TY - GEN ID - cogprints1526 UR - http://cogprints.org/1526/ A1 - Wallace, Rodrick TI - Selection pressure and organizational cognition: implications for the social determinants of health Y1 - 2001/05// N2 - 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. AV - public KW - evolutionary punctuation KW - health KW - inequality KW - information theory KW - phase transition KW - renormalization KW - social networks ER -