Behavioral science最新文献

We derive three system order parameters: dynamism, polarization, and clustering, to describe global states of attitude distribution and change for human social systems. Dynamism (f) captures the rate of change in a system, while polarization (Pt) refers to the increase or decrease of a minority position over time. Clustering (e) defines the spatial segregation of opinion based on system topography. These measures suggest a conception of human systems rooted in time and space that is distinct from other approaches. Their utility is illustrated through computer simulations showing that under a wide variety of circumstances, social influence models incorporating spatial distributions lead to unexpected outcomes of incomplete polarization and clustering, with alternative theories of how individuals encode information leading to quantitatively distinct results. A second set of simulations describes the intrusion of temperature, or unexplained randomness into these systems. Surprisingly, the self-organizational tendencies emerging from the iteration of simple laws of individual attitude change derived from Latané's (1981) metatheory of social impact appear to increase with moderate levels of randomness. We consider other approaches for measuring group level processes, among them network analysis-inspired indices and spatial autocorrelation, and suggest how our system order parameters could be used to predict political elections.

Concrete process analysis (CPA) and living systems process analysis (LSPA) are applied together in an examination of the information flows and matter-energy flows through the critical systems of a public service organization. Applying CPA, the specific monetary exchange values of the essential concrete flows-money-information markers, materials, and personnel-were identified in the accounts of the organization's general ledger. The values of concrete flows were attributed to the living systems theory (LSD defined critical subsystems of the organization. The critical systems of the organization had been identified by a previous LSPA study. Internal allocation variables were developed from the weighted averages of response performance/time and effort in the LSPA study. The results of the study were that CPA provided useful theoretical framework and methods for distinguishing accounting measurements from accounting interpretations, and for allocating the values of material-energy flows and personnel flows to an organization's LST-defined subsystems in a particular public service organization. The study also supports the assertion that public accounting reports may be used to estimate CPA variables and that those variables provide more explicit information on concrete processes than the typical generally-accepted accounting principles derived variables such as net income and earnings per share.

Building an explicit modelling framework for the dynamics generated by adaptive behavior of decision makers in a decentralized system is one of the main goals of recent theoretical research in economics. We propose to model adaptive dynamics in terms of a certain selection mechanism characterized by different degrees of individual inertia to environmental changes. Some methodological points, with special reference to the main points of departure from biologically motivated selection mechanisms, are discussed.

The notion of information seems to be growing into one of the central, unifying concepts of modern science, natural as well as social or behavioral. Conceived basically as the degree of order or organization of a system, any system, it originated in the discipline of thermodynamics in which, briefly, it turned out to underlie a system's capacity for converting energy, i.e., for doing 'work' of some kind. Now, the fact that humans, too, are physical systems, does not automatically imply that this notion of information or order should also be relevant to the explanation of human behavior or social life. Yet, this is precisely what the autonomous development of theory in this area reveals. In this contribution we explore, briefly and informally, the meaning and role of the notion in scientific theory, in the attitudes underlying individual behavior, and in the structure of social systems as a prime determinant of their power, cultural and economic development, and of the quality of life therein.