Term for Plotting (as in behavior)
Merriam-Webster's gives the following synonyms: 


  conspiracy, design, intrigue, machination, scheme


Intrigue yields a number of hits on books in Google Scholar, e.g.:


Carlton, Apple: The inside story of intrigue, egomania, and business blunders (1997)
Price, Origins of the War with Mexico: The Polk-Stockton Intrigue
(2014)


Also, Machination AND intrigue yields a number of hits, such as


Pula, Polish Americans Protest Immigration Restriction: A Document, 
Polish American Studies (2011); 68(1): 59-76


'Machination' alone yields a lot of unrelated (industrial) stuff, so I think it's important to use additional identifiers when searching for literature, such as synonyms, antonyms or couple them with the topic of interest, e.g. 'brain mechanisms', or 'gender differences'.