A Complex Adaptive Systems Approach to Personality and Social Psychology through Design Sciences

Abstract

Conventional approaches to personality and social psychology focus on identifying statistical regularities between variables, resulting in a limited understanding of how these relationships are generated. A complex adaptive systems (CAS) approach offers a theoretical lens through which existing approaches can be understood from a generative perspective, in which relationships between variables emerge from interactions between biological, cognitive and social actors. Although this approach is often explored through computational modelling, computer games also offer a means of examining generative processes in personality and social psychology, and both methodologies can be grouped under a design sciences approach. This thesis demonstrates the utility of CAS and design sciences by applying the CAS perspective to the relationship between personality and social change, and arguing for the use of design sciences to complement existing approaches by improving external validity in conventional experiments and examining behaviour over time. The utility of CAS and design sciences is demonstrated through two studies: an agent-based model examining the role of negative affect in belief persistence, and a computer game examining the relationship between personality and strategic cognition. It is concluded that the CAS and design sciences approaches offer significant potential that can be realised through a comprehensive endeavour focused on building research teams with diverse skills, and creating a broad platform on which to run studies. Show more