Co-speech gesture provides a window onto intraindividual conflict during embodied sensemaking

Abstract Intraindividual conflict is a cognitive state that can precipitate conceptual change. Organizational behavior has been a recent home for research on intraindividual conflict, but gesture-based data remain relatively uncommon in this literature compared with self-report and verbal measures. We argue that co-speech gesture can reveal the mental models that structure sense-making during intraindividual conflict. To demonstrate this, we present a detailed analysis of one individual’s narrated account of an intraindividual conflict arising at the intersection of her personal and workplace identities. By analyzing how the speaker systematically gestures across distinct regions of space, we suggest that a sequence of embodied mental models unfolds over the course of her narration. These mental models are implicitly visible in gesture before they emerge in speech. Gesture analysis suggests that the narrator’s sensemaking shifts toward a model that yields concrete, actionable options for how she can respond in the workplace. Our study shows that integrating gesture analysis into research on intraindividual conflict clarifies how people work through tension in real time and offers a productive avenue for advancing organizational behavior theory.