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Psychology in (or not in) systems modeling
Posted by Dan Proctor on 12/6/2009
In Reply To:Climate Change Posted by Greg Wierzbicki on 12/6/2009
"I failed to see these processes* dealt with explicitly."
*"group and individual psychological processes"
I believe the work which best illustrates a coherent institutional system designed by systems thinkers with "group and individual psychological processes" explicilty dealt with is the U.S. Constitution. It is not in the Constitution itself but in the Federalist Papers that we find this discussion of psychology. The three authors do not refer to "psychology" but to human nature. The "field" of psychology emerged during the critical period from 1875-1900, during what I call the "crackup of the curriculum."
This is when industrial capitalism captured control of the college from the church and re-designed it for its own purposes. Our own education is therefore largely a product generated by "the system." Thus fundamentally does the system "divert attention" from the machinery that actuates behavior and shapes perception.
Contemporary psychology largely denies that there is any such thing as human nature (see Stephen Pinker's excellent overview of this unfortunate situation in The Blank Slate). It is mainly for this reason, I suppose, that system dynamics has largely left psychological factors outside the system boundaries. Another reason may be the diciness of dealing explicitly and relatively publicly with such factors while developing models of the operation of a specific business or other organization. For example, would you ask employees to rank their boss's level of egotism on a scale of 1 to 10?
But to provide some illustrative examples from the thinking we see displayed in the Federalist Papers. Bear in mind that the guys who wrote the Constitution, that is, designed a system of government, had decided to scrap, rather than tinker with, the system/design that had been set up a few years earlier. That system was called the Articles of Confederation.
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Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint....
There was a time when we were told that breaches by the States of the regulations of the federal authority were not to be expected; that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members, and would beget a full compliance with all the constitutional requisitions of the Union. This language...at all times betrayed an ignorance of the true springs by which human conduct is actuated...(Federalist No. 15, Hamilton).
Ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition, and many other motives not more laudable than these, are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question (No. 1, Hamilton).
The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man (No. 10, Madison).
As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust, so there are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be, that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another (No. 55, Hamilton or Madison).
The Insufficiency of the Present Confederation to Preserve the Union (title of No. 15, Hamilton).
...the evils we experience do not proceed from minute or partial imperfections, but from fundamental errors in the structure of the building, which cannot be amended otherwise than by an alteration in the first principles and main pillars of the fabric (No. 15, Hamilton).
...frequent delinquencies in the members are the natural offspring of the very frame of the government [that is, of a confederation, not the form proposed in the new constitution] (No. 27, Hamilton).
What remedy can there be for this situation, but in a change of the system which has produced it... (No. 30, Hamilton).
...the best security for the fidelity of mankind is to make their interests coincide with their duty (No. 72, Hamilton).
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place [i.e. office]...
(No. 51, Hamilton or Madison).
Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail, therefore, to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it (No. 10, Madison).
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The 85 Federalist Papers are in the public domain and downloadable from http://thomas.loc.gov/home/histdox/fedpaper.txt.
Dan Proctor
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