individuals – for instance their
properties, goals, and beliefs. In contrast Collectivism in principle and ideally
relates to people coming together in a collective to act unitarily through
normative processes in order to satisfy some commonly agreed and
understood purpose or interest. Bodies that adopt Individualism and
Collectivism have realities that are differently framed, and hence maintain
ontologically distinct boundaries that constitute frames of reality, and these
represent barriers for coherent meaningful mutual communications.

Chapter 8 Affect Types and Mindset Types

1. The character traits adopted arise from the Temperament and Character
Inventory that has its bases in Cloninger’s Psychobiological Model of
Temperament and Character (De Fruyt, Van De Wiele & Van Heeringen,
2000).

Chapter 9 Affect and Cognition

1. Intrapsychic means being or occurring within the psyche, mind, or personality.

Chapter 10 Identity as a Component of Personality

1. Also see, for instance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGIL_paradigm.

Chapter 11 Modelling Identity Types – the Case of Donald Trump

1. Source 1: https://books.google.it/books/about/Crippled_America.html?
id=wTs0jgEACAAJ&redir_esc=y.
2. Source 2: CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/09/politics/donald-trump-
victory-speech/.
3. Source 3: www.google.at/?gws_rd=ssl#q=trump+election+poster&spf=68.
4. Source 4: ABNN YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/channel/
UC5eP0bKz4SgXhCxogLvMeWQ.
5. Source 5: Twitter; this account is at https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump.
A focus group was used for data collection procedure.
 Notes to Pages 384–441 559
6. Source 6: Whatthefolly website, www.whatthefolly.com/2016/10/26/tran
script-donald-trumps-speech-in-gettysburg-pennsylvania-part-1/; www
.whatthefolly.com/2016/10/26/transcript-donald-trumps-speech-in-gettysburg
-pennsylvania-part-2/.

Chapter 12 Agency, Personality, and Multiple Identity Types – the

Case of Theresa May
1. www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/25/exclusive-leaked-recording-shows-
what-theresa-may-really-thinks-about-brexit.
2. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/18/theresa-mays-early-general-election-
speech-full/.
3. http://time.com/4759090/uk-election-2017-date-polls-theresa-may/.
4. Reliability is defined as the degree to which some people concur on the
readings, interpretations and responses to converse, texts or data
(Krippendorff, 2012).
5. Lecture notes by Mark Cowlishaw, Nathanael Fillmore on Linear Algebra, in
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~amos/412/lecture-notes/lecture14.pdf.

Chapter 13 Introduction to Psychohistory and Formalism

1. By formal psychology is meant the systematic body of knowledge that seeks to
identify the conditions under which each statement relevant to psychohistorical
processes applies (Gross & Kinnison, 2007).
2. As noted in Chapter 10, lifeworld refers to a collective intersubjective pool of
perceiving through which meaningful thematic communication occurs.
3. Boje (2011) notes that the idea of antenarrative is a way of dealing with the
perceived crisis of narrative method. The focus of antenarrative methods is on
the analysis of stories that are insufficiently well constructed and too
fragmented to be analysed using traditional approaches.
4. The cognitive processes underpinning this having been considered by, for
instance, Conte et al. (2009), Busemeyer and Bruza (2014), and Busemeyer,
Wang, and Pathos (2014).
5. If one were to align inquiry processes further with quantum theory, one could
postulate that inquiry quanta might be associated with a dynamic probabilistic
process not too dissimilar from quantum decision making in human system
(Busemeyer & Bruza, 2014; Busemeyer, Wang & Pathos, 2014).
6. In a letter on 3 May 1939 that discusses Psychological Types. To explain these
polar forces in action, Jung originally adopted the Greek word enantiodomia in
reference to ‘interacting opposites’, but he appears to have abandon it in favour
of the Chinese term yin-yang, which he used to explore personality traits
(Aveleira, 2004; Jung, 1920).
7. We use the word disposition here to mean characteristic or tendency of the
collective Being. It is consistent with the psychological use of the term
560 Notes to Pages 443–464
mental disposition by Wollheim (1999), and within the context of culture
we take it as a collective mental condition that embraces beliefs,
knowledge, memories, abilities, phobias, and obsessions, and it has
duration, history, and inertia.
8. As a point of information, since Fisher I measures the degree of complexity of
a system, the Fisher I of the overall sociocultural system would rise at this point
of increased ‘social complexification’.
9. Taoist theory holds that change occurs through the interaction of yin-yang
forces, which may/may-not be in balance. Balance is synergy between
opposites, and without this there is conflict. Applied to Sorokin’s
conceptualisation, yin represents ‘soft’ cognitivism and yang ‘hard’
materialism, one always having elements of the other embedded, creating
influence.
10. Reference is made to agents with cultural attachments having values that are
synergistic/conflictual. For example, value conflicts occur during Sensate
decline, when financial (Sensate) support for (Ideational) innovation is
problematic in a Sensate-cynical dominant culture, where institutional agents
tend rather to prefer to accumulate wealth (greed) than daring the creative
investment in innovation (e.g., Bessant & Tid, 2019).
11. Such dynamic conditions are well explained in theory on the dynamics of
complex adaptive systems (Manmuang et al., 2012).
12. In agency the cultural system of Sorokin’s (1957) theory of a cyclic socio-
cultural dynamics is adopted. This dynamic involves the dual cultural types
where the cultural trait subjected to the competing sensate or ideational poles.
These poles are mathematical attractors, and trajectories to them arise through
deterministic complexity using mathematics (like Chaos and Catastrophe
theory), feedback, sensitivity to initial conditions and bifurcation, and
deterministic chaos and strange attractors (Manson, 2001). Trajectories may
be smooth or fractal (McDonald et al., 1985; Grebogi, Ott & York, 1987),
Sensate-ascendance trajectories likely smooth, and Sensate-decline trajectories
likely fractal. The determinism of agency culture does not apply to its agent
behaviour which rather involves aggregate complexity, explained through agent
relationships, internal agency structure and environment, learning and
emergent agency behaviour, and evolutionary change/growth (Manson,
2001). Emergent agency behaviour has metasystem determinants (Yolles,
2018d, 2018e).
13. Complex systems that are far from equilibrium maintain bounded instability,
so that they are inherently dynamically unstable and subject to fundamental
change, with their existence being maintained through the order created
beyond any thresholds of instability using information and energy (Yolles,
2006).
14. The nature of autonomy is not a function of the interaction between some
organised object of attention and its environment, but is rather a function of its
internal structure that determines its behaviour as it experiences that
interaction. Viable objects of attention have the capacity to survive under
 Notes to Pages 464–494 561
adverse environmental conditions given that they have a structure that has the
potential to change.
15. Yolles (2005) argues that there is a tight connection between culture,
structure and behaviour in coherent social collectives. Culture provides
a capacity to create meaning for a given structure, and thus there is
a distinction between apparent and affective structure. Structure facilitates
behaviour, and the implicit or explicit process controls that are embedded
within a given structure determine what behaviours are permitted. In
human societies, there is a further complication, in that individuals who
populate the roles offered by formal or informal structures each have
a (local) worldview, and that worldview is in a structural coupling with
the (global) host paradigm of the social collective. This structural coupling
provides a means by which knowledge can be migrated between the local
worldviews and the global paradigm. This coupling also contributes to the
definition of the paradigm, which is intimately connected to organisational
culture. As role populations change (instance when people retire and their
jobs are re-populated), so this coupling can impact on the global paradigm.
There are short term long term and impacts of this, the former often being
referred to as evolutionary change.
16. This is a sixteenth-century idea that suggests the existence of a universal set of
truths and values common to all peoples and cultures.

Chapter 14 Illustrating Psychohistory

1. Explicit information about the formulation of EPI through the concept of the
noumenon can also be found in section 6 of https://wp.optics.arizona.edu/rfr
ieden/fisher-information/.
2. This condition occurs if the system probability law p(x) obeys the Fokker–
Planck differential equation
3. This occurs by a relation dH/dt ≥ 0, called the ‘Boltzmann H-theorem’ or the
Second law of thermodynamics.
4. That is, those that do obey the Fokker–Planck equation.
5. By structural violence we mean the constraints imposed by ones social
structure, a concept originally proposed by Galtung (1972). This operates
by limiting the development of the potential of an individual by not enabling
access to the necessary resources through prejudicial or biased social
structures.
6. While we can talk of the number N indicating the complexity of a situation, we
should note that according to Yolles (1999) at least five types of complexity can
be identified. These are (1) computational complexity is defined in terms of the
(large) number of interactive parts, (2) technical complexity (also referred to as
cybernetic complexity) occurs when a situation has a ‘tangle’ of control
processes that are difficult to discern because they are numerous and highly
interactive. It also involves the notion of future and thus predictability, and
technically complex situations have limited predictability, (3) organisational
562 Notes to Pages 495–530
complexity is defined by the rules that guide the interactions between a set of
identifiable parts, or specifying the attributes, (4) personal complexity is defined
by the subjective view of a situation, and (5) emotional complexity occurs with
a ‘tangle’ of emotional vectors are projected into a situation by its participants
(and can be seen as emotional involvement).
7. At least one argument for the mind having a quantum dimension centres on the
nature of consciousness, seen as a universal field with local manifestations
(Nunn, 1994). This idea derives from the notion that the brain consists of
vibrating molecules (dipoles) in nerve cell membranes that centre on
microtubules, an important part of the structure of every cell including nerve
cells. Nunn notes Hamerhoff’s (1994) perception that single-cell organisms like
paramecium can have behaviours normally thought to need a brain, suggesting
that their ‘brain’ is in their microtubules. Shape changes in the constituent
proteins could subserve computational functions and would involve quantum
phenomena. We emphasise that the monotonic behaviour is only in the stated
case of a Fokker–Planck (diffusion) process. A counter-example is a quantum
process, which can instead be periodic in time. Note also that the monotonic
behaviour in the F-P case requires the correct evaluation of I at each time t. In
particular a point at which the slope of the PDF is infinite must be included
within the domain of integration (or summation) if and only if the point is
physically attainable. For example, each position in a system undergoing
diffusion is so attainable, and so is included within the integral;
a counterexample is provided by the kinetic energy E values of a system.
These cannot go negative, so that the points E = 0 or less are avoided in the
integration.

Chapter 15 Overview
1. While the object/effect is part of the external objective world, a meta-object is
the result of the internalisation of properties of the effect which, through
assimilation, becomes represented in the subject.

Appendix A Inventory for Cognition Agency

1. The Changing Minds webpage giving a brief summary of the Schwartz values
attributes can be found at http://changingminds.org/explanations/culture/sch
wartz_culture.htm.
 Glossary

Term Meaning
Actor An actor can be seen as a set of individuals
functioning as a group, an institution, or
any social unit considered to be relevant
for the interpretation and explanation of
events. In the context of conflict pro-
cesses, actors can be thought of as being
political units that have social and cul-
tural motivating positions. The examin-
ation of power relationships is therefore
necessary, but must be seen as only part of
an inquiry into a conflict situation.
Accommodation Part of internalisation, assimilated infor-
mation becomes incorporated in agency
thereby modifying it in some way as an
adaptive process
Actor system An actor can be seen as a system of inter-
est operating within a suprasystem. In
particular, the system is often seen to be
complex and adaptive, and has purpose
assigned to it.
Adaptation The way by which systems adjust their
form through elaboration or change in
order to cope with perturbations from
the environment. A system is adaptive
when it experiences a qualitative change
in its form across a point of structural
criticality. This is accompanied by
a change in the pattern of its behaviour.

