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

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

When Loss Reward: The Near-Miss Effect in Slot Machine Gamblin

An intriguing feature of near-miss outcomes in slot-machine gambling is that, while they are objectively losses, they motivate further play. The “near-miss effect” contradicts standard reinforcement theory in which failure should punish, rather than reward, responding. This critical review first examines neurophysiological research which seeks correlates and perhaps causes of this effect. The search for a neurophysiological substrate reveals that near-misses recruit similar reward-orientated brain regions to those involved in wins. However, two additional research traditions complicate this picture. The first seeks “cognitive distortions” that are held to motivate further play in the face of near-misses. The second claims that contextual factors, inherent in the programming of the machines and the physical arrangement of gambling milieux, modify responses to near-miss outcomes. A recurring theme in all research traditions is the role of a possible source of reinforcement separate from the effect of monetary wins and a potential link between this secondary reinforcement and arousal in players. The paper seeks to diversify the context of slot-machine gambling by arguing that that it is a form of consumer behavior and, as such, influenced by “informational” or symbolic reinforcement as well as by “utilitarian” or functional reinforcement. It compares the behavior of slotmachine gamblers and its consequences with those of economic consumers generally and proposes a framework within which the near-miss phenomenon can be comprehended

The theory of the marketing firm

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)The theory of the marketing firm locates the rationale of the modern business enterprise that lies in its responding profitably to the imperatives of marketing orientation. Economic theories of the firm generally fail to recognize these imperatives, enhanced consumer choice and sophistication, which entail marketing orientation as the rationale of the firm. The paper propose a competence theory of the firm as a metacontingency and examines the bilateral contingencies by which firms link to their consumerates, which indicate their capacities for customer orientation. The marketing firm emerges as a means of encapsulating entrepreneurship, economizing on transaction costs, and enabling the management of marketing specialization."Peer Reviewed

Intentional behaviorism revisited

ABSTRACT: The central fact in the delineation of radical behaviorism is its conceptual avoidance of propositional content. This eschewal of the intentional stance sets it apart not only from cognitivism but from other neo-behaviorisms. Indeed, the defining characteristic of radical behaviorism is not that it avoids mediating processes per se but that it sets out to account for behavior without recourse to propositional attitudes. Based, rather, on the contextual stance, it provides definitions of contingency-shaped, rule-governed verbal and private behaviors which are non-intentional. However, while the account provided by radical behaviorism fulfills the pragmatic criteria of prediction and control of its subject matter, it has problems of explanation that stem from the failure of radical behaviorist interpretation to address the personal level of analysis, to provide for the continuity of behavior, and to show how its accounts can be delimited in the face of causal equifinality. This leaves gaps in its explanation that radical behaviorists choose either to ignore or to fill with the very intentional locutions that they formally abhor but which I argue are essential. As a result, many psychologists who style themselves radical behaviorists have already moved beyond radical behaviorism as a philosophy of science. They have done so primarily as a result of adopting the language of intentional psychology in order to explain behavior; where they have not done this, they have resorted to the unscientific assumption that somewhere there is a learning history that explains their data. While it is indeed the case that a learning history precedes all operant behavior, the explanatory gap that is revealed by the search for this unobtainable information reveals the inescapability of intentionality. Hence, psychologists, including radical behaviorists, are right to employ it. The challenge is to understand why this is so and to celebrate rather than denigrate the resulting extension of behavioral science. In this response

Metacognitive control of categorial neurobehavioral decision systems

The competing neuro-behavioral decision systems (CNDS) model proposes that the degree to which an individual discounts the future is a function of the relative hyperactivity of an impulsive system based on the limbic and paralimbic brain regions and the relative hypoactivity of an executive system based in prefrontal cortex (PFC). The model depicts the relationship between these categorial systems in terms of the antipodal neurophysiological, behavioral, and decision (cognitive) functions that engender normal and addictive responding. However, a case may be made for construing several components of the impulsive and executive systems depicted in the model as categories (elements) of additional systems that are concerned with the metacognitive control of behavior. Hence, this paper proposes a category-based structure for understanding the effects on behavior of CNDS, which includes not only the impulsive and executive systems of the basic model but a superordinate level of reflective or rational decision-making. Following recent developments in the modeling of cognitive control which contrasts Type 1 (rapid, autonomous, parallel) processing with Type 2 (slower, computationally demanding, sequential) processing, the proposed model incorporates an arena in which the potentially conflicting imperatives of impulsive and executive systems are examined and from which a more appropriate behavioral response than impulsive choice emerges. This configuration suggests a forum in which the interaction of picoeconomic interests, which provide a cognitive dimension for CNDS, can be conceptualized. This proposition is examined in light of the resolution of conflict by means of bundling

