CAMOUFLAGED AGGRESSION AND PERSONALITY
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CAMOUFLAGED AGGRESSION AND PERSONALITY |
ANYONE IS CAPABLE of engaging in camouflaged aggression within an environment conducive to its expression, particularly one in which such behaviour is normative. However, it is not possible to fully understand any setting which involves prolonged interaction among individuals without consideration of the personalities of those individuals who comprise its social milieu. Whether and how an individual expresses aggression in any situation is determined by the interaction between that environment and the individual’s personality: the relatively enduring characteristics of the individual.
Structural sociology theory (e.g., Marxist theories; the social strain theory of Merton, 1968) has promoted a conception of human nature that grossly underemphasizes the role of individual personality factors. This theory also ignores the role of intentionality, reducing it to a mere possibility within the social context. Such emphasis on structure at the expense of process was referred to by Wrong (1961) as the “over-socialized” conception of human beings. This conception denies that human beings are active agents who each bring specific biographies, perspectives, and dispositions with them to the environments in which they interact. These specific factors lead them to act in different ways within the same social context. An adequate model of human interaction in organizations must synthesize environmental and personality factors and adopt a psychosocial perspective. How people function in any social setting is a function of the interaction of personality and circumstance. It should be further stressed here that personality is not a mere constellation of inclinations, preferences, and tastes acquired in the course of development. Personality is fundamentally rooted in one’s brain structures, physiology, and genetic inheritance. Advanced medical imaging is now revealing that all types of mental illness and personality disorders, and many forms of social and sexual deviance, evidence certain brain damages or abnormal brain functioning.
A psychosocial perspective is also essential to an understanding of how aggression is expressed (or suppressed) in organizations. In the case of camouflaged aggression, the interaction between organizational structures and personality, particularly disordered personality, is expected to be influenced by two main processes:
1. Quantity to quality conversion. Erich Fromm (1955) argued that the character and functioning of organizations can be strongly influenced by the preponderance of certain personality types within them. This phenomenon is propagated by a process of recruitment whereby members of management seek to hire individuals who resemble them in personality style. As a result, an increase in the number of individuals possessing a certain personality trait or orientation yields an alteration in the nature of the organization; quantity converts to quality. For example, having more than one manager with a paranoid personality orientation may lead to the development of excessive surveillance and supervision, which may in turn lead to the hiring of more security-oriented managers.
2. Personality-job fit. The organizational research dealing with the compatibility between the characteristics of personality and job is extensive. The personality–job fit theory (see, e.g., Caplan, 1987) postulates that the closer the traits between the person and the job, the higher the chance of workplace productivity and satisfaction. The personality-job fit would imply a match between predominantly positive (prosocial) characteristics belonging to both the individual and the job. But there are cases where this fit is between antisocial traits of the worker and the job structures. Perhaps the word “marriage” would be symbolically more appropriate in this context than the word “fit,” since marriage can involve disharmony and schism in the midst of a cooperative unity. There is always the possibility of an adaptive match between negative personality traits and the structures of the position. An example of this match is the compatibility and adaptiveness of a passive-aggressive style to complex hierarchical structures. This compatibility enhances the motivation of such an incumbent to aggress and to avail him- or herself of all available opportunities for that purpose. As a result, camouflaged aggression is likely to resonate and thrive around such incumbents. The organization may well founder under the force of myriad rules and procedures which appear benign but owe their development to the aggressive needs of disordered personalities placed in certain positions. An onlooker might attribute the resultant deterioration of the organization to its excessive bureaucratization, whereas the real source of the problem is to be found, not in bureaucratic procedures per se, but in the psycho-structural fit between the position’s structures and the personality of certain incumbents.
The view that humans are abstract generalized sociocultural entities is rejected from the perspective of this text in favour of an interactive one which stresses that the socialization of people into a social system is never entirely successful and that no social system is immune to the aberrations of personality or brain disorders.
Camouflaged Aggression and Personality Disorders
The category of personality disorders is a broad one. It includes behaviour problems that differ greatly in form and severity. Some individuals exhibit extremely unethical or criminal behaviour and are unable to function in a normal setting; many of them are incarcerated in prisons or secure psychiatric hospitals. Others function adequately and may be highly successful in their careers but have deeply imbedded and long-standing antisocial personality traits that make them troublesome or difficult to get along with and cause problems for themselves and others in social or occupational situations.
There are ten personality disorders diagnosed according to their most prominent behavioural characteristics (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). These disorders all evidence a persistent interpersonal conduct leading to fractured relationships and causing considerable suffering to those with whom they come in contact. An organization whose membership includes individuals with any of the personality disorders described in this chapter can be crippled by the impact of such individuals on the way aggression is expressed within that organization. Such individuals may achieve positions of considerable influence in organizations in spite of their personality disorders or possibly because of them. The influence of even one such individual can be staggering.
In order to identify the organizational features of personality disorders it may be useful to distinguish them from other psychiatric disorders with which they are often confused. There are three broad categories of abnormal behaviour.
a. Psychosis: disorders characterized by a severe rift with reality, associated with delusions, hallucinations, and/or extreme changes in mood. Psychosis is seen in those with schizophrenia, psychotic paranoia, and affective disorders (including bipolar disorder and psychotic depression).
b. Psychoneurosis: disorders in which there is no loss of contact with reality but the individual’s efficiency may be impaired by anxiety, guilt, depression, or fear. Symptoms may include phobia, hypochondria, obsessive-compulsiveness, psychogenic pain, panic attacks, excessive tension, inhibition, psychological conflicts, and ambivalence.
c. Personality disorders: disorders that present, to a certain extent, the converse of psychoneurosis. Reduced, rather than excessive, anxiety predominates, and conflicts are acted out on others rather than against self. These disorders are essentially interpersonal ones; they are also more resistant to change and modification than are neuroses.
Since the turn of the twentieth century, much clinical interest and research has been devoted to the study of psychoses and psychoneuroses. Much less medical and academic research and theorizing has occurred in the case of personality disorders. Research attention to personality disorders has been relatively meagre and surprisingly late in blooming. For example, serious research on psychopathy started to take place only in the late 1970s, over thirty years after the publication of Harvey Cleckley’s Mask of Sanity in 1941, a work which provided a comprehensive clinical profile of the psychopath. This disparity in the volume of research could be explained by the fact that psychotics are more accessible to professionals because the generally debilitative effects of these conditions require long-term psychiatric supervision. In the case of neuroses, individuals themselves often seek professional help in order to alleviate distressing symptoms. In personality disorders, these conditions seldom apply. Individuals with personality disorders do not suffer from manifest impairments of their rational faculties or of their everyday functioning. They also seldom experience personal distress or a need for symptom alleviation or self-improvement. Accordingly, such individuals are less likely to come under the scrutiny of professionals.
Psychotic or psychoneurotic individuals can create many problems in organizations, but organizations are particularly vulnerable to the destructive behaviour of individuals with personality disorders. They will be the focus of this chapter.
