Recall a traumatic event, such as the falling of the Twin Towers in NYC (9/11 attacks), or the bombing of several hotels and restaurants in Mumbai, or the children killed recently in an American school. Based on what you have learned in this chapter, discuss what has happened to you in terms of your cognitive reasoning, your emotional reactions, and your ability to logically deal with these stressful situations.


It is clear that our emotions shape attitudes (both inside organizations and outside of them). It is also clear that attitudes influence work-related behaviors. We cannot dismiss the attitudes we have formed outside of our organizations, as they can carry over into our work-related domains very easily. The question prompts you to recall how you “felt” when you observed (likely on television or the internet) horrific events. Since cognition precedes emotion, one can only imagine that the cognitively horrific images caused emotional reactions that lacked “words” or even narratives that defined what those images conveyed. That is why people often react with phrases such as “I’m speechless,” or “words cannot express what I feel…” Indeed, the R-mode (emotional side) of the brain takes over and the L-mode (cognitive) recedes in highly stressful events. That is why people often cannot even “talk” about what they have just observed. Because people differ in their ability to psychologically translate these phenomena, personality differences may allow them to cognitively reason through, and come to a conclusion more swiftly than others may be able to.

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