Consumer behavior analysis and the marketing firm: bilateral contingency in the context of environmental concern

Consumer behavior analysis provides an operant understanding of consumption as the result of the scope of the consumer behavior setting and the pattern of reinforcement that maintains it. The theory of the marketing firm shows how organizations respond to consumer behavior by managing the consumer behavior setting scope and pattern of reinforcement. Environment-impacting consumption and corporate attempts to reverse its impact can therefore be understood in operant terms. The question remains how we can understand the relationship between a complex contextual system like a firm, the behavior of which is predictable and controllable by considering its emergent operant consequences, and the collective behaviors of consumers, each of whom is a contextual system responding uniquely to the peculiar pattern of contingencies that shapes and maintains its behavior. This article seeks the solution in terms of bilateral contingencies and seeks to relate these to issues arising from the theory of metacontingency and macrobehavior

The neurophysiological behavioural perspective model and its contribution to the intentional behaviourist research programme

Cognitive explanations raise epistemological problems not faced by accounts confined to observable variables. Many explanatory components of cognitive models are unobservable: beliefs, attitudes, and intentions, for instance, must be made empirically available to the researcher in the form of measures of observable behavior from which the latent variables are inferred. The explanatory variables are abstract and theoretical and rely, if they are to enter investigations and explanations, on reasoned agreement on how they can be captured by proxy variables derived from what people say and how they behave. Psychometrics must be founded upon a firm, intersubjective agreement among researchers and users of research on the relationship of behavioral measures to the intentional constructs to which they point and the latent variables they seek to operationalize. Only if these considerations are adequately addressed can we arrive at consistent interpretations of the data. This problem provides the substance of the intentional behaviorist research programme which seeks to provide a rationale for the cognitive explanation. Within this programme, two versions of the Behavioral Perspective Model (BPM), an extensional portrayal of socioeconomic behavior and a corresponding intentional approach, address the task of identifying where intentional explanation becomes necessary and the form it should take. This study explores a third version, based on neurophysiological substrates of consumer choice as a contributor to this task. The nature of “value” is closely related to the rationale for a neurophysiological model of consumer choice. The variables involved are operationally specified and measured with high intersubjective agreement. The intentional model (BPM-I), depicting consumer action in terms of mental processes such as perception, deliberation, and choice, extends the purview of the BPM to new situations and areas of explanation

The marketing firm as a metacontingency: revealing the mutual relationships between marketing and finance

This paper reveals the mutual relationship between a firm’s marketing behavior and its financial consequences. With panel data from publicly traded companies covering 17 years, we obtained the total expenditures in marketing of each company to represent marketing behavior and five financial outcomes, depicting the reinforcers. Each metric was composed of frequency, magnitude, and delay dimensions. The results show mutual effects between investments in marketing activities (aggregate product of interlocking behavioral contingencies of the firm) and the firm’s financial reinforcements (consequences of this product), thus corroborating the existence of metacontingencies in the marketing to finance relationship and undermatching in the finance to marketing relationship

The reinforcing and aversive consequences of customer experience. the role of consumer confusion

This study aims to provide insights on the concept of experience, its effect on consumer behavior and the role of previous experiences. It uses a behavioral framework and measures the reinforcing and aversive experiential influences on (approach and avoidance) behavior. The study involved 260 participants from an online research panel. The descriptions of two retail situations were used, chosen to differ in terms of levels of previous experience/learning history. The results indicate that confusion, as aversive consequence of retail situations, acts along with functional and social reinforcement to determine behavior. The study further explains and proves the role of accumulated previous encounters on determining the reinforcing and aversive elements of experience. The implications for theory and marketing management are discussed