563
564 Glossary
Adaptive system An open system is influenced by impulses
from its environment. With change, the
system needs to respond to these impulses
and thereby maintain its balance with the
environment. If we call the impulses
environmental variety, then, in order to
maintain balance, the system will generate
what we call requisite variety through
adaptation.
Adventitious This comes from the Latin adventicius
meaning ‘foreign, strange, extraneous’,
‘coming from abroad or from outside’,
this word in turn coming from the verb
advenire meaning ‘to come to’ or ‘to
arrive’. It is taken here to refer to an
influence coming from a source not
inherent or innate (immanent) to
a system, typically having an origin that
is beyond the boundary of the system that
distinguishes it from its environment.
While it could also refer to ‘surprising’
emergence of phenomena coming from
complex processes, there has not been
any need to apply this definition within
the context of this book.
Affect Complementary to cognition, this can
include emotion, mood, temperament or
sensation, or their interaction.
Affect, primitive Affective states may occur independently
of the comprehensions that enable
a cognitive structure to develop within
entities with a primitive identity. Such
a cognitive structure does not require
a conscious ideate in order for feeling to
be experienced. So, like primitive iden-
tity, primitive affect can occur without
consciousness. Perhaps primitive emo-
tions can be seen as affect stress stimuli
viewed in terms of relationships between
a living system and its environment,
 Glossary 565
where the relationships are contributing
but not constitutive. Consciousness is
required, however, if the perception of
sensation is judged or valued, and hence
for primitive affect to become affect.
Affect theory This is the organisation of affects, includ-
ing the experience of feelings and emo-
tions, into categories to better understand
their physical, cultural, and interpersonal
instances.
Agency Agency is action towards an end. As an
entity, it has the capacity, condition, or
state of acting or of exerting power. Plural
agencies have a population of interactive
agents.
Agent An entity that produces a particular effect
or change.
Agency, affect The affect agency is a subsystem of the
agency having affect personality traits and
affect sociocultural traits. It is principally
concerned with emotions and feelings.
Agency, cognition The cognition agency is a subsystem of
the agency having cognition personality
traits and cognition sociocultural traits. It
is principally concerned cognitive pro-
cesses connected with knowledge.
Agency theory Agency theory is concerned with the rela-
tionship between two or more parties who
may act as agencies to each other and their
interactive relationships. It is also con-
cerned with their general structure, that
is, their meta-structure – where the term
meta can be used to mean something
that is characteristically self-referential.
Meta-structure offers an overarching
framework which supplies rules regarding
the relationship between meanings within
a defined frame of reference. It may be
seen in terms of complex processes
through which from collective interactive
566 Glossary
phenomena, there may emerge unexpected
individual or collective behaviours. This
take on agency theory has a widely applied
theoretical and empirical framework that
can be used with different disciplines and
approaches.
Agent A person, thing or natural force that takes
an active role or produces a specified
effect.
Amplification A process of elaboration. In situations of
self-organisation, amplification expands
a given change. This is also called devi-
ation-amplification.
Analysis Breaking down of a situation into a set of
parts for the purpose of exploration.
Assimilation Part of the process of internalisation, it
occurs when an observed effect is
brought into agency as information
through some inherent process of cat-
egorisation and encoding.
Associative projection This occurs when the mind is active in
forming an image of phenomenal reality
(rather than being simply a passive
receptor) through its reasoning and per-
spective generating capacity, and results
in patterns of behavioural coherence.
Individuals are active in forming an
image of reality, and this involves two
kinds of properties: (1) an interrelation
or coordination of viewing points; and
(2) the possibility for deductive reason-
ing. In (2), there are logical processes at
work that enable the consequences of
relationships to be determined. A pre-
requirement for this involves the ability
to develop an object conception as indi-
cated in (1). The object conception
derives from the coordination of the
schemes that underlie the activities
with objects. This is in contrast to the
 Glossary 567
notion of objectivity, which, more gen-
erally is seen as a derivative of the coord-
ination of perspectives. The capacity of
an individual to change the relationship
between object and subject through the
coordination of perspectives results in an
ability to shift roles (or to use the theatre
metaphor, change characters). The abil-
ity to assume the role of another is seen
as a special case of a more fundamental
capacity to decentre or departicularise
the focus of one’s conceptual activities
to consider and coordinate two more
points of view.
Associative projection, collective This occurs when the collective mind is
active in forming an image of phenomenal
reality.
AT Agency Theory
Attitude An enduring organisation of beliefs
around an object or situation predis-
posing one to respond in some prefer-
ential manner.
Attenuation Reduces the importance of a subject of
inquiry.
Autonomy Otherwise known as self-determination,
implies the ability of a system to continu-
ally change its structures, undergoing
renewal while preserving its patterns of
organisation. It also implies self-
regulation that is a manifestation of
a central tendency towards the extension,
coordination, and integration of function
that is a common property of living
things, that is, those having autopoiesis
and autogenesis.
Autonomous systems A system that is seen as self-organising,
autopoietic and self-referential. Systems
that are fully autonomous have no logical
connections with their environment,
while systems with partial autonomy
568 Glossary
can. Having said this, systems can be seen
to have degrees of autonomy, and this is
determined by the intensity of the envir-
onment influence on the system. Except
in some very special cases, there are no
objective standards by which we can
determine intensity of influence, and it
is more likely to be a qualitative evalu-
ation of an individual perspective that is
determined. We may thus see autonomy
as a relative concept that in general, sub-
sumes semi-autonomy. In general, use of
the word semi-autonomous occurs in
order to stress (1) the relative nature of
autonomy; and (2) to indicate the possi-
bility of logical connections with the
environment.
Autopoiesis The property of a fully or partially
autonomous system that defines its own
boundaries relative to its environment. It
produces its own network of processes
that are themselves part of the processes,
and it obeys its own laws of motion. It
defines for this (recursive) network a set of
boundaries that satisfy its meta-purposes.
Autopoietic systems are self-organising,
produce and eventually change their
own structures, are self-referencing.
They are also called self-producing sys-
tems since they produce the network of
processes that enable them to produce
their own components.
Behaviour Actions, representative of the way in
which an actor responds to its
environment
Behavioural proclivity This is a predisposition towards certain
patterns of behaviour that may be seen as
bias.
Belief Any simple conscious or unconscious prop-
osition that represents a predisposition to
 Glossary 569
action. A belief may be existential and thus
related to events in a situation, and evalu-
ative and thus related to subjective personal
attributes (like taste), or it may be prescrip-
tive relating, for example, to human con-
duct. Beliefs are a determinant for values,
attitudes, and behaviour. Beliefs are a state
of mind in which something is thought to
be the case, independent of any empirical
evidence. They are influenced by emotions
by creating beliefs where none existed,
facilitating changes in beliefs, or enhancing
or decreasing the strength of beliefs. Beliefs
develop into values when they are seen to be
important and a commitment is made to
them.
Belief system This is a total universe of an individual’s
beliefs about the physical world, the social
world, and the self. A belief system is
broader than an ideology, containing pre-
ideological as well as ideological beliefs. It
also has a value subsystem that may be
seen in terms of underlying attitudes.
Boundary A boundary may be assigned to an object,
and defined by a set of points of informa-
tion that are created to characterise activ-
ities and the possibilities of their
occurrence. The points are assembled on
the one hand by distinguishing their dif-
ferences between what constitutes the
object and its environment, and on the
other by assessing their homogeneities or
similarities. A boundary may be seen as an
issues line, beyond which actions and
transactions between different systems
have no direct effect on the environment,
and where the events or conditions in the
environment have no direct effect on the
systems. A boundary may also be con-
sidered to be a frame of reference.
570 Glossary
Boundary differentiation requires an abil-
ity to make comparison between frames
of reference. To make a comparison
between boundaries, it is necessary to
have a set of aims for a comparison,
knowledge about the world views
involved in defining them, and a set of
characterising classifications. The notion
of a boundary is indicative of constraint:
by excluding those phenomena that are
not consistent with criteria that define
a known classification. A boundary dis-
tinguishes between immanent and adven-
titious processes.
Bounded instability This refers to systems under uncertainty
that occurs when it hovers between equi-
librium and chaos, and where effort is
needed to self-organise and hence survive.
CAT Cultural Agency Theory
Causal agent This is some entity that produces an effect
or is responsible for events that result. In
Agency Theory it is a sub-structural
dynamic element having properties that
explain outcomes and associations.
Causal mechanisms These have properties that explain out-
comes and associations that are linked to
empirical analysis through bridging pro-
positions/assumptions. They have prop-
erties that explain outcomes and
associations, have a flexible nature, and
provide an argument or explanation or
mechanism that supports the means or
process or trajectory by which an effect
is produced, and this may include
a micro-level explanation for a causal phe-
nomenon or one that is context depend-
ent. An illustration in Agency Theory is
the idea of hidden regulatory structures in
complex systems that create simplexity
that is responsible for processes of self-
 Glossary 571
organisation undertaken by self as a causal
agent. Another illustration is the influ-
ence a causal agent experiences that
might result in an adjustment of the effect
it is responsible for.
Certainty Total knowledge about a situation in
space or time (thus predictability).
Chaos A non-equilibrium condition with uncer-
tainty developing through heterogeneity
among the components of a system.
A chaotic system is dynamic and dissipa-
tive, and can be described as being in
a condition of structurally criticality –
when small events can have very large
effects.
Classificational universe This is one of Maruyama’s three universes
that determine properties of entities that
exist within them. This universe is static,
consists of substances classifiable into
mutually exclusive categories, and is
organised into a hierarchical structure of
superdivisions and subdivisions.
Members of the universe are substances
(material, spiritual, etc.) that are usually
discrete and mutually exclusive, which
can be classified into categories that can
be combined or divided in a way that
leads from the general to the specific,
and invites ranking. A schema in this
universe generates classificational infor-
mation, the purpose of which is to specify
categories as narrowly as possible. It is also
object oriented, and it operates through
complex paired connections that are seen
through objective epistemology.
Closure A system logically organised to be able to
undertake some form of self-actuation,
for example, self-reference.
Collective efficacy Refers to a group’s shared belief in its
conjoint capability to organise and
572 Glossary
execute the courses of action required to
produce given levels of attainment.
Configuration A configuration is a schema having inher-
ent coordinative structures that can
respond to the needs of complexity mod-
elling by incorporating other connecting
schemas representing processes of change.
A plurality of configurations operates as
a complex system of interdependencies,
therefore having core orchestrating
themes with identifiable characteristics.
A superstructure that draws on configur-
ations to satisfy particular modelling pur-
poses or interests creates an improved
potential to enhance theoretical specifi-
city and/or generality. While particular
configurations can respond to specificity
by modelling detail, the use of a plurality
of ontologically connected configurations
can result in elaborated models with
inherent developmental potential, offer-
ing increased superstructural generalisa-
tion. Specificity and generality taken
together improves the modelling ability
to respond to complexity. The resulting
superstructure, embracing a constellation
of interconnected conceptual and rela-
tional schemas, can enable a complex
situation to be better understood as
a whole (cf. Miller, 2018: Fiss et al.,
2013). This occurs when ontological ana-
lysis allows conceptual patterns to be pro-
duced that makes theoretical sense,
enabling them to epistemically related.
Cognition Cognition is a property of the mind, the
faculty of knowing, perceiving, or con-
ceiving. It represents knowledge with
degrees of certainty that are seen as
‘truths’ about our ‘reality’.
 Glossary 573
Cognitive orientation This is created by the cognitive trait that
arises from cognitive and social psych-
ology and is able to contribute to the
integrativity of schemas during the
internalisation process, and which is
existentially connected with cognitive
self-reference, and maintains
a relationship with cognitive intention.
Taken as a trait variable, it might involve
the effective realising of potential recog-
nising social and political structures and
the associated constraints imposed on the
agency. The variable may be seen to take
enantiomer type values that give the
agency an autonomy orientation when an
agency will follow less the guidance of its
host culture, but might react more
autonomously to the lessons drawn from
(or opportunities offered by) environ-
mental impulses. The other enantiomer
type value of the variable might be embed-
dedness orientation. The trait is affected by
attitudes, and emotive imperatives that
may orientate the agency towards cogni-
tive coherence or dissonance. Processes of
integrativity can impact on perspectives
that are associated with strategies, ideol-
ogy and ethics/morality. It also creates
imperative for the regulation of the pat-
terns of behaviour through intention.
This trait affects the operative couple
between the cognitive and operative traits
through its network of processes.
Cognitive models Cognitive models involve beliefs, values,
attitudes, norms, ideology, and meanings.
We perceive reality through our cognitive
models as we interact with it through
them. These models involve concepts.
Concepts are the name for the members
of a class or the name of the class itself.
574 Glossary
The concepts are precise, may have
empirical referents, and are fruitful for
the formation of theories to the problem
under consideration. They are intended
to represent aspects of reality.
Cognitive development Cognition is the capacity to have rational
thought through knowledge, and this
develops when the capacity is elaborated
to enable new ways of knowing.
Cognitive purposes These are cognition knowledge based,
and describe the purposes of a set of
actions in a given situation. Cognitive
purposes are defined within a meta-
system (and so can be referred to as meta-
purposes), and they are projected to the
behavioural system and manifested
through a connection to: knowledge of
data processes and structural models;
modelling processes that contain data,
and procedures or rules of operation and
other models relating to the current situ-
ation; a mechanism for structured
inquiry.
Collective agency See plural agency.
Complex adaptive system An intricate complicated global network
of interactive nodes each of which are
local semi-autonomous holons capable
of adaptation. The network is itself
a holon. A complex adaptive system is
not seen just as a set of parts that interact,
but rather as set of interactive holons in
a network that together form a holon that
can adapt. The holon can be referred to as
agents of adaptation. The interaction also
occurs between each local holon and the
global network. The complexity of indi-
vidual interactions generates patterns or
emergent properties that are relatively
simple in that they can be explained.
 Glossary 575
Complex situations A situation has a boundary that distin-
guishes it from an environment. This
boundary will be unclear (fuzzy) and
dynamic. Complex situations are uncer-
tain and unpredictable, have a form that
tends to be ill structured (in time and
space), are dynamic and evolutionary,
and cannot be sensibly examined out of
the context. A complex system has many
elements that mutually interact in many
ways, and the result of this may be the
emergence of an entity that may be
unexpected and which is greater than
the sum of its parts.
Conflict Can be seen as instability within group
interactions. In human situations, it can
be seen as a challenge that is potentially
constructive when it acts as a catalyst for
action that results in individual or group
achievement. An achievement has
occurred if there is a consensus view that
the situation is satisfying. In cases where
such achievement has occurred, we talk of
consensual conflict. Contrary to this, we
have dissensual conflict which is disrup-
tive and without achievement.
Boundaries between consensual and dis-
sensual are fuzzy. Many conflict situ-
ations are in chaos, control is impossible,
and settlement is messy.
Consciousness This is the state of having awareness and
responsiveness to adventitious influences.
Consciousness can only emerge if agency
has sufficient complexity. Living system
complexification enabling the emergence
of consciousness is an evolutionary pro-
cess, and there are six stages for this, elim-
inating the idea that non-salient and
salient entities are discontinuous and
needing to be considered in distinct
576 Glossary
frameworks. Rather, they may be con-
sidered in a single framework in which
complex processes are at work enabling
evolutionary processes to create
a consciousness shift. The evolutionary
stages involve degrees of internalisation,
and may be defined as follows: The null
stage of cognition: refers to self-
maintenance that is either unaltered or
superficially deformed by the irruption
of a new environmental factor without
assimilation, thus corresponding to the
passive incorporation of the neutral mol-
ecule into a self-producing agent, be it
a vesicle system or a bacterium. Stage one
of cognition: involving assimilation, it
concerns the integration of an environ-
mental factor (obstacle or molecule)
within a living agent that can make use
of it as part of its defining network. This is
a minimal condition for cognition and
constitutes a basic condition for life. As
such, the normal metabolism maintains
a cognitive status that maintains its iden-
tity and implies dynamical interaction
with the environment. Stage two of cogni-
tion: involving accommodation, it
implies an enduring modification of self-
production. Accommodation is thus
based on stable molecular or dynamic
support that may yield strongly anticipa-
tive behaviour such as motricity, with
memory-like structures and adaptive fea-
tures important to cognition. Stage three
of cognition: relies on highly complex
types of accommodative changes resulting
in representation-like types of behaviour,
thus reflecting the view of an external
observer without awareness of an external
independent world. Stage four of cognition:
 Glossary 577
involves social aspects that transforms it
to knowledge by ascribing properties to
intersubjective invariants (effects) enabling
intersubjectively shared predictive rules to
emerge within a collective conscious,
enable an agent to evolve. Stage five of
cognition: radical shift in conscious self-
realisation, as agencies no longer automat-
ically internalise every outer experience,
and a sense of self moves beyond the limits
of the mind to explore identity beyond the
collective consciousness and its associated
conditioning.
Constraint A limitation on behaviour or form. The
pursuit of an objective, by its very nature,
generates constraints by excluding other
behaviours or forms. Whether something
is defined as a constraint or an objective
may be a matter of perspective.
Critical realism Critical realism is also called critical con-
structivism, and comes from the idea that
material effects exist independently of
their being perceived, or independent of
our theories about them. Reality is deter-
mined by the structures that create these
