The level of team psychological safety within companies and its impact on team performance is researched in companies. The concept was formulated by Edgar Schein, is researched intensely by Amy Edmondson and lately by Anna-Christina Leisin¹.

In this paper, we look at the role of psychological safety in business families, the implications of its absence from a behavioural and neuroscientific angle.

Introduction

Family enterprises have the added complexity of the family system, which is the backbone of the business. By the same token, it cancontribute to the erosion of socioemotional and financial wealth of the entire family enterprise.

The next generation often needs to fight the inertia of the current or even previous generation to collaborate and accept valuable input derived from societal and cultural evolutions which require the adaption of the business model.

A family enterprise needs strong and responsible owners who take charge, are responsible and accountable with shared visions and goals that can contribute to the transgenerational successes of the family enterprise and the legacy with high levels of psychological (mental) ownership².

But a lack of Intergenerational communication, the failure to listening to what the next generation has to offer and to contribute are perceived as social rejections. It leads to false assumptions that are likely to frustrate expectations as well as it frustrates the need for ‘love & belonging’ by feeling heard and the permission to contribute.

This systematic encouragement for disengagement stems from and fuels the misinterpreted humility to stay away from active ownership and leadership roles, creating vacuums – passive owners without a true sense of stewardship that can become the Achilles heel of the family enterprise³ as it favours entitlements which are especially problematic in control and assets transitions (i.e., successions).

It feels like the family enterprise should be protected from its owners instead of connecting the owners with the family enterprise to nurture active ownership instead of patronizing and ignoring owners, which induces divisions and indifference because ‘speaking up’ is costly in a socioemotional sense

1 Revisiting Team Psychological Safety at Work: A Case Study Approach to Its Dimensions, Intergroup Variations, and Influencing Factors,
Anna-Christina Leisin, Dissertation, 2021
2 Enabling Next Generation Legacies, Peter Jaskiewicz, Sabine B. Rau et. al., Family Enterprise Knowledge Hub Publishing, 2021
3
Enabling Next Generation Legacies, Peter Jaskiewicz, Sabine B. Rau et. al., Family Enterprise Knowledge Hub Publishing, 2021

Despite the importance to nurture active ownership in a bid to not compromise the socioemotional and financial wealth of the family and family enterprise, the strategic cultivation of active ownership rarely exists⁴ in business families.

Scholars and practitioners suggest that active ownership should be fostered by instilling competencies related to technical knowledge about the idiosyncrasies of the business and the markets, sector- and wider economy, but also about social competencies relating to leadership and acceptance within the family system and the business system which plays a pivotal role in successful successions.

The training of social competencies needs to start way earlier and must include all generations, not just the next generation to create a culture of mutual sponsorship with the creation of a psychological safe space at the core.

Psychological Safety

In a psychological safe space, agents don’t feel the need to exhibit a self-protection bias and have a shared belief that it is safe to take socioemotional risks to communicate freely and authentically without the fear of repercussions in response to their communication. Thus, creativity can flow freely, and even contentious issues of concern can be discussed with positive outcomes (productive conflict) that emerge from the social interaction.

It is the prerequisite to explore and exploit neurodiversity in a group of agents for generative collaboration and the genesis of collective intelligence, producing outcomes that are greater than the sum of its parts could achieve.

Thus, psychological safety is an indispensable infrastructure necessary for the dynamical emergence of higher-order and irreducible functional social units to perform complex tasks with social system efficacy. A psychological safe space is vital to prevent social systems from over-synchronization that manifests itself in group-thinking, a dangerous reinforcing feedback loop with peer pressure, echo chamber, and confirmation bias effects on a group level without constructive criticism or different outside perspectives. This reduction in collective intelligence and pluralism fosters polarization.

The level of psychological safety can be seen in the communication style. If it is cautious, inauthentic, or even propagandistic, it indicates poor health of the organization⁵.

⁴Enabling Next Generation Legacies, Peter Jaskiewicz, Sabine B. Rau et. al., Family Enterprise Knowledge Hub Publishing, 2021
⁵Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

We would add the degree of information asymmetry, tacit or open conflict and the degree of non-generative or
even degenerative dialogues.

More specifically, psychological safety reduces information asymmetry, allows embracing complexity, and is conducive to creative problem solutions. It lifts collective, generative performance potentials, especially when problems are fast-paced and ‘wicked’ due to a VUCA impact, demanding high levels of social system efficacy and agility.

The channel capacity and signal quality described by Claude Shannon’s information theory increases, i.e., the signal strength resp. bandwidth increases, the noise units decrease, making communication and thus, coordination efficient. High channel capacity is fostering the alignment of various mental models of the world resp. the subjective realities present in the social system, which in turn fosters channel capacity as we discussed in ‘Synchronicity’⁶.

Hallmarks of psychological Safety – the more the better?

Agents who exhibit behaviours conducive to creating a psychological safe space are driven by significantly high levels of emotional intelligence [EQ] which includes self-awareness and efficacy, a profound understanding of emotional processing and emotional vocabular as well as social intelligence [SQ] pertaining to the understanding of the emotions of others (emotional empathy) and mentalizing their states (cognitive empathy). They are acting from a place of abundance with a flexible growth-mindset rather than a place of scarcity with limited self-efficacy and a fixed and soldier mindset.

⁶https://family-hippocampus.com/synchronicity-the-importance-to-synchronize-social-systems/

Table 1⁷ summarizes EQ and SQ properties that are PS_i⁺_j and thus conducive to creating a psychological safety applicable to all agents and especially for senior members of the social system:

While these traits are positive forces to create a psychological safe space, counter forces will be active as social agents are resistant to change and introducing the concept of psychological safety is unlikely to be a linear process. Equation 1 formalises a psychological safe space which is a social construct of the dyad i and j with the psychological safety state variable 𝜓:

$\psi = f(PS_{ij}^+, PS_{ij}^-)$

With:

$\frac{\partial\psi}{\partial PS_{ij}} > 0, \quad \frac{\partial\psi}{\partial PS_{ij}} < 0$

</pThe prime task for leaders is to promote the synchronization of social systems into functional units of higher order. In case of asymmetric seniority levels with high social influence e.g., i > j, i needs to be the first mover in initiating 𝜓 which must be reciprocated by j for the emergence of 𝜓.

This resembles a leadership-follower model. It is an intentional social interaction whereby the leader initiates the social process, sets the rhythm and the follower tunes in, influencing the frequency and amplitude of this social oscillation which is only possible through social cognition and feed-back loops.

⁷https://hbr.org/2017/02/emotional-intelligence-has-12-elements-which-do-you-need-to-workon?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=LinkedIn&tpcc=orgsocial_edit

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

The quality of the social process or social oscillation depends on how the protagonists act

$PS \frac{+}{ij}$

and react $PS \frac{+}{ji}$

We list some $PS \frac{+}{ij}$ identified by Amy Edmondson, Anna-Catherina Leisin⁸ and the author:
1. Holding space for another person by proactive, genuine curiosity and interest in another person’s state of being and concerns
2. Joining another person in his or her mental model of the world
3. Proactively seeking input
4. Appreciation the contribution of others
5. Active open mindset and challenging one’s biases, beliefs and assumptions
6. Learning orientation (growth mindset) rather than performance orientation
7. Active listening by suspending judgement and solution-processes
while listening
8. Inquiring and questioning with epistemological rationality
9. Demonstrating approachability, empathy, and compassion
10. Respect with eye-level discussions suspending hierarchical patterns
11. Sense of collective responsibility over the assignment of individual responsibility
12. Inclusiveness, familiarity, accessibility, seeking mental and physical proximity
13. Fostering cohesion and sense of togetherness
14. Accountability and vulnerability, admitting failure and knowledge deficits
15. Encouragement for self-forgiveness and to forgive others
16. Replacing control compulsion with trust
17. Suspending micromanagement with macro management with trust, delegation and providing a sense of agency
18. Competency, integrity, consistency, reliability $\rightarrow\hspace{-0.55em}\rightarrow$ \rightarrow\hspace{-0.55em}\rightarrow

trustworthy
19. Clarity about vison, mission, goals, and roles (functional attractors)
20. Constructive attitude/feedback
21. Solution-oriented behaviours
22. …

⁸ Revisiting Team Psychological Safety at Work: A Case Study
Approach to Its Dimensions, Intergroup Variations, and Influencing Factors, Anna-Christina Leisin, Dissertation, 2021

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

Conversely, a negative item list can be construed that are exhibited by leaders or in response to the introduction of psychological safety through leadership:

$PS \frac{+}{ij}$
:
1. Dismissing and ignoring other people’s concerns, approaches to contribute by shutting and shouting them down
2. Ambiguous communication
3. Ambiguity about clarity, vison, mission, goal, and roles (no or chaotic attractor)
4. Performance orientation
5. Deflecting responsibilities, not being accountable
6. Blaming others
7. Exclusion of others (social rejection)
8. Not admitting failures
9. No willingness to learn (fixed mind set)
10. Pretending to know everything
11. Reframing other people’s experience (phenomenologically)
12. Treating other people with disrespect and ignorance
13. Cutting them short, talking over them
14. Aloofness, entitled behaviours
15. Narcissism (introverted, extroverted)
16. Not appearing vulnerable
17. Defensive (soldier mind-set)
18. Underappreciative of others
19. Superficial, meaningless behavioural patterns
20. Inaccessibility, not reachable or approachable
21. Inhibiting team communication
22. Control and command, depriving people of sense of agency
23. Lack of competency, integrity, consistency, reliability ⇏ trustworthy
24. …

We can see some

PS_{ij}^- patterns that have been mentioned in the introduction section and the list can go on with examples that we have experienced in the context of family dynamics. PS patterns $PS \frac{+}{ij}$ are driven by social skills i as well as j must possess or acquire

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

An optimal level of psychological capital [PsyCap] ⁹ of the protagonists is supportive of creating psychological safety because of transmissive positive emotions [PS⁺]. We can define PsyCap as function of emotional intelligence [EQ], social intelligence [SQ] and intellectual intelligence [IQ] which leads to an irreducible core construct of higher order emerging from the levels of 4 dimensions¹⁰: (1) optimism, i.e., making positive attributions across the time continuum, (2) hope, a motivational state derived from grit, perceived and successful agency, good stress management, failure acceptance, self-forgiveness, gratitude, (3) resilience resp. antifragility with a high tolerance for risk and uncertainty, nurtured by the belief that life is meaningful in combination with a high degree of (4) self-efficacy, i.e., the deep trust resp. confidence in one’s competencies on a cognitive level (IQ) and on a socio-emotional level( EQ, SQ) to execute and master challenges effectively.
Equation 1.1

𝜓 = 𝑓𝑖(𝐸𝑄, 𝑆𝑄,𝐼𝑄) ≅ 𝑓𝑗(𝐸𝑄, 𝑆𝑄,𝐼𝑄)

A psychological safe space can emerge when the levels of psychological capital of 2 or more agents are congruent.