The essential feature of a personality disorder is an enduring pattern of behaviour that is maladaptive for the individual but even more damaging to others. Although there may be no manifestation of the symptoms, such as distorted perception of reality, or excessive anxiety, tension, or fears, the individual evidences persistent problems in interpersonal and occupational functioning. In fact, in contrast to the neurotic personality, individuals with personality disorders evidence a relative absence of anxiety, tension, fear, or guilt and seem to be little constrained by conscience. Their lack of conscience enables them to act out their frustrations and conflicts on others with minimal self-restraint. The individual with a personality disorder is self-centred, projects fault and blame for the problems they create onto others, and seldom evidence self-criticism or a need for change. They usually possess an exceptional ability for deception and for masking their ego-centred motives. Because of their egocentricity and the fluidity of their conscience, the interpersonal behaviour of the individual with a personality disorder is little influenced by the internal controls of personal responsibility. External controls are required to curtail their interpersonally damaging behaviour. Personality disorders share a common psychological substrate in terms of failed separation-individuation, lack of object constancy, and a defective superego. Personality disorders also share reliance on primitive defences such as splitting, projective identification, denial, primitive idealization, omnipotence, and devaluation, which differ from those defences used at a higher level of character organization (e.g., repression, reaction formation, conversion, and displacement).
The impact of neurotic disorders on the quality of interpersonal interaction tends to be far less negative than that of personality disorders. In the case of the neurotics, with some exceptions, they tend to do more damage to themselves and their closest associates than to others. In organizations they are most likely to evidence personal distress and inefficiency or limited productivity. They may be subject to frequent minor illnesses, perfectionism, workaholism, absenteeism, and vulnerability to interpersonal conflicts. The social and organizational damage created by individuals with personality disorders is usually much more drastic. They can undermine the entire social fabric of stable, reciprocal, and socially responsible relationships and the efficient functioning of the organization.
The clinical profiles of these disorders presented below are based on the third revised edition (dsm iii-r, 1987) and the fourth and fifth editions (dsm-iv, 1994; dsm-v, 2013) of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association. The following are brief descriptions of the profiles and my observations regarding the contribution of personality disorders to camouflaged aggression in organizations. The reference to psychiatric diagnosis provides standard models for identifying the elusive behaviour.
Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder
An individual with this disorder is typically fixated on expressing aggression in indirect and non-confrontational ways. The non-confrontational expression and the individual’s reluctance to explicitly identify the problem leave others feeling frustrated and distressed. These individuals make their associates suffer through apparently non-aggressive, yet exasperating, behaviours such as pouting, procrastination, stubbornness, and deliberate inefficiency; they can be annoyingly polite, too understanding, excessively apologetic, or overly helpful—in ways which turn out to have effects opposite to those which the individual apparently intended. Also, common to those with this disorder is careful planning (or plotting) in which, while appearing to be doing their duty or trying to help people or the organization itself, they embarrass others by disseminating harmful information, make themselves unavailable when most needed, or create enmity among friends and discord among cooperating groups. Frequent targets are individuals who have some power over them, such as spouses or bosses, whom they cannot or will not confront.
Within the organization, people with this personality disorder can be much more destructive than in their home or among their circle of friends, settings where their behaviour can more easily be recognized. The structures in organizations provide innumerable opportunities for non-confrontational delivery and the masking of aggression; these structures enable the passive-aggressive individual to mask his or her aggressiveness behind a cloak of respectability. Those with this personality disorder are always on the lookout for personal vulnerabilities of coworkers, and for situations where members of the organization find themselves in compromised conditions, so that they can embarrass or blackmail them. Because the victims often do not know that the aggressor has intended to harm them, they have no clear target, no one against whom they can justifiably express retaliatory aggression. As a result, individuals with this disorder tend to increase the quantum of aggression within the organization through their tendency to both initiate and prolong camouflaged aggression.
Paranoid Personality Disorder
The essential feature of this disorder is a tendency to misinterpret the actions of people as deliberately demeaning or threatening. Those with the disorder evidence a generalized suspicion and expectation of being exploited, plotted against, or harmed by others in some way. Frequently a person with this disorder will question, without justification, the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates. They may be reluctant to confide in others because of a fear that the information will be used against them. Often such individuals are easily slighted and quick to react with anger or counterattack, and are often hypervigilant to perceived threat. They tend to hold grudges for a long time, and seldom forgive slights, insults, or injuries.
When individuals with this disorder find themselves in a new situation, they intensely and narrowly search for confirmation of their expectations, with little appreciation of the total context. They are usually argumentative and exaggerate difficulties, “making mountains out of molehills.” Such an individual can readily escalate a benign discussion into an argument with a contradictory and hostile attitude. They are very critical of others but have great difficulty in accepting blame or criticism themselves. They tend to be overserious and lack a sense of humour. They tend to be rigid and unwilling to compromise and may generate uneasiness and fear in others. Individuals with this disorder are keenly aware of power and rank and of who is superior or inferior, and are often envious of those in positions of power. They are aloof, with a hostile distancing of themselves from others, and are contemptuous of people they see as weak, soft, or sickly.
Unlike individuals with some of the other personality disorders, the paranoid person appears to have no redeeming social quality, such as the charm and affability often presented by psychopathic, narcissistic, and histrionic personalities, or the initially polite and smooth demeanour of the passive-aggressive. Most of the interactive dimensions of the paranoid personality disorder are usually unappealing and problematic.
Because those with the disorder are continually suspicious of others and on guard against possible attack, they create many conflicts within the workplace through their misinterpretation of people’s motives. Their propensity to exaggerate threats or challenges and to counterattack tends to escalate simple conflicts and augment aggression within the organization. Their overcritical attitude toward others, and their argumentative and belligerent style, tend to deter disagreement with them,
a condition that motivates camouflaging or displacing aggression.
Unlike passive-aggressive individuals, who restrain their aggression when faced with an explicit retaliatory threat, those with paranoid personalities regroup psychologically and then counterattack in a manner that often escalates conflict and hostility. Their tendency to be moralistic, grandiose, and punitive may motivate some of them to embark on vigilant crusades against individuals or groups, thus sowing animosities and divisiveness within the organization.
I have frequently observed alliances between individuals who share this personality trait. Two individuals with this disorder may team up under the paranoid “ideology” of suspiciousness and contempt for others, and through a mutually resonating moralistic campaign of vigilance and scheming. Tobak (1989) observed the frequent coexistence of expedient mendacity and moralistic self-righteousness in the paranoid character. In short, individuals with paranoid personality disorders are prolific producers and amplifiers of conflicts, and can be major contributors to the quantum of aggression within the organization.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Individuals with this disorder are typically preoccupied with cultivating a grandiose image of themselves. They are driven to maintain this image of self-importance through constantly seeking attention and admiration from others. They are hypersensitive to criticism, arrogant, power-seeking, self-centred, manipulative, and imbued with a profound degree of entitlement that places their wishes above legal or ethical limits. This disorder, sometimes referred to as social malignancy, is evidencing marked increase in present-day societies, taking a heavy toll on the quality of social life.
