Nonlinear Dynamics Psychology and Life Sciences最新文献

The articles in this special issue examine the contributions of Jeffrey A. Goldstein to the understanding of emergence as a formal group of processes. Applications include work teams, organizations, ecologies of organizations, and societies. Prominent methodologies include agent-based modeling, qualitative analysis of publicly available business and governmental reports, structured analyses of team discussions, and nonlinear statistical analysis of time series data.

Emergence as a phenomenon is embedded and expressed in the natural world, and in social systems. Introduced nearly 150 years ago in a philosophical context, it has since been applied in nearly every natural and social science. However all of these uses are not congruent, as the range of emergences in this Special Issue reflect as well; this has limited the accumulation of knowledge about emergence, as well as its development as a discipline. The present paper attempts to bring coherence to emergence, by identifying its core characteristics, its primary expressions, and key principles of emergence. Much of the effort is based on the work of Jeffrey Goldstein, who was one of the first to examine the conceptual, mathematical, and social implications of emergence. The article concludes by showing how a science of emergence can be usefully applied to leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Emergent phenomena exhibit interesting dynamics when considered individually. The present article examines two emergent processes that could be occurring simultaneously in an intense team interaction: the emergence of leaders and the emergence of autonomic synchrony within teams making dynamic decisions. In the framework of panarchy theory and related studies on complex systems, autonomic synchrony would be a fast dynamic that is shaped or controlled by leadership emergence, which is a slower dynamic. The present study outlines three distinct statistical distributions - the swallowtail catastrophe model for phase shifts, inverse power laws that indicate fractal processes, and lognormal distributions - that are known to characterize emergent processes of different types. The objective was to determine the extent to which the two emergent processes reflected the same dynamics. Research participants were 136 undergraduates who were organized into teams of three to five members playing the computer-game Counter-Strike while wearing GSR sensors to measure autonomic arousal levels in a steady stream. After approximately two hours of interaction, team members rated each other on leadership behaviors. Autonomic synchrony was analyzed as a driver-empath process that produced individual driver scores (the total influence of one person on the rest of the group) and empath scores (the total influence of the group on one person). Results showed that leadership emergence displayed the swallowtail configuration that was consistent with prior studies. Autonomic synchrony started as a simpler process and unfolded into a swallowtail catastrophe toward the end of the experimental session. Lognormal distributions were second-best representations of all variables. Inverse power laws were least descriptive of any of the research variables. The implications of the temporal dynamics of the co-emerging processes for training and team development are discussed.

We model an adaptive agent-based environment using selfish algorithm agents (SA-agents) that make decisions along three choice dimensions as they play the multi-round prisoner's dilemma game. The dynamics that emerge from mutual interactions among the SA-agents exhibit two collective-level properties that mirror living systems, thus making these models suitable for societal/biological simulation. The properties are: emergent intelligence and collective agency. The former means there is observable intelligent behavior as a unitary collective entity. The latter means the collective exhibits observable adaptability that enables it to reorganize its network structure to meet its objectives in response to a changing environment. In this study, we generate these capabilities in a single, simple case. We do this first by letting a temporal complex network among SA-agents emerge and second by changing conditions in the ecosystem to test adaptability. This latter phase is done by introducing an artificial virus that infects SA-agents during interactions and can remove (or 'kill') the SA-agents. We then study the dynamics of the contagion within the collective as the virus spreads through the population and impacts collective reward-seeking performance. Specifically, we compare two strategies to control the spread of the virus: exogenous top-down control and endogenous bottom-up self-isolation strategies.

This study takes a phenomenon-based framework and the self-transcending constructions approach to explain why wicked human services problems need to be addressed differently than wicked social-ecological problems. Based on the study's findings, a new approach for addressing wicked human services problems is proposed. In Australia, a Systemic Innovation Lab approach that incorporates a customized software tool has been used to address social-ecological wicked problems. Both, the lab approach and the software tool are based on a framework that is underpinned by dissipative structures and self-transcending constructions theories. This article uses a phenomenon-based approach, as well as insights from self-transcending constructions theory, to discuss why the Systemic Innovation Lab approach and its software tool have not been utilised to address wicked human services problems. This is because when addressing wicked human services problems, the containing, constraining and constructional operations of self-transcendent construction are different than those for wicked social-ecological problems. The results also suggest the need for new software tools to satisfy disability accessibility standards. In response to these identified needs, the article argues that a Systemic Landscape of Practice Lab approach which incorporates a spreadsheet tool that satisfies disability accessibility standards is needed to address wicked human services problems.