That is, more $PS^{+}$
patterns in frequency and intensity must be exhibit than $PS^{-}$ . Incongruent patterns must be synchronized in a way that deficits of i can be compensated by competencies j possesses e.g., PsyCap.

If agent j exhibits a unit of $PS_{j}^{-}$ , the agent i exhibits one or more units of $PS_{i}^{+}$ to create 𝜓 credits which is dependent on the emotional intelligence (EQ) of the protagonists, the social intelligence (SQ) and to a lesser degree, the intellectual intelligence (IQ). Conversely, 𝜓 and every behavioural unit $PS \frac{+}{ij}$ influences {𝐸𝑄, 𝑆𝑄,𝐼𝑄}

It is a dynamical system between the micro level i.e., patterns of social understanding driven by {𝐸𝑄, 𝑆𝑄,𝐼𝑄} operationalized through sensory perception, interpretation pertaining to the identification of mental and emotional states (social cognition) and how these sates evolve in accordance with the perception of context (macro level) rep. how the macro-level influences the micro level and vice versa.
Equation 1.2
$\psi_{t+1} = f(\psi_{t}, PS_{t,ij} \pm)$

⁹ Comparison of the Psychological Capital of Founders and Their Employed Top Management, Marcus Heidbrink et.al., Journal of Psychology and Clinical Psychiatry, 2017
¹⁰ Comparison of the Psychological Capital of Founders and Their Employed Top Management, Marcus Heidbrink et.al., Journal of Psychology and Clinical Psychiatry, 2017

The individuals learn from each interaction on a local level $PS \frac{+}{ij}$ and global level 𝜓. Local and global level are in a reflexive relationship.

For psychological safety to emerge, equation 1.2 must be satisfied:
$\psi_{t+1} > \psi_{t}$
The question is, if a monotonous increasing and infinite level of psychological safety is realistic resp. healthy for a social system.

Coexistence of $PS \frac{+}{ij}$ , $PS \frac{-}{ij}$

Equation 1.4

$\psi_{t+1} = \psi_{t} \delta(1 - \psi_{t})$

𝜓 = [0,1]: degree of psychological safety by $PS \frac{+}{ij}$
behavioral patterns
𝛿: growth rate of $PS \frac{+}{ij}$ units (integration force)
(1 − 𝜓𝑡) induced by $PS^{-}_{j}$ units countering psychological safety (differentiation force).

To grow and expand a psychological safe space, we need 𝛿 > 0, but for large 𝛿, the system can oscillate and even tip into chaos and a state of entropy. This can happen due to resistance to change driven by psychological reactance or unconstructive behavior, exploiting the space for ego-self-differentiation expressed by (1 − 𝜓𝑡 ) . A very large 𝛿 can lead to oversupply of psychological safety, resulting in over-synchronization, eroding social system efficacy through groupthink.

Graph 1.0: Logistic map of psychological safety

Thus, efforts to create a psychological safe space must be tactfully consistent to create a functional attractor but not overpowering to account for inter-and intra-group variations e.g., previous, and current generations if the latter are not initiating the change for psychological safety as they should according to their status of seniority and as discussed under equation 1.0.

Another interpretation is that once 𝜓 = 1 efforts should be undertaken to keep the space but not to overreach and expand it beyond the useful e.g., reducing the incentive for self-control and inviting the exploitation of safe space to the sole benefit of some group members such as, complacency, freeriding, or a situation of dysfunctional over-synchronization11 which is likely to happen for large 𝛿. In general, we can define the optimal level of psychological safety as:

Equation 1.5

𝜓_optimal: 𝜓 ≃ 1

Another interpretation is a chaotic system, in case of a dyadic relationship the small difference e.g., in semantics (semantic dispersion) at the beginning of a social process that can tip the system into chaos if it is sensitive to the initial condition as described in equation 1.41.

1 https://family-hippocampus.com/synchronicity-the-importance-to-synchronize-social-systems

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

Equation 1.41

$|𝛿| = 𝑥0 - 𝑥0 ' \neq 0 ⋀ 𝜆 > 0$
𝜆: 𝐿𝑦𝑎𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑜𝑣 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑛t

In general, social systems are sensitive to the initial condition¹² and thus, they are prone to chaos, satisfying equation 1.41.

One interpretation is that the system stays 𝜆 > 0 but given a highly functional initial condition characterised by an optimal safe space, chaos is less likely.

Alternatively, we can see psychological safe space leads to a functional attractor (e.g., shared purpose) that is pertaining to 𝜆 < 0 which is tantamount to a system not prone to the initial condition and therefore, is not prone to chaos.

𝑥0, 𝛿, 𝜓, 𝜆 can be influenced through social understanding, rapport building and synchronization as we describe in the following paragraphs.

Social interaction is fundamental to the Anthropocene and its evolution. It is through intermittent synchronization that superficial social interaction transforms into a relationship. It is a process of discovery of overt behaviors and the synchronization of internal states (attitudes, beliefs, values, emotions, etc.) of the other person, alternating between differentiation and integration of information that enables the dynamics of social connection.

The role of social dynamics challenges the Darwinian model of separation with random variations and selection processes as it focuses on (intentional) integration (e.g., cooperation), forming social units with traits, norms, traditions that last for generations and play a key role in a dialogue of cultural and genetic evolution of humanity which is summarized in the dual inheritance theory (DIT)¹³. Socio-emotional patterns based on subjective experiences and attachment styles (secure or insecure) change gene expressions that are passed on to the next generation (transgenerational epigenetics) which will be discussed later in more detail.

All influence cognitive functioning which is a process of selective temporal coordination resp. synchronization of sub-sets to differentiate and integrate information allowing for perception, feelings, and thoughts.

¹² Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences, L. Douglas Kiel et.al., Michigan. 1997
¹³ The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

In general, to exist means to interact¹⁴, and we assume that neurotypical agents would like to exist, preferably in a space without threats to one’s existence.

Taking turns in communication leads to oscillations, and if resonant, synchronization can emerge. Thus, social understanding and psychological safety are fundamental to humanity and its evolution, but they need to be created.

Every agent generates a subjective reality, and there is no universal truth of reality because it is a social construct, driven by individual needs, desires, and perceptions, resp. interpretations of the same data set. The knowledge of our environment is a function of our perception fed by our 5 senses and begs the question if the environment that we perceive exists at all (David Hume) and our knowledge is not a function of things we observe; things are rather a function of our knowledge (Immanuel Kant).

To make meaning of the data presented we engage in pattern recognition and pattern completion, filling in the blind spots with beliefs (i.e., epistemological irrational convictions), narratives, and assumptions which drive our conclusions and cognitive biases leading to illusion clusters to make meaning resp. reduce cognitive dissonance, which is a strong repeller. Conversely, cognitive resonance is a strong attractor, and we like to adjust our world in a way that we achieve cognitive and emotional resonance using confabulations. This comprises the well-documented ‘confirmation bias’, which favors belief-confirming information over disconfirming information and the Echo Chamber effect that essentially describes reinforcing feedback loops of the confirmation bias, amplifying held beliefs.

Thus, absolute truth does not exist, and we need to understand the truth of reality and even rationality as a probabilistic phenomenon:
Equation 2.0
$P(\text{TRUTH}) = \begin{bmatrix} \approx 1 \\ \approx 0 \end{bmatrix}$

The probabilistic approach to truth is a System II15 activity that forms the judgment which over time becomes detached from the process that created it. Judgments are created by a neural cascade of associative processes where one element triggers other elements retrieved from memory that is shaped by events that happened in temporal proximity in a given context to create functional units of

¹⁴ Illusions of Human Thinking, Gabriel Vacariu, Springer
¹⁵ Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, 2012, Penguin

higher order with supraordinate meaning which potentially can change over time, but then we have a natural tendency to resist change.

The so-called corresponding truth of reality arises from an interplay of creating theories of truth followed by being actively open-minded and researching evidence for the theory and its adaption or adoption, depending on the outcome which we can combine with the coherent theory of truth which questions the consistency of the theory¹⁶.

But the maintenance of the judgment becomes an important functional unit which can be immune to new information disconfirming it; this is in a bid to be self-consistent and self-sustaining which corresponds to the confirmation bias where existing beliefs are reinforced by selective perceptions if a new judgment process for self-validation which is triggered in context of psychological ambivalence.

Social agents even tend to avoid uncertainty and lengthy judgment processes and thus make fast judgments based on System I and their need for closure¹⁷, conceptualize and categorize stimuli to reduce uncertainty by taking control and structuring reality for better orientation which reduces stress responses, but the resulting dichotomy leads to misjudgments, false assumptions, and misunderstandings which are self-sustaining for the reasons mentioned above.

Ideally, agents follow their convictions (= judgments resp. functional units) that are descriptive, i.e., open to epistemology and thus, multi-stable and adaptable. Agents who resist adapting their convictions considering counter-evidence are deemed delusional, i.e., they hold epistemically irrational conviction and beliefs with mono-stability.