The following are their primary characteristics:
1. Grandiosity. They have an inflated sense of self-importance and superiority (e.g., they exaggerate their talents and achievements) and expect to be noticed and treated as “special.” They entertain grandiose fantasies of unlimited success and a belief in their invulnerability, self-sufficiency, and uniqueness. At the same time, they are referential, boastful, and pretentious.
2. Problematic Interpersonal Relations. They require constant attention and admiration, (e.g., they may keep fishing for compliments). They have a sense of entitlement: an unreasonable expectation of favourable treatment or a tendency to disregard or circumvent legal and ethical considerations while pursuing their goals. They often are interpersonally exploitative and manipulative, taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends. They feel threatened by goodness in others and defend against envy by devaluating, attempting to control, or avoiding contact with them altogether.
3. Reactiveness. When these individuals fail to obtain what they want or are subjected to criticism, they often react with rage and vindictiveness or shame and humiliation. Failure is perceived as an extreme personal threat, which can lead to vindictiveness, or to suicidal ideation and other self-destructive reactions. An unresponsive or unsupportive environment can lead them to experience transient mood states such as emptiness, boredom, and meaninglessness.
4. Lack of Social and Moral Conscience. Such individuals tend to be highly ambitious and achievement motivated. They are self-centred and uncommitted to anyone; all goals and espoused notions and beliefs are upheld only in the service of self or self-image. They can be skilful and charming manipulators who have no genuine regard for values or rules. Their social history often reveals sexual promiscuity and antisocial behaviour.
Malignant Narcissism
This term was introduced by Otto Kernberg in 1984. He used it to describe a toxic combination of grandiose and sadistic strivings that develops in some narcissists. Kernberg outlined four features of this syndrome: 1) a typical narcissistic personality disorder, 2) antisocial behaviour, 3) sadism, and 4) a deeply paranoid orientation toward life. Individuals with malignant narcissism consistently attempt to destroy, symbolically castrate, and dehumanize others. These traits are often expressed through ideology by leaders of religious cults and extremist political groups. The leaders may display concern and loyalty to their peers and followers, something that distinguishes them from the psychopathic personality proper. Malignant narcissists’ paranoid tendencies are manifested in their viewing of others as enemies or fools and in their preoccupation with conspiracies.
Kernberg did not focus on the external factors that may accelerate the development to malignant narcissism. I think that a speedy acquisition of administrative or political power and of wealth can transform mild pathological narcissism into a malignant one. I have observed cases involving a rapid transition from a mild narcissistic orientation toward a malignant one after individuals acquire substantial wealth
or a position of power.
An Oncological Model of Narcissism
In 1993 I submitted a research paper with the above title to the Research Division of the Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada. The model accounts for the development of narcissism from simple exhibitionism to malignant narcissism through a process of alienation of self-image. In young people an early overinvestment in body image or in the attention of an audience involves a level of alienation (splitting) of self-image from self. Narcissus first fell in love with the image of himself in the water and not with himself. Alienation here adopts the Hegelian definition wherein an aspect of the self becomes externalized and objectified and this causes it to become alienated or split from, and thus to negatively target, the person. As the alienated self-image become socially objectified it requires more energy from the individual to maintain and protect its grandiosity. While the healthy self-image protects the individual’s normal social functioning, the alienated self-image extols energy from the individual to promote and defend it. Freud (1920/1948) described the cancer cell as narcissistic. The parallelism of the alienated self-image to the cancer cell is striking. The cancer cell initially disengages from its biological context and assumes a self-centred existence. As it continues to grow it becomes a tumour that can disrupt the functioning of body fluids, tissues, and organs. Thus, in an individual, narcissistic malignancy starts with exhibitionism (mild alienation of self-image) and can progress to pathological narcissism (a “tumorous” self-image), which forces the individual to engage in antisocial behaviour in order to carry on. This model draws attention to the dangers of encouraging a culture of exhibitionism, one that is largely enabled, especially among young people, by means of electronic imagery. Exhibitionism can initiate a process of alienation of self-image, leading to pathological and malignant narcissism. In order to maintain the grandiosity of the self, the narcissist needs to constantly supply his or her image with the attention and reactions of others and at heavy personal and social cost. This dependency on eliciting the attention and reaction of others moves this disorder from interpersonal to social pathology.
Narcissistic personality disorder clearly takes a heavy toll on the organization. However, two traits that are typically characteristic of individuals with this disorder are particularly dangerous for organizations. They are an elevated sense of entitlement and a deployment of the splitting mechanism.
Individuals with this disorder believe their feelings and their wishes are both legitimate and justified. Accordingly, they feel entitled to use anything at their disposal, or any person, to realize those wishes. The interests of the organization are often the victims of this sense of entitlement.
Splitting, which is a mechanism common to all personality disorders, essentially involves a separation of a feeling or a relationship from its context. For example, a simple disagreement may suffice to make the narcissist react with overwhelming contempt and animosity to a partner with whom he or she has had a long-standing relationship. The trusted friend and partner can become an enemy who is hated absolutely and eternally. What such a victim finds most shocking is that all of the longstanding history of cooperative and friendly relations suddenly becomes of no significance. It is as if the other party has no memory of the relationship. Through this splitting mechanism, the narcissist can suddenly and radically shift allegiance. A trusted friend can become an enemy; the partner may become an adversary; a colleague who previously was viewed with the deepest respect may come to be viewed with unqualified contempt. The converse process is also true, such as idealizing a previously despised person.
The organization itself can become a victim of the same pathological process: a virtual pawn of the narcissist’s perverse sense of entitlement and splitting. An individual with this disorder can turn on the organization and bring it down even if he or she had heretofore worked tirelessly over many years for it. In a spiteful and grandiose finale, the narcissist would communicate the message, “I created you and now I am going to destroy you.”
The Narcissistic Principle of Equivalence
In my investigations of this disorder in the organizational context, I was able to observe another dynamic related to the splitting mechanism. This type of individual can spontaneously and with remarkable ease work for a certain project and against it at the same time. He or she can be geared, psychologically, equally toward both the promotion and the demise of a worthy project. If the individual expects to reap benefits, and particularly prestige, from supporting the venture, he or she will be all for it. If that forthcoming prestige runs the risk of being shared by others, or if the thwarting of the venture can be attributed mainly to his or her own doing, then he or she will mobilize against it and seek to destroy it. Thus, it is the potential of ego-aggrandizement that determines the direction of the commitment rather than the intrinsic social value of the collective venture. Rationalizations are employed in either direction. It is intriguing how the narcissistic ego-centredness can neutralize the oppositional relationship between construction and destruction. I call this proclivity the narcissistic principle of equivalence.
The above paragraph from the first edition of this book has been quoted online (in a Wikipedia article) and has provoked considerable interest. An assumption was made that I wrote a book on the subject entitled The Narcissistic Principle of Equivalence; although that is not the case, the interest generated indicates the need for more research into this clinical dynamic of narcissism.
