Dynamic relationships between individuals and groups have been a focus for evolutionary theorists and modelers for decades. Among evolutionists, selfish gene theory promotes reductionist approaches while multilevel selection theory encourages a context-sensitive approach that appreciates that individuals and groups can both matter. Among economists, a comparable contrast is found wherein the reductionist shareholder primacy theory most associated with Nobel laureate Milton Friedman is very different from the context-sensitive focus on managing common resources that Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom pioneered. In this article, we examine whether the core design principles that Ostrom advanced can cultivate selection at supra-individual levels across different domains. We show that Ostrom’s design principles that were forged in the context of managing natural resources are associated with positive outcomes for human social groups across a variety of functional domains.
Core Design Principles for Nurturing Organization-level Selection
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Clinical Psychology is an Applied Evolutionary Science
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Historically there has been only a limited relationship between clinical psychology and evolutionary science. This article considers the status of that relationship in light of a modern multi-dimensional and multi-level… -
Core Design Principles for Nurturing Organization-level Selection
Apr 27, 2023
Dynamic relationships between individuals and groups have been a focus for evolutionary theorists and modelers for decades. Among evolutionists, selfish gene theory promotes reductionist approaches while multilevel selection theory encourages… -
Updating Hayek on Cultural Multilevel Selection
Apr 20, 2023
Here is a provocative fact: Searching Web of Science for articles with the words complex adaptive system in the title yields 1006 results as of this writing; searching for articles…