This is different with normative convictions, which correspond to moral cognitions and cultural, resp. moral beliefs that are not viably testable. It is rather a philosophical phenomenological argument without the possibility of finding pro or contra evidence¹⁸.

Thus, for mutual intelligibility, agents need to engage in a social process and produce a corresponding (and shared) reality, where they interact iteratively and reciprocally contingent upon each other’s social signals¹⁹, which includes the transduction and perception of social information, social cognitions that shape the content and structure of sent and received social information in conjunction with the ability to rationally understand and regulate own emotions (intrapersonal emotion regulation) and the emotions of others (interpersonal emotion regulation).

¹⁶ Die Illusion der Vernunft, Philipp Sterzer, Ullstein, 2022
¹⁷ Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, 2012, Penguin
¹⁸ Die Illusion der Vernunft, Philipp Sterzer, Ullstein, 2022
¹⁹ Social Cognition and the Second Person in Human Interaction, Diana I. Perez et.al., Routledge, 2022

It requires protagonists to shift conscious experience to spatio-temporal locations outside the current stream of experience and abstract a viewpoint of another mind with the support of episodic and autobiographic memory functions to track behaviors of self and others²⁰.

They need to be open to question perceived patterns and beliefs of self and others and adopt epistemology as a guiding principal and accept phenomenology as a framework.

The resulting cognitive representations agents develop are a form of cultural learning that changes the brain structures and the respective mental models of the world of the interacting agents.

Dynamics in social processes are characterized by agents making socio-psychological attributions (pattern recognition) about their respective cognitive and emotional current as well as future states with probabilistic predictions about the displayed resp. tacit intentions, the authenticity of communication, and evaluating the social exchange in terms of (anticipated) reward that creates an attractor pattern via $PS_{ij}^{+}$ behaviors or threat, that creates repeller patterns via $PS_{ij}^{-}$ behaviors, which makes social processes path-dependent and irreversible in nature.

Social understanding through correct attributions of mental states and reading primary and secondary emotions is the necessary condition for efficient, functional social processes, resp. social oscillations at optimal frequencies and amplitudes.

Empathy is at the core of social understanding. It is geared towards creating social coherence through mental mirroring of states, taking cognitive and emotional perspectives.

Understanding others is researched on a neuroscientific level thanks to brain-hyperscans, where neuronal activities of two or more persons in interaction can be researched.

Social cognitions can be broken down into an affective part which includes emotion recognition, empathy (feeling with the other person), and compassion (feeling for the other person) which occurs mainly in the right hemisphere of the brain²¹, as well as a cognitive part, (which includes language processing) and cognitions about the affective state and the mental state of another person and is a left-brain activity²².

The social interaction engages the cognitive control network [CNN] as well as the default mode network [DMN], which is active when the mind is not task-focused and wanders. It is a distributed neural activity in the brain characterized by greater variability of functional connectivity patterns important for meta-cognitive processes with greater functional variability than the CNN and plays a

20 The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022
21 Facial Expression in Empathy Research, Christina Regenbogen et.al., in Understanding Facial Expressions in Communication, Manas K.
Mandal, Springer, 2015
22 Facial Expression in Empathy Research, Christina Regenbogen et.al., in Understanding Facial Expressions in Communication, Manas K.
Mandal, Springer, 2015

pivotal role in meaning making and the creation of purpose. Both brain states are mutually exclusive
and alternate in social processes.

Most important for social understanding and social connections is the DMN, which involves the emotional circuitries in the brain23 and has a functional role in creating meaning and utility in mental life. The functional asymmetry of the brain’s hemispheres is structural as well as biochemical.
Neuropeptides are asymmetrically distributed, and the right brain features more spindle cells that are implied in social cognition.

Cognitive processes in social understanding occur in temporal, neural couplings between and agents are making inferences about the state of the other person based on the perception through sensory acuity to pick up signals from facial expressions, posture, prosody (emphasis through intonation and body language to convey emotional intent), choices of words etc. factoring in cultural context related differences and dialects in emotional expression.

Body language mirrors emotional states and serve as deliberate and nondeliberate communication signals while interacting with a perceived eco-sociological context defined by remembered past experiences from social interaction rep. interpretations of past resp. present and expectations about the future protagonists have and by the mutually perceived social status, group membership and power asymmetry embedded in social norms and emotion-display rules.

Agents tend to adapt and attune their behaviours to the requirements of the current context, a matching process summarised in the enactment theory.

The Theory of Mind

Pivotal to enactments in social processes is the Theory of Mind [ToM]²⁶, a cognitive, empathic, and shared process that occurs embedded in a socio-ecological context that is not necessarily perceived isomorphically and consists of two major components that interact with one another. One is the theory of theories – i.e., theorizing about the mental state of others (cognitive perspective taking involving the vmPFC), with Bayesian updating one’s mental model of the world. Based on the multimodal signals sent, received, and interpreted by the responder, s/he makes predictions about the internal state of the other person and the associated next step. If the outcome is incongruent with the prediction, the prediction model resp. the applied probability distribution will adapt resp recalibrated, to improve the next ex ante prediction quality and/or to rationalize the false prediction.

²³ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
²⁴ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
²⁵ Facial Expression in Empathy Research, Christina Regenbogen et.al., in Understanding Facial Expressions in Communication, Manas K. Mandal, Springer, 2015
²⁶ The Neuroscience of Empathy: Research-Overview and Implications for Human-Centred Design, Irene Sophia Plank et.al. in Design Thinking Research, Christoph Meinel et. al., Springer, 2021

and improve the prediction quality ex post. Both strategies aim at reducing the cognitive dissonance arising from the false prediction. A zero cognitive dissonance resp. a good level of cognitive resonance is a strong attractor in the human psyche and so, we want to be right resp. are biased to confirm predictions with the help of confabulations. However, this ‘cognitive resonance attractor’ can be dysfunctional and lead to social misunderstandings, e.g., when the responding party confabulates and skews the information in a way that it fits their mental model of the world rather than joining the other person in her mental model of the world. Reducing this bias requires self-awareness which is an essential part of the individuals’ emotional intelligence [EQ] which we will discuss in more detail.

These inferences about the mental state of others work in conjunction with the simulation theory, an affective empathic process with cognitive elements. This process can occur unconsciously, at least before the subject becomes gradually aware of neuronal pattern-simulations. In any case, it informs the social counterpart on a deeper level about the mental and affective internal state of the other party which is emulated by the responder ‘to create an experiential understanding of the other person’ (Gallese et. al., 2004)²⁷ and supports the affective mind reading efforts for emotional perspective taking in a social context.

Reading, understanding, and predicting the emotional states of another person are essential effective social interactions, as emotions are firmly in the driving seat, evaluating, guiding, and modulating cognitions, attentions, intensions, and decisions as a precursor for behavioral patterns that a person exhibits in response to stimuli. They are essential signals that indicate ‘right’, i.e., congruency or ‘wrong’ i.e., incongruence of perceived information and they introduce biased resp. noise, especially in the form of unspecific emotions i.e., moods²⁸.

²⁷ The Neuroscience of Empathy: Research-Overview and Implications for Human-Centred Design, Irene Sophia Plank et.al. in Design Thinking Research, Christoph Meinel et. al., Springer, 2021
²⁸ Noise, A Flaw in Human Judgment, Daniel Kahneman et. al., William Collins, 2022

Emotions

Once emotions are triggered, they set in motion a cascade of neural activities, coordinating multiple physiological and psychological systems like motivation, priorities, attention, perception, action system, inferences, learning and memory organization, goal definition, decision making etc.²⁹

Emotions prepare for action and help us to survive e.g., when they induce foraging patterns to find food which elicits the reward system with the ventral striatum at the center in our brains, including the secretion of dopamine or the avoidance system which warns us of perceived danger with the amygdalae at the center. The amygdalae are central to social cognitions and build a network with the perception-action system, the mentalizing network, the mirror neuron network etc³⁰.

The amygdalae can be triggered outside our conscious awareness, i.e., activated via the subcortical pathway³¹, leading to flight, freeze, or fight reactions whereby it inhibits the rational thinking unit in the brain (pre-frontal cortex PFC), which is metabolically very expensive and would cost too much energy to engage.

A stimulus that predicts reward is a strong behavioral attractor while a stimulus that predicts danger is a strong behavioral repeller. But even negative emotions can induce the reward system in preparatory avoidance behaviors³². Another explanation could be a dysfunctional attractor which manifests e.g., in the Stockholm syndrome or individuals that are attracted by the aversive treatment of a romantic partner and seem to fall for the same type of partner repeatedly. Thus, emotions can be basic and complex, especially when other emotional dimensions are added like disgust, guilt, or shame. While healthy relationships with psychological safety are rewarding and resemble a strong attractor, seeking social contacts can also lower the reward stimulus³³, implying that a social partner needs to demonstrate proactivity in establishing the relationship.

The central nervous system features an opioid system which influences the arousal dimension of emotions, modulates the evaluative properties of emotions, alleviating stress, and dysphoria by shifting evaluations of internal states and the perception of the world. The role of the opioid system has been researched in the context of social relationships and strenuous physical exercise and might

²⁹ Evidence for the Universality of Facial Expressions of Emotion, Hyisung Hwang et. al., in Understanding Facial Expressions in Communication, Manas K. Mandal et.al., Springer, 2015
³⁰ Facial Expressions in Empathy Research, Christiana Regenbogen et.al., in Understanding Facial Expressions in Communication, Manas K. Mandal et.al., Springer, 2015
³¹ The Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Unconscious Emotional Responses, Wataru Sato, in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
³² Molecular Imaging of the Human Emotion Circuit, Lauri Nummenmaa et.al. in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
³³ Molecular Imaging of the Human Emotion Circuit, Lauri Nummenmaa et.al. in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023

be acting as a buffer against socioemotional stress, reducing negative emotions associated with misfortune outcomes for self and others.