Not too long ago, I conducted a seminar in organizational behaviour with a group of bankers. In the seminar, cases of financial collapse of specific companies were analyzed, with particular emphasis on the personality profile of the major player. It was a surprise to most participants when they came to realize that the collapse of some of these companies appeared to have been the product of irrational decisions on the part of a key director rather the result of financial or market conditions. What lies behind many fatal business decisions is not just a lack of business savvy or unfortunate timing or global economic factors but the malignant aggression of an enraged narcissist. Unrecognized and/or uncontrolled pathological narcissism can produce organizational collapse.
Antisocial Personality Disorder—the Psychopath
“Antisocial personality disorder” is the term now used to refer to the psychopathic personality. Harvey Cleckley presented a comprehensive clinical profile of the psychopath in the first edition of The Mask of Sanity (1941), a work he continued to refine to its fifth edition (1976). The individuals in his case studies evidence few of the symptoms of mental illness, such as lack of contact with reality, delusions, or anxiety, but persist in aberrant antisocial behaviour. Cleckley described the clinical profile of the psychopath in terms of sixteen characteristics, abridged briefly to the following:
1. Egocentrism: self-gratifying, hedonistic, with lack of empathy or concern for others;
2. An absence of conscience, moral or ethical values, guilt, or remorse;
3. Lack of love and attachment to individuals, institutions, places, or ideas;
4. An ability to deceive and manipulate people, with use of masking, lying, mimicking, rationalizing, charm, and charisma;
5. Impulsivity, poor behaviour controls, and inability to follow a life plan;
6. A life history of antisocial behaviour.
The most salient behavioural features of psychopaths are inadequate development of conscience and lack of anxiety and guilt. They may be able to verbalize their understanding of moral values, but it is often shallow, and the allegiance they may express to social values is usually not borne out by their behaviour. Even when they are caught engaging in unacceptable behaviour, they are devoid of feelings of remorse, shame, or guilt. Little consideration is given to the effects of their actions on other people. However, even though psychopaths are essentially amoral, their ability to impress, charm, manipulate, and exploit others enables them not only to take advantage of them but also to do so without raising suspicion or getting caught. Even when caught they may seem to be sincerely repentant and are often quickly forgiven, as they use their humour and charm and ability to rationalize their behaviour to appease people. Although they are highly egocentric, they seem to have good insight into other people’s needs and weaknesses and are adept at winning their confidence and then exploiting them. Although they are able to win the admiration and support of other people, antisocial personalities are seldom able to make close friends because they are egocentric, nonempathetic, and unable to experience or understand allegiance or love.
Systematic empirical research of this disorder (see, e.g., Hare, 1970; Hare & Schalling, 1978; Lykken, 1995) indicates that the disorder is associated with autonomic under-arousal and cortical immaturity; thus physiological under-stimulation might help to explain the psychopath’s quest for excitement, lack of anxiety, and failure to be influenced by threats of impending punishment. In fact, when psychopaths arrive, toward old age, at the “burned-out” stage that evidences a decrease in antisocial behaviour, their autonomic and brain patterns start changing toward normal readings. Recently developed brain imagery reveals certain abnormalities in the brains of psychopaths.
The literature suggests that, given their impulsivity, need for excitement, and a tendency for immediate gratification, psychopaths are seldom attracted to or capable of maintaining organizational careers. However, this may be true only for the more extreme cases who come to the attention of the authorities, that is, those whose antisocial behaviour leads to their involvement in criminal activities. Many psychopaths are well-educated, sophisticated achievers who are able to use their manipulative skills and charm to obtain powerful positions despite their lack of genuine allegiance to individuals or institutions. Such “successful” psychopaths have a profile that is very similar to that of the extreme narcissistic disorder, and, in some cases, is almost indistinguishable. Many psychopaths are confined in correctional institutions, but most manage to escape incarceration or even detection and prosecution, even though they frequently engage in immoral and criminal ventures. Psychopaths can be found in every field of endeavour—in business, in universities, in schools, and in churches. Many of them are never convicted of any crime. They may be functioning as lawyers, doctors, executives, professors, or politicians. They are just as likely to be found working in businesses, government offices, and professions as they are to be found in prisons.
The alarm regarding the existence of an “adequate” or “successful” psychopath was sounded as early as 1957 by Norman Mailer. In an essay published in Dissent Magazine, Mailer prophesied that the psychopathic personality could become the central expression of human nature before the twentieth century is over. He suggested that our culture is increasingly being influenced by psychopaths as the condition of psychopathy is present in a host of high-profile individuals, including politicians, newspaper columnists, entertainers, and “half the executives of Hollywood, television and advertising” (p. 282).
Fifteen years later, Harrington (1972), a writer and a journalist, set out to reassess the above thesis; his findings were presented in a book containing observations, interviews, and descriptions of psychopathic individuals from all walks of life. His conclusion was that “psychopathy as illness and style have now merged. You can hardly, if at all, tell [psychopaths] apart any more” (p. 198). In response to Harrington, Cleckley (1976), in his fifth edition of The Mask of Sanity, confirmed the omnipresence of successful psychopaths and provided descriptions of psychopathic professionals, including one who was a psychiatrist.
Manipulative behaviour exhibited by the average individual was studied by Christie and Geis (1970), and the findings were discussed under the topic of Machiavellianism. The authors developed a measure to assess this interpersonal style and formulated the following four-feature profile of the Machiavel: 1) a relative lack of affect in interpersonal relations and the viewing of others as objects for manipulation; 2) a lack of concern with conventional morality; 3) a lack of gross psychopathology; 4) a low ideological commitment—more interest in tactics to a utilitarian end rather than striving for an idealistic goal. The Machiavel profile can be viewed as a “satellite” of the psychopath. Hare (1991) developed a “Psychopathic Check List,” which can be filled out by persons who know the individual.
Psychopathic behaviour can be learned through having to adapt to socially unstable family or environmental conditions or through association with psychopathic models. Harrington’s (1972) suggestion that psychopathology can progress from a personality style to an ethic was later echoed by Lasch (1979), who claimed that narcissistic behaviour has become an accepted and normative style of social interaction. “Adequate” psychopaths not only create interpersonal conflict within organizations by their devious antisocial and manipulative behaviour, they also promote the attitude that egocentricity, manipulation, and deceit are effective, and acceptable, forms of interpersonal conduct. In summary, the psychopath can undermine the values of the organization and its members.
Histrionic Personality Disorder
The essential feature of this disorder is immaturity, emotional instability, pervasive and excessive emotionality, and attention-seeking behaviour. Individuals with this disorder are self-centred, vain, and uncomfortable when they are not the centre of attention. If ignored, they may do something dramatic to draw the focus of attention to themselves. These individuals are often over-reactive and inappropriately sexually provocative or seductive. They are overly concerned with impressing others and may spend excessive time and money on grooming and clothes and surrounding themselves with the trappings of success. Individuals with this disorder often have a style of speech that is unfocused, lacking in detail, and theatrical.
