Social complexity and coupled Socio-Ecological Systems

Social complexity and coupled SES, Bruce Edmonds, SES-LINK, Stockholm, June 2104. slide 1
Social complexity and coupled SES
Bruce Edmonds
Centre for Policy Modelling
Manchester Metropolitan University

This Talk
• A synthetic talk, brining together a variety of ideas
towards understanding SES over the longer term
• Parts will be familiar to people from different fields
• Goes back to the roots of human intelligence and
survival and its relationship with structural change
• In particular, the importance of social abilities in
the construction of collective ways of surviving
• E.g. the importance of culture, social embedding,
social norms and context-dependency
• I.e. parts of the picture towards understanding
human adaption to its environment

Structural Change in Ecology
– the long view
• Structural change is continually occurring in ecologies
everywhere (e.g. power law of extinction events)
• But at different time scales and to different extents
• Not only due to external factors, but also the
endogenous spread and emergence of species
• There is no steady state, no equilibrium, no
preservation of “an” ecology in the long run
• At the moment the overwhelming structural change is
due to humankind, not only as the new omni-predator,
but a changer of environments, an agent of species
spread and now even creating new species

Social Intelligence Hypothesis
Kummer, H., Daston, L., Gigerenzer, G. and Silk, J. (1997)
• The brain does not give an isolated individual
much of an advantage, compared to specialists
• The crucial evolutionary advantages that human
intelligence gives are its social abilities
• Groups of humans are able develop individual
cultures that allow them to inhabit a variety of
ecological niches (e.g. Inuit or Kalahari)
• Thus protected from specific crises, i.e. somewhat
insulated from any particular structural change (as
a whole species, not particular groups)

An Evolutionary Perspective on SIH
Social intelligence implies that:
• Groups of humans can develop their own (sub)cultures of
technologies, etc. (Boyd and Richerson 1985)
• These allow the group with their culture to inhabit a variety
of niches (e.g. the Kalahari, Polynesia) (Reader 1980)
• Thus humans, as a species, are able to survive
catastrophes that effect different niches in different ways
(group specialisation)
• This is not necessarily the case when we all inhabit a
single, global, niche!
• Human intelligence has emerged to create cultures that
enable it to exploit different ecologies
• Cultures can adapt to maintain enough of its environment
to survive or actively destroy it (e.g. Easter Island)

Implications of SIH
• That different complex “cultures” of knowledge are
significant
• An important part of those cultures is how to
socially organise, behave, coordinate etc.
• One should expect different sets of social
knowledge for different groups of people
• That these might not only be different in terms of
content but imply different ways of coordinating,
negotiating, cooperating etc.
• That these will relate as a complete “package” to
some extent
• That human cognition has a core social purpose –
providing abilities for such cultures to develop

Social Embedding
• Granovetter (1985)
• Contrasts with the under- and over-socialised
models of behaviour
• That the particular patterns of social
interactions between individuals matter
• In other words, only looking at individual
behaviour or aggregate behaviour misses
crucial aspects
• That the causes of behaviour might be spread
throughout a society – “causal spread”
• Shown clearly in some simulation models

Illustration of Causal Complexity
Lines indicate causal link in behaviour, each box an agent
(Edmonds 1999)

Implications of Social Embedding
• In many circumstances agents can learn to
exploit the computation and knowledge in their
society, rather than do it themselves (invest in
what Warren Buffet invests in)
• Knowledge is often not explicit but is
something learned – this takes time
• This is particularly true of social knowledge –
studying guides as to living in a culture are not
the same as living there for a time
• Social embedding means that human
behaviour can not be understood well separate
from its cultural context

Social Norms
• Come from society to effectively constrain the
action of individuals
• Not same as “group goals” or utility considerations
• Are linked to the relevant reference group
• Are a complex phenomena – a dynamic
combination of cognitive and social phenomena
• An individual’s perception of others is important
• Norms emerge, become established, maybe
become explicit, and fall into disuse
• Maybe more important in determining action than
rational choice of action within constraints