The level of serotonin is also relevant, especially as it regulates the activities of the amygdalae in response to expressions of emotions and has implications for the response to aversive stimuli, exacerbating fear responses and favoring avoidance behaviors towards anhedonia³⁴.

Like oxytocin, which is secreted when we feel social attachment, the neuropeptides (dopamine, serotonin, opioids) have profound implications for affective patterns and thus, the avoidance and approach behaviors of individuals.

The level of secretion and the number of receptors in the brain correspond to how a person’s brain has been shaped, expressed in their individual mental model of the world which is subjectively created by the experiences a person makes in a specific cultural context at a micro-macro level, including secure resp. unsecure attachment and transgenerational epigenetics with profound implications for the ability to socially connect and synchronize at a deeper level.

Emotional signalling and reading

Social signals are inevitably defined by the subjective mental model of the sender when s/he encodes the message and skewed by the person decoding the signal based on their mental model of the world. The accuracy of reading emotions is predictive of empathy a person develops for others35.

However, there are neuro functional differences in the expression (i.e., encoding) and decoding of emotional signals. Experiences shape our brains thanks to neuroplasticity.

Engram variations are influenced by cultural dimensions which becomes relevant when we think of a widening diaspora of family members in business families and offspring that are growing up in different locations and cultures.

Functional differences in emotional encoding and decoding are present in agents that have formed engrams in the brain based on similar experiences of others by EQ driven reflection and analysis are more likely to engage in cognitive and emotional simulation which allows them to be more empathic and have greater social competence (i.e., SQ).

But there is also a structural gender difference between male and female agents which is supported by a large body of behavioural evidence that females have greater social and affective competence. According to a study conducted in Germany, women exhibit lower levels of narcissism than men, especially in top management positions36.

34 Molecular Imaging of the Human Emotion Circuit, Lauri Nummenmaa et.al. in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio
et.al., Springer, 2023
35 The Neural Basis of Mentalizing, Michael Gilead, Springer, 2021
36 Die Jungbullen Kommen, Marcus Heidbrink, Victoria Berg, Folrian Feltes, Havard Business manager, Mai 5/2021

This corresponds to the fact that women show a greater interest and attention level in social and affective information, have a greater perceptual sensitivity, speed and accuracy in decoding emotional verbal and non-verbal cues like facial expressions with a better empathy attitude than men. The female preference for emotional information is confirmed by a more discriminative response demonstrated by greater activation of the amygdalae, insula and the anterior cingulate
cortex when looking at other people in distress, especially infants which is oxytocin modulated37. The difference in social perceptions impacts team psychological safety. Research in a corporate setting showed that females reported a lower level of psychological safety and that women leadership contributed to psychological safety (PS+)
38, an argument for social system diversification.
In general, signals are often encoded and decoded outside of our conscious awareness which is described as subliminal affective priming as opposed to supraliminal priming.

The emotions driving the prime signal arise fast, unconsciously and are expressed outside our conscious awareness.

Primes bias emotional evaluations and can be conveyed by non-verbal signals via facial expressions. Studies have found that subliminal, emotional primes through dynamical facial expressions have greater effect than supraliminal primes, hitting the amygdalae through subcortical pathways in approximately 100ms and thus, they are too fast to be consciously prevented by modulating emotional responses with cognitive effort. Feelings during social interactions can indicate that our amygdalae have automatically detected subtle, socially significant messages relevant for our state of being39. This drives decisions and behaviours in dyads based on threat and reward anticipations as
we discuss below under’ The Triadic Brain Model’.

Social agents need to be aware of these mechanics for message encoding and decoding with respect to creating a psychological safe space.

37 Sex Differences in Social Cognition, Alice Mado Proverbio in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
38 Revisiting Team Psychological Safety at Work: A Case Study Approach to Its Dimensions, Intergroup Variations, and Influencing Factors,
Dissertation No. 5122 University of St Gallen, Anna-Christina Leisin-Strecker, 2022
39 The Neurocognitive Mechanisms of Unconscious Emotional Responses, Wataru Sato, in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio
Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023

The Location of Emotions

Emotions are an embodied phenomenon⁴⁰.

The body is instrumental to emotional processing as it is sensing, responding, and triggering emotions and provides us with information as per the ‘somatic marker hypothesis’ of Antonio Damasio⁴¹. Emotional processing and reasoning come together in decision making and prosocial behaviors require empathy and emotional connection, the basis for societies to exist⁴². Certain neural assemblies in the brain generate emotional states like the amygdalae leading to emotional patterns that are an irreducible, bodily experience, comprising biological, cognitive, and affective processes involving the calming parasympathetic and excitatory sympathetic nervous systems and eventually, the whole body in relation to a physical and social context that is defined by the subjective interpretation of multimodal sensory input.

Central to our bodily, visceral experience is the insula, a neuronal mass which is the center of individual interoception⁴³ and proprioception that is connected to the vagus nerve, a part of the cranial nervous system (peripheral nervous system) which includes the brain stem and is responsible for senso-somatory and senso-motor information exchange, receiving gustatory, olfactory, auditory, visual, and kinesthetic information and senso-motor functions involved in facial expressions, eye blinking, and tongue movements, etc.

Thus, the insula is a multi-modal convergence zone integrating autonomic, attentional (bottom-up and top-down stimuli) as well as affective and cognitive information and performs relay functions conveying signals of awareness and salience information. It integrates and differentiates signals across the 3 primary sub-regions it is composed of to coordinate neuronal processes in relation to the environment⁴⁴ and plays a vital part in social learning.

Social learning is a co-evolution of genes and culture, and the facial musculature is representative of it as it evolved to promote communication⁴⁵. Thus, humans are face-reading experts, an important part of social interaction and core to emotion expression⁴⁶. They have found that facial recognition (together with information from gaze and pupil dilation) is most important in emotional signaling and reading processes with intense neural activity of amygdalae in a threat monitoring role.The emotional recognition capacity is reduced to 70% without facial mapping as opposed to >95% with facial involvement⁴⁷.

In general, the insula is involved in experiencing physical pain, signaling a lack of homeostasis in the body. But perceived, experienced social rejection, e.g., based on facial expressions interpreted as rejection, elicits a response of the insula the same way physical impact does⁴⁸, which means that socio-emotional pain can be inflicted metaphysically, create emotional harm and injury resulting in negative emotional states that are leading to avoidance behaviors and somatic reactions. The insula also plays a fundamental role in the representation of self-awareness, sense of identity, physical boundaries, and agency, plus it is implicated in social cognitions like empathy at a deeper level as it delivers a representation of other people’s emotional state of feeling⁴⁹.

Corresponding to individuals displaying emotional states outside of their conscious awareness, it has been shown that assuming postures or facial expressions associated with a particular emotional state can, in fact, induce this emotional state in the proband. The embodiment of emotions and cognitions is bidirectional as positive cognitions lead to positive emotional states and emotive patterns change cognitive patterns. NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) is a practice that relies on these mechanics to read, analyze, and help people with dysfunctional behavioral patterns based on their underlying thinking and feeling patterns driven by individual mental models of the world. Finally, emotions are also represented in the ‘heart brain’ and ‘gut brain,’ organs that carry the same neurons the human brain is made of and thus, they relate to the brain itself.

Given these insights from cognitive-affective neuroscience, it is remarkable that the “Cartesian framework (i.e., the separation of body and mind) represents a persistent bias in leadership literature”⁵⁰.

⁴⁰ Social and Affective Neuroscience of Embodiment, Marilla Lira da Silveira Coelho et. al., Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁴¹ Somatic markers and the guidance of behavior: Theory and preliminary testing. Damasio, A. R., Tranel, D., & Damasio, H. C. (1991), In H. S. Levin, H. M. Eisenberg, & A. L. Benton (Eds.), Frontal lobe function and dysfunction (pp. 217–229). Oxford University Press.
⁴² Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
⁴³ Social and Affective Neuroscience of Embodiment, Marilla Lira da Silveira Coelho et. al., Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁴⁴ The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022
⁴⁵ The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022
⁴⁶ Social Cognition and the Second Person in Human Interaction, Diana I. Perez et.al., Routledge, 2022
⁴⁷ Facial Expressions in Empathy Research, Christiana Regenbogen et.al., in Understanding Facial Expressions in Communication, Manas K. Mandal et.al., Springer, 2015
⁴⁸ Research in social neuroscience: How perceived social isolation, ostracism, and romantic rejection affect our brain, Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2016, in P. Riva & J. Eck (Eds), Social Exclusion, Springer
⁴⁹ Social and Affective Neuroscience of Embodiment, Marilla Lira da Silveira Coelho et. al., Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁵⁰ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Interpersonal Connection at a Neural Level

Inter Brain Synchronization [IBS] is the mutual, temporal alignment of neural activity where one brain modulates the activity of the other brain⁵¹ and vice versa. IBS is detected by alpha-mu brainwaves in the right hemispheres of social agents⁵² and is promoted by behavioral synchronization and is enhanced within emotional contexts⁵³. Thus, it is not surprising that synchronization at a behavioral level is followed by the synchronization of internal states at a deeper level which in turn increases synchronization at a behavioral level.

The fact that we can form functional relationships, can develop an action understanding resp. a Theory of Mind (ToM) is related to the existence of the mentalizing network including the temporal parietal junction [TPJ] and the medial prefrontal cortex [mPFC] which is also implicated in goal representation and the mirror neuron system which was detected by the neurophysiologist Giacomo Rizzalotti⁵⁴. It is multimodal and together with the mentalizing network, it is responsible for imitation learning based on observations, the understanding of other people’s intentions, sharing goals, emotional contagion, and understanding verbal as well as non-verbal cues of others such as facial expression and language patterns. It is central for empathy, compassion, and social connection plus it is involved in conveying signals that are incongruent with the observer’s value set, eliciting activities in the ACC (anterior cingulate cortex implicated in prediction-error detection), amygdalae (threat detection), and the insula (implicated in visceral responses) e.g., when witnessing another person in distress as it is received through the Mirror Neuron System (MNS) and simulated in the observer’s body, whereby experience modulates the responsiveness of the MNS⁵⁵.

