GLOSSARY

Concepts Advanced or Utilized in the Book

Aggression: Any action or inaction directed by an individual toward the conscious or unconscious goal of causing harm or suffering.

Anomic Aggression: Aggression committed without any reference to social values or sense of justice.

Anti-Organizational Personality Profile: An assertive profile combining, in a synergic manner, the following three traits: aggrandized ego, concrete thinking, and unethicality (arrogant, ignorant, and corrupt).

Balance Sheet in Personality Disorders: A measurement of the ratio between the negative and the positive input that an organization receives from an employee with a personality disorder assessed over a lengthy period of time. It is suggested that this ratio is ultimately not in favour of the organization and can be used as a diagnostic criterion for the presence of a personality disorder.

Bimodal Aggression: Aggression delivered through forms of behaviour belonging to the two modes: confrontational and non-confrontational.

Bureaucratic Avoidance of Responsibility: Avoidance of the negative repercussions of previous decisions and avoiding having to make new decisions through resorting to a camouflaged blending with the position.

Bureaucratic Intransigence: The stubborn and oppositional behaviour of a bureaucrat that involves challenging others by means of an organizational position and at the same time camouflaging the self with it.

Bureaucratic Sabotage: The disruption or the undermining of efficiency carried out by junior bureaucrats against their seniors, accomplished without actually breaking rules. Excessive rule-following and information-overloading are examples.

Camouflaged Aggression: Non-confrontational aggression expressed within the organization and employing its formal structures for the delivery and masking of the aggression.

Cathartic Release: The feeling of relief and the diminution in the need to further aggress following the expression of aggression. Confrontational aggression produces a faster cathartic release than non-confrontational aggression.

Conflict Avoidance Syndrome: A pervasive personality orientation in normally functioning individuals that consistently avoids polarization and conflict.

Conflict Reconciliation Syndrome: A pervasive personality orientation in normally functioning individuals that consistently seeks mediation of conflict and deal-making.

Confrontational Mode: Expression of aggression that is direct, active, and conscious, and where the intention, perpetrator, act, and target, are readily identifiable.

Confrontational Revenge vs. Getting Even: In the former, the victim directs his retaliatory action directly and overtly at the perpetrator, thus speeding conflict resolution and promoting deterrence. In the latter, the victim directs his revenge actions in a non-confrontational, protracted, displaced, and camouflaged manner, which fails to shorten conflict or promote deterrence.

Convergence on Injustice: The compliance with, or the cooperation of, employees in carrying out an unjust action against a client or a member of the organization.

Conspiracy Denial: The obsessive debunking of conspiracy assumptions that is propelled by a reaction formation against conspiracy thinking as in the case of counterphobia.

Functions of Camouflage: The first function is to protect the animal from being observed by a predator; the second is to facilitate efficient delivery of aggression for predation; the third to protect the predator from the defensive reaction of the prey. Organizational camouflage provides the bureaucrat with the same functions in a parallel manner.

Geometric Spread of Aggression: The progressive spread of aggression among the interacting members of an organization which results from the displacement of aggression from one individual onto several others, who in turn displace onto more individuals.

Honour vs. Vanity: Honour is an abstract and enduring definition of self, based on the incorporation of socially revered values within the self. It is experienced internally as self-respect; it is not amenable to self-deception. It is self-monitoring and is defended by healthy narcissism. Vanity is an alienated and more public version of honour. It is predominantly experienced externally as public image and is amenable to expedient presentation. It is less self-monitoring of behaviour than honour and is defended by pathological narcissism.

Hydraulic Principle of Aggression: Accumulated aggression that seeks expression at the point of least resistance.

Hydraulic Victimization: Becoming a victim of aggression as the result of occupying a point of least resistance due to personal or situational vulnerability.

Hydraulically Expressed Aggression: Aggression expressed at the point of least resistance.

Institutionalization of Anti-Charisma: The withering away of traditional positive association between rank and personal charisma as a result of the extensive hiring and promotion of conflict avoidants, minimalists, and survivalists.

Interpersonal Sabotage: The non-confrontational aggression expressed among closely interacting individuals such as friends and coworkers.

Malignant Aggression: Aggression propelled solely by the need for tension release and the presence of a convenient situation.

Medium of Aggression: The context of the expression and delivery of aggression, i.e., physical, verbal, emotional, and cognitive.

Minimal Self: Refers to Christopher Lasch’s (1984) concept of constricted sense of self that primarily seeks survival, with minimal conditions placed on the quality of survival.

Modal Balance: The availability of options, avenues, and norms that permit the expression of aggression along both modes in a given context.

Modal Imbalance: The blockage of options, avenues, and norms belonging to one mode while those belonging to the other mode remain open and available in a given context.

Modal Shift: The response to aggression by means of methods belonging to the opposite mode. Appropriate modal shift can directly contribute to modal balance and to deterrence.

Mode of Aggression: Basic qualitative style of the expression of aggression. Two basic modes can be identified: the confrontational and the non-confrontational.

Neutralization of Conflict: The use of “civilized” office etiquette and interpersonal courtesy and “friendliness” to eliminate the overt and affective manifestations of conflict.

Non-Confrontational Mode: Expression of aggression that is indirect, passive, and oriented toward masking the intention, perpetrator, act, and target.

Oncological Model of Narcissism: The alienation of self-image under the impact of exhibitionism and its progressive development into an aggrandized public image that feeds on the individual’s energy and impairs personal well-being, as would a cancerous tumour.