effects which exist independently of us,
and distinction can be made between
experiences, events and causal mechan-
isms, epistemic process (for knowledge),
and ontology (types being) under praxis
(practice, rather than theory). Realism
conforms to two general and macroscopic
aspects, existence and independence. The
first claim supposes that effects (as mater-
ial objects) in the external world (that
constitutes reality) exist independently
of their being perceived, and the second
claim asserts that objects in the external
world exist independently of what is
thought about them. Most realists argue
578 Glossary
that causal processes in the mind mediate,
or interpret, directly perceived appear-
ances. Thus, essentially the effects remain
independent, although the causal mech-
anism may distort, or even wholly falsify,
the individual’s knowledge of them.
Scientific realism is the view that theories
refer to real features of the world. ‘Reality’
here refers to whatever it is in the universe
(i.e., forces, structures, and so on) that
causes the phenomena we perceive with
our senses.
Culture Shared cognitive beliefs, values, and
assumptions; shared behavioural symbols,
rites, rituals, customs, and forms of
expression; shared preconscious factors
of ideology, symbols, and norms that are
involved in the organising of beliefs and
attitudes and their expression. Culture is
the result of an ‘interpretive struggle’ of
social reality. It has dimensions of cogni-
tion and affect, thus providing fields of
influence for agency behaviours. It has
cognition and affect components.
Cognition culture is concerned with cog-
nitive processes including rational
thought. It is structurally stable when its
values are sufficiently well ordered, which
may occur when it is relatively homogen-
ous or heterogeneous. A homogeneous
value system is inherently ordered and
its different value types are mostly mutu-
ally supportive. A heterogeneity value sys-
tem is complex with value types being
mixed and mutually unsupportive, result-
ing in value inconsistencies and sociocul-
tural confusion. Cognition culture may
be defined through knowledge, beliefs,
values, and norms. It may be dynamically
stable as when its trait changes are able to
 Glossary 579
correct its trajectory under perturbation.
Affect culture is concerned with emotion.
It involves emotional climate and affect
norms. Its structural stability is depend-
ent on emotional climate. Its dynamic
stability is dependent on its network of
socialisation practices. Affect culture can
be represented through emotional values
(emotional feelings and how we perceive
our mental state of being) associated with
a particular set of environmental inter-
actions and other attributes. Culture
may also be tight or loose – indicating
actor compliance to cultural norms.
Tight cultures have strong norms and
tend to be traditional and repressive
with low tolerance to deviance, and they
maintain homogeneous beliefs, so that
the members of social broadly agree with
and abide by normative patterns of (usu-
ally beneficial) behaviour. Loose cultures
have weak norms and an emotionally
high tolerance to deviant behaviour,
with few rules or standards; beliefs are
relatively heterogeneous, and thus not
widely shared.
Cultural Agency Theory This is a sociocultural theory of agency,
and where it adopts personality as one of
its elements may be seen as a psyche
Cultural Agency Theory (CAT). This is
part of cultural psychology through
which it is seen that the mind and culture,
while analytically separable, are function-
ally inseparable and mutually
constitutive.
Cultural Orientation This is created through the cultural trait
that is part of the cultural meta-system of
the agency. It maintains three forms of
knowledge: identification, elaborating,
and executor knowledge that each can
580 Glossary
be manifested into the personality system
as information. We can distinguish
between two orientations: sensate (with
a tendency towards the materialistic)
and ideational (with a tendency towards
the cognitive or spiritual). The type val-
ues that this trait can assume includes
sensate orientation, which allows realities
to be deemed to exist only if they can be
sensorially perceived. Sensate type mem-
bers of a culture do not seek or believe in
a super-sensory reality, and are agnostic
towards the world beyond any current
sensory capacity of perception. Needs
and aims are mainly physical primarily
satisfying the sense organs and frequently
materialistic. Cultural orientation may
also assume ideational orientation, which
sees reality as non-sensate, non-material,
and frequently spiritual. Epistemological
needs and ends are mainly spiritual,
rather than practicable, and internal
rather than external.
Cybernetics The science of control and
communications.
Cybernetic orders A cybernetic order is the recursive appli-
cation of cybernetics to itself, and the
order indicating the number of recursions
applied. While many authors define
cybernetics orders in terms of observers
since it is conceptually obvious, it is
a limiting contextual approach that has
more theoretical power when first
and second orders are expressed in terms
of networks of processes. Here then,
a third-order cybernetic model has
a second-order network that is influenced
by, and influences a first-order network.
This also allows easier transition to higher
orders still, and recognises that the need
 Glossary 581
for such orders is determined by other-
wise unsuccessful attempts to clarify,
through the creation of greater relational
detail, important situations of interest.
Dispositions Dispositions towards behaviour consti-
tute the basic structure of personality.
They are tendencies, propensities, or
inclinations acquired through a gradual
process of inculcation. They constitute
a continuing condition that has a past
and future history, and may include
such attributes as desires, strategic know-
ledge, memories, abilities, habits, obses-
sions and phobias, virtues and vices,
abilities and emotions which constitute
stimulating influences. Dispositions
involve an agency’s tendency to behave,
think and feel in consistent ways across
time and in various situations, and link to
norms and values. The consistencies
across situations that dispositions display
arise through enduring traits among other
factors. Traits arise from durable disposi-
tions towards behaviour and constitute
the basic structure of personality, thus
expressing itself in consistent patterns of
functionality across a range of situations.
Hence, all trait theories are theories of
disposition, though not all disposition
theories are trait theories.
Dissipative systems They have structures that enable them to
dissipate energy. They become evolution-
ary systems when they are complex, non-
isolated, globally far from equilibrium
systems that are inherently dynamically
unstable. If they move towards equilib-
rium by increasing their entropy globally,
then they can create structured spots
where entropy locally decreases. In these
localities, they use energy to maintain
582 Glossary
order through negentropy beyond any
thresholds of global instability. Complex
adaptive systems are often seen to be
dissipative.
Dramatic change Most organisations are paradigm plural,
that is, several cultures coexist, usually
conflictually. A dominant culture often
holds the formal or informal power.
Dramatic change occurs when a new
dominant paradigm appears, normally
with a consequence of metamorphic (or
global) change in the form of the organ-
isation. New cultural and social values
will be imposed as a consequence.
Dramatic change will result in a new gen-
eric classification for the organisation, for
example, from public to private sector.
Dramatic change includes radical change.
Dynamic Something that is dynamic, changes over
time.
Dynamic stability The achievement of objectives over time.
The evaluation of whether the objectives
have been or are being achieved is deter-
mined through the use of a set of cogni-
tive criteria that may be taken as
standards or norms that themselves may
be subject to change.
Effect This is a real-world physical or sociocul-
tural entity that may be a contextual
object of attention or phenomenon or
dynamic event with the quality or state
of being operative by producing active
and tangible influences. It can be directly
or indirectly observed, and is a source of
information arising during the process of
observation.
Efficacy Relates to the (unitary or plural) agency
and refers to its capabilities in actuating
cognition and affect processes of opera-
tive intelligence. The intelligence
 Glossary 583
provides a capability to organise and exe-
cute the courses of action required to
manage prospective situations. This
assumes a collective view for a plural
agency on the relationship between the
effect and its internalisation from which
action is determined, and this centres on
capability rather than in the belief of hav-
ing a capability.
Emergence A property of the whole that arises
through the interactions of the parts
with each other that define possibilities
for a situation. Thus the ability of
a clock to tell the time is a characteristic
that we attribute to the clock as a whole.
It is also the process of simplicity emer-
ging from complexity. Emergent phe-
nomena collapse chaos and bring order
to a system that seems to be in random
fluctuation.
Emotion regulation This refers to the processes by which indi-
viduals influence which emotions they
have, when they have them, and how
they experience and express them.
Emotional activation Emotion activation refers to the actuation
of motivation, and is concerned with
emotion self-regulation of feelings that
gives direction to default modes or reflect-
ive re-action.
Emotional climate Emotional climate, with properties of
security and fear, is defined through pre-
dominant collective emotions shared by
members of social groups that have been
recognised and internalised. A climate of
security implies structural stability, when
agents may be more able to tolerate
diverse views and not run any real danger
of fragmentation, and a climate of fear
arises from projections of threat with
which comes instability.
584 Glossary
Emotional management Emotion management is the ability to
distinguish motivational/emotional acti-
vation from the targets of regulation.
Enantiomer, trait derived Traits may take a limited number of type
values to create stable personalities, and
their options include opposing orienta-
tions that are represented by the term
enantiomers. Arising from Jung’s term
of enantiomodria, and like the notions
of yin-yang that he later preferred to this
word, they may be seen as interactive
states. Enantiomer means a mirror
image of something, an opposite reflec-
tion. It derives from the Greek enantios or
‘opposite’, is used in a number of con-
texts, including architecture, molecular
physics, political theory, and computer
system design. By using the simpler
word enantiomer, we do not exclude the
possibility of any dynamic action that
may have been implied by the term
enantiodromia and its connection to the
idea of yin-yang interaction.
Enantiomodria The word enantiodromia has been used
by Heraclitus, and later by Jung as a key
concept used in his notions about con-
sciousness, and is the process by which
something becomes its opposite, and the
subsequent interaction of the two:
applied especially to the adoption by an
individual or by a community, of a set of
beliefs opposite to those held at an earlier
stage. For Jung, the word enantiodromia
represents the superabundance of any
force that inevitably produces its oppos-
ite. In particular, according to Heraclitus,
who also advocated the term, things tend
to move towards an extreme, and then
a reactional counter-movement sets in.
Consequently, the word enantiodromia
 Glossary 585
often implies a dynamic process which is
not necessarily implied by the word
enantiomer. Jung used it particularly to
refer to the unconscious acting against the
wishes of the conscious mind, that which
is responsible for one’s thoughts and feel-
ings, and the seat of the faculty of reason.
Enantype This takes a similar role to the biological
phenotype in biology, and supposes
a traits theory of personality in which
the enantype is the state of a trait, which
contributes to the delivery of personality
characteristics. They can be distinguished
into primary classifications that deter-
mine the states of personality as self, and
non-primary classifications that relate to
social interactions.
Environment The circumstances, objects/effects or con-
ditions of a given domain. This domain
may be internal to some system bound-
ary, or external to it.
Environment, task The task environment is that part of the
general or external agency environment,
where the personality promotes agency
action in pursuit of its goals. Since per-
sonality as an ‘acting system’ it does not
only need to define and act in pursuit of
its goals, but also needs to be able to
screen its goal achievement by being an
‘observing system’ consistent with
notions of second-order cybernetics.
Through observation, knowledge about
the degree of goal achievement feeds
back into the personality, triggering
repeated action or changed action or
adaptation of goals relating to what is
achievable.
Environment, cultural A set of belief, values, practices, customs,
and cognitive and behavioural norms
found to be common to a shared
586 Glossary
collective. It influences ideology and
personality.
Environment, sociocultural Sociocultural environments contribute to
the development of personality struc-
tures, and personality factors create the
lens through which how social environ-
ments are experienced and interpreted.
Entropy A state of disorder. When a situation has
an increase in entropy, it is moving
towards greater disorder. This is counter-
acted by the creation of negentropy.
Environment An agency has a frame of reference that
distinguishes into internal environment
from an external environment through
a system boundary. The internal environ-
ment has a structure that enables imma-
nent dynamics to occur that are only due
to internal processes. In the external
environment, interactive behaviours
occur between autonomous agencies.
Here, adventitious dynamics occur when
these external interactions create internal
imperatives for agency change, contribut-
ing to the concurrent internal processes.
Epistemic This refers to the propositional structure
of some schema that delivers a knowledge
mosaic from which rational discourse
arises.
Evolution This occurs through a process of self-
organisation that is associated with dis-
sipative non-isolated (semi-autonomous)
systems.
Equilibrium Equilibrium occurs during a ‘normal’
mode of a dynamic system. Homeostatic
equilibrium occurs where any environ-
mental (adventitious) perturbations that
an agency experiences can be dealt with
through existent control processes to
stimulate appropriate responses. Non-
 Glossary 587
equilibrium, occurring for instance dur-
ing a post-normal mode of a dynamic
system, occurs during when homeostatic
equilibrium becomes disengaged. When
this occurs, the system moves towards
heterostasis where appropriate responses
cannot be so easily and clearly deter-
mined. Without appropriate interven-
tion, the system is likely to head towards
a state of chaos and then transition.
Figurative couple The operative couple enables cognitive
entities to be manifested operatively
enabling them to be expressed physically.
The figurative couple connects the opera-
tive couple with the existential domain.
In the personality psychology context,
this is called the cultural system. The
connector is a network of processes called
autogenesis or figurative intelligence.
Cultural knowledge may therefore be
manifested into the operative couple
thus providing guidance to operative
couple functionality.
Figurative intelligence This Piagetian concept involves all means
of representation used to retain in mind
the states (i.e., successive forms, shapes, or
locations) that intervene between trans-
formations, and involves perception, imi-
tation, mental imagery, drawing, and
language. The figurative aspects of intelli-
gence derive their meaning from the
operative aspects of intelligence. Within
the context of Agency Theory, it becomes
a second-order form of autopoiesis (called
autogenesis) that projects conceptual
information into the operative couple.
During agency processes of internalisa-
tion, it contributes to assimilation and
accommodation.
588 Glossary
Figurative orientation This occurs through the figurative trait,
and has both cognitive and evaluative
aspects, is influenced by attitudes and
reflection, and connects with cognitive
purpose and processes of cognitive self-
regulation. As a trait variable, it might
take enantiomer type values that define
a harmony orientation or an achievement
orientation relating to the appreciations or
goals. This may also be related to the
notions of harmony and mastery. We
could further relate this to appreciations
driving goal formulation as a process that
derives from data collection and involving
the careful weighing of arguments as
opposed to spontaneous decisions follow-
ing from the spontaneous desires of the
decision makers. This trait maintains an
interconnected set of more or less tacit
standards which order and value experi-
ence, determines the way an agency sees
and values different situations, and how
instrumental judgements are made and
action is taken. The trait facilitates how
an agency as a decision maker observes
and interprets reality, and establishes
decision imperatives about it. As such,
the trait regulates the appreciations and
resulting goals of the organisation with
respect to its intended operations, the
potential for social interaction, and the
ethical positioning that may occur as
a response to opportunities provided or
indicated by the social environment.
Focus The selected level of detail or depth of
view in a system hierarchy. It thus centres
on what is considered to be the relevant
system among higher and lower systems
in the hierarchy.
 Glossary 589
Form A whole that is composed of parts that
have a structural relationships, actions or
processes that enable it to retain its form,
and thus its structure; it also includes an
orientation determined by its relations
with its external environment, the condi-
tions under which it is enabled to operate,
a condition defined by the circumstances
essential to its existence, a mode which is
the manner in which the whole manifests
its existence, that is the way in which it
operates and which will be affected by
culture.
Formalisation A formalisation occurs through
a language that enables a set of explicit
statements to be made about its beliefs
and other attributes that enable every-
thing that might be expressed about it.
These statements are normally seen as
propositions (and their corollaries) some
of which will be seen as self-evident, and
other that require demonstration. These
statements should be self-constant, by
which we mean that they are not seen to
be inconsistent with each other.
A formalisation also provides for the pos-
sibility of a set of behavioural rules that
defines form to be manifested.
Foundational causes These are forces that occur within sub-
structures that involve a causal agent and
a causal mechanism.
Frame of reference Creates an inclusive set of phenomena by
defining a set of criteria that enables the
phenomena to be recognised as being able
to be referenced by the frame. The nature
of the frame of reference can vary by
defining it in terms of: purposes that gen-
erate patterns of behaviour; behavioural
patterns themselves; properties (e.g.,
functional, learning); constraints on
590 Glossary
form; constraints on behaviour; degree of
order and disorder; regularity and irregu-
larity; contextuality. Frame of reference is
a concept related to boundary. Lack of
clarity in a frame of reference (e.g.,
unclear purposes, constraints, or proper-
ties) can be translated as a fuzzy bound-
ary, when differentiation between two
boundaries becomes difficult.
Frames Frames are mentally stored clusters of
ideas, often emotionally supported, that
guide the processing of information by
agencies in decision-making. Framing is
a process that involve the creation of
frames directed as a predefined audience.
General theory of agency Agency as a living system that has an
internal and an external environment,
and it applies action towards an end. This
implies that as a system, agency has pur-
pose and interest through which an end
can be identified, and behaviour allows it
to be acquired. In a general theory of
agency, agency has behaviour, and at
least a potential for affect and cognition.
A general theory of agency needs to model
complexity, and as such must be able to
represent dynamic conditions. Such
modelling processes require the capability
of reflection, that is, the ability to ‘reflect’
themselves (for instance through feed-
back processes) in order to capture
change. Hence, both identity and reflec-
tion are important to general agency
theory.
Generic identity The identity of a system defined arbitrar-
ily and normatively through a set of cog-
nitively generated classifications. Each
generic classification will be defined in
terms of a set of characteristics, and
a system is assigned to one generic or
 Glossary 591
another according to the qualitative con-
dition of these characteristics. Practically,
this can be done through assigning land
mark values to each quality.
Goals and strategies An actor system has goals that are desired
future end states; goal attainment occurs
through satisfying strategy sensitive
needs; strategies are overall goal routes;
plans specify courses of action towards
end goals. Goals and strategies derive