In seeking to gain approval, histrionics resemble individuals with a narcissistic personality disorder. However, they usually have weaker egos, and hence exhibit emotional volatility and poor ability to consolidate power. They are suggestible, oversensitive to criticism, and tend to consider relationships to be more intimate than they actually are. Their seductive style can lead to unwarranted sexual advances. Although they often initiate a job or project with great enthusiasm, their interest dissipates quickly. They are often frustrated by situations that involve delayed gratification. Long-term relationships may be neglected to make way for the excitement of new ones. The interpersonal relationships of such individuals are usually stormy and continuously generate tensions and conflicts in the workplace.
Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder
The essential features of the obsessive-compulsive personality disorder are a preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, and control at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency. Individuals with this disorder seek to maintain a sense of control over themselves and others through painstaking attention to rules, trivial details, procedures, lists, schedules, or forms to the extent that the major purpose of the activity is lost. Their perfectionism and preoccupation with trivia tend to interfere with their management of time and with task completion. They may be excessively devoted to work and productivity to the exclusion of leisure activities and friendships. They are over conscientious, scrupulous, and inflexible about matters of morality, ethics, and procedure. They tend to adopt a miserly spending style toward self and others; money is viewed as something to be hoarded, not spent or invested. They evidence rigidity and stubbornness in most contexts and are reluctant to delegate tasks or work to others unless the delegate conforms precisely to the compulsive’s procedures.
The behaviour patterns associated with this disorder are similar to those of the neurotic suffering from obsessive-compulsive symptoms. In the case of neurotics, they often experience undesired thoughts (obsessions) and actions (compulsions) as a source of extreme anxiety; they recognize that these thoughts and actions are irrational but they cannot control them. Individuals with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, on the other hand, may be anxious about getting all their work done in keeping with their exacting standards but are not anxious about their compulsiveness itself. They appear to be oblivious to the fact that their style can be problematic and that other people can be distressed by it.
The organizational implications of this personality style are obvious. The rigidity, stubbornness, and morbid clinging to procedure can generate frustration, stagnation, and demoralization.
Avoidant Personality Disorder
Individuals with this disorder are hypersensitive to rejection, criticism, and ridicule. They are too fearful of potential rejection to seek out others, voice opinions, or take positions. Their everyday interpersonal relations are often very limited, partly because they avoid interactions and partly because their excessive passivity makes them unattractive to others. They may be able to cope reasonably well within structured work relationships without major conflicts. However, in organizations they can indirectly generate a great deal of aggression. Their passivity and unassertiveness tend to create a point of least resistance which attracts aggression both toward them and toward people working with them. Moreover, the non-confrontational and indecisive behaviour of these individuals handicaps their ability to contain the aggressiveness of employees working with them or to protect those working under them. Thus, by attracting and by failing to contain aggression, they serve to catalyse and augment it within the organization.
There are three remaining personality disorders. Borderline personality disorder manifests mood instability, identity disturbance, and weak ego. Schizoid personality disorder is characterized by social avoidance and a lack of the social skills needed to form social relations. Schizotypal personality disorder is typical of the person who is seclusive and eccentric in communication and behaviour, and resorts to highly personalized and superstitious thinking. These three personality disorders have in common weak ego organization, poor interpersonal skills, and personal styles that are persistent and socially inadequate.
According to Stone (1993) prominent narcissistic traits can coexist with any of the personality disorders. My observations concur with those of Stone; whenever a configuration of a personality disorder was identified, a concomitant measure of pathological narcissism was also present. It appears that pathological narcissism (involving extreme self-centredness) is an underlying feature of all such disorders, and perhaps this is what gives personality disorders the distinction of social malignancy. Also, more than one disorder can coexist in the same person, allowing shifting among different behavioural axes. Researching the impact of personality disorders in organizations is best carried out within normal work conditions. Some of the novel constructs suggested in this book may be useful in motivating and guiding subsequent systematic research.
A Case of General Relevance
One interesting field observation was relayed to me by a political veteran active in the 1960s in Lebanon. He described the profile of individuals from Marxist political groups who undertook the tasks of infiltrating certain charitable organizations. Their goal was either to wreck and dismantle such organizations or to dominate them and keep them in a weakened state—leaving them half dead. These undertakings were ideologically justified by the notion that these social organizations were bourgeoisie-serving entities or impediments to the coming “revolution.” The infiltrators were self-recruited and evidenced pronounced inclinations toward paranoid conspiratorial thinking and Machiavellianism. The ideological sanctioning of their camouflaged aggression neutralized any guilt or ambivalence associated with the mission and allowed them to enthusiastically indulge their personal pathologies. My acquaintance described the heightened excitement, thrill, and enthusiasm which accompanied their scheming. What he recalls most vividly was the “smile”—an exuberant, complacent, congratulatory, and self-assured smile they exchanged when they met to review operations. When I explained to my acquaintance the previously described idea of the psycho-structural fit (the “psycho-structural marriage”), he exclaimed: “but of course...even their incompetence was happily married.” Apparently, in cases where the infiltrators managed to take over as the directors of some of these associations, they did not have the adequate organizational skills to manage them. Thus, their original goal of crippling the organization resonated with their lack of skills and with the least-effort principle. I think that there is further need for research focusing on such adaptations involving pathological personality proclivities and organizational roles and structures—
adaptations that are psychologically functional for the incumbent
but dysfunctional to the organization.
Camouflaged Aggression in “Normal” Personality Profiles
As suggested before, camouflaged aggression may be planned and carried out by normal people striving to achieve a goal. A specific goal can force them to engage in deception, with the expectation that such behaviour be abandoned when the project ends. It is also expected that normal personality functioning (in terms of ethicality, conscience, humanity) will ultimately exert a form of control over the Machiavellianism and harmful manipulation they may have adopted. There are also individuals with normal personality functioning who evidence traits that are socially accepted, and at times admired, but can have a harmful impact when expressed within an organization. I have developed elsewhere (Abdennur, 1987, 2014) three personality profiles, each considered within the range of normal, yet capable of causing social damage: conflict avoidance, conflict reconciliation, and anti-
organizational. All can create a syndrome of traits with problematic social and political implications.
Conflict Avoidance as a Personality Profile
Unlike generalized avoidant behaviour found in the avoidant personality disorder, avoidance in this profile is largely confined to conflict. A persistent effort to avoid conflict can be the result of an inability to psychologically cope with it, although this behaviour may be considered normal and is often admired. However, since conflict and its resolution are part of daily social living, deficiencies in the ability to deal adequately with conflict can have problematic social consequences. The tendency to continually avoid confrontation is seen as a function of a weak ego; it can be aggravated by social norms that encourage conflict-avoidant types of resolutions, or by the lack of organizational avenues for the expression of direct aggression. In a book solely dedicated to conflict avoidance (Abdennur, 1987), I proposed that avoidance can permeate many domains of personality, forming a syndrome. This personality syndrome can impact social and political institutions in a negative manner.
