"defensive orientation" is a perfectly acceptable phrase and is used fairly often in written English.
For example, "The team's defensive orientation was key in their victory."
A competitive value commitment may be either transformative or defensive in orientation [ 24]).
Moreover, informants may have felt under pressure to justify and excuse their own perceived failure to avert the tragedy, thus producing narratives that are primarily defensive in orientation.
Cross-lagged path models were designed to test the interrelations of (1) perceived stigmatization, (2) a defensive stigma coping orientation, (3) concrete stigmatizing experiences, and either (4) social network, or (5) perceived social support as dependent variables.
The orientation was clearly defensive.
If Iran's orientation is fundamentally defensive, it can be contained, as the Soviet Union was.
During the 2-week period immediately following the transfer of monkeys from their usual residence, in groups, into the individual metabolic cages, they exhibited considerable orientation and aggressive-defensive unconditioned reflexes in response to new living conditions, as well as to the procedure of bleeding.
Former New York Giants defensive back Terrell Thomas said Sam's orientation would be a test the NFL may be unable to pass.
Overall, these data support four fundamental orientations of enterprise strategy: (1) narrow defensive, (2) narrow offensive, (3) broad defensive, and (4) broad offensive.
Politically speaking, his "common good" theme has a sound defensive side: Moving the subject away from abortion, sexual orientation and gay marriage could also downplay the church's own controversial record on matters of priestly behavior.