from conflicts and negotiations between
actors with power within a suprasystem.
Hard models Problem situations are seen as clearly
defined, with objectively measurable cri-
teria for success. Tangible things that are
definite and examinable dominate.
Properties can be objectively defined,
and measured or assessed in some way
that does not depend on personal values.
Situations tend to be seen as well struc-
tured and have either certain or probable
outcomes. Thus, approaches to inquiry
may be deterministic or generate rational
expectations.
Holon Complex semi-autonomous adaptive
purposeful systems that are models of
situations in the real world. They may
be seen in terms of a set of parts that
interrelate in such a way that properties
or patterns of behaviour emerge that are
not also properties of the parts. This is
referred to as its emergent properties.
Thus, the whole is greater than the sum
of the parts. Such systems are said to be
holistic.
Holarchy Composed of networks of holons some
of which are embedded within others.
They exist together as semi-autonomous
entities whose form has evolved together
with all the others. This idea gives rise to
592 Glossary
Varela’s idea of structural coupling due to
a shared history.
Homeostasis The process of self-regulation so that sys-
tem outputs are maintained within given
cognitively defined bounds.
Human evolutionary system A semi-autonomous purposeful human
activity system that can adapt and evolve
through self-organisation. It is therefore
holonic, and is maintained within
a holarchy.
Humanistic theories Humanistic theories tend to be connected
with the whole personality and, for
instance, free-will, self-efficacy, and self-
actualisation (as opposed to dysfunction).
Knowledge Knowledge is constructed through beliefs
and values and is manifested as the shar-
able objects of attitudes and the primary
bearers of truth and falsity.
Knowledge scripts This is the generalised frequently experi-
enced situations from which patterns of
knowledge have developed. Essentially,
the scripts can be used to create an idea
that contributes to the framing of
a given situation which is then drawn
on to guide behaviour.
Ideate A mental image, idea, or thought.
Identity We distinguish between individual and
generic identity. Individual identity is
a distinguishing facility that uniquely dif-
ferentiates one system from others.
Generic identity provides a qualitative
description of an individual. It does so
through the creation of generic classifica-
tions defined by a set of normatively
agreed characteristics established within
a framework. The assignment of a given
system to one generic class or another will
occur through a qualitative evaluation of
its position within the framework.
Identity may be primitive when the
 Glossary 593
nature of self does not involve conscious-
ness. When considering the nature and
rise of identity, there are three main inde-
pendently developed theories that might
usefully be considered: identity theory,
social identity theory, and self-identity
theory.
Identity theory Identity/role theory is a theory of psych-
ology that has developed from microso-
ciology – this being concerned with the
study of interpersonal interaction and
behaviours normally for those in small
groups, and the analysis of their inter-
active patterns and trends. Within this,
self has a portfolio of multiple discrete
identities, these emerging from (1) the
role relationships in which they partici-
pate; (2) which have an organised system
of role relationships; and (3) where in
given circumstances, a personality may
activate an appropriate identity. In this
theory, the identities may be seen to be
epistemically distinct knowledge mosaics,
always potentially transitional, and as we
shall see in due course, ontologically
similar.
Identity, primitive A living system requires a boundary that
distinguished between its internal and
external environments. This creates what
may be called primitive identity, and does
not require consciousness.
Ideology A systematic body of ideas and material
practice that occurs through an organisa-
tion of beliefs and attitudes – religious,
political or philosophical in nature – that
is more or less institutionalised or shared
with others. It provides a total system of
thought, emotion, and attitude to the
world. It refers to any conception of the
594 Glossary
world that goes beyond the ability of for-
mal validation.
Individual performance Includes the degree of quality of individ-
ual efforts, initiatives, cooperation, absen-
teeism, lateness, commitment to job;
defined relative to the objectives of the
group/organisation of the individual.
Inquirer An individual or group that inquirers. An
inquirer may be a facilitator. When
inquirers have a purpose of intervention
in order to initiate change, they can be
called change agents.
Incremental change Influences from the environment of
a system perturb it. In viable systems if
the perturbations cannot be regulated,
then through self-organisation it will
adapt, introducing change into its form.
This in turn influences its behaviour
within its environment. This process is
also referred to as morphogenesis.
Instrumental agency This is agency condition occurring when
it can transform ideas and purposes into
behaviour, but is incapable of learning. In
other words, it is a living system since it
operates through autopoiesis, but auto-
genesis is pathologically disabled. As
such, its state of autonomy becomes
limited, and may even become
endangered.
Interaction Interchange between entities. In political
terms, the entities are individuals and
groups that establish diplomatic contacts,
trade, types of rivalries, and organised
violence.
Internalisation Adventitious effects to a system may be
internalised, this referring to any process
that has been taken into a system from an
outside source. It involves: assimilation –
where an observed effect is brought into
agency as information through some
 Glossary 595
inherent process of categorisation and
encoding; and accommodation – where
the information becomes incorporated in
agency thereby modifying it in some way
as an adaptive process. Assimilation
involves operational/organisational clos-
ure acquiring elements from the environ-
ment and integrating them into its own
inner processes, while maintaining both
its identity and its viability. It also estab-
lishes an anticipative schema as
a structural potential by incorporating
indicative effects from the environment
to its pre-existing schemes of motor activ-
ity. Accommodation creates an anticipa-
tive structure as a precondition for
adaptation that through processes of self-
production becomes permanently
redefined as adaptation, reaching a new
steady state of mutual co-adaptation with
its environment. This allows the system
to anticipate its behaviour, giving it
increased capacity to maintain viability.
Isolated system All isolated systems conserve energy and
are non-evolutionary, irreversible, and do
not vary with time. All events represent
the universal trend towards the more
probable, as the system tends towards
a maximal entropy.
Issues Lines beyond which actions and transac-
tions between the actors in
a suprasystem have no effect on the
environment, and where events or con-
ditions in the environment have no
effect on the actors. These relate to the
subsidiary activities that occur in
a situation. They are relevant to mental
processes not embodied in formalised
real-world situations.
KC Knowledge Cybernetics
596 Glossary
Logical models Models that enable organising processes
to be defined according to the proposi-
tions of our paradigm. Symbolic models
are part of this class. Preconscious aspects
of culture directly influence the nature of
our logical models.
Maruyama Universe These can be used to classify schemas and
the information that they generate.
Maruyama posits three types of universe,
each have distinct natures. These are: clas-
sificational, relational, and relevantial.
MAT Mindset Agency Theory.
MAT3 T Mindset Agency Theory represented by
three personality traits.
MAT5 T Mindset Agency Theory represented by
five agency traits, three of which are per-
sonality traits and two are sociocultural
traits that create sociocultural contextual
orientation for personality.
MBTI Myers–Briggs Type Inventory.
Measure A means of estimating or assessing the
extent to which an option contributes
towards the achievement of an objective.
Objectives may be non-quantifiable (or
soft). This may require qualitative com-
parisons like ranking or weighting.
Meta-analysis This examines the inherent nature and
characteristics of candidate configurative
schemas, and indicates how they relate to
the superstructure. Such a meta-analysis
can occur, for example, by techniques
like: epistemic mapping, where the mean-
ing of candidate schemas is related to
existing superstructural schemas; interro-
gating relevant propositions for consist-
ency with the current context and
standing of the substructure; and seeking
legitimate adaptive process to enable the
candidate schema to be suitably related
and harmonised.
 Glossary 597
Meta-object/effect While an object/effect is part of the exter-
nal objective world, a meta-object is the
result of the internalisation of properties
of the effect which, through assimilation,
becomes represented in the subject.
Meta-ontology A system having a number of classes of
context-independent ontology arranged
essentially in a system hierarchy, where
each systemic context in the assembly is
ontologically independent with a set of
mutually interactive relationships.
Meta-types, epistemic This is a sociocognitive type theory that is
defined through inferred configurations
of traits based on values resulting in epi-
stemically distinguished Mindscapes.
Meta-types, epistemic
and ontological This sociocognitive type theory comes
together through configurations of for-
mative traits based on values that have
distinct epistemic and ontological origins,
and from which Mindsets arise.
Meta-model A structured way of creating models. It
can be seen as being composed of a set of
steps or phases as such would constitute
the procedures of a method.
Metamorphosis When the form of a system changes dis-
cretely across from one generic class to
another.
Meta-purposes The cognitive purposes of a system that
derive from its meta-system.
Meta-system Controls the internal relations between
the variable subsystems in relation to the
whole environment. It is the higher level
system that acts as a controller of a lower
level. Most simply, it can be seen as the
metaphorical cognitive consciousness of
a system.
Method All methods derive from a paradigm, and
we can distinguish two types. A simple
method has a poor level of
598 Glossary
conceptualisation in its paradigm that
leads to low levels of variety in a way
that it can deal with a situation. Simple
methods are seen to be a set of contextual
procedures, and have limited ability to
explain and verify a view of the nature of
complex situations. Complex methods
have conceptually rich paradigms, thus
having more resources to generate variety
and explore the intangibles of a complex
situation. Attributes of complex methods
can include feedback control loops to
enable the conceptual models generated
to be verified according to criteria that
have been predefined within its paradigm.
Simple methods are often referred to as
method. If we see that methods lie on
a continuum, the poles of which are sim-
ple and complex, then we can identify
intermediate methods that are relatively
complex. These have some richness in
their paradigmatic conceptualisations,
and are better able to deal with complex
situations than simple methods.
Methodological
complementarism This is concerned with the idea that dif-
ferent systems methodologies can be used
together in application to a given situ-
ation. It recognises that they may each
operate out of different paradigms, and
have different rationalities stemming
from alternative views of reality that
define their truths views of reality that
define their truths.
Methodology A form of complex method that is suscep-
tible to inquirer influence in its strategic
processes. More generally, it may be said
to be subject to inquirer indeterminism.
Microsociology This is concerned with the study of inter-
personal interaction and behaviours
 Glossary 599
normally for those in small groups, and
the analysis of their interactive patterns
and trends.
Model An intellectual or physical representation
of something. Three classes of model may
be identified: cognitive models that
involve the intellectualisation process
that represent reality: logical models for
stable situations that derive from cogni-
tive models: and physical or behavioural
models that in stable situations are deter-
mined by logical models.
Modernism/Modernity Arising during the eighteenth and nine-
teenth centuries, it refers to the re-
evaluation of the solid attributes of socio-
culture in the light of dramatic change.
Modernity may be described through
a number of characteristics that include:
individual subjectivity; a decline of the
significance of religious worldviews; sci-
entific explanation and rationalisation;
rapid urbanisation; the emergence of bur-
eaucracy; the rise of the nation-state;
intensification of processes of communi-
cation; and accelerated financial
exchange. It was followed by post-
modernism.
Morphogenesis Adaptive systems are subject to influences
from their environment. These influences
perturb the system’s processes, interfering
with its operations. In the event that the
perturbations cannot be controlled, then
the system may learn to adapt by introdu-
cing local qualitative (and therefore incre-
mental) changes into its structure that in
turn influences its behaviour towards its
environment. Such qualitative incremen-
tal change is also referred to as
morphogenesis.
600 Glossary
Morphostasis Occurs when the form of a system
remains unchanged.
Negative sum This is often called a lose-lose situation
where all participants lose, or where the
sum of winnings (the positives) and losses
(the negatives) is negative. Thus, the gains
and losses in a group involved in
a negotiation will add to less than zero,
when the ‘winner’ will be at a major
advantage to the others in the group
who will take greater losses than could
be expected. This situation is consistent
with the creation of processes of conflict,
were others are seen as ‘suckers’ and it
supports the idea that one should ‘never
give a sucker and even break’, since the
benefits accrued arise through the exploit-
ation of others. In contrast, zero-sum
situations enable potential losses to be
predetermined from the allocated sum
by each member of the group, where
a loss from one creates a gain for another.
An alternative is the positive sum, also
called win-win, where no one wins at
the expense of another.
Negentropy A state of order. When a situation has an
increase in negentropy, it is moving
towards greater order and away from dis-
order. The term derives from negative
entropy: a reduction in entropy in
a system is consistent with an increase in
negetropy and a resultant increase in
order in the system.
Norm, Normative Norms are group phenomena that: pro-
vide standards through common agree-
ment defining what people should do or
feel in a given situation; shape behaviour
in relation to common values or desirable
states of affairs; vary in the degree to
which they are functionally related to
Glossary 601
important values; are enforced by the
behaviour of others; vary according to
the boundaries of the culture; and vary
in supporting a range of permissible
behaviour; vary as to how widely com-
mon they are, being either socially wide
or group specific; and vary in the range of
permissible behaviour. Normative pro-
cesses and models are those which may
be based on an individual’s opinion or
belief, but which have sought group sanc-
tion as being acceptable. The actions of
one or more other persons may be said to
be normative when they define a set of
constraints on behaviour, conforming to
what is acceptable and what is not. Thus,
expected behaviours of those who have
roles. Norms, as shared beliefs, are com-
posed as informal rules that emerge from
social interactive processes when they
become internalised. They apply to mem-
bers of a culture, exercising social compli-
ance, conditioning conduct by guiding
cognition through cognition norms and
indicating emotion through affect norms.
As belief derived concepts, the use of one
norm may activate others perceived to be
semantically close. Norms may be related
to cognition or affect. Cognition norms
determine what cognitive representations
(for discourse) and cognitive expression
(as behaviour) are legitimate in given con-
texts, thereby creating obligations and
duties that govern modes of thought,
expression, and behaviour. Affect norms
determine what emotions and emotional
expressions are appropriate or not in
a given context, thereby creating obliga-
tions and duties that govern emotional
arousal, expression, and behaviour, and
602 Glossary
imply standards of comparison between
experienced and contextually legitimate
feeling.
Object A thing, person, group, manifested belief,
or issue that composes a situation.
Objects are cognitively defined entities
that have form and behaviour. They com-
prise information generated from pat-
terns and individual components that
can be recognised through cognition
knowledge. While an object may be
a component of a system, it may itself
have objects.
Objective A characteristic of a desired structure or
behaviour of the system in its changed
form.
Ontology This refers to the properties and relation-
ships between schemas that are conceptu-
ally diverse. The schemas may be
concepts or categories in a field of study.
Ontological analysis This refers to the analysis of the properties
and relationships between conceptually
diverse schemas. Another way to explain
this is as the process of eliciting and dis-
covering relevant distinctions and rela-
tionships bound to the very nature of
the entities involved in a certain domain,
for the practical purpose of disambiguat-
ing terms having different interpretations
in different contexts.
Operational closure This refers to the existence of closed loops
in the network of immanent agentic pro-
cesses that are driven by system itself,
rather than adventitious processes that
arise from its environment. This is
equivalent to saying if an agency is
autonomous and hence self-determining,
then it necessarily has operational closure.
Operative couple The phenomenal and noumenal domains
in Agency Theory are ontologically
 Glossary 603
distinct, and connected by networks of
information processes that provide feed-
forward and feedback between them. The
noumenal domain is concerned with cog-
nition and the phenomenal domain with
material. The names of these domains
change according to the context of the
model, e.g., cognitive/strategic system
and operative system. In the latter termin-
ology, these systems together form an
operative couple that enables cognitive
schemas like goals to be manifested opera-
tively as a decision that will result in
material phenomena. The network of
information processes is called autopoi-
esis, but this is equivalent in the context
of personality psychology to operative
intelligence.
Operative Intelligence This is a Piaget concept that refers to
actions, overt or covert, undertaken in
order to follow, recover, or anticipate
the transformations of effects (like objects
or persons of interest). Within the con-
text of Agency Theory, it is a first-order
form of autopoiesis that creates an opera-
tive couple between the figurative and
operative systems. It consists of
a network of personality processes that
manifests significant figurative informa-
tion operatively, but also it creates
improvement imperatives to adjust the
figurative system. This network of pro-
cesses is itself defined by its appreciative
schemas and decision imperatives in the
figurative system and the improvement
adjustment imperatives that arise from
the operative system. Operative intelli-
gence permits external environmental
effects to be adventitiously manifested in
different parts of agency’s internal
604 Glossary
environment through outcomes like
internalisation, learning, and adaptation.
Operative orientation This occurs through the operative trait
and can contribute to agency viability
(Beer, 1979), providing the ability of an
agency to be able to durably maintain
a separate operative existence while cop-
ing with unpredictable futures. As a trait
variable, it is able to take one of two
enantiomer type values. One is egalitar-
ianism, which constitutes a flexible orien-
tation to effectively respond to
environmental challenges or those that
emerge from the social system. It is con-
sistent with liberation away from regula-
tory power and bureaucracy. The other
enantiomer is hierarchy, which is effect-
ively an adherence orientation to proven
rules that relates to efficient decision-
making and is consistent with the subor-
dination to hierarchy. Challenges from
the social system may require flexibility
in the application of these rules. Through
this, the operative trait can represent
a durable and distinct personality orien-
tation that is able to cope with unpredict-
able futures.
Organisational development This occurs through social and cultural
change in an organisation. It is in part to
do with structures and processes.
Organisational performance Depends on strategies, standards, and
goals that determine performance.
Affects group and individual
performance.
Orthogonality An entity that has been set up proposi-
tionally within a framework of thought
that has been assembled for a purpose.
The entity has analytical and empirical
independence from the other entities
within the framework.