The merits of inter-brain synchronization have been researched. Interpersonal (anticipatory) coordination requires a shared goal that leads to shared attention or adopting the same cognitive perspective, dancing (leader-follower dynamics) impacts significantly on bonding, social cohesion, trust, and cooperation among social agents⁵⁶. In the context of hyper-scanned dyads engaging in a collaborative Design Thinking process, the level of IBS correlates with the level of comprehension in social processes and increases with (rewarding) cooperation⁵⁷ forming a positive, reinforcing feedback loop for synchronization.

⁵¹ Social Cognition and the Second Person in Human Interaction, Diana I. Perez et.al., Routledge, 2022
⁵² In Synch, Andrzej. K. Nowak et.al., Springer, 2020
⁵³ Emotions promote social interaction by synchronizing brain activity across individuals, Nummenmaa. L. et.al, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
⁵⁴ The mirror-neuron system, Giacomo Rizzolatti and Laila Craighero Annual Review of Neuroscience 2004 27:1, 169-192
⁵⁵ Mirror Neurons in Action: ERPs and Neuroimaging Evidence, Alice Mado Proverbio et. al., Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁵⁶ Social Cognition and the Second Person in Human Interaction, Diana I. Perez et.al., Routledge, 2022
⁵⁷ The Neuroscience of Team Collaboration During Design Thinking Event in Naturalistic Settings, Naama Mayseless et.al., in Design Thinking Research, Investigating Design Team Performance, Christoph Meinel et.al., Springer, 2020

Thus, the MNS is essential to social connection, to co-create a shared meaning space which morphs into a shared, functional reality.

Trust

Trust is the necessary and initial condition for psychological safety to emerge, which in turn nurtures trust reflexively. Trust can be construed as a heuristic wager on predictability and benevolence of others⁵⁸. It is a social construct and a bet that bridges information gaps arising from information asymmetries reducing social transaction costs resp. agency costs because trust reduces perceived uncertainty. Reduced agency costs are one of the major factors that contribute to the outperformance of family businesses vs. nonfamily businesses⁵⁹.

Trust lowers cortisol levels as it insinuates ‘safety’ and lubricates cooperation which is important for survival. Trust fosters social connection and well-being as it mitigates stress levels through oxytocin release because we feel we belong which reduces the threat potential which is calming the amygdalae.

Conversely, betrayed trust is a massive prediction error, deeply traumatic and difficult to recover from. Neural responses involve the anterior cingulate cortex ACC and the insula⁶⁰, which can be interpreted as social rejection and implies a visceral reaction corresponding to embodied emotions discussed above. Because betrayed trust is an attack and threat to the SELF, the amygdalae respond, eliciting the sympathetic nervous system and initiate a fight, flight, or freeze reaction.

Thus, trust is risky and can even result in maladaptive behaviors e.g., too much trust may invite misuse and transgressions which corresponds to equation 1.4.

On the one side, trust helps to reduce prediction errors but if misused, it triggers adverse reactions that may be ever so small and tacit in the moment but can grow exponentially to pose serious problems for the entire social system as it is tipped into chaos and in a state of entropy. Betrayed trust also creates beliefs that elicit avoidance behaviors as a form of self-protection.

Thus, trust is a personal optimization problem which we approach via Bayesian updating. However, trust is often established quickly without much due diligence as a probabilistic belief about other people. We often rely on simple, explicit, and implicit heuristics to attribute trust that emerge reflexively between top-down and bottom-up processes that hinge on perceived similarity. Top-down markers are group identity and stereotypes⁶¹ as well as halo effects. Bottom-up trust building

⁵⁸ Trust in Social Interaction: From Dyads to Civilizations, Leonardo Christov et.al. in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁵⁹ Family Governance and Firm Performance: Agency, Stewardship, and Capabilities Danny Miller, Isabelle Le Breton-Mille
⁶⁰ Trust in Social Interaction: From Dyads to Civilizations, Leonardo Christov et.al. in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁶¹ Trust in Social Interaction: From Dyads to Civilizations, Leonardo Christov et.al. in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023

occurs passively through perception of similarity that predicts affiliation, and these people are more likely to be empathized with and trusted reflexively.

Active trust building involves curated similarity by rapport building measures through mirroring and matching verbal and non-verbal cues, joint attention, and action such as collaboration and cooperation that translates into affinity and trust⁶².

Conducive to trust building in social interaction are perceived competency, integrity, reliability, transparency, respect, and consistency in behaviors. Violations of these principles erode trust. It shows that trust is a social skill that can be learned and socially constructed. After all, it is about making the correct predictions about the actions and reactions of others resp. making oneself more predictable for others which requires us to be vulnerable, something we are only willing to do in a psychologically safe space.

In the absence of trust, which is the initial condition for a psychological safe space to emerge, we tend to exhibit a self-protection bias, holding our cards very close to the chest which creates information asymmetries that only can be bridged with trust.

To create a psychological safe space, one must start with building trust actively!

Structural dynamics

Similarity and compatibility of the three communication domains (David Kantor, 2012) play a significant role in social understanding⁶³ and trust building as discussed above.

The language of ‘power’, which is a cognitive control network [CCN] dominated activity, is focusing on words such as accountability, competence, driving things forward, status etc. The affect domain is a default mode network [DMN] dominated neural activity exhibiting language patterns around emotional topics, social connection and cohesion, trust, rapport, relational patterns etc. The most complex domain is meaning, describing the meaning system individuals have. On the one hand, the DMN is involved in creating and reflecting on purpose, vision, and mission, having an active open mindset and a growth mindset to explore and inquire, on the other hand it involves the CCN to hone into the formulation of the purpose and how to achieve the outcome corresponding to the purpose⁶⁴. It reminds us on the Design Thinking Process which also oscillates between divergent thinking (DMN activity) and convergent thinking (CCN activity).

From an evolutionary perspective it is comparable to the oscillation between Darwinian differentiation on a micro level (CCN activity) and integration on a macro level (DMN activity).

⁶² Trust in Social Interaction: From Dyads to Civilizations, Leonardo Christov et.al. in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁶³ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
⁶⁴ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

A dyad is prone to conflict if their communication domains are incompatible (PS-). A good communicator that creates a psychologically safe space needs to be apt in speaking and understanding all three language domains (power, affect and meaning)⁶⁵ and understand the oscillation patterns in the social evolution of a functional relationship. Misunderstandings can be interpreted as threat, especially in a perceived, psychological un-safe space.

Triadic Brain

To cooperate or not to cooperate is a social decision individuals make upon implicit and explicit request. The triadic brain is a simplified decision-making model⁶⁶ which can be used to illustrate neural patterns in decision-making. It is a digital model in the sense that it either is an approach decision (attractor), an excitatory process, and avoidance decisions (repeller), an excitatory process leading to flight, flight, and freeze reactions that also inhibit behaviors within the context of the evoked socio-emotional state of the decision maker, which is influenced by the socio-emotional context. The decision is a function of the anticipated valence and intensity of the emotional state in response to the calculated expectation values of the possible outcomes.

Graph 2: Triadic brain model

The agonistic neuronal assembly is the reward system with the ventral striatum at its core which evaluates positive outcomes and gives hedonic impulses because of predicted cognitive resonance (attractor), the antagonist is the amygdala which is at the heart of the evaluation of (anticipated) negative outcomes that predictively encodes cognitive dissonance, threats, and risk perceptions (repellers) which are highly active in social interactions.

If the activation of the reward system is greater than that of the fear center, with higher amygdala activation at the core, the likelihood increases that the decision will be made to approach and forage, yet when the fear center activation is stronger, avoidance behaviors will dominate because risk perception trumps the magnitude of the anticipated reward.

Unfortunately, threat and reward stimuli are computed asymmetrically. Perceptive processes are biased towards threat perceptions and responses, i.e., one elicitation unit that is interpreted as threat outweighs the elicitation unit that is interpreted as a reward since the brain’s main function is to keep us alive and thus, it tends to react conservatively.

A socio-psychological manifestation of this protection tendency is social influence that threatens people’s autonomy and sense of agency in forming and owning their own opinions resp. decisions. It creates psychological reactance, a motivational state aimed at restoring the threatened attitudinal freedom expressed in non-compliant behaviors⁶⁷. The more the individual is being persuaded and even coerced into compliance, the greater the force of resistance may be.

The general arbiter in psychological ambivalence is the prefrontal cortex [PFC] resp. the CCN. It can tip the balance and the system’s trajectory gravitates towards ‘approach behavior’ (attractor) or ‘avoidance behavior (repeller) in a non-linear fashion e.g., in a downwardly skewed, sigmoid function for neurotypical agents:

67 Brehm, S. S., &Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York: Academi

Graph 2.1:

0.5 marks the point of indifference and values above 0.5 are attractor values while points below 0.5 are repeller values. The graph 2.1 demonstrates the asymmetry we alluded to above. Still, the CCN is the center of cognitions and rational thinking patterns, and some parts play a decisive emotion regulation role as they modulate and overrule appetitive and negative emotional stimuli.

However, the PFC can also be bypassed and switched off by dominant emotional forces, especially in situations that are perceived as threatening, leading to cognitive control failures. Sub-cortical patterns generally dominate cortical intervention attempts: the conscious and ‘rational’ part of our decision-making process is reportedly only between 1% and 5%⁶⁸. Decisions are made well before we become aware of them. Hence, much time in decision-making processes is spent on post-rationalization with motivated reasoning.

Navigating the Triadic Decision-Making Model

Humans are socio-emotional beings, and thus, dissonant leadership styles tend to trigger fear and stress responses [PS-], resonant leadership styles that also provide context, are conducive to creating a psychologically safe space [PS+].

To navigate the terrain, we can work with the conscious and unconscious parts of the brain.