A tendency to avoid conflict or confrontation can be generalized throughout various aspects of personality; I label this tendency the conflict avoidance syndrome. My research (Abdennur, 1987) found conflict avoidance choices and preferences to be consistent throughout many domains of an individual’s functioning: perceptual, cognitive, psychodynamic, aesthetic, recreational, and political. The traits identified within the conflict avoidance syndrome are excessive fear of violent aggression, concreteness, exhibitionism and theatricality, teleological preoccupations, and the resort to spiritualized-metaphorical (non-abstract) thinking. The reliance on these traits helps the individual to avoid or minimize conflict.
A major impact of a conflict avoidance orientation is that it reduces the possibility of achieving adequate solutions to problems because it leads the individual to avoid prompt, decisive, or radical action. Procrastination, concessions, and compromises tend to prevail, and expediency is often substituted for principle. Individuals with this orientation can also distort problems and issues in order to accommodate them within their conflict-avoidant methods of intervention. For example, the plight of children in some developing countries is operationally defined, by those with such personalities, as an issue to be addressed by charitable relief and sponsorship of children by families in the West. While such intervention can be helpful in some cases, it leaves the causes of the problem (e.g., population control, income inequality) unaddressed. One of the most devastating blows to the natural environment was perpetrated by groups of individuals with this personality type. The exhibitionist and ineffective methods of these environmental activists included noisy demonstrations, marches, candle vigils, body painting, placards, climbing of chimneys, media stunts, and grandstanding in striving to “inform the public.” The ineffectiveness of their actions is demonstrated in their failure to stop major environmental threats such as the development of the tar sands in Alberta, the clear-cutting of forests in Northern Ontario, and the resort to the highly polluting fracking method in the midst of plentiful oil and gas supplies. Protecting the environment is a grave and radical challenge, one that these conflict avoiders are incapable of meeting. Their media-based exhibitionistic approaches may have perpetrated another social damage, namely, the displacement individuals who might otherwise have been capable of more effective intervention.
Another dangerous aspect of the conflict avoidance syndrome is that individuals seek to hire and recruit into organizations others with a similar orientation—those who will not rock the boat. Thus, conflict avoidants can come to predominate within an organization and thus influence its normative standards and approaches in a qualitative manner. Many social and political organizations have been rendered impotent by those who promote excessive accommodation and tolerance. Conflict avoidants have been heavily recruited into the Canadian political and administrative systems, where they may have achieved institutional dominance. The excessive resort to unqualified tolerance and to pragmatic accommodation to social problems (e.g., the promotion of free-drug injection sites) in Canada may be encouraging a culture of moral relativism, banality, and oppressive liberalism.
In short, the impact of individuals with the conflict avoidance orientation on camouflaged aggression is aggravating in three ways. First, they are more in tune with passive and camouflaged aggression and are more likely to engage in it. Second, their pronounced non-confrontational behaviour precludes attempts at making conflicts explicit and the use of radical measures to end or contain them. Third, they constitute a non-confrontational matrix that allows a converse, and equally adverse, personality profile to perpetuate itself in management. That profile can be identified as a growing class of overtly aggressive, arrogantly intimidating, and self-serving managers. The unchallenging and passive disposition of conflict avoidants may allow the latter to thrive.
Conflict Reconciliation as a Personality Profile
The conflict reconciliation tendency is viewed as an essentially milder form of conflict avoidance, but one with different adaptation dynamics as dictated by the process of reconciliation. Identification of the traits associated with this type has been carried out analytically (Abdennur, 2014), based on the assumption that the three basic strategies in the adaptation to conflict (confrontation, conflict reconciliation, and conflict avoidance) constitute generalized and stable personality traits.
The conflict reconciler: 1) has an empirical epistemic style; 2) holds negotiation as the preferred method of conflict resolution; 3) focuses on concrete or operational items that can be used in negotiation; 4) seeks to arrive at a final deal or resolution; 5) turns the need to achieve reconciliation into an obsessive-compulsive need; and 6) operationalizes issues into problems.
The conceptualization of something as a problem is based on epistemological assumptions that a) variables are part of a closed system, like a machine where a malfunction can be identified and fixed; b) there exists a previous state of normal functioning that can be returned to after fixing the malfunction; c) consensus on the need for intervention is based on the conception of the cumulative effects of good acts; d) there is a pressing need for immediate intervention; and e) radicalism exists at the concrete level, that is, there is a need to fix the problem permanently. These assumptions implied in defining something as a problem can distort the comprehension of abstract and complex conditions.
Since the 1990s, there appears to have been an ever-greater need for negotiation and reconciliation at most organizational and political levels as a response to a growing need for stability within an increasingly interdependent world. The increased number of roles that demand conflict resolution has increased the demand for and recruitment of individuals who are psychologically adaptive to such roles. The advantages that can be reaped by the political-administrative system by having conflict reconcilers in authority positions may not be beneficial for society as whole.
Unlike the conflict-avoider personality profile, who verbalizes and “spiritualizes” intervention slogans, the conflict reconciler is more concrete and utilitarian. He or she can be ruthless with weaker opponents but submissive to those who are powerful. The proclivity for making deals causes the individual to fall into unending schemes and traps which dissipate energy, create only temporary solutions, and undermine principles. While the environment in the West was victimized by the approaches of the conflict avoidant, the conflict reconciler, in my view, has delivered devastating impacts to many Arab societies. The predominance of this deal-making type in Arab administration and political leadership has been responsible for the tolerance for dictators, the compromise of cultural integrity, and the demoralization of Arab populations.
An Anti-Organizational Personality Profile
The model proposed here identifies three personality traits that are to some extent contradictory but can become dynamically united within the same person. This convergence of traits seems to thrive in some business groups, particularly the self-employed, found in some developing countries characterized by mercantile economic activity, material prosperity, and global mobility. Although these traits are found within normally functioning individuals, their expression is particularly destructive to formal organizations.
1. Aggrandized Ego (Arrogant)
The individual possesses an expanded sense of self-worth and importance that may be rooted in several factors, such as a high level of narcissism, being part of a cohesive family or clan that tends to impart to the individual (often unrealistically) a sense of power and importance, or being the proprietor of a successful business in which there are few outside constraints on decision-making. Success in business ventures further expands the individual’s narcissistic sense of self-worth and entitlement, making him or her complacent toward his or her shortcomings.
2. Poor Intellectual Skills (Ignorant)
The individual suffers not from a lack of education but rather from
the lack of a quality education. The inadequacy of the educational institutions or inadequate performance as student may result in in the individual’s failure to grasp the basics of scientific methodology and critical reasoning. The individual may hold degrees, be a specialist in a certain field, converse in several languages, and be sophisticated in many technical domains, yet fail to develop an integrated body of knowledge. This condition may be aggravated when his or her early cultural milieu fails to instil a sense of authentic and integrated
cultural identity.