Orthogonal view of situations A framework of qualitatively independent
Orthogonal universe
Paradigm
Paradigm principle
Paradigm incommensurability Paradigm are commensurable when they
Glossary 605
interactive actors (each with their own
systemic behaviours and meta-systems)
that together define a suprasystem.
The view in which a plurality of inde-
pendent paradigms with their own quali-
tative truth systems are seen to coexist and
interact.
A formalised shared worldview created
through constructs. These involve
a cognitive model that defines assump-
tions and propositions, is culture and
belief based, and defines its language of
communication that represents its epis-
temology. Its constructs are more or less
visible to others that are not view holders.
Paradigms are created by groups of
people, and a paradigm principle should
be analogous to the Weltanschauung prin-
ciple. Thus, no formal model of reality
can be complete, and finding a more rep-
resentative picture of a given reality by
involving a plurality of formal models
generates variety through opening up
more possibilities in the way situations
can be addressed through action.
can be described as being coextensive and
qualitatively similar. Mostly, we can
think of different paradigms always
being incommensurable to some degree.
However, paradigms may be seen in
terms of different focuses. It is possible
for two paradigms to each have a set of
conceptualisations at one focus that
results in their being incommensurable.
At another focus, they may be quite com-
mensurable. Such focuses can be defined
through conceptual emergence that des-
troys chaos. More generally than referring
606 Glossary
to paradigm incommensurability we can
talk of worldview incommensurability,
since paradigms are simply world views
that have been formalised through
language.
Parsimony, principle of This is defined as the most acceptable
explanation of an effect (i.e., an occur-
rence, phenomenon, object, or dynamic
event) that is the simplest, minimising the
involvement of entities, assumptions, or
changes.
Pathologies These have consequences for the anticipa-
tion of behaviour since they can influence
its proclivity. Pathologies may be transi-
tive or lateral. Transitive pathologies
occur as ontological connection between
the different systems that indicate the
‘living’ nature of the agency. It is these
through which migration processes occur
that are essential for the efficacious func-
tioning of the agency. The inefficacious
functioning of intelligences is a result of
agency pathologies, and this can affect the
mindscape modes that an agency is
deemed to take. This is because inefficacy
can misrepresent the cognitive attributes
that exist across the ontological parts of
the agency, resulting in an altered mind-
scape mode – which is sensitive to con-
text. There are also lateral pathologies.
Laterally based pathologies are not onto-
logical, but rather epistemological with
respect to the agency model. They there-
fore relate to within system rather than
between system interactions of an agency,
and interest in improving the agency is
restricted to understanding the nature of
what is happening within systems.
Combinations of transitive and lateral
 Glossary 607
pathologies might lead to classical forms
of agency dysfunction.
Penchant Each paradigm has its own set of ‘truths’
that differentiate them one from another,
and that we refer to as its penchant. It is
therefore responsible for the generation
a specialist type of knowledge that deter-
mines cognitive purposes. The penchant
of a paradigm projects a cognitive pur-
pose that operates in a behavioural
domain, and can be seen as a statement
of mission and goals. It also involves aims
that an inquirer identifies as making
a methodological inquiry effective.
Personal efficacy This refers to the soundness of [an
agent’s] thoughts and actions, and the
meaning of their pursuits.
Personal development The development of new skills and new
perspectives at the individual level. The
perspectives will in part be cultural, relat-
ing to attitudes and values.
Personality Personality is an organised developing
system within the individual that has
both internal functionality (including
personality and its major subsystems,
and the brain with its major neurological
subsystems) and external functionality
(including situations and their relation-
ships and relational meanings, and set-
tings including props, objects, and
organisms). It has basic cognitive and
affective structures and processes with
mechanisms that underlie skills and social
competencies, knowledge structures to
interpret or encode situations, self-
reflection to develop beliefs about them-
selves and their relation to the social
environment, and self-regulatory pro-
cesses to establish personal goals, stand-
ards for performance, and to motivate
608 Glossary
themselves to reach desired ends. It is also
a dynamic system involving dynamic
interaction between social cognitive and
affective processes, and take a social cog-
nitive view of self-referential thought and
self-regulation, therefore permitting per-
sonality to be viewed as a complex ‘self-
system’ through which individuals con-
tribute to their experiences, actions, and
development.
Personality, normative A viable personality system consists of at
least three types of elements that consti-
tute different sets of information: domains
that can be expressed in terms of uncon-
scious, subconscious, and conscious
knowledge; processes which are consti-
tuted as information flows between
domains that contribute towards self-
reference, self-regulation, self-
organisation; and traits, which regulate
information flows of processes, and
which through preferences that are con-
trolled by requisite efficacies, determine
personality types. The sociocognitive pro-
cesses explain how the traits and other
attributes work together.
Personality orientations This defines a personality’s intended trait
orientations, and as a variable this is
determined by the type value that the
trait takes, which may itself be condi-
tioned in some way by the information
carried by the intelligences. The selection
of information to be manifested by the
intelligences may become uncoupled
from the preferences and unrepresenta-
tive of the intended perspectives. This
causes an intelligence limitation that can
result in the development of pathologies
that affect the ability of trait systems to
function. This lack of representation
 Glossary 609
occurs because not all of the perspectivis-
tic information is represented. Under
such a condition, the personality may (1)
have its capacity to conceptualise, sche-
matise, or apply perspectivistic informa-
tion reduced; (2) have the orientation of
its traits perturbed; and (3) be drawn
towards un-preferred or unintended con-
duct that may even ‘corrupt’ its propri-
etary strategic ideological or ethical
orientations. Perspectives too may
become adjusted through pathologic
shifts in trait orientations.
Personality perspective This arises in the personality from atti-
tudes, feelings, and conceptual informa-
tion, and is influenced by the
adjustment imperatives carried by fig-
urative intelligence from the operative
couple. Perspectives are manifested
across the personality through perspecti-
vistic information carried by its intelli-
gences, to be integrated into schemas in
the figurative system, and structured
into the operative system.
Personality psychology This involves the collective action of an
agency’s major psychological subsystems,
and capturing all the subsystems occurs
through an appropriate generic schema.
Personality theory This describes what behaviours arise and
why they do so.
Physical models Models of physical events like objects
that have associated with them form
(e.g., structure and processes) and
related behaviour.
Plural agency The plural agency has a population of
agents that interact with each other. It
may develop through immanent and
adventitious influences. Immanent
change can occur when the agents are
grouped into configurations of
610 Glossary
interconnected structures and behaviours
from which interactive relationships arise.
If these become common generic prac-
tices, conventions, or norms (i.e., are insti-
tutionalised), then a potential is created for
the emergence of generic rule structures.
Agency meso structure emerges when the
potential then becomes embodied in agent
interactions.
Political domain Types of governments/managements,
administrations of political units, the
roles of individuals or subjects in the pol-
itical unit’s external relations, and the
methods by which resources of the units
are mobilised to achieve external
objectives.
Post-modern Essentially, it is a reaction to modernist
intellectual assumptions and values. It is
characterised by broad scepticism, sub-
jectivism or relativism, a general doubt
about the use of reason, and it is suspi-
cious of the use of ideology to assert and
maintain power in, for instance, econom-
ics and politics.
Problem owner Defined by the change agent as a person
or group as the primary stakeholder. It is
a plausible role from which the situation
can be viewed.
Process intelligences Also known as Piagetian intelligences that
has the immanent property of ontological
process transformation. Two forms are
operative intelligence and figurative
intelligence.
Primary stakeholder An individual or group that has relatively
more to lose or gain than other
stakeholders.
Political ideology An intellectual framework through which
policy makers observe and interpret real-
ity that has a politically correct ethical and
moral orientation, provides an image of
 Glossary 611
the future that enables action through
politically correct strategic policy, and
gives a politically correct view of stages
of historical development in respect of
interaction with the external
environment.
Praxis The practice, as distinguished from the-
ory, or the application or use of an attri-
bute, like knowledge.
Preconscious aspects of culture Composed of ideology, symbols, and
norms that are applied to the logical
organising processes. Consistent with
the ideas of psychology, the preconscious
can be seen as a way of expressing wishes
of the belief system that may otherwise be
seen as incompatible with the self. Thus,
norms, symbols, and ideology can all be
argued to fall into this category since they
provide people who belong to a given
culture with self-approval for their values
and attitudes.
Primary tasks These relate to the identifiable activities
and processes that are required to carry
out the core purposes of a situation. They
map onto institutionalised arrangements.
Problem owner Defined by an inquirer as the (individual
or group) primary stakeholder.
Problem situation A real-world situation in which there is
a sense of unease, a feeling that things
could be better than they are,
a perception that it is unclear or some
perceived problem requiring attention.
Processes Actions that together create
a transformation of something.
Examples are operating procedures,
mechanisms for handling key procedures
(e.g., coordination of committees),
human resource mechanisms, goal set-
ting. Processes occur within system
boundaries.
612 Glossary
Process intelligence This is a network of first- and second-
order processes that couple two onto-
logically distinct trait systems. This net-
work of processes manifests information
through semantic channels thereby allow-
ing local meaning to arise from the mani-
fested content in the receiving trait
system. Two types are operative intelli-
gence and figurative intelligence.
Psychodynamics Psychodynamic psychology broadly
explores the psychological forces involved
in cognition and affect.
Purposefulness The concept of purposefulness comes
from the idea that human beings attri-
bute meaning to their experienced
world, and take responsive action
which has purpose. The consequence
of purposefulness is intention as conscious
planning. Purposefulness enables the
selection of goals and aims and the
means for pursuing them. Human
beings, whether as individuals or as
groups, cannot help but attribute
meaning to their experienced world,
from which purposeful action follows.
Purposeful action is knowledge based.
One would therefore expect that differ-
ent knowledges are responsible for the
creation of different purposeful
behaviours.
Radical change Change in the purposes of a system that
alters objectives and practices. Radical
change is far reaching for both organisa-
tions and individuals, not only within
the context of its primary purpose, but
also its core cultural values. Radical
change can also influence preconscious
cultural factors like ideology, symbols,
and norms that contribute to a basis of
 Glossary 613
the sociopolitical aspects of an
organisation.
Real world The unfolding interactive flux of events
and ideas experienced as everyday life.
Reciprocal determinism,
principle of Here, persons and social settings are
viewed as reciprocally interacting systems.
Sociocultural environments contribute to
the development of personality struc-
tures, and personality factors create the
lens through which how social environ-
ments are experienced and interpreted.
Recursion The application of a whole concept or set
of actions that occurs at one level of con-
sideration can also be applied at a lower
logical level (or focus) of consideration.
Relevant system An inquirer’s perception of the human
activity system that is relevant to
a problem situation. Any situation may
have as many relevant systems views as
perceived by an inquirer. In Soft
Systems Methodology, primary task and
issue based relevant systems generically
are distinguished.
Regulation Defined as the explicit or implicit rules or
customs, major assumptions or values
upon which relations are based, for
which the techniques and institutions
are used to resolve conflicts.
Relational universe This is one of Maruyama’s three universes
that determine properties of entities that
exist within them. It is event oriented,
being concerned with events and their
interconnections rather than substances,
with relational linkages and effects that
are of importance. Since it is event and
occurrence oriented, it drives the basic
question of how do they relate to others.
It also maintains complex paired
614 Glossary
connections that adhere to a subjective
epistemology.
Relevantial universe This is one of Maruyama’s three uni-
verses that determine properties of
entities that exist within them. It is
existential and dynamic in nature. It is
socially connected in that it concerns
individuals with shared needs and
desires, and consists of individuals’ con-
cern, about themselves, about others,
about situations, relations, and about
existence. It is also interpretation
oriented, maintaining a meta-view of
phenomena and able to identify redun-
dancies and variety for a system in
which there are self-organisation and
adaptive capabilities. Here, patterns of
change are represented as well as how
adaptation to them can occur.
Cognitively complex, it provides for
both subjective and objective epistemo-
logical perspectives, where the latter
presumably result from a normative
consolidation of subjective perspectives.
An illustration of a personality theory
that resides here comes from Jung, who
sees personality is a living system that is
self-organising, self-maintaining, self-
transcending, and self-renewing.
Bandura’s sociocognitive self-theory is
also part of this universe because of its
existential nature.
Requisite efficacy The ability to achieve a preferred level of
performance through the control of emo-
tive imperatives that are best suited to
create intended achievements.
Requisite responses These are the responses an agency is
required to make to adventitious influ-
ences that enable it to remain viable.
 Glossary 615
Requisite variety The required number of states that
enables environmental variety to be bal-
anced by system variety in a viable system.
This can be seen to occur as a result of
self-organisation, where the system adapts
while maintaining stability in its
behaviour.
Robust system If we see a system to be composed of a set
of parts, then a robust system as a whole is
not vulnerable to changes in those parts.
It has a frame of reference that enables
changes in one part to be compensatable
by those in another part to the homeo-
static limits of the system. Dynamic sys-
tems may be robust in time or structure
when vulnerability is minimised for time
or structural perturbations. This means,
that as a whole either (1) the system has
reduced sensitivity to any fluctuations in
the parts; (2) the fluctuations are damp-
ened down homeostatically; or (3) the
fluctuations are compensated for any fluc-
tuations by changes in other parts. Unlike
adaptive systems, robust systems do not
change their form, seek equilibrium con-
ditions, and fail when they experience
perturbations that take them beyond
their homeostatic capabilities.
S-MBTI Sociocultural Myers–Briggs Type
Inventory.
Schemas These are structured knowledge frame-
works that define a pattern of thought or
behaviour and adopt an organisation of
information categories and relationships
representing effects. They maintain pro-
positions about their characteristics, rela-
tionships, and entailments (i.e.,
deductions or implications), perhaps
with incomplete information. They can
refer to simple highly abstract concepts or
616 Glossary
complex social phenomena, and include
group stereotypes or social roles, and
knowledge scripts.
Script international This enables an agent to be influenced by
knowledge that relates to its social envir-
onment. It affects structures and pro-
cesses that define the agentic forms that
are related to intentions and behaviours.
Self This is a causal agent of an agency subsys-
tem which inherently involves feedback
processes and where both immanent and
adventitious influences produce out-
comes like self-organisation. Processes of
self-organisation are natural to complex
dynamic evolutionary systems. An out-
come is viability facilitated through the
development of coordinative structures
with functional synergies. While self
may be an important causative agent to
a general theory of agency, it only arises
with the emergence of boundary that pro-
vides distinction between internal and
external environments, thereby enabling
the attribute of autonomy, or self-
determination. With the emergence of
consciousness, self becomes elaborated
by degree to perhaps include other prop-
erties like non-primitive identity, a sense
of being, awareness, self-realisation, and
self-reflection.
Self-actuation The notion that an actor can be self
responsible for actuations such as regula-
tion, reference, organisation, influence,
sustainment, production, and
consciousness.
Self-organisation This occurs when deviations from
a normal or expected situation are
amplified such that a change in the
form of the organisation occurs. Also
seen as the self-amplification of
 Glossary 617
fluctuations generated in the system
that can be seen to be a direct result
of perturbations from the environment.
It occurs in systems that are capable of
adaptation.
Self-efficacy This refers to an agent’s belief in its cap-
ability to organise and execute the courses
of action required to manage prospective
situations.
Self-reference When a system refers only to itself in
terms of its internal actions or processes.
These are open systems that refer only to
themselves in terms of their intentioned
purposeful behaviour. This does not
mean that they do not interact with the
environment since it relates only to their
purposefulness.
Self-regulation Those processes through which the
material or energy of a system is main-
tained within predefined bounds. This
occurs through feedback regulation that
occurs such that the outputs from
a process are monitored, and information
about it is fed back to the input. This
regulates the process through its stabilisa-
tion or direction action of the process.
Self-identity theory Self-identity theory has arisen from the
field of clinical psychodynamics, may be
seen as a self-schema theory, and is
a cognition theory concerned with the
identity within a cultural context. It is
through the self-schema that social stim-
uli are perceived, interpreted, and
recalled, and can create a rich repertoire
of behaviours that enables efficient, com-
petent, and consistent functioning. A self-
schema is a cognitive framework that
is stable and enduring and concerned
with the self-concept, integrating and
summarising a personality’s thoughts,
618 Glossary
feelings, and experiences about the self in
a specific behavioural domain. Different
experiences of self are a result of different
unconscious generalisations about self,
these becoming dominant at different
times and in different social or cultural
settings. Multiple self-schemas may arise
through conscious and unconscious
immanent and adventitious influences,
and the personality may self-organise
them in a way that may be inhomogen-
eous (fragmented and mutually inconsist-
ent) or homogeneous.
Self-schema This refers to a cognitive framework that
is stable and enduring and concerned
with the self-concept, integrating and
summarising a personality’s thoughts,
feelings, and experiences about the self
in a specific behavioural domain; it is
through the self-schema that social stim-
uli are perceived, interpreted, and
recalled, and can create a rich repertoire
of behaviours that enables efficient, com-
petent, and consistent functioning. It
arises from the unconscious systematised
generalisation of self from which expect-
ations might arise about the modes of
thought, feeling, and behaviour of self in
a particular situation and in a way that is
related to the self-perception. The self-
schema involves three attributes: scripts;
future intentions and expectations con-
cerning self-realisation, and core values.
Semi-autonomous Strictly speaking, we could say that unlike
autonomous systems, semi-autonomous
ones may have logical connections with
their environment. However, the notions
of autonomy and semi-autonomy are
really relevant to perspective and may be
seen to be essentially equivalent.
 Glossary 619
Simplexity This constitutes a dialectic between sim-
plicity and complexity, and is
a condition in which a set of rules can
be identified that can ‘explain’
a situation through large-scale simplici-
ties that have developed. The idea of
simplexity is essential for complex situ-
ations seen only in terms of behaviour,
though it is inherent in studies of per-
sonality psychology where personality
may be a phenomenon belonging to
a unitary agency or a plural one. Also
known as deep simplicity, the term
within personality psychology refers to
the idea that coherence occurs through
the creation of a regulative personality
structure that exists between agency
macro-behaviour and the complex fab-
ric of agent behaviours that can create
order where random fluctuation seems
otherwise to dominate.
Settlement When addressing a perceived problem
situation, settlement occurs when it is
defined so that it is solved, resolved, dis-
solved, or in some way addressed so that
the problems defined cease to be so seen.
Social identity theory This has arisen from the field of social
psychology, and is interested in different
sorts of identity. It is the study of (1) the
interplay between personal and social
identities (which we shall in due course
show to be ontologically distinct); and (2)
has an interest in identifying and predict-
ing the circumstances under which indi-
viduals think of themselves as individuals
or as group members, as well as consider-
ing the consequences of personal and
social identities for individual perceptions
and group behaviour. It also has a focus
on how group membership guides
620 Glossary
intergroup behaviour and influences the
self-concept of a personality, while its
extension into self-categorisation theory
proposes that people categorise them-
selves according to the groups they believe
they belong to, like nationality, gender, or
football teams. The ‘sorts’ of identity
referred to are ontologically distinct, and
may not be selectable. As illustration, one
can distinguish between private and pub-
lic identity. Private identity is a function
self-worth and autonomy, and self-worth
is not a selectable condition. In contrast,
public identity is selectable, and, media
are capable of creating personalities or
public identities that are apparently
more ‘real’ than real life and more palp-
able than fiction.
Social orientation This is defined through the social trait
that concerns operations in a given social
environment. This might be seen to exist
in a social operative system directed
towards action, interaction, and reaction
that (re)constitutes the cultural environ-
ment in terms of (desired, welcome,
undesired, not welcome) activities. Two
extreme forms exist: dramatising and pat-
terning. Dramatising puts an emphasis on
action (where its membership is con-
vinced that it will get positive feedback,
their product will sell, etc.). Patterning is
more observation orientation and collect
(lots of) information before engaging in
action.
Social space The space of social behaviours (events)
and entities in which situations occur,
and which can be identified through
a set of arbitrary well- or ill-defined
boundaries.
 Glossary 621
Social system A social space of actors who may be seen
to be structured as a system. The actors
take on role positions and have determin-
able relationships. They tend to operate
through social and cultural norms. The
system may be described in terms of
a substructure and superstructure.
Social structure The structure defined within social con-
texts. Enduring relationships between
individuals, groups, and larger units
(e.g., roles and their attributes such as
authority, privilege, responsibility).
Characteristic configuration of power
and influence or persisting forms of dom-
inant and substrate relationships. It
includes identification of major subsys-
tems enabling inquiry into the important
rivalries, issues, alliances, blocks, or inter-
national organisations.
Social substructure The social domain that includes mode
and means of production and the social
relations that accompany them. This can
provide, for instance, some insight into
the resource nature that enables a conflict
to occur or be maintained. Social sub-
structure can be related directly to the
tasks identified within a problem
situation.
Social superstructure The broader social domain of an actor to
which institutionalised political and cul-
tural aspects relate. An examination of
these factors can, for instance, contribute
to an understanding of the motivations of
conflict. Social superstructure can be
related directly to the issues identified
within a problem situation.
Soft situations People oriented situations that have prop-
erties that cannot be measured object-
ively. Personal values, opinions, tastes,
ethical views, or Weltanschauung are
622 Glossary
examples. It is people and their psycho-
logical needs that dominate. Softness is
therefore directly related to the involve-
ment of mentality, including cognitive
and emotional processes, and varying
perspectives that contributes towards
the complexity of situations. Each indi-
vidual has a Weltanschauung that is
unique.
Spastic personality This refers to a personality that is dis-
jointed and hence borders on
a condition of pathology.
Stakeholder A participant in a situation who has
a vested interest in it, who may have
something (a stake, like a job, or an
investment) to gain or lose. Groups
and individuals affected by decisions
or a project who seek to influence deci-
sions in keeping with their own inter-
ests, goals, priorities, and
understandings.
Stereotype A widely held but overgeneralised or over-
simplified image or idea of a particular
group or class of entity. While individuals
in the group or class will all likely have
different characteristics, by stereotyping
one overlays the image or idea on that
group or class independent of its validity.
Stereotyping is a mechanism that sup-
ports prejudice and racism.
Structure Structure is about the relationships
between definable entities like objects
(that may be seen as events) or processes
that together form a frame of reference.
The relationships can occur across the
space of an object. They can also occur
by linking the objects across time in
causal relationships. We can talk of struc-
tural relationships being highly or well
structured, and unstructured or ill