Framing

The ventromedial part of the prefrontal cortex [vmPFC] is the control center which mediates between the ventral striatum and the amygdala and can modulate reward as well as fear stimuli. It holds information about the context of the situation and can increase and decrease the activation levels in both neuronal assemblies. The framing effect is an example of vmPFC activity⁶⁹ that tips the balance as it epitomizes the power of linguistic subtlety in regulating decision-making, experiences, evaluation, preferences, and persuasiveness of messages⁷⁰. Experiments revealed that choices between logically two identical sets of options depend on how the options are framed⁷¹. In marketing research, the framing condition was the top choice predictor, followed (!) by the expected economic pay-off⁷².

Validated methods that make use of the vmPFC are communication and framing models developed in neuro-leadership (SCARF and SCOAP). Thus, the vmPFC is a very powerful unit in the brain and framing helps to regulate emotional states of others.

SCARF: S stands for addressing the status of a person in relation to others, C for certainty which corresponds to people being able to predict and navigate the social dynamics of the social space they are part of, A for autonomy, which is people’s sense of agency and accomplishment (differentiation), R for relatedness which is the sense of belonging, connection, and inclusion (integration), and F for fairness, i.e., the mutual perception of fair social processes (integration). Communication based on SCARF principles stimulates the reward center⁷³.

⁶⁹ The Neuroscience of Leadership Coaching, Patricia Riddel et.al., Bloomsbury, 2015
⁷⁰ Framing Effects: Behavioural Dynamics and Neural Basis, Xiao-Tian Wang, Lilin Rao, Hongming Zheng in Neuroeconomics, Springer
⁷¹ Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, Penguin
⁷² Framing Effects: Behavioural Dynamics and Neural Basis, Xiao-Tian Wang, Lilli Rao, Hongming Zheng in Neuroeconomics, Springer
⁷³ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Example SCARF⁷⁴:

Frame	PS⁺	PS^–
Status	Your contribution forms a critical part of the success of our family enterprise	I will discuss with my close collaborators and let you, at the end of the food chain know in due course
Certainty	We all know change is coming and we need to prepare for it	We can’t tell you anything as everything is confidential and discussed behind closed doors.
Autonomy	We encourage you to manage this process in accordance with your own needs and preferences	Everyone is required to act in a certain way with immediate effect and comply
Relatedness	Your presence is an asset to our family	I and senior leadership make decision and set priorities for you to obey and enact
Laughing Bacchus Winecellars	Yoshi Tannamuri	Canada
Fairness	This organizational change would be meaningless unless it applied to everyone	The new policy will apply to all but myself and senior leadership

The SCOAP^TM model is geared towards basic needs such as self-esteem (S), which corresponds to self-worth (differentiation) embedded in a cultural context (integration), the need for control (C) which insinuates a sense of agency (differentiation) and security, orientation (O) the need to navigate the social space and which is threatened when goals are unclear or communication is ambiguous as people fear the danger of getting lost, attachment (A) which is at a deeper level as relatedness (integration) and also includes people’s childhood experiences which can lead to transferences and projections and pleasure (P) as the center of hedonic reward.

Communication based on SCOAP^TM principles targets a more holistic experience⁷⁵, leading to lower stress levels and better performance.

⁷⁴ Adapted from: Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
⁷⁵ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Example SCOAP⁷⁶:

Frame	PS+	PS
Self-Esteem	This contribution highlights the best of what our family members can achieve	Your contributions are distracting and worthless, please sign and shut up
Control	We will give you the education, tools and support you need as responsible shareholders	I control this with my collaborators because of your incompetence
Orientation	This is line with our vision of transgenerational resilience and anti-fragility of our family enterprise and goes beyond industry standards	We take care of everything, and you will sign off the outcome at the year end
Attachment	Family members like you play a vital part for transgenerational success and will always have a home in our family	It is a clear us-them divide and shareholders do not play a part in corporate governance as they don’t belong to it.
Pleasure	We are looking forward to a fun family day with all of you where we can rejoice and connect socially	There is no pleasure in engaging with shareholders, but we have to do it!

Both models help to communicate more attentively to human needs eliciting the reward system as well as reducing the stimulation of the fear system.

On top, if social communication is responding to the basic need of integration, i.e., relatedness and attachment resp. the segment of ‘love & belonging’ in the pyramid of Abraham Maslow⁷⁷, it stimulates the secretion of oxytocin which is known to reduce stress levels and fosters synchronization on a deeper level. Thus, being with the pack suggests security, being rejected is a threat signal causing stress responses.

Likewise, perceived similarity of agents and mutual likability (which mediates synchronization) reduces psychological reactance and the need for differentiation and fosters the willingness to integrate and exhibit more compliant behaviors⁷⁸, which is a major argument for the introduction of a psychologically safe space. The perception of similarity and liking someone are sub-cortical activities driven by emotions rather than by purely cognitive processes.

Emotion Regulation

It can be described as the selective avoidance of unpleasant states (repeller) and relies on the functional interplay of mind and action, the ability of accurate self-perception and corrective action based on the understanding of the self-structure, the largest psychological structure that gives rise to belief-systems, meaning structures which provide a frame of reference used for the evaluation of experience and that shapes perceptual resp. behavioral tendencies which is applicable to all agents in a social process.

A person that exhibits role-dependent behavioral patterns that are perceived consciously and/or unconsciously in conjunction with the self-reference bias as an indication of PS- elicits avoidance behaviors such as self-protection, a form of basic risk mitigation and stress responses. Conversely, a person exhibiting behavioral patterns that predict a rewarding social interaction, i.e., PS+, become attractors in the social system.

Stress is a socio-emotional phenomenon linked to the level of psychological safety and the emotion regulation capacity of individuals. Stress signals trigger stress cascades⁷⁹, sparked by the amygdalae that are projecting to the hippocampus, the memory management system to check for similar enough, context-dependent stimuli that have occurred in the past and the ACC, which is implicated in error-detection processes and projects to the limbic system as well as to the frontal lobes to create somatic and cognitive stress and correction responses.

Normally, stress is a short-term response to internal or external stimuli that helps us to overcome obstacles and it temporarily disrupts our homeostasis (i.e., the way our body remains on an even keel). It originates in the amygdalae⁸⁰. Stress increases behavioral and psychological biases, in

78 Deflecting reactance: The role of similarity in increasing compliance and reducing resistance. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27,
277-284, Silvia, P. J. (2005).
79 Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
80 Behave, Robert Sapolsky

particular, the self-protection bias. Stress reduces our capacity for patience, narrows our mind, reduces empathy, and our ability to trust.

PS- patterns are often related to stress the leaders experience, but they can counteract it through emotion regulation [ER], a learned core social skill used in linked to emotional awareness [EQ]. EQ is the necessary condition to develop SQ which corresponds to ToM capacity that makes social processes efficient.

ER is central to decision-making and subsequent behaviors: “Between stimulus and response is a space in which we can make choices” (Viktor E. Frankl). The space volume is a function of emotion regulation resp. EQ. Unmediated stressors shrink the space and agents become emotionally reactive and impulsive, emotion regulation increases the choice space and allows for more conscious responses in relation to the creation of psychological safe space.

Thus, EQ is also a necessary condition to be able to become aware, identify and even regulate emotional patterns of others which corresponds to sufficient ToM capacity, the core of SQ, an essential ingredient to create PS+ patterns.

EQ is also central to social connection because emotions are highly contagious thanks to the mirror neuron system (MNS) and one’s own emotional well-being which in turn, is important for a well-centered aura that invites people to trust and allows the person to respond in a calm way even when discussions are complicated and complex (attractor forces).

Emotion Regulation Methods

Depending on the cultural context, suppressing emotions is the prevalent method to deal with emotions, however, emotion suppression cannot be counted as emotion regulation. It’s a coping strategy comparable to a pressure cooker that can explode. Accumulated emotions build up tensions, followed by tension releases that show bursting patterns of aggression and reactivity, etc., leading to prolonged, elevated stress levels with ripple effects in the entire social system through PSbehaviors.

The emotional control units, the dorsolateral part (dlPFC) and the ventrolateral part (vlPFC), play a critical part in cognitive control, attention orientation, response inhibition, and mediating the activity of the amygdala (Wagner et. al. 2008)⁸¹.

Especially the right vlPFC (rvlPFC) is dubbed the braking system of the brain and the center of selfcontrol implicated in delayed or forgone gratification and managing emotional reactivity⁸².

⁸¹ Modulating the Social and Affective Brain with Transcranial Stimulation Techniques, Gabriel Rego et.al., in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁸² Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

The starting point is awareness because what we are aware of, we can manage; what we are not aware of manages us. More specifically, it is about the awareness of emotional cues from self and others.

Affect labeling is a critical emotion regulation strategy that involves the anticipation, perception, and acknowledgment of feelings based on interoception and reflection to label the unspecific patterns and categorize them with verbal descriptions⁸³. This strategy is proven to activate the rvlPFC, reducing the neuronal activity of the amygdala⁸⁴ and a rich emotional vocabulary helps to communicate emotions, e.g., by giving emotional context and (anticipatorily) acknowledging emotions of others in social processes. It is part of social understanding when social interactants understand and label the affective be states of the agent within the prevailing context, personality traits, values and beliefs, attitudes, moods, and goals by active listening and discerning authentic signals from inauthentic signals. This allows creating an emotional context that is stress-reducing for other people as they feel acknowledged and heard (PS+).

Another proven ER strategy that activates the rvlPFC is cognitive reappraisal⁸⁵ or reframing by reflectively challenging current patterns of emotions and cognitions that may be maladaptive like jumping to conclusions because of underlying beliefs about self and others. Reframing failure as a learning experience is powerful in reducing stress levels. Leaders who encourage this reframe consistently foster trust, collaboration, and performance. It is the structural story that prevails, not the moral story⁸⁶, which is akin to playing the blame game no one can win but everyone adds to their personal stress cascade.

The third strategy to activate the rvlPFC is mindfulness practices if practiced regularly⁸⁷, e.g., to reach out to others and speak about problems, suspend self-judgment, and engage in selfforgiveness and to apply the same on social agents.

