title: Selection pressure and organizational cognition: implications for the social determinants of health
creator: Wallace, Rodrick
subject: Applied Cognitive Psychology
description: We model the effects of Schumperterian 'selecton pressures' -- in particular Apartheid and the neoliberal 'market economy' -- on organizational cognition in minority communities, given the special role of culture in human biology.  Our focus is on the dual-function social networks by which culture is imposed and maintained on individuals and by which immediate patterns of opportunity and threat are recognized and given response.  A mathematical model based on recent advances in complexity theory displays a joint cross-scale linkage of social, individual central nervous system, and immune cognition with external selection pressure through mixed and synergistic punctuated 'learning plateaus.'  This provides a natural mechanism for addressing the social determinants of health at the individual level.  The implications of the model, particularly the predictions of synergistic punctuation, appear to be empirically testable.
date: 2001-05
type: Preprint
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: http://cogprints.org/1526/3/selcog1.pdf
identifier:   Wallace, Rodrick  (2001) Selection pressure and organizational cognition: implications for the social determinants of health.  [Preprint]     
relation: http://cogprints.org/1526/