Structure determined change
Structural coupling
Glossary 623
structured. The degree of structure can be
seen as a continuum which may be quali-
tatively divided in some way. The sim-
plest qualitative division is to distinguish
between well structured, semistructured,
and ill-structured systems.
If a holon changes as a response to per-
turbation from its environment, it is said
to be plastic. Every holon has some degree
of plasticity in that it is able to respond to
perturbations from the environment. The
limit of its plasticity is implicitly deter-
mined by its meta-system and reflected in
its structure. When a system responds to
perturbations through the inherent cap-
ability of its structure, then the response is
said to be structure determined. The per-
turbations can now be seen as catalysts for
change that triggers adaptation as
a process of system compensation, rather
than instruments that create change. The
triggering of change can also be seen as
a process of activation that has a role in
both self-regulation and self-organisation.
In self-regulation, it is seen to reduce
environmental variety and thereby pro-
viding support for the system. Self-
organisation is a morphogenic process
and is seen able to induce variety into
the system’s regulatory process, thus
becoming a learning device. We can
think of this as being a holonic structural
determinism.
The morphogenic changes that an autop-
oietic system goes through are deter-
mined by its structure so long as
autopoiesis is maintained. These changes
may preserve the structure as it is, or in
a plastic system, they may radically alter
it. The environment does not determine
624 Glossary
but triggers the changes, these being
limited to the possibilities for the system
at that time. Such a system is structurally
coupled to its environment. Structural
coupling and adaptation can be aligned
in semi-autonomous self-organising
systems.
Structural criticality Occurs when a system loses its structural
stability or structural robustness. This
means that small local changes in
a coherent situation can result in qualita-
tive changes in its form.
Structural violence The passive violence that acts on one
group through the structures established
by another. It can also be seen as
a suppressed form of conflict between
the groups within a coherent situation.
The conflict and its nature tends to be
unclear and can be interpreted as generic
in nature (thus distinguishing qualita-
tively between the different groups). It
may also not be acknowledged by either
side. It is normally recognised by the
dominance of one group over another,
with subsequent exploitative practices.
The exploitation may be preconscious,
and thus not recognised. Neither may it
be for the perceived benefit of the domin-
ant group. It may further be institution-
alised. It bounds the potential of
individuals, thus constraining the variety
that system can generate. It thus limits the
possibilities of the system that can be used
to meet environmental challenges. High
levels of structural violence are therefore
inconsistent with the plastic needs of
social systems. Low levels contribute to
the maintenance of dynamic stability.
Substructure Involves immanent axiomatic founda-
tional causes (or forces) that are expressed
 Glossary 625
through causal agents (sub-structural
dynamic elements) having properties that
explain outcomes and associations.
Now, for agency, one needs to be able to
differentiate between internally derived
(immanent) influences on its causal agents,
and those (adventitious) influences arriv-
ing from an external source.
Superstructure Involves theory building through com-
mensurable configurations like traits, cul-
ture, institutions, identity, and norms.
Superstructural development requires
candidate configurations that can connect
recognised properties, relationships and
processes from theoretical schemas, and
these can result in testable theoretical pro-
positions. Different configurations may
be orchestrated by recognising in what
way they are ontologically connected, cre-
ating an inherent theory potential in the
superstructure. There is a reflexive con-
nection between superstructure and sub-
structure. Candidate configurations to be
selected may be determined by modelling
context and purpose that need to be
satisfied.
Subsystem A system that is at a lower hierarchic level
or focus of examination than one currently
under consideration.
Suprasystem A system that is at a higher hierarchic level
or focus of examination than one currently
under consideration. Can be seen as
a system defined by a set of actors. If
each system involves a group, the supra-
system is an intragroup (or between-
group) processes. A conflict suprasystem
involves only those actors mutually
engaged in conflict.
Synthesis Building up a picture of a situation into
a coherent whole. During this process,
626 Glossary
the building is susceptible to the impos-
ition of the preconscious cultural aspects
of the builder, including ideology.
System A non-separable entity that is composed
of effects/objects that are defined in
mutual relation to each other, and
which is not reducible into a sum of its
objects. If each effect/object is thought of
as a component of the system, then com-
monly it is a set of components that
mutually interrelate. A system is bounded
through a frame of reference. This
boundary will change according to the
modelling purpose and weltanschauung
of the modeller. A system may also be
seen in terms of the degree of interaction
between the parts that define it. The parts
may be richly or poorly interactive. In
modelling a situation systemically, an
inquirer will make a judgement about
what constitutes a rich set of interactions,
and distinguish between this group by
creating a boundary around it that distin-
guishes the rich interactions from the set
of poor ones. The interactions may be
defined in terms of a variety of concepts,
such as purposes or properties, and this
provides the frame of reference for the
boundary.
System hierarchy Systems can be seen as having subsystems
in networks that may each have their own
subsystems. They may be part of a super-
system in its own supersystem network.
Each focus highlights a semi-autonomous
system or network of systems. The focus
of inquiry can move up or down these
different semi-autonomous interactive
levels that are taken together is called the
system hierarchy. A better term for this is
 Glossary 627
holarchy. It is reflective of the viability
proposition for living systems.
System variety The variety generated by the system,
often in response to that generated by
the environment. It can be seen in terms
of the creation of potentials or possibil-
ities that a system may be able to har-
ness in the case of need.
Technology Tools, machines, techniques for trans-
forming resources which may be mental,
social, physical, chemical, electronic, etc.
Temperament This refers to behavioural style which
indicates how behaviour arises.
Tension The ‘force’ behind a complex system’s
ability to change. It can be reduced
through homeostasis. Systems under
change do not tend to try to manage the
tension but rather the situation. This state
of tension tends to be disturbing, and its
reduction is sought through the taking of
action. Two forms of tension are: consen-
sual, that acts as a catalyst for change that
enables systems to evolve; dissensual, that
is harmful and causes dissent.
Theory A collection of interconnected systemic
ideas intended to explain in general
terms, describe, analyse, or predict – with
a purpose of creating knowledge about
observed effects using concepts, defin-
itions, assumptions, and generalisations.
Theory, formal Formal theories may be classed as soft or
hard. In either case, agents can be
described as having tangible attributes
that can be measured (i.e., variables like
height, weight, money, . . .). However,
soft schemas also include intangibles –
those which cannot be directly measured
(like consciousness, and individual cogni-
tive competencies such as knowledge and
capabilities). The involvement of
628 Glossary
intangibles indicates limits to any cap-
acity to take meaningful measurements.
Hard schemas take agents as objects in
with tangible attributes in a behavioural
system that can be manipulated in some
way. Having said that, if intangibles can
be represented in concrete way, then they
are susceptible to schemas that are formal
and hard.
Theory, general These are concerned with a broad range
of phenomena, either across several levels
of analysis or by consolidating a variety of
theoretical perspectives, these explaining
developmental phenomena and unifying
existing theory. They are defined through
both substructure of foundational causes
and a superstructure through which the-
ory building occurs.
Traits, dark These are underlying local traits that arise
from Mindset pathologies, like
Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and
Psychopathy. Dark/negative traits may be
seen as ‘socially unhealthy’ and they may be
compared to light/affirmative ‘socially
healthy’ opposites: Machiavellianism versus
Honourable; Narcissism versus Relatedness;
Psychopathy versus Saneness. Other nega-
tive versus affirmative traits may include:
Destructiveness versus Creativeness; Incest
versus Brotherliness; Herd conformity ver-
sus Individuality; and Irrationality versus
Reason.
Trait enantiomer See enantiomer.
Trait, formative Formative traits are determined from val-
ues, and create imperatives for behaviour.
They constitute the basic structure of
personality, may be thought of as its driv-
ing entities, and they express themselves
in consistent patterns of functionality
 Glossary 629
across a range of situations, thereby con-
tributing to meso structure.
Trait instabilities Trait instabilities arise naturally, perhaps
from immanent trait dynamics that may
be due for instance to process intelligence
limitation, or through interactions in the
social environmental with other agencies
resulting in adventitious influences.
A stable trait contributes to a healthy
agency, an unstable one to psychosis.
With cultural trait instability, personality
may take up arbitrary short-term stability
cues from the environment leading to
long-term behavioural inconsistencies;
these cues may be related to cognition or
affect.
Trait, local Local traits, influence how one interacts
with others on a daily basis, rather than
the formative traits which determine
one’s character. They constitute consist-
ent behavioural tendencies that result
from innate features, or as the general-
ised result of learning processes, deliver-
ing stylistic attitude, cognitive schemes
(like personal constructs, values, and
frames), dynamic motives (like the need
for achievement and power motivation),
and it may also derive from encoding
strategies, self-regulatory systems and
plans, and other cognitive social learning
person variables. Examples are intoler-
ance of ambiguity, a need for coherence,
or the absence of an openness to experi-
ence. Local traits may also be associated
with motivation.
Trait penchant By trait is meant formative trait rather
than ‘local’ trait. It has a penchant deriv-
ing from the type trait value it has taken
during processes of change. Thus, in the
cultural trait, the trait type value might be
630 Glossary
sensate or ideational or some mix of these.
This penchant, when combined with the
penchants of other traits in a Mindset,
creates a personality and agency orienta-
tion from which certain patterns of
behaviour can be expected.
Trait theories Trait theories are normally concerned
with habitual patterns of thought and
emotion, and consider linkages between
traits that influence a personality and
resulting behaviour.
Uncertainty Lack of knowledge about a situation in
social space or time (thus unpredictability).
Unitary agency This is an individual agency for which
developmental influences are adventi-
tious, since that originate from the inter-
actions that are beyond its boundary as an
agency. However, it is often possible to
redefine the nature of an agent such that it
because plural. In personality theory, we
tend to take an agent to be an autono-
mous individual or configured group of
agents. But the notion of agent is much
broader than this.
Values Abstract ideas representing beliefs about
modes of conduct. They are stable long-
lasting beliefs about what is important
in situations. They are desirable individ-
ual or commonly shared conceptions, and
are associated with actualisation and the
emergence of spontaneous order. Values
are reflected in behaviour where there is
a collective agreement about them in an
activity system, when they determine
what is right and wrong (the domain of
ethics), and where to behave ethically is to
behave in a manner consistent with what
is right or moral and in relation to the
values held. Values develop from beliefs
 Glossary 631
when they are seen to be important and
a commitment is made to them.
Value-Norm-Attitude-
knowledge Relationship Values and norms are related through
more obvious behaviours (Smith, 2002)
and through community, both involving
interpersonal relationships, a supportive
sense of safety and well-being, a sense of
self-worth, and empowerment. Both val-
ues and norms are dichotomous. The
value system has two cultural forces
(Sensate-Ideational) that are epistemically
and ontologically distinct, interactive,
opposing, and mutual auxiliaries one to
the other. The normative system has two
epistemically similar but opposing regu-
latory forces (tight-loose) that are oppos-
ing but not mutual auxiliaries to each
other or mutually interactive. Norms
interact with attitudes (to determine
behaviour) and the two shape each
other. While values and norms are inter-
actively embedded in knowledge, they are
also independent since they act in onto-
logically distinct spaces. Values operate
culturally and are responsible for the for-
mative traits that underpin personality,
while norms operate cognitively and
behaviourally to constrain or facilitate
behaviours.
Variety A measure of complexity. It is formally
defined as the number of possible states of
whatever it is whose complexity we wish
to measure. It defines the possibilities of
a situation that derive from the inter-
action of its elements. We can take it
that the perturbations that influence
a system are due to the manifestation of
environmental states not previously
632 Glossary
encountered, that generate new forms of
variety that the system must balance.
Viability Able to maintain a separate existence and
thus cope with unpredictable futures.
Viability proposition Any viable living system may have recur-
sive viable living systems within it. The
recursions must appropriately respond to
the recursive context defined by the sys-
tem in which it is embedded.
Viability This is the ability of an entity (a living
organism, an artificial system, an idea,
etc.) to maintain itself or recover its
potentialities.
Viable system A viable system is autonomous and can
maintain stable states of behaviour as it
adapts to (unanticipated) perturbations
from the environment enabling it to dur-
ably survive.
Well or highly structured A situation that has a clearly discernible
set of entities and a framework of deter-
minable relationships between them.
A situation may be well structured over
space or time. Dynamic structure is also
referred to as causative, when one event is
seen as having others as its cause over
time.
Worldview A view or perspective of the real world
that is determined by cultural and other
attributes of the viewers. Through
a process of socialisation the view is
formed within the institutions one is
attached to in a given society, and they
change as the institutional realities
change. When we say that worldviews
may be shared by a group of people, we
mean that each individual retains their
own realities while using common models
to share meaning. It is possible to distin-
guish between different types of world-
view. (1) A closed worldview is one whose
Glossary 633
boundary enables no recognition of the
existence of other world views. It has
a rigid frame of reference that cannot be
influenced by the knowledges that other
world views generate: knowledge perturb-
ation (of its own knowledge, that is) in
any one referential area may damage the
frame of reference. (2) A partially closed
worldview has a boundary that enables it
to recognise the existence of other world
views while diminishing them. It has
a robust frame of reference that can only
be partially influenced by the knowledges
that other world views produce: know-
ledge perturbation in any one referential
area may be compensable from other
areas to the homeostatic limits of the
worldview, after which the frame of refer-
ence suffers damage. (3) An open world-
view is one whose boundary enables the
recognition of other world views and their
validity within the worlds from which
they derive. It has an adaptable frame of
reference that can be influenced by know-
ledges generated by other world views:
knowledge perturbation can result in cog-
nitive redefinition through worldview
morphogenesis to the plastic limit of the
worldview, after which the frame of refer-
ence suffers damage. Since it can respond
to other knowledges, an open worldview
provides for the possibility of greater
development and growth than closed or
partially closed world views. (4)
a centrifugal worldview has an expansive
boundary that enables recognition,
acceptance and constructive interaction
with other world views: knowledge per-
turbation occurs less since the worldview
is directed towards the process of change
634 Glossary
and growth rather than the achievement
of goals. It has a self-actualising frame of
reference that tends to accept the exist-
ence of other knowledges generated by
other world views without interpretation
or judgement. Closed and partially closed
world views cannot relate their frames of
reference to those of other world views,
and are totally self-referring, egocentric,
and directed towards ‘becoming’. Open
world views are capable of developing
referents beyond self while maintaining
self-directedness (ego). The notion of
self can be defined in terms of identity,
and we are aware that there are two forms
of this: individual/unitary, and generic/
pluralistic. Ego can be seen to be respon-
sible for conflict and stand in the way of
cooperation. To enable the reduction of
ego, we note the notion of the Eastern
concept of ‘awareness’ seen as a state of
cognition that enables an actor to trans-
gress its worldview boundary. In so doing,
the actor expands its frame of reference,
thus reducing the significance of self-
reference, and defines a path where know-
ledge is not locally relative to world views
that Eastern mystics might say can lead to
‘enlightenment’. This path enables con-
testing differences to be diminished with
ego since differences are neither contested
nor elaborated.
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 Index