All three emotion regulation strategies are effective in building psychological capital that fosters mentalizing activities and cooperative relationships, which stimulate the reward system and release stress antagonists, i.e., a cocktail of neuropeptides like oxytocin, serotonin, opioids, dopamine, and dopamine-enhancing endorphins.

⁸³ How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Lisa Feldmann Barrett, Pan, 2016
⁸⁴ Modulating the Social and Affective Brain with Transcranial Stimulation Techniques, Gabriel Rego et.al., in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁸⁶ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
⁸⁷ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Scheme⁸⁸

A distressed person meets another person that downregulates stress levels by exhibiting empathy-based behaviors.

‘Plus signs +’ indicate excitatory stimuli (attractors), ‘minus signs –‘ indicate inhibitory stimuli (repellers).

The stressed individual elicits cognitive and emotional empathy in the responder who engages in an external emotion regulation process involving specific neuronal assemblies in the brain, downregulating the intensity and valence of the emotion of the person in distress.

The inter-personal emotion regulator needs to have profound ToM capacities, i.e., emotional and cognitive empathy for emotion recognition and to deliberately select strategies that alter the emotional state of the other person. By the same token, s/he needs to possess intra-personal emotion regulation capacities to keep in the eustress zone regardless of the pressure and demonstrate emotional and cognitive stability resp. competency making social interactions rewarding – a strong social attractor for the social system (PS+). It leads to predictability, trust (PS+), psychological safety, and thus to the formation of a functional social unit that synchronizes to exhibit greater social efficacy than the sum of its parts would suggest.

⁸⁸ An Interbrain Approach for Understanding Empathy: The Contribution of Empathy to Interpersonal Emotion Regulation, S. Franklin-Gillette, G. Shamay-Tsoory in The Neural Basis of Mentalizing, M. Gilead, K.N. Ochsner (eds.), Springer 2021

Regulation of emotions is also essential in the distinction between sympathy and empathy resp. self-other distinction abilities. Sympathy can be described as the un-reflected synchronization of an emotional state that bears the danger of emotional contagion in a dysfunctional way e.g., initiating the same mentally paralyzed state the person in distress.

Empathy is a reflected, more conscious, and functional synchronization that preserves the mental and emotional agility of a supporting person that empowers them to create a psychological safe space at a time where it is most needed. A lack of emotion regulation erodes psychological capital and leads to cognitive control failures as the amygdala response reduces cognitive capacity because it is metabolically too expensive in fight, flight, and freeze reactions in a bid to survive.

The Stress-Performance Curve

The importance of emotion regulation of self and of others has implications for a psychological safe space and is illustrated below with the help of the stress-performance curve⁸⁹.

Graph 2.1: Stress Performance Curve:

A person that exhibits PS- patterns that are received consciously and/or unconsciously (unmediated by the PFC) creates psychological unsafeness that elicits stress responses which influences cognitive performance levels negatively. No stress weighs on performance as well, which corresponds to equation 1.4.

Eustress levels are optimal to perform at one’s best, which is more likely to happen in a psychological safe space.

⁸⁹https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/8512/how-to-measure-your-stress-levels

A stressed, reactive, control-obsessed manager or colleague with a tunnel view suspending any form of ‘active-open-mindedness’ with almost uncontrolled, impulsive outbursts and who’s close to a burnout is a repeller (PS-). An agent plagued with anxiety or depression is unable to take risks will not exemplify the leader that is trusted and who can create a psychological safe room (PS-). The extreme right part of this stress-performance curve is the toxic stress zone. While short-term stress helps us to overcome obstacles, prolonged and intense stress levels are intoxicating the body with glucocorticoids like noradrenaline and cortisol.

The triadic brain model of decision making, and the stress-performance curve illustrate how mental states emerge and decisions about behaviors are made, often outside of our conscious awareness with profound implications for cognitive abilities (IQ) and negative somatic implications as in disrupted regenerative processes, a weakening immune system, increasing heart rate and hypertension, etc.

Against the backdrop of PS-dominated behaviors, staff and family will prefer to exhibit avoidance behaviors which inhibit information flow, cooperation, and collaboration won’t occur beyond the necessary in order to survive. It is a psychologically unsafe environment in which everyone is prone to toxic stress levels since emotions are contagious, and people fall way behind individual performance potentials by exhibiting self-protective behaviors.

Toxic stress is even inheritable as gene expressions are altered and the altered state is passed on to the next generation without changing the DNA itself. Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1444-1829) proposed that organisms pass on information gathered during lifetime and given to offspring which has developed into new field research called epigenetics, the study of phenotypic plasticity in response to socio-ecological stimuli on the variation of gene expression across generations⁹⁰. Thus, creating a psychological safe space that reduces socio-emotional stress has social-psychological effects as well as transgenerational physiological effects.

Stressed individuals will also be less likely to form a functional social unit for greater social efficacy which is more than the sum of its parts would suggest.

On the contrary, this situation leads to negative collective intelligence where the whole is less intelligent and less effective than the sum of its parts would suggest.

The triadic brain model as a basis for behavioral decision making and the stress-performance curve support personal interoception, contribute to ToM capacity, and thus to the creation of a psychological safe space if adhered to, especially in leadership roles.

⁹⁰ The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022

The PS Transformation – What Does It Change in Family Dynamics?

Succession is seen as a highly emotional and dynamic process with a variety of psycho-socio dynamics that make-or-break successful successions. The protagonists in this drama are the incumbent m/patriarch, the successor and his or her competitors/collaborators in the transfer and transition of ownership rights and governance power as well as leadership positions. While there is plenty to read about legal and governance aspects, relatively little is known about why ‘emotions spark’ between the actors in the succession process⁹¹. At the core are massive prediction errors based on frustrated expectations that are not matching because of differences in the mental model of the world and the inability of the protagonists to be aligned because they lack psychological safety, based on the inability to create it.

We all have expectations about future states. Implicit expectations vary in awareness levels, and some expectations are known to others – or so we think and hope.

In our social processes, we predict the behavior of others and monitor for indications that our expectations are met. Error detection leads to motivational emotions such as frustration and anger in case of a negative deviation that are conducive to either changing expectations or behavioral strategies. In case of positive deviations, the reward circuitry is triggered. Sadly, negative deviations have a greater emotional impact than positive deviations, which often leads to unproductive conflicts. When expectations are met, we take a neutral stance with satisfaction.

Our subjective mental model of the world holds all cognitions and emotions from experiences we’ve made in the past and creates a subjective reality. It processes the perception of information, recognizes patterns based on stored schemas, and engages in pattern completion if information is missing by making inferences in a given context to minimize prediction errors. This creates a subjective reality that is only partly shared with our social process partner without further ado.

It may not be surprising that a social process with two different mental models of the world and only a partly shared reality is prone to expectation errors and conflicts.

⁹¹The Socio-psychological Challenges of Succession in Family Firms: The Implications of Collective Psychological Ownership, Noora Heino, Pasi Tuominen, Terhi Tuominen, and Iiro Jussila in: The Palgrave Handbook of Heterogeneity among Family Firms, Palgrave MCMILLAN

This dynamic is further complicated by the fact that we are not consciously aware of most of our mental model as its programming is mainly unconscious as discussed above.

Possible expectations of the predecessor:

The eldest son is taking over the business; it is his destiny and duty – because this is how things are done in my mental model of the world and it has always been done like this
I paid for all these schools, now it’s his turn.
There was no need to introduce him before succession date because it simply was my realm
He will and must do me proud!
He shall grow the business and deliver socio-emotional and financial pay-off for me
I will maintain my status as patriarch, which gives me purpose
I will tell him what to do because he cannot know.
He respects my endowment to the business and what I have created – not changing a thing
He will be thankful for me to have his back and guide his strategy

Possible expectations of the successor:

I want to have autonomy over my life and pursue my own dreams
If I choose to work in the business, I will have the respect as a leader also from the predecessor
To create the necessary endowment to the family business, he will give me agency so that I pursue the dream I have for the business
The patriarch will support and mentor me in teamwork so that I can achieve my goals

Apparently, there are two mental models of the world and limited room for negotiation in the absence of psychological safety. Some expectations may be tacitly known but not spoken about, some are spoken but disagreed on, openly or tacitly. Still, we find the eldest son taking over the business despite the incongruency of values, beliefs, self-narratives following social norms, and adapting moral justifications.

Typical moral reasoning for self-validation and justification by involuntary successors⁹²:

1. I must pay dad back; he did so much for me (moral obligation motive)

⁹² Trapped in the Family Business, Michael A. Klein, tfb

2. I’m the only one in the family who can do it (rescuer motive)

3. It’s my duty to take over and continue the legacy (victim motive)

4. Need to protect my parents and what they built, just as they protected me as a child (rescuer motive)

5. I need to prove to my parents that I can do it (right fighter, reactive narcissist)

6. I took it over by accident and continue because of all the time and energy I already invested (victim motive)

7. I had no choice but to take over (victim motive)

8. I didn’t want to upset anyone and complied with social norms (people pleaser motive)

9. The family business as a fall-back option because no job offer elsewhere (opportunist motive)

10. In the family business, I have the chance to be someone (narcissistic motive)

All these examples show how successors are incongruent with their decision to take over the business and the inauthentic motives that lead to the decision. These are moral dilemmas weighing on the relationship between successor and predecessor leading to stress-related lower performance of the individuals and thanks to emotional contagion, this is likely to infect the whole family and business system.

In an optimal psychological safe space in accordance with equation 1.5, it is likely that the successor and predecessor would have engaged in productive dialogues with the desired outcome of reduced information asymmetry, aligned mental models of the world, and congruent expectations during the transition period and along the time continuum.

A similar argument can be made for active shareholders in the family business. A psychologically unsafe space will not produce strong and engaged shareholders who could support the corporate governance by asking critical questions regarding business performance and provide vital impulses arising from the ever-changing socio-economic and ecologic context to adapt the business model for the future by listening to next-gen perceptions of the world.