Here we need to stress the distinction between intellectual and mental abilities. Intellectual ability moves across disciplines and fields of knowledge; it is an integration of specialized knowledge, personal experience, and basic methodology. Intellectual ability promotes reflection as opposed to impulsivity; it promotes the consideration of problems as issues; it refines social and political judgment; and it fosters a concern for rational and ethical consistency. The distinction between mental and intellectual skills has been further accentuated by the explosion of information and easy access to computer technology in recent decades. Abundantly available information is losing its previous knowledge status as the emphasis is shifting more toward the organization and integration of information. True knowledge has become closely tied to theory and method, and to the ability to come up with alternative models and perspectives rather than raw information. Thus, it is possible to be literate and overloaded with information but ignorant. Such intellectual ignorance promotes a commonsensical and utilitarian approach to social issues and undermines critical self-reflection. The individual does not read lengthy scholarly or academic books and his or her thinking remains concrete, intuitive, and pragmatic—characteristics that are inherently anti-intellectual.
3. Compromised Ethicality (Corrupt)
The individual lacks the norms that promote respect of time, respect for the reality and rights of interacting others, and respect for organizational demands. He or she also lacks a genuine feeling of responsibility for mistakes and holds a projective and self-serving view of reality. Briefly, his or her norms are fluid and self-centred, showing little regard for the greater social good.
Lacking an integrated knowledge of central issues, or having gaps in one’s knowledge, usually promotes generalized feelings of doubt and hesitancy at the level of verbal and social expression. Also, when one harbours unethical designs or engages in an unethical enterprise, one is bound (unless one is a primary psychopath) to experience a certain degree of inhibition, guilt, or remorse. When the lack of ethicality and the absence of integrated knowledge become incorporated within a personality, they usually lower inner self-confidence and compromise assertiveness. In order to control this sense of guilt and diminished confidence, some individuals may resort to what in psychodynamics is called a “reaction formation,” where there is a shift to feelings at the extreme opposite of the spectrum. Thus, instead of behaving timidly, an individual would act confidently, assertively, and boastfully. This behaviour is also seen as a compensatory reaction against the underlying guilt or feelings of inferiority. In this instance, therefore, the amicable, socially assertive, and confident style is essentially compensatory; it is propelled by weakness rather than by an abundance of strength, and this weakness readily betrays itself in the presence of stressful challenges. However, despite the preceding, I would suggest that the assertiveness of this three-trait profile is not compensatory. The three traits become autonomous and mutually reinforcing, creating a synergy. After being propelled by the force of narcissistic arrogance, intellectual constriction reinforces the lack of ethical scruples, with the three forming a powerful momentum.
Under the influence of this three-trait axis, the individual perceives the organization as an impediment, and in dealing with it he or she attempts to circumvent or manipulate its rules and employees for personal ends. Having an inherent disdain for corporate norms, and a narcissistic admiration for his or her own style, the individual resorts to bribery and other corrupt practices even if they are not needed. Methods of business operation are individualistic and non-corporate, and rely heavily on cultivating personal interactions with business contacts where the individual can wield influence with presents and favours. He or she can be seen as the typical anti-organizational personality. Certain socioeconomic conditions, such as the increasing reliance on self- or part-time employment, short-duration contracts, and communication technologies tend to move some individuals in the direction of solo enterprises and anti-corporate business practices.
Personality Disorders and Voluntary Organizations
Voluntary organizations differ from business or governmental ones in that their goals and membership are community-based; they are usually non-profit or charitable enterprises; they have less stringent formal structures and operate on limited volunteer time and limited budgets, often with funds raised through donations. These open and less binding features of voluntary associations can become highly attractive to individuals with personality disorders and particularly to the flamboyant types such as the narcissistic, psychopathic, paranoid, and histrionic personalities. A dialectical relationship, in fact, tends to exist between voluntary associations and individuals with personality disorders; they frequently initiate or supply the enthusiasm and energy for the sprouting of these associations but, at the same time, they embody the seeds of destruction and eventual demise of these very associations.
Voluntary associations are perceived by these persons as open pastures where their egos can graze on the attention and energy of the associations’ members. These organizations are generally not sufficiently equipped to deal with them due to the voluntary and community nature of the enterprise, and this organizational vulnerability allows these individuals to perpetuate a chronic presence. When such persons become entrenched within the board of directors, they can lead to the collapse of these associations; more often, they cause their weakening, as volunteers, weary of the turmoil that has been generated, start to lose enthusiasm, pull out, or otherwise make themselves scarce. It should be noted that these disordered individuals may be entertaining and charismatic, and may volunteer for tasks with great dedication; however, when assessed over their total period of involvement, their negative input outweighs the positive.
The non-profit goals and less stringent organization of voluntary associations tend to encourage spontaneous and less masked self-expression. Accordingly, voluntary associations provide a convenient medium for the study of interactive patterns of various personality disorders. An area that appears not to have been addressed is how such individuals interact with each other. I have observed one surprising pattern, namely, a level of mutual support, mutual defence, and concurrence on positions, particularly when a member with an affinitive style is radically challenged. Given the self-centredness inherent in all these disorders, such alliances become quite intriguing regardless of how temporary they may be. One explanation, offered by Obeid (1999), suggests that by affirming each other as individuals they tend to affirm the viability of mendacity and manipulativeness in the face of ethical intimidation. Thus, this solidarity is a strategic counter-intimidation aimed against those who brandish the swords of truthfulness and honesty and expect speedy gains.
Personality Disorders and Political Organizations
One of the pivotal traits in personality disorders, and particularly of the flamboyant ones, is the proclivity to attack the ego of an adversary. The activities of impressing, charming, outwitting, outmanoeuvring, manipulating, competing with, undermining, and defeating are energies that are essentially directed at someone’s ego instead of at an objective social task that is intrinsically viable. Even when these individuals undertake organized projects within a political party, their ultimate motive is either self-aggrandizement or the outbidding and challenging of someone. Their self-expression and self-affirmation are drastically dependent on the presence of other egos in a convenient setting, one where they can “feed” on the attention and the polemics generated. Accordingly, the psychological survival of these individuals is tied parasitically to the political movement which can provide them with their preferred mediums of self-expression. The sacrifice of ideological and other abstract commitment, demoralization, and loss of party cohesiveness are the inevitable outcomes of this ego-centred and ego-targetting approach.
People involved in political movements often attribute many expressions of unprincipled, corrupt, and traitorous behaviour to human nature or to the nature of political enterprise itself. These attributions are dangerously generalized and inaccurate. A closer examination will likely reveal that most of the divisive behaviour is perpetrated by or is a repercussion of the conduct of only a few entrenched individuals, often those with disordered personalities who tend be devious and corrupt, and for whom political strategy is synonymous with deceit. It is the disordered, the weak, and the inadequate personalities that corrupt politics. Wholesome personalities resist being corrupted by the political office or by corrupt colleagues, and the large number of political leaders who act with integrity testify to this.
It is my opinion that ideological political movements, particularly in developing countries, that seek the realization of social ideals will not go very far unless they develop mechanisms to limit the presence of camouflaged antisocials in their ranks. Pathological narcissism appears to be the disorder most implicated in the politics of developing countries. The founding members of any political movement will be destined to circuitous, bumpy, and thorny paths if they include within their ranks individuals with personality disorders. The ideals, the values, and the goals of an aspiring political movement will be drastically compromised if it fails to recognize the various personality cocktails of pathological narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and paranoia that it is bound to attract as soon as it achieves a measure of success. Procedures for identification, screening-out, and the removal of disordered personalities should be promoted as essential managerial and leadership skills in any political movement with authentic social ideals.