accommodation, 2, 7, 60, 139, 306, 475, 548, analyse and predict, 22

550, 553 analysed situations, 19
adaptability, 174, 270, 466 analytically independent, 30
adaptable, 9, 362, 376, 401, 422 anomalies, 56, 332, 408, 510
adaptive configuration, 20 antenarratives, 70, 204, 438, 497
adaptive learning, 300 anticipation, 162, 434
adaptive learning strategy, 300 anticipation behavioural, 436, 471
adaptive living system, 357 anticipation cognitive, 95
adaptive or innovative learning processes, 54 anticipation structural, 95
administrative hierarchy, 76, 299 anticipatory capacity, 56
adventitious influences, 6, 13, 269, 299, 337, 338, anxiety, 268, 282, 283, 314, 315, 317, 350,
374, 513 553
Affect attributes, 333 application domain, 182
affect skills, 436 artificial life, 468
Affect personality, 23 assimilate, 73, 319
affect theory, 46, 267 assimilation, 2, 7, 60, 139, 318, 346, 355, 475, 547,
affect trait, 281, 308, 310 548, 550, 562
Affect types, 23, 291, 522 associative projection, 171, 172
affect-cognition interactive model, 264 associative projection, collective, 465
affective factors, 268 assumptions, underlying, 524
affective operative intelligence, 24 attitudes and values, 109
agency behavioural systems, 29 attractors, 329, 420, 453, 471, 473, 560
agency coherence, 45 austerity, 212, 396
agency cultural orientation, 147, 163 authoritarian governance, 172
agency framework, 20 authoritarianism, 314, 315
agency misconduct, 151, 168 autogenesis, 7, 82
agency orientations, 22, 23, 195 autonomous agency, 57, 58
agency pathologies, 170, 174, 434, 513 Autonomous Agency Theory, 44
agency pathology, 479 autonomous agents, 95
agency processes, 490 autopathology, 171
agency types, 201 autopoiesis, 7, 82, 155, 165, 166, 234, 270, 400, 550,
agency unitary and plural, 12 554, 556
agent attractor values, 473 autopoiesis and autogenesis, 78
agentic perspective, 135 axioms, 19, 74, 339, 526
agentic trait psychology, 91 axioms cybernetic, 51
agents of viability, 58
aggression, 282, 283, 330, 553 balanced personality, 31, 100, 111, 221, 412
alliance child, 300 balanced values, 35
alliances, 487 Bandura, Albert, 9, 73, 77, 102, 136, 144, 145
alter ego, 524 basic structure of personality, 45
ambition, 210, 265, 273, 306, 508, 515 Bauman, 51, 311, 315, 459, 510

698
 Index 699
Beer, Stafford, 42, 43, 59, 138, 151, 298 cognition personality, 30, 142, 201, 272, 303, 309,
behavioural conduct and misconduct, 22 310, 363, 523
behavioural patterns, 45, 95 cognition theory, 198, 336
behavioural proclivity, 109, 164, 195, 212, 253, 446, cognitive and affective structures and
474, 486 processes, 16
belief system, 50, 108, 338, 556 cognitive aspects of self-organisation, 22
belief-based mindsets, 62 cognitive attributes, 170, 302, 332, 361
beliefs and values, 49 cognitive development, 268, 574
beliefs, values and norms, 46 cognitive information, 236
beliefs, attitudes and values, 154 cognitive interest, 55, 139, 235
Beyond Agency Theory, 527 cognitive interests, 55, 58, 105, 109
bipolar I disorder, 267 cognitive learning, 134, 239
bipolar trait values, 415 cognitive meta-system, 29, 156, 166, 555
bipolar values, 204 cognitive orientation, 60, 143, 147, 366, 487
birth, 341 cognitive purpose, 138, 150, 210
Boje’s trait epistemology, 205 cognitive purposes, 109
boundary conditions, 297, 529 cognitive schema, 378
bounded instability, 175, 178, 458, 560 cognitive structure, 135, 348
brain, 11, 269, 298, 310, 495, 561 cognitive theorists, 84
broader theory, 88 cognitive trait, 150, 185
bureaucracy, 151, 173, 236 cognitive value orientations, 287, 288
bureaucratic, 1, 128, 168, 212, 281 coherent explanations, 526
coherent platform, 29
cacophony of storytelling, 70 coherent society, 50
candidate configurations, 8 coherent theory, 271, 340, 514
canonical Mindscape modes, 15 collaboration, 62
capabilities, 20, 56 collective sociopathology, 172
capabilities adaptive, 72 collective agency, 136, 138, 147, 152, 154, 170, 172,
capabilities of the structure, 179 229, 352
capabilities operative, 301 collective agency efficacy, 142
catalyst, 456 collective behaviours, 46
causal agent, 5 collective efficacy, 136, 142, 238
causal mechanisms, 5, 38, 527 collective identity, 341, 343, 347, 349, 391
causal structure, 135 collective individualism, 222
causal structures, 15, 101 collective intelligence, 139
causation, 101, 527 collective interaction, 109
change in type value, 185 collective psyche, 77, 465
chaos, 175, 179, 223, 244, 438, 447, 468, 487, collective self, 346, 350, 383
512, 560 commensurability, 9, 338
chaos theory, 468 commensurable, 75, 104, 177, 337, 374
chaotic, 229, 244, 329, 458, 467, 486, 487 commensurable configurations, 7
charismatic, 281 common values, 48
child development, 59, 83, 140, 300 communications, 52, 106, 208, 237, 240, 249, 298,
China, 458 379, 381, 558
circular causality, 137 competitive, 30, 68, 70, 103, 391
classes of identity, 351 competitive approaches, 30
classical temperament types, 280 complementary potential, 21
Classificational trait, 101 complex fabric of agent behaviours, 10
classificational universe, 30, 71, 91, 101 complex modelling, 21
climate of fear, 47, 311 complex problems, 28
climate of security, 47, 310 complex processes, 45
closure, 6, 78, 116, 454, 468, 550, 583 complex theory, 2, 3
coexistence, 243, 289, 291 complex world of personality, 30
cognition agency orientation, 23 complexification, 4, 184, 443, 446, 559
cognition and affect framing, 316 Complexity Theory, 42, 73
700 Index
compliance cultural, 50
compliance function, 315
compliance social, 48
compliance with rules, 273
complementary, 21
conceptualisation, 19, 61, 82, 103, 238, 298, 299,
381, 475, 551, 559
conditions of uncertainty, 56, 315
configurative adjustment, 29
configurative instruments, 29
conscious perception of sensation, 269, 565
conscious systems, 268
control imperatives, 474
control process, 300
control processes, 22
controlling value, 158
core principles, 30, 139
core values of Collectivism, 244
corporate personality, 134
creative learning, 7, 300, 301
Critical realism, 38, 475, 527
critical thinking, 56
cross-subjectivity, 122
Cultural Agency Theory, 14, 44, 46, 298, 307
cultural backgrounds, 15, 102
cultural compliance, 314, 315, 316
cultural environment, 54, 152, 153, 169, 212, 213,
265, 271, 275, 281, 299
cultural ideals, 299
cultural instability, 456
cultural orientation in human agency, 109
cultural orientation shift, 487
cultural orientation trait, 213, 221, 224, 510
cultural psychology, 16, 18, 44, 529
cultural structure, 59
cultural trait, 13, 148, 252, 253
cultural trait dynamics, 196
cultural trait instability, 513
cultural trait movement, 491
cultural trait values, 253
cultural value system, 311, 312
cultural value systems, 243
cultural value trait types, 154
cultural values, 18, 49, 205, 441, 453, 474
cultural values study, 45, 195
cybernetic Agency Theory, 12
cybernetic hierarchy, 52
cybernetic living system, 298
cybernetic order, 42
cybernetic psychosocial view, 134
cybernetic rules, 19
cybernetic theory, 13, 73
cyclic cybernetic system, 299
dark personality traits, 17, 330, 393, 507
dark trait potentials, 17
dark traits, 17, 62, 332
Dark Triad, 330
decision rules, 57
deep simplicity, 10, 177, 473, 508, 512, 517
development affective, 268
diagnosis, 19, 21, 157
differences in value, 123
differentiated value, 240
directional, 30, 100, 106, 109
directional stream, 109, 111
dispositions durable, 14, 581
dissipative structures, 179, 467
dissipative systems, 43
domain-specific theory, 30
domains of Being, 74, 93
dominant cultural values, 473
dominant value orientations, 304
dominant values, 443, 456
Donald Trump, 332, 378, 392
durable structure, 465
Dynamic Identity Model, 65, 337
Dynamic Identity Theory, 45
dynamic instability, 50
dynamic interaction, 16, 363, 443, 447, 484
dynamic personality models, 1
dynamic system, 16, 78, 270, 460
dynamic tension, 513
dynamical structure, 461
Effective elaboration, 56
Elaboration, 56, 264, 296, 461
emergent structure, 176
emotion and temperament, 271
emotion knowledge, 24
emotion regulation, 24, 45, 294, 301, 522
emotional attitude, 272, 301, 302
emotional climate, 529
emotional climate trait, 289, 510, 521
emotional climate values, 289
emotional display, 272, 301
emotional organisation, 23
emotional states, 267
empirically derived trait schemas, 14
enactment identity, 344
enantiodromia, 85, 94, 146, 204, 550, 551, 557
enantiomer type values, 151
enantiomer type value, 150
enantiomers, 30, 32, 146
enantype sensing/intuition, 94
enantypes, 30, 85, 88, 93, 100, 113, 131, 551
enantypes Jungian, 114
enantypes non-primary, 93
enantypes of personality, 94
enantypes perceiving/judging, 95
 Index 701
enantypes primary, 93 figurative trait, 150, 168, 185
enantypes stable, 95 figurative trait information, 153
enantypes thinking/feeling, 94, 95 figurative/noumenal system, 295
enantypes, personality temperament, 96 first-order cybernetic process, 59
Encodings, 64 Five-Factor Model, 13, 68, 88, 101, 112, 380, 548
enlightenment, 50 formal approach, 18, 19, 20, 527
Epistemic, x, 3, 38, 41, 199, 217, 218, 246, 356 formal language, 19, 44, 433
epistemic and ontological complexity of formal proofs, 19
a theory, 3 formal schema, 19
epistemic mapping, 8, 220, 275, 279, 304, 511 formal structure, 19
epistemic parsimony, 3 Formal theories, 20
epistemic patterns of knowledge, 236 formal theory, 19
epistemic types, 15 formalised Agency Theory, 20
epistemic value properties, 239 formative trait configuration, 14
epistemic value set, 508 formative trait pathologies, 330
epistemic values, 249, 257, 508 formative trait theory, 14
epistemological meta-types, 15, 63, 101 formative traits, 9, 10
epistemological relativism, 37, 55, 475 forms of value sets, 222
epistemologically heterogeneous, 15 formulaic expressions, 19
equilibrium conditions, 22, 68 formulation of theory, 70
espoused strategies, 56, 57 foundational causes, 5
ethics, 237 fractal effects, 511
Evaluation tests, 15 fractal patterns, 464
Evolution, 43, 219 fragmentation of personality psychology, 1
execution information, 57 frame of reference, 20, 30, 31
exercise in configurations, 68 frame of reference, constructive, 465
existential, 54, 55, 57, 77, 109, 464 frame of reference, single, 415
existential domain, 54, 55, 79, 93, 94, 104, 105, 307 frame of reference, three-dimensional, 93
existential drift, 82 frame of thought, 21
existential element, 106 future planning, 58
existential nature, 101
existential system, 302 general framework, 68
Expectancies and Beliefs, 64 general intelligence, 61, 62
expectations, 50, 58 general model, 526
expectations role, 369, 372 general structure, 45
experience, 548, 549, 552, 556 General Systems Theory, 73
experiential, 37, 64, 69, 91 general theories defined, 4
external environment, 64 general theory development, 9
Extreme Physical Information, 44, 433, 459, general theory of agency, 5
470, 526 general theory of personality, 103
extroversion, 11, 84, 88 general theory of viable autonomous systems, 467
generic characteristics, 10, 137
feedback processes, 5 generic classes of identity, 351
feed-forward, 52, 272, 299, 300, 306, 401 generic cybernetic model, 139
feeling, 2, 47, 64, 77, 84, 104, 113, 157, 264, 265, generic cybernetic theory, 137
268, 269, 296, 314, 377, 466, 517, 564 generic domains, 295
feeling/thinking enantypes, 96 generic epistemology, 54
FFM, 13, 14, 16, 21, 68, 71, 72, 85, 548, 549 generic frame of reference, 331
field of influence, 55, 62, 234, 310, 473 generic framework, 51
figurative intelligence, 7, 54, 59, 96, 237, 362, 439, generic identities, 354
524, 554, 556 generic knowledge structures, 198
figurative intelligence conduit, 235 generic living systems framework, 302
figurative orientation, 143, 146, 147, 213 generic meso rules, 10, 496
figurative schemas, 553 generic meso structures, 177
figurative system, 52, 55, 56, 237, 238, 303, 361 generic meso rules, 517
702 Index
generic model, 22, 32, 40, 140, 145, 146, 235, Identity measures, 416
236, 302 identity pathologies, 370, 393
generic modelling, 46 identity relationships, 330
generic models, 41, 42 identity systemic hierarchy, 357
generic paradigm, 39 Identity theorists, 369
generic platform, 9, 32 Identity Theory, 134, 330, 331, 335, 345, 346, 371
generic psychosocial model, 21 identity types, 390
generic rule structures, 178 immanent dynamics, 22, 162, 180, 185, 329, 434,
generic rules, 13, 76, 177, 512 441, 486, 510
generic schema, 11 Immanent trait dynamics, 34
generic sociocognitive trait theory, 23 indicative behaviours, 33
generic structure, 272 individualism, 240
generic type traits, 310 individualism and collectivism, 23, 195, 196, 221,
Glanville, Ranulph, 300 240, 249, 508
goal achievement, 24 Inference, 55
goals, and beliefs, 240 informal descriptions, 19
goals, collective, 223 informal language, 19
goals, personal, 16, 210 Information Theory, 20
goals, pursued, 24 inherent structure, 464
goals, set of, 157 innovation, 7, 62, 560
goals, strategic, 237 instability cultural, 51, 158, 210, 249, 311, 447
goal-values, 289, 290 instability emotional, 32, 376
Gross, 559 instability identity, 376
Gross, James, 45, 270, 271, 294, 295, 301, 302, 309 instability in moods, 377
group cacophony, 438 instability social, 311
instrumental agency, 58
Habermas, Jürgen, 100, 104, 105, 341, 492 instrumental couple, 57, 378, 392
harmony orientation, 210 instrumental judgements, 151, 168, 211
hierarchy of control, 344 instrumental role, 52
hierarchy, subordination to, 168 instrumental systems, 54
highest goal-values, 299 intangibles, 20
historical fragmentation, 69 integrated systems theory, 1
historical patterns, 437 intellectual autonomy, 210, 244
homeostasis, 82, 150, 168, 182 Intelligent agencies, 58
homogeneous value, 47 intentionality, 55, 95
horizon, 20, 68, 69, 73, 179, 475, 482, 528 interaction model of personality, 85
human agency, 68, 109, 110, 138 interactive parts, 19
hyperincursive systems, 468 interactive relationships, 45
hypotheses, 56, 271, 460 internal structure, 477
internalisation, 2, 63, 548, 562
ideate, 63 internalisation of experiences, 65, 348
ideate schema, 477 internalisation of scripts, 131
ideate structures, 105 internalisation of some situational effect, 2
ideational cultural orientation, 209 internalisation process, 150
ideational value system, 474 internalisation, process of, 340
identity and reflection, 5 internalised patterns, 475
identity and the emergence of consciousness, 82 inter-trait connections, 22
identity as a part of personality, 45 intrapsychic situations, 2, 13
identity as a variable, 335 introversion, 84, 88, 213
identity classification, 414 intuition, 2, 84, 94, 113, 115, 269
identity cleavages, 514 intuitive narrative schemas, 527
identity conflicts, 17
identity development, 344 judgement, 88, 113
identity facade, 339 Jung, Carl, 14, 32, 83, 85, 204, 440
identity instability, 428 Jungian theory, 20
 Index
KC, 70, 74, 75, 88, 93, 100, 104, 113, 131
kinematic, 30, 100, 106, 109, 130, 131, 132, 552
knowledge constituents, 20
Knowledge Cybernetics, 29, 30, 42, 43, 70, 74,
138, 139
knowledge scripts, 129
knowledge-based approach, 29
latency, 30, 31, 100, 109, 114, 115
latency semantic stream, 110
latency stream, 110
legitimising environment, 299
lines of thought, 45
liquid society, 51, 311, 510
liquidity, 51
living system, 4, 478, 523, 554
living system complexification, 6
living system framework, 9
living system generic model, 453
living system model, 170, 460
living system structures, 17
living system theory, 9, 10, 510
local value interactions, 458
logical dynamic structure, 460
long-lasting values, 14
loose cultures, 50, 311, 315
703
Mindscape type, 127
Mindscapes, 31, 62, 120, 132, 132, 195, 514
Mindscapes in relation to Mindsets, 20
Mindset Agency Theory, 9, 16, 44, 60, 63, 363,
382, 470, 510, 511
Mindset theory, 61, 63, 196
Mindset trait relationships, 438
Mindset trait types, 383
modelling the organisation, 21
modern society, 51
modernism, 50
Modernity, 50
modes of practice, 70, 102, 138
mood, 2, 266, 297, 301, 521
mood positive or negative, 153, 271
mood state, 267
mood states, 2
mood swings, 526
motivate, 16, 205, 233, 282
motivational relevance, 69, 105
motivations, 9, 83, 88, 113, 115, 141, 157, 171, 346
multidisciplinary, 526
multiple identities, 45, 371
Multiple Identity, vi
mutual contexts, 24
Myers–Briggs Type Indicator, 74