Implications of Social Norms
• Social norms are a very powerful way of aiding
coordination and control
• Can be very effective in limiting damage to
environment
• Are not ‘rational’ but usually have a rationale
• Once established can ‘lock in’, even when the
‘reasons’ for them have long disappeared
• In the longer run, dependent on occasional
reinforcement (e.g. policing) for maintenance
• An enforcement-norms-habit structure
• Often more significant than punishment, reward

Context-Dependency of Cognition
• Many aspects of human cognition are context-
dependent, including: memory, visual perception,
choice making, reasoning, emotion, and language
• The brain somehow deals with situational context
effectively, abstracting kinds of situations so relevant
information can be easily and preferentially accessed
• Learning new information, reasoning, deciding new
action occurs with respect to the particular context
• It is not known how the brain does this, and probably
does this in a rich, unconscious and complex way that
might prevent easy labeling/reification of contexts

The Social Co-Development of Shared
Recognised Context
• Over time, due to their similarities, certain kinds of
situation become recognised as similar by participants
• This facilitates the development of a set of shared
habits, norms, knowledge, language etc. that is
specific to the context
• The more this happens the more distinctive that kind
of situation becomes and hence more recognisable by
newcomers
• Eventually these may become institutionalised in
terms of infranstructure, training etc. (e.g. how to
behave in a lecture theatre)
• This co-development of context may be the reason for
its social/evolutionary value

Implications of the Context-
Dependency of Human Behaviour
• Behaviour of observed actors might change sharply
across different social contexts
• The relevant behaviour, norms, kinds of interaction
etc. might also change
• Social contexts are co-developed and changing
• They may be different for different groups
• Some kinds of social behaviour seem to be inherently
context-dependent (compliance)
• It is unlikely that a lot of key social knowledge, norms,
behaviour etc. will be generic
• Models that assume a cross-context engine of human
behaviour may be deeply misleading!

A Picture of Social Rationality
• Yes, individuals are somewhat rational, in the sense
of having identifiable goals and tending to act to
further their goals but…
• …but the roots and characteristics of our intelligence
are substantially social in nature
• Most of our individual goals are social in nature – they
cannot be achieved on our own
• Many of our goals are created by society
• How we think about action is socially formed
• Dependent on information from others
• What we do is constrained by social norms, laws
habits, suggestions, imagined possibilities

Adaption
Different kinds of adaption involved…
• Groups of humans spread to many parts of the world,
inhabiting various different environments
• Groups of humans develop very different ways of
organising, living, technologies, cultures…
• …partly in response to their environments, but also
creatively in response to each other
• Some of these groups of humans persist for a time
and some fail
• Some cultures seem to have adapted to fit into their
local environment, many very creative
• but some seemed to get “locked-in” to a way of life
• sometimes success is due to doing very stupid things

The Complexity of Long-Term
Co-existence
• We no longer live in separate ecological niches so
failing will not just affect one place, one group
• Some short-term problems may be amenable to
scientific study and solutions, stepping outside culture
and looking at particular situations
• Others might be solvable via political action within the
current structures and culture of society
• But the longer-term, more difficult problem is how to
understand then structure how our society works so
humans can survive and maintain ecological diversity
• And so avoid ecological problems and adapt to
subsequent problems within a global context

How we might do this
• Study ecological, cognitive and social aspects
together or (at least, in the context of each other)
• Abandon individual rationality as a starting point and
rather look at rationality as largely social
• Including such as social norms, status, power
structures, cultures, ways of communicating
• Look at scenarios where the aim is not just solve a
simple “game theoretic” problem, but respond to a
complex and adaptive environment
• Where a complex society is embedded within a
complex ecology
• Look at longer scales of adaption to provide context
for short-term studies

The End!
Centre for Policy Modelling:
http://cfpm.org
I will upload these slides to:
http://slideshare.net/BruceEdmonds

Social complexity and coupled Socio-Ecological Systems

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