A psychologically unsafe space simply wastes the talents one might have in the family and can even set them up for failure outside the family business in general or specifically in point 9. – the opportunistic motive to take over a business.

Another outcome of an unsafe space could be that people simply lose interest as they are scared away which is the ultimate reaction explained by the triadic model of the brain.

Summary

We have discussed what multi-generational family enterprises need in terms of culture. While the demands resonate with the next gen, anecdotal evidence and the call for a cultural change indicate deficits.

In this paper, we argue that the missing link is an optimized psychological safe space in which the next generation can unfold, blossom, and push for family enterprise evolution.

Psychological safety can be learned and created when we remind ourselves how we can curate social interaction by consciously adhering to its neural mechanics.

The basis for a psychological safe space is mutual social understanding that requires learnable social skills (EQ, SQ), which has profound neural implications.

We investigated the processes of social understanding, which involve the encoding and decoding of signals that are exchanged on a verbal and non-verbal, conscious and unconscious basis. This led to efficient social oscillations of agents with desired effects like interbrain synchronicity [IBS], an output of shared attention reducing the synchronization error and the resulting social system efficacy.

Social misunderstanding has the opposite effects, as a psychological safe space cannot arise, and people are likely to exhibit a self-protection bias that favors misunderstandings and elevated stress levels, which weigh on synchronization levels and performance.

To illustrate the issue, we have given an example from succession transitions that occurred in a psychologically unsafe space with inauthentic, incongruent decisions that favor elevated and prolonged stress levels in the absence of sufficient emotion regulation strategies.

Conclusion

It pays off to learn to tune into all fellow family members regardless of status and to develop a profound social understanding of each other and create a psychologically safe space which can reduce complexity. On hierarchical levels, compassion and empathy can be developed bidirectionally on a lateral as well as vertical level leading to an optimal psychological safe space in which everyone in the family system can and wants to contribute with 100% commitment, and conflicts are likely to have productive outcomes rather than disastrous implications including – but not limited to – being handed down following generations, where conflicts are almost impossible to solve.

Moreover, the family system can reduce its synchronization error and become synchronized which reduces psychological reactance of members, and the family system self-organizes into a functional unit of higher order with social efficacy which is significantly greater than the sum of the parts would suggest. Thus, the family system will be more agile and resilient; it can even become anti-fragile, i.e., it thrives in a VUCA world, learns, and gets stronger with every perturbation.

Once truly established, psychological safety becomes a culture which is passed on through generations by cultural transmission, i.e., social learning (imitation learning, observation learning), and through transgenerational epigenetics, creating more resilient and anti-fragile offspring that, in turn, create resilient, resp. anti-fragile social systems in future generations.

Outlook

Empirical research needs to be done in families to verify the levels of psychological safety resp. synchronicity and linked to transitional outcomes such as successions and the overall resilience resp. antifragility of family enterprise systems to understand the status quo and what could be possibly done to improve social system dynamics of family enterprises with suitable bottom-up interventions. We posit that bottom-up – social system interventions will be more sustainable and effective than pure organizational top-down family governance measures which are currently prevalent in the family advisory industry.

Disclaimer: While we have made every attempt to ensure that the information contained in this concept paper has been obtained from reliable sources, Family Hippocampus is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of this information. All information in this site is provided “as is,” with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy, timeliness or of the results obtained from the use of this information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including, but not limited to warranties of performance, merchantability, and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event will Family Hippocampus, its related partnerships or corporations, or the partners, agents or employees thereof be liable to you or anyone else for any decision made or action taken in reliance on the information in this concept paper or for any consequential, special, or similar damages, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

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Psychological safety – The role of psychological safety in family enterprises

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETYv

The role of psychological safety in family enterprises

by Dominik v. Eynern, Family Hippocampus

Table of Contents

Abstract

Introduction

Psychological Safety

4Enabling Next Generation Legacies, Peter Jaskiewicz, Sabine B. Rau et. al., Family Enterprise Knowledge Hub Publishing, 20215Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Hallmarks of psychological Safety – the more the better?

7https://hbr.org/2017/02/emotional-intelligence-has-12-elements-which-do-you-need-to-workon?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=LinkedIn&tpcc=orgsocial_edit

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

8 Revisiting Team Psychological Safety at Work: A Case StudyApproach to Its Dimensions, Intergroup Variations, and Influencing Factors, Anna-Christina Leisin, Dissertation, 2021

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

Coexistence ofPS \frac{+}{ij} , PS \frac{-}{ij}

1 https://family-hippocampus.com/synchronicity-the-importance-to-synchronize-social-systems

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

Social understanding

12 Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences, L. Douglas Kiel et.al., Michigan. 199713 The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022

Psychological Safety| 4 September 2023

14 Illusions of Human Thinking, Gabriel Vacariu, Springer15 Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, 2012, Penguin

16 Die Illusion der Vernunft, Philipp Sterzer, Ullstein, 202217 Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, 2012, Penguin18 Die Illusion der Vernunft, Philipp Sterzer, Ullstein, 202219 Social Cognition and the Second Person in Human Interaction, Diana I. Perez et.al., Routledge, 2022

The Theory of Mind

27 The Neuroscience of Empathy: Research-Overview and Implications for Human-Centred Design, Irene Sophia Plank et.al. in Design Thinking Research, Christoph Meinel et. al., Springer, 202128 Noise, A Flaw in Human Judgment, Daniel Kahneman et. al., William Collins, 2022

Emotions

Emotional signalling and reading

The Location of Emotions

Interpersonal Connection at a Neural Level

Trust

Structural dynamics

Triadic Brain

67 Brehm, S. S., &Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York: Academi

Navigating the Triadic Decision-Making Model

Framing

74 Adapted from: Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 202275 Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Emotion Regulation

78 Deflecting reactance: The role of similarity in increasing compliance and reducing resistance. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27,277-284, Silvia, P. J. (2005).79 Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 202280 Behave, Robert Sapolsky

Emotion Regulation Methods

81 Modulating the Social and Affective Brain with Transcranial Stimulation Techniques, Gabriel Rego et.al., in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 202382 Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Scheme88

88 An Interbrain Approach for Understanding Empathy: The Contribution of Empathy to Interpersonal Emotion Regulation, S. Franklin-Gillette, G. Shamay-Tsoory in The Neural Basis of Mentalizing, M. Gilead, K.N. Ochsner (eds.), Springer 2021

The Stress-Performance Curve

89https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/8512/how-to-measure-your-stress-levels

90 The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022

The PS Transformation – What Does It Change in Family Dynamics?

91The Socio-psychological Challenges of Succession in Family Firms: The Implications of Collective Psychological Ownership, Noora Heino, Pasi Tuominen, Terhi Tuominen, and Iiro Jussila in: The Palgrave Handbook of Heterogeneity among Family Firms, Palgrave MCMILLAN

92 Trapped in the Family Business, Michael A. Klein, tfb

Summary

Conclusion

Outlook

by
Dominik v. Eynern, Family Hippocampus

⁴Enabling Next Generation Legacies, Peter Jaskiewicz, Sabine B. Rau et. al., Family Enterprise Knowledge Hub Publishing, 2021
⁵Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

⁷https://hbr.org/2017/02/emotional-intelligence-has-12-elements-which-do-you-need-to-workon?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=LinkedIn&tpcc=orgsocial_edit

⁸ Revisiting Team Psychological Safety at Work: A Case Study
Approach to Its Dimensions, Intergroup Variations, and Influencing Factors, Anna-Christina Leisin, Dissertation, 2021

Coexistence of $PS \frac{+}{ij}$ , $PS \frac{-}{ij}$

¹² Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences, L. Douglas Kiel et.al., Michigan. 1997
¹³ The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022

¹⁴ Illusions of Human Thinking, Gabriel Vacariu, Springer
¹⁵ Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, 2012, Penguin

¹⁶ Die Illusion der Vernunft, Philipp Sterzer, Ullstein, 2022
¹⁷ Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, 2012, Penguin
¹⁸ Die Illusion der Vernunft, Philipp Sterzer, Ullstein, 2022
¹⁹ Social Cognition and the Second Person in Human Interaction, Diana I. Perez et.al., Routledge, 2022

²⁷ The Neuroscience of Empathy: Research-Overview and Implications for Human-Centred Design, Irene Sophia Plank et.al. in Design Thinking Research, Christoph Meinel et. al., Springer, 2021
²⁸ Noise, A Flaw in Human Judgment, Daniel Kahneman et. al., William Collins, 2022

⁷⁴ Adapted from: Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
⁷⁵ Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

78 Deflecting reactance: The role of similarity in increasing compliance and reducing resistance. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 27,
277-284, Silvia, P. J. (2005).
79 Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
80 Behave, Robert Sapolsky

⁸¹ Modulating the Social and Affective Brain with Transcranial Stimulation Techniques, Gabriel Rego et.al., in Social and Affective Neuroscience, Paulo Sergio Boggio et.al., Springer, 2023
⁸² Neuroscience for Organizational Communication, Laura McHale, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022

Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Scheme⁸⁸

⁸⁸ An Interbrain Approach for Understanding Empathy: The Contribution of Empathy to Interpersonal Emotion Regulation, S. Franklin-Gillette, G. Shamay-Tsoory in The Neural Basis of Mentalizing, M. Gilead, K.N. Ochsner (eds.), Springer 2021

⁸⁹https://psychology.stackexchange.com/questions/8512/how-to-measure-your-stress-levels

⁹⁰ The Social Impulse, Jaimie A. Pineda, Springer, 2022

⁹¹The Socio-psychological Challenges of Succession in Family Firms: The Implications of Collective Psychological Ownership, Noora Heino, Pasi Tuominen, Terhi Tuominen, and Iiro Jussila in: The Palgrave Handbook of Heterogeneity among Family Firms, Palgrave MCMILLAN

⁹² Trapped in the Family Business, Michael A. Klein, tfb