Change-Ability for a World in Flux. (December 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rietveld, Erik
• Other Names: Kiverstein Julian guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Adaptive behavior. Volume 30:Number 6(2022)
• Page Start: 613
• Page End: 623
• Publication Date: 2022-12
• Subjects: Change-ability -- Change-Ability Conceptual Framework -- societal challenges -- affordances -- sociomaterial dynamics -- RAAAF; Animal behavior -- Periodicals; Animals -- Adaptation -- Periodicals; Adaptability (Psychology) -- Periodicals; Adaptation, Psychological -- Periodicals; Artificial intelligence -- Periodicals; 591.5
• DOI: 10.1177/10597123221133869
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1741-2633

Abstract

This article aims to sketch a new integrative perspective on what I call change-ability. I define change-ability as skilled ways of coordinating with a rapidly changing world. Many urgent societal challenges – from climate change to obesity, from the mass extinction of species to fraying social cohesion – require people to collectively change everyday patterns of behaviour they take for granted. The key insight I start from is that to durably change undesirable patterns of behaviour, we could start by changing the affordances the environment offers – the possibilities for action offered to us by the living environment. The aim of this article is to sketch an integrative conceptual framework for understanding change-ability in terms in terms of a dynamical 'brain ↔ body ↔ community ↔ landscape of affordances' system. This Change-Ability Conceptual Framework starts from the idea that individuals and communities are situated in the same rich landscape of affordances and suggests that making communities more change-able entails transforming the material 'grooves' that have formed in this landscape of affordances.