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Title: Revisiting Walter Bradford Cannon's 100-year-old fight-or-flight concept

Authors: Vidar Top; Carl Åberg; Ole Boe

Addresses: Department of Business, Strategy and Political Sciences, University of South-Eastern, Norway ' Department of Business, Strategy and Political Sciences, University of South-Eastern, Norway ' Department of Business, Strategy and Political Sciences, University of South-Eastern, Norway

Abstract: This study aims to analyse and combine the entire 100-year-long development of fight-or-flight-based research on emotional excitement and behaviour. It presents a comparative concept analysis of all the relevant word pairs that have emerged. A scoping and a targeted literature review were conducted to map word pairs across all related research streams. These reviews facilitated a comparative conceptual analysis. The results were combined to reflect the status quo of fight-or-flight concepts and how well word pairs explain emotions and behaviour relative to communication in conflict. The analysis surfaces violence and silence as an umbrella term. Comparing and contrasting all word pairs helps reduce barriers to cross-disciplinary research on emotional excitement and behaviour. By providing insights into how different concepts are overlapping but not the same, researchers from different paradigms can more easily draw on a full spectrum of findings when moving forward.

Keywords: behaviour; communication; concept analysis; conflict; emotions; fight-or-flight.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMCP.2024.139807

International Journal of Management Concepts and Philosophy, 2024 Vol.17 No.5, pp.1 - 35

Received: 21 Feb 2024
Accepted: 03 Mar 2024
Published online: 05 Jul 2024 *