Hare (1993) said of psychopaths that “If we cannot spot them, we are doomed to be their victims, both as individuals and as a society”; this also applies to all other personality disorders. A traditional managerial wisdom needs to be reclaimed in politics, namely, that if you want to have partners who are loyal, ethical, and with congenial personalities, you will have to recruit them, and that is not an easy task.
Can Camouflaged Aggression Become Addictive?
We have seen that personality disorders provide a motivational disposition for engaging in camouflaged aggression and can lend extremism and chronicity to it. The question arises whether camouflaged aggression can be further propelled by its own psychological momentum and adaptation; that is, can it become addictive?
In responding to this question, it should be emphasized that camouflaged aggression involves mental games, which if successfully performed, can alleviate boredom, boost a sense of power, and reduce alienation. Being psychologically rewarding, these mental games can become the medium of an obsessive-compulsive preoccupation among “normals.” It is feasible that techniques of camouflaged aggression can become compulsive expressions, as in the case of impulse-ridden forms of neuroses observed in gambling and in certain forms of promiscuous sexual behaviour. Furthermore, techniques of camouflaged aggression, as described in Chapter 3, can be relied upon as means of power acquisition and, as a result of being intimately tied to power, they can be pursued for their own sake; they become, like power, goals in themselves. Although all the chronic dispensers of camouflaged aggression I have known also appeared to possess a broader form of character pathology, I have heard about “nice guys” who were chronically obsessed with manipulation and power games. One senior administrator is reported to have confessed, “If I cannot find someone to manipulate, I will manipulate myself.” The addictive dimension of camouflaged aggression is an area that is often overlooked and requires further research.
The Impact of Camouflaged Aggression on Health
The research on physical and emotional stressors in the workplace and their impact on health is extensive. Two main characteristics of camouflaged aggression need to be noted in this context. First, camouflaged aggression has a slow cathartic release. The protracted nature of this aggression and its suppression of anger slows down the cathartic process and allows aggression to accumulate in individuals engaging in it. What further slows down the cathartic process is the structurally induced reliance on the displacement of aggression. Berkowitz, Cochrane, and Embree (1981) have contended that intensely frustrated individuals can reduce their aggression only through the infliction of harm upon the actual frustrater or aggressor. Successful catharsis appears to be tied not to any discharge of aggression but to successful attainment of the aggressive goal, namely, the retaliation against the actual perpetrator (if he or she can be identified). Unexpressed aggression can induce a host of psychosomatic illnesses.
Second, the masked nature of camouflaged aggression disorganizes the experience and the reaction to aggression. The difficulty in identifying the injury and in locating blame diffuses consciousness of conflict and precludes proper differentiation, proper channeling, and subsequent externalization of hostility. The lack of identification and channeling of aggression can lead to its denial: “there is no problem.” Instead of “psychologizing” and externalizing conflict and aggression, denial leads to their somatization. The excessive reliance on the mechanism of denial was found to be associated with the development of cancer (see, e.g., Simonton, 1978). Thus, camouflaged aggression, by disorganizing the reaction to aggression, can lead certain individuals to deny their victimization and their need to retaliate, and accordingly induces them to redirect aggression against their bodies, increasing the risk of developing serious illnesses.
The prolonged interaction with a disordered personality—whether at the general interpersonal level or within the context of an organization—is often an unpleasant and distressing experience. Such experience can be analogically comparable to a thorny encounter with a porcupine. Similar distress can be experienced as a result of interacting with an organization that is poorly managed or comprises individuals with personality disorders. In both cases the victim regrets the involvement and yearns for a speedy exit, having learned the lesson of caution regarding such encounters. The porcupine effect has been used in psychological literature (see, e.g., Maner et al., 2007; Frank, 2017) to refer to behaviour that seeks to be more protective than usual, often in relation to intimacy and involvement. The anticipated need for caution and self-defence results from the recurrence of pain after interacting with a certain relationship or system.
Social complexity increases the need of individuals to seek the services of diverse public agencies. Most public agencies continuously exert managerial and administrative efforts to improve the quality and efficiency of services delivered. Attention to customer satisfaction and ethicality in behaviour is expected. However, many departments of public and private organizations are run by personnel who are diverse in education, experience, culture, and personality, and are managed (and mismanaged) within bureaucratic settings. Individuals applying to these agencies run a substantial risk of being misconstrued, ignored, delayed, misdirected, rudely treated, becoming fodder for the self-aggrandizement of officials. The involvement of several officials tends to compromise the client’s privacy and create undue embarrassment for him or her. Attempts by the client to rectify things may add to the confusion, conflict, and waste of time, with the client wishing he never sought assistance or applied. The interaction with such agencies may result not only in frustration, agony, and loss of time, but also in humiliation. The presence of personnel with the previously described personality disorders (e.g., narcissists, passive-aggressives, and histrionics) increases the likelihood of this outcome. Also, agencies that are located in countries that tolerate administrative corruption further aggravate the distress. Accordingly, a porcupine effect needs to be cultivated with respect to such agencies and associations owing to the anticipation of a thorny entanglement akin to an entanglement with a porcupine.
The above experience resembles that of the previously described ego bashing but is delivered by more than one incumbent within the bureaucratic entity. This experience also expands on Nietzsche’s concept of the “economy of the self.” Nietzsche (1882/1968) recommended that an intellectually mature individual should conserve his or her self-energy by refraining from overreacting to unimportant issues and avoiding involvement with trivial people and their trivial issues. Accordingly, a second recommendation is made here regarding the economy of self and dignity: Avoid entanglement with agencies where you suspect character disorders or poor management. Avoidance and distance need to be maintained in relation to certain organizations that exhibit the traits of lurking porcupines.
Diagnosing Personality Disorders by Means of a Balance Sheet
An important relationship that may be worth investigating is the ratio between the positive and the negative input that an organization receives from an employee with a personality disorder. Despite their destructive potential, persons with personality disorders have been observed to embark on certain organizational tasks with great zeal and efficiency, sometimes “beyond the call of duty.” Their zeal, which is often short-lived, can produce spectacular results. Their strikingly positive input can neutralize a great deal of their past negative input, but it can be seen as part of a manipulative strategy, an attempt to smoke screen an ugly record. I am tempted, on the basis of my observations, to go a step further. I would hypothesize the existence of a deeply embedded formula that ensures that the negative input of the disordered person will ultimately outweigh the positive input. This ratio is somehow mathematically programmed at an unconscious level and is destined to be tilted against the organization.
This ratio could be investigated through the development of a longitudinal investigation that would record the inputs of such subjects and assess them by means of a negative/positive weighted scale. If the results tilt in favour of negative organizational input, then this relationship can also be used for the diagnostic identification of personality disorders within organizations. This balance sheet assessment could be an alternative to the diagnosis on the basis of clinical observation.