Machiavellianism, 17, 330, 507, 514, 517 Náprstek, 49, 50

magic bullet, 69 Narcissism, 17, 330, 507, 514, 517
maladaptive patterns, 373 narcissistic mood China, 521
managerial intelligence, 24 narrative schemas, 19
Maruyama, 14, 15, 18, 23, 195 narrative theory, 70, 526
Maruyama schema, 15 narratives, content analysis, 409
Maruyama universe, 30 narratives, election, 397
Maruyama universes, 20, 29, 30, 71, 72, 97 narratives, evolving, 439
mastery + affective autonomy, 210 narratives, lifeworld, 439
mastery value, 248 natural language, 19
MBTI schema, 20 nature of affect, 266
mental patterns, 113 Nechansky, 265, 289, 291, 300
mental structure, 319 network of processes, 33
meso structure, 10, 13, 474, 477, 517 neuronal activity, 269
meso structures, 512, 517, 526 new theory, 18
meta-framework, 21, 138 non-primitive identity, 6
meta-analysis, 8, 9, 14, 100, normal behaviour, 57
511, 548 normal science, 69, 70,
meta-object, 38, 527, 548, 562 normative compliance, 135
meta-ontology, 52 normative patterns, 47
metaphor, 75, 101, 134, 467 Normative Personality Theory, 24
meta-structure, 45 normative values, 105
meta-types, vii, 15, 131, 220, 221 noumenal, 54, 55, 75, 141
methodology, 18, 332, 379, 409 noumenal domain, 54, 55, 77, 79, 93, 105, 307, 478
migration process, 29, 30, 74, 129 noumenal ideate, 461
Mindscape analysis, 15 noumenal system, 95, 476
Mindscape theory, 21, 30, 31, 45, 63, 71, 100, noumenon, 55, 460, 462, 465, 477, 478, 486, 528,
101, 102 555, 561
704 Index
novelty, 205, 281, 514 penchants rather than preferences, 210
numerical values, 471 perceiving/judging enantypes, 96
Perception, 88, 113
observed, 209 personal identity, 142, 345
Occam’s razor, 3, 332, 414, 418, 420, 421, 424 personality attributes, 10, 30, 63, 93, 165, 201
ontic, 63, 65, 67 personality characterisation, 15
Ontological analysis, 8, 41, 347, 367, 549 personality characteristics, 15, 40, 101, 102
ontological hierarchy, 74 personality dispositions, 57, 373, 380
ontological parsimony, 3 personality exemplar, 9
ontological realism, 37, 55, 475, 476 personality factors, 16, 72
ontologies, 155, 339, 367, 549 personality is complex, 3
ontology, 3, 38, 41, 52, 367 personality pathologies, 45, 65
ontology dual, 298 personality processes, 2
open capacity, 70 personality psychology for complex agencies, 507
operative activities, 57, 354, 356 personality psychology fragmentation, 510
operative capabilities, 301, 524 personality schemas, 21
operative couple, 165 personality structure, 2
operative intelligence, 58, 59, 83, 154, 155, 165, 234, personality structures, 16, 109, 141, 143, 553
235, 238, 439, 553 personality temperament, 20, 83, 93, 95, 98, 112,
operative intention, 57 114, 190
operative schemas, 57 personality temperament theory, 72
operative system, 52, 57, 93, 94, 234, 237, 400 personality theory, 2, 29, 32, 70, 72, 188
operative trait, 34, 151, 153 personality trait, 252
organisation theory, 46, 300 personality types, 33
organisational models, 21 perturbations, 49, 162, 179, 180, 466, 487, 488,
organisational pathologies, 22 517, 552
organisational structure, 140 phenomenal domain, 54, 55, 77, 79, 104, 105, 307
organised operations, 19 phenomenal reality, 75
orientations, 30 Piaget, 549, 550, 553
overarching framework, 45 Piaget, Jean, 5, 39, 54, 91, 140, 268, 300
Piaget’s theory, 59
parsimony, 547 plural affect agency, 23, 24
partial information, 156 plural agency, 55, 233
patterns of agent interactions, 525 plural agency neuroses, 175
patterns of attitudes, 485 plural agency processes, 134
patterns of behaviour, 22, 34, 53, 62, 103, 137, 147, plural agency values, 158
158, 159, 308 plurality of schemas, 29
patterns of behavioural coherence, 465, 566, 567 polar opposites, 20, 146, 224, 557
patterns of change, 72 polar value, 406
patterns of cognition, 101, 376 policy foreign, 291
patterns of conceptual information, 236 policy inconsistency, 396
patterns of cultural knowledge, 154 policy initiatives, 425
patterns of functionality, 14, 581, 629 policy making, 201
patterns of interaction, 438 policy promotion, 312
patterns of knowledge, 59, 77, 83 policy provisions, 174
patterns of perceiving, 145 policy strategic, 229
patterns of performance, 141 political narratives, 18
patterns of personality orientations, 185 political structure, 173
patterns of relationships, 453 political temperament, 114
patterns of self-organisation, 78 political temperament metric, 120
patterns of strategic information, 237 politics of instrumental democracy, 223
patterns of structured information, 237 post-hoc propositions, 72
patterns of variation, 2 post-modern, 73, 103
patterns or organisation, 7 post-modernity, 51
penchants, 29, 153, 490 post-normal science, 70
 Index 705
post-normal situations, 68 regulation of the patterns of behaviour, 169
practitioners, 30 regulation theory, 510
predict, 32, 177, 435 regulation, emotion, 24
predict behaviour, 200 relational linkages, 72
predict history, 529 relationology, 15
predictable patterns of variability, 63 relevantial universe, 21, 30, 72, 91, 101, 113
predicting behaviour, 23, 200 requisite efficacy, 155, 157, 167
predictive value, 34, 279 requisite responses, 33, 157
preferences, 84 Requisite value penchants, 33
preferences basic, 113 requisite variety, 78
preferences incoherent, 311 role specifications, 57, 354
preferences personal, 350
Prigogine, Ilya, 4, 43, 175, 179, 467 salience hierarchy, 372
primitive identity, 5 scalar value, 145
principle of parsimony, 3, 40 scale of values, 74
principles of Mindscape Theory, 16 schema, 19
process of configuration, 13 schema commensurability, 30
proclivity bias, 473 schemas, 7
propositional statements, 19 Schwartz value universe, 243
propositions of a theory, 3 Schwartz’s value set, 514
psychohistory, 433, 435, 436, 459, 470, 475, 490, Schwarz, 29, 46, 54, 79, 91, 138
491, 499, 526, 527, 529 second-order cybernetic process, 58
psychological functions, 84 second-order observation, 16
psychological tests, 16 self as identity, 343
Psychopathy, 17, 330, 507, 514, 517 Self-awareness, 56
public identity, 348, 383 self-consciousness, 56, 350
public identity facade, 402 self-creation, 7, 51, 78, 82
self-determining, 9, 59, 200, 298
qualitative structure, 378 self-efficacy, 64, 82, 136, 142, 144, 153, 370, 547
qualitative behaviour, 49 self-esteem, 62, 82, 153, 156, 268, 338, 342, 350,
370, 372, 553
range of values, 252, 289 self-identity, 55
rational thought, 268 self-identity theory, 336, 374
rationality, 2, 57 self-moderation of behaviour, 58
rationality processes of, 465 self-organisational processes, 12, 524
rationality view, 198 self-production, 7, 51, 57, 78, 82, 468, 524, 548
real-world applications, 19 self-reference and autonomy, 78
Reality, 38, 460 self-reference and identity, 152, 169, 213
reasoned, 209 self-reference and learning, 299
reciprocal determinism, 16 Self-referencing, 56
recursive, 143 self-reflection, 52
recursive applications, 453 self-regulate personality, 302
recursive capability, 3 self-regulating process, 268
recursive Delphi rationale, 418 self-regulation, 9, 16, 82, 95
recursive mature of living systems, 170 self-regulation processes, 273
recursive model, 361 self-regulatory processes, 16, 141
recursive modelling, 42, 75 semantic streams, 30, 32, 100, 101, 109, 111, 112, 131
recursive modelling processes, 489 semantic-good, 52
recursive patterns, 461 sensate value, 163
recursive principle, 375 sensing, 84, 94, 113, 115, 130
recursive processes, 467 sensing/intuition, 94, 95
recursive structure, 76, 178 service utility, 52
recursive structures, 42 Simon, Hebert A., 76
regulating traits, 23 Simon, Herbert A., 178, 338, 342, 473
regulation of behaviour, 198, 348 simple-minded typologies, 15
706 Index
simplexity, 10, 473, 484 stream of experience, 64
simplexity structure, 438 streams, 30, 105, 106, 109, 111, 114, 126
situation awareness, 55, 264, 295 Strong norms, 50
skills, 41, 56, 88, 113 structural constraints, 58
skills and social competencies, 16 structural imperatives, 57
skills self-regulatory, 154 structural stability, 47, 49, 491
S-MBTI, 30, 31, 91, 113, 114, 132 structurally stable culture, 50
social and ambient culture orientations, 147 structure, 42, 146, 352, 550, 551, 552, 557, 560, 562
social and moral development, 268 structure emerges, 180
social identity, 65, 341, 348 structure or personality, 9
social identity theory, 336 subjectivity, 50, 100, 106, 136, 379, 410, 516
social motives, 205 sub-structural attributes of Agency Theory, 272
social norms, 33, 50 Substructure, vii, 4, 5, 8, 9, 19, 51, 357, 467, 526
social physics, 20, 466 superstructural model, 302, 357
social psychology, 346 superstructure, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 19, 51, 68, 180, 467,
social structure, 93, 343, 355, 371 511, 526, 548
social thought, 267 supersystem structure, 304
social trait, 152, 257, 436 survival values, 273
social uncertainty, 51, 443, 446 symbolic representation, 19
Socialisation, 318 system hierarchy, 51, 52, 76, 178, 473, 550
socioaffective bonds, 268 system of thought, 75
Sociocognitive approaches, 16 systems science, 19
sociocognitive explanations, 21, 30, 69, 91 systems theory, 95
sociocognitive personality theory of self, 74
sociocognitive processes, 91 tactical settings, 55
sociocognitive self-theory, 72 tangible, 20, 313
sociocognitive theory, 68, 69, 73 tangible attributes, 20
sociocognitive theory of self, 30 task environment, 54, 165
sociocognitive trait theory, 101 temperament definition, 279
sociocognitive type theory, 15 temperament theory, 14, 264
sociocultural dynamics, 44, 46, 51, 93, 440, 508 temperament types, 83
Sociocultural environments, 16 temperamental classifications, 15
sociocultural psychology, 15, 20 test–retest processes, 15
sociologists, 101 theatre metaphor, 171
sociopathic, 151, 168, 170, 171, 172, 377, 521 thematic domain, 70
Sociopsychology, v, 20, 29 thematically related schemas, 30
Sorokin, Pitrim, 51 theoretical parsimony, 3
spastic or disjointed personality, 31 theoretical structures, 68, 378
stable patterns, 120 theoretical transparency, 16
stable patterns of overt behaviour, 16 theory complexification, 4
stable patterns or organisation, 16 theory defined, 4
stable personalities, 32 theory of cleavage, 65
stable states of behaviour, 59 theory of complexity, 3
stable value, 329 theory of contexts, 75
standards for performance, 16 theory of knowledge, 82, 267
state value, 484 theory building, 4, 7, 271
state values, 329 Theresa May, 332, 395, 421, 423, 427
states of reality, 59, 165, 236, 554 thinking/feeling, 88
status of a theory, 72 third-order cybernetics, 29
stereotypes, 7, 15, 508, 513, 517, 525 thoughts and feelings, 2
strategic change, 62 tight cultures, 50, 315
strategic cultural intelligence, 24 trait, 85, 145, 146, 181, 201, 549, 551, 555, 556, 560
strategic identity, 376 trait approaches, 88
strategic information model, 337 trait biases, 479, 480
strategic schemas, 237 trait changes, 47
 Index 707
trait control processes, 22 type value, 166, 185
trait dimensions, 205 type value penchants, 33
trait dynamics, 507, 513 type value sets, 523
trait enantiomer, 252
trait evaluations, 379 unanticipated perturbations, 59
trait growth potential, 492 underlying theory, 19
trait instabilities, 65, 525 unitary agency, 41
trait interactions, 374 unpredictable patterns of behaviour, 179
trait model, 162, 264 Unstable culture, 311
trait orientations, 167
trait proclivity, 482 value and belief, 75
trait psychology, 470 value concept, 205
trait schemas, 68, 147 value judgements, 269
trait space, x, 20, 116, 119, 129, 213 value orientations, 287, 305
trait space for Mindscapes, 130, 132 value system, 49
trait system, 154, 180 value types, 205
trait systems, 152, 155 value universe, 249
trait theories, 2 value-based Mindsets, 62
trait theorists, 84 values and norms, 49
trait theory, 18, 24, 137, 197, 200, 221, values of social hierarchy, 286
374, 514 values, espoused, 524
trait theory of personality, 63 van Egeren, 33
trait trajectory, 470 viability proposition, 51
trait type, 156, 375, 412, 413 viable living system, 51
trait type balances, 333 viable system, 59, 233, 234, 300
trait type value, 14, 33, 169, 181, 185, 456, 491 Vygotsky, Lev Semyonovich, 300
trait variable, 115, 185
trait-like tendencies, 266 weak norms, 47, 50, 314
traits local, 33 well-defined structure, 60
trajectories, 50, 178, 179, 438, 474, 552, 560 worldview, 32, 138, 301, 442, 467, 551, 560
type approach, 20, 84, 98 worldviews, 51, 75, 138, 561
type theory, 21, 337, 374
type values, 10, 32, 150, 151, 162, 204, 375 yin-yang, 32