creators_name: Wallace, Rodrick type: preprint datestamp: 2001-05-30 lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:39 metadata_visibility: show title: Selection pressure and organizational cognition: implications for the social determinants of health subjects: appl-cog-psy full_text_status: public keywords: evolutionary punctuation, health, inequality, information theory, phase transition, renormalization, social networks abstract: 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 date_type: published refereed: FALSE citation: Wallace, Rodrick (2001) Selection pressure and organizational cognition: implications for the social determinants of health. [Preprint] document_url: http://cogprints.org/1526/3/selcog1.pdf