Paradox of Modern Life: The tendency of the contemporary formal organization, the most evolved social structure, to invoke, catalyse, and accommodate itself to the highly primitive strategy of camouflage.

Phylogenetic Regression Toward Camouflage: Operations within complex organizational structures that induce a regression along phylogenetic paths toward the primitive state of camouflage; characterized by exaggerated fear, hiding, and deception, and by the non-confrontational expression of aggression.

Porcupine Entanglement: Interaction with public agencies that are poorly managed or harbour disordered personalities, which can present a level of potential distress to a client. The client of such agencies risks a harmful interaction that is similar to a thorny entanglement with a porcupine.

Position Victimology: The study of a position’s characteristics which contribute to the victimization of the individual who occupies the position.

Position Vulnerability: Characteristics of the position (not the individual incumbent) that present points of least resistance or weak deterrence (e.g., contract or part-time jobs).

Principle of Equivalence in Pathological Narcissism: The facility of the narcissist to support a goal and its demise at the same time, and thus reconcile constructiveness with destructiveness.

Pseudo-Confrontation: The use of an assertive interpersonal style to confront others while avoiding confrontation with the real issue.

Psychological Disarming: The neutralizing of the retaliatory hostility of a victim by means of interpersonal civility which allows the perpetrator to perpetuate his aggression under safer conditions.

Psycho-Structural Marriage: The adaptive compatibility between the needs and characteristics of an incumbent’s personality and those of the position. In the case of disordered personalities, this compatibility “marriage” increases the motivation for the delivery of camouflaged aggression.

Quantity to Quality Conversion: The increase in the number of incumbents with disordered personality characteristics that leads to changes in the quality of interaction and operation within the organization.

Quantum of Aggression: The amount of expressed aggression among individuals in an interactive context, together with the potential individual dispositions and structured avenues available for the expression of aggression. The quantum of aggression can be present in both kinetic and potential states.

Regressed Aggression: Aggression with one or more of the following characteristics: hydraulically expressed, malignant, anomic, and camouflaged.

Resonance of Aggression: The amplification in the quantum of aggression beyond what is expected from a certain stimulus. This amplification results from the stimulus targetting a personal vulnerability of an individual or from an individual being targetted by multiple sources of aggressive stimuli within the organization.

Self-Directed Aggression in Organizations: Organizations increase and proliferate avenues for the delivery of aggression against others and against self. Self-destructiveness increases with the increase of structured opportunities that can be used for self-sabotage.

Unimodal Aggression: Aggression delivered through forms of behaviour that are restricted to one mode. This restriction is personally or structurally imposed or both.

Violence: Use of physical force to injure or harm. A form of aggression expressed through a physical medium and often within the confrontational mode.

Warehousing of Aggression: The accumulation of aggression as individual dispositions to aggress and as structured opportunities for the delivery of aggression within the organization. Aggression is stored both as potential and kinetic energy.

Basic Techniques of Camouflaged Aggression

Bureaucratic Vendetta: The perseverance of retaliatory intention in a lowered or suspended state of affect; characterized by waiting and timing.

Control by Overwork: The overwhelming of the attention of employees by excessive work demands, rendering them less capable of engaging in criticism and office politics. In order to ensure compliance, the excessive work demands need to be relevant to the advancement of the employee’s career and need to be well compensated.

Ego Bashing: The attack on an employee’s core self, status, or self-worth, as distinguished from attacks on extensions of self in terms of the employee’s productivity, management style, or decisions.

Entrapment: The luring of a victim in some beguiling way, such as displaying fake warmth and understanding, into suspending his or her self-protective behaviour.

Inaccessibility: The use of legitimate techniques available in an organization to avoid or postpone direct contact with a client or a member of the organization.

Indecision: Tendency toward decision avoidance, reflecting psychological insecurity and a technique for camouflaged aggression. In the latter case indecision can be used to frustrate, exacerbate, and demoralize others.

Information Manipulation: The use of bureaucratic procedure to aggress by disseminating, withholding, building, and timing information.

Non-Interference: The deliberate ignoring of an employee who is unwittingly committing a mistake.

Random Kindness: The unexpected and extravagant help given by a manager to an employee or client who may not have asked for it. This act of kindness is often intended to neutralize the perpetrator’s previous negative deeds, to present a positive image, or to spite an adversary or victim.

Rigidity: The use of bureaucratic procedure to block change and to thwart innovative ideas.

Subordination via Sexualization: The display of sexual attractiveness to enhance power and charisma over a client or coworker. This is consistent with the social exchange theory of power.

Time Manipulation: The use of bureaucratic procedure to aggress by rushing people or by delaying them.

Undermining the Sense of Security: The use of a variety of anxiety-provoking procedures for the purpose of undermining the sense of security of employees. A state of insecurity can make employees compliant and vulnerable to manipulation.

Waiting as a Status Degradation Ceremony: The demoralization and loss of self-esteem of a client from having to wait for a long time to see an official by appointment.

Withdrawal: The use of withdrawal of attention and of positive affect to induce anxiety, confusion, and lowered self-esteem in an employee.

Labels for Some Forms of Camouflaged Aggression

Affectional Yo-Yoing: The intermittent display of emotion which involves shifting unpredictably between affectivity and coolness.

Carpet Pulling: Engaging in anxiety-provoking practices.

Decision Laundering: The rationalization of a personally motivated decision in terms of the organization’s needs and restrictions.

Dusting: The dissemination of harmful information.

Organizational Foliage: A metaphor taken from the natural world; refers to the intricate organizational structures where aggressors take cover.

Withdrawal of Love: Deliberate withdrawal of attention and affect from someone.