This article analyzes the research career of Jeffrey Goldstein from the perspective of nonlinear dynamical systems. Goldstein's focus was on the application of emergence in complex social systems. He applied emergence to issues in organizational development, leadership, social entrepreneurship, and innovation. The study uses qualitative methods to identify the stages and corresponding research themes within Goldstein's publications over time. These stages are qualitatively characterized as representing either convergent or divergent activities. Goldstein's research career dynamics suggest that the way he managed his career was different from other academics and helps explain his significant influence on other researchers. Goldstein's primary epistemology was dialectics, and he followed a philosophy of engaged scholarship. His 'self-transcending constructions,' which stood in contrast to the concept of self-organization, was the invention that continues to differentiate Goldstein's work from other complexity scientists. Goldstein's change in foci later in his career to the service of social change and his institution building to the benefit of others suggests Goldstein was a mensch.

Besides consultants and practitioners, some contributions in the organizational economics literature have advocated substituting internal firms' bureaucracies with markets to regulate internal transactions. However, usually the effects of competition on performance are considered in terms competition across firms or industries. By contrast, other contributions point out that competition is pervasive inside firms as well. In this paper, we assume that conflict is directly related to the level of competition and propose a model which analyze the dynamics of performance when the manager decides the level of competition observing the group performance. We study the stability of the equilibria and analyze the bifurcations. We show that the fixed point with null performance is a Milnor attractor, and this may suggests why any attempt to move from this unsatisfactory outcome is unsuccessful.

Theories and studies of ecosystem emergence focus on macro level explanations such as government investments in research and development or those at the organizational level such as displacement of an older technological system by a new one through competition between technologies. However, mechanisms by which such shifts occur are underemphasized. This article draws on complexity theory to develop a theoretical framework to describe how emergence is generated through top down 'rules' that constrain the behavior of the system, directing it towards a desired outcome. Emergence dynamics include rules to encourage participants (including entrepreneurs and established organizations) to exploit opportunities arising from disequilibrium conditions. Amplifying actions arise from support for the emerging ecosystem, followed by recombination of the elements of the system to enable integration. The system stabilizes when it achieves a level of performance and legitimacy. Findings from a case study on the emergence of the Indian renewable energy ecosystem support the framework and provide policy implications for designing ecosystems.

A debate has taken place on the relationship between challenge and skills as the universal precondition of flow. Flow's precursor, Csikszentmihalyi, states that these two constructs are independent, while other scholars state the opposite. This research aims to better understand this relationship and explore its effect on the flow experience. As flow is considered a nonergodic and nonlinear process, we will base our analysis on an intra-individual level and then shift to an inter-individual level. The database consisted of 3,630 registers collected from a sample of 60 employees. At an intra-individual level, we observed the nature of the challenge-skills relationship classifying the participants according to the direction of these relationships (positive, negative, or nonsignificant correlation). At the inter-individual level, we explored the effect that the three groups had on the flow experience. We also examined nonlinear relationships (cusp modeling) among challenge, skills, and flow. The results showed that the challenge-skills relationship is not homogeneous between individuals. Flow theory is represented by the positive correlation group, but this pattern is the least frequent (21.6% of the cases) in our sample. Finally, the results showed that the nonlinear models fit the data better (R2nonlinear = .48, R2linear = .35, p < .01).

Psychotherapy is a relational process that emerges from the meeting of two people. There is an ontological difference between the individual psychopathology of the patient and relational therapy; the present work aims to overcome the patient-centric conception of psychotherapy, restoring the dyadic nature of the therapy through the interpretation of the psychological interview as a fractal process. Recursion, namely the application of the same logical operator to the result of the operation itself, is presented here as the basic procedural element of psychotherapy. The paper is divided into two parts: The first has epistemological nature and focuses on complexity theory and cybernetics: Edgar Morin and recursion as a process of existence, Heinz von Foerster and epistemology as second-order praxis. From the thought of Gregory Bateson, it is here postulated the self-similarity of the content and structure of the mind, to the point of conceptualizing the dyadic relationship as a Mind of a different logical type compared to the individual mind. The second part of the present work introduces two intellectual tools designed to conceptualize psychotherapy as a fractal process: the psychopathological hologram, useful for clinical work although of a non-clinical nature, that consists in a fraction of the patient's experiential flow, while the psychotherapeutic string is presented here as the basic recursive element of psychotherapeutic process.