Seeing values as part of complex systems helps explain their role in achieving sustainability

What is it about?

Human values are part of complex systems of people, societies, and the environment. Complex systems are systems with many interacting parts, whose interactions can lead to unexpected changes. Seeing values as part of these systems help us understand how values both affect systems and are shaped by wider system dynamics. The authors therefore suggest that a complex systems perspective can explain how value changes drive transformative change toward sustainability, and how values themselves are reshaped by such transformations. They provide three complex systems - based key insights: 1. Values and transformations toward sustainability are linked. Value chances can contribute to sustainability but they can also shift during social and environmental changes. Transformations toward sustainability can thus both shape values and be shaped by them. 2. Feedbacks shape outcomes. Interactions between ecosystems and values can create reinforcing loops. These loops may accelerate shifts toward sustainability or lock systems into unsustainable states. 3. System patterns give clues. Complex systems share structural features, like connectivity and diversity, that influence their behaviours. Studying these patterns can help predict how values, and the systems they are embedded in, might respond to change or intervention. The authors wish to inspire more researchers to explore values from complex systems perspective. The article also gives examples of value changes, and provides several research questions for using complex systems view on values research.

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Photo by Adam Viski on Unsplash

Photo by Adam Viski on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Values shape the choices we make, from individual actions to large-scale policies. Importantly, recognizing diverse values and understanding values change contributes to more fair action toward sustainability. The complex systems perspective suggests that if we only see values as fixed or isolated, we miss how they shift in response to social and environmental change, and how those shifts, in turn, influence ecosystems and societies. Using a complex systems perspective helps researchers to recognize these dynamics, making it easier to support the kinds of value changes that can move societies toward sustainability.