Essays on Systems Intelligence
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Essays on Systems Intelligence Edited by Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen Systems Analysis Laboratory Aalto University, School of Science and Technology Espoo, Finland April 2010 Contributors Raimo P. Hämäläinen [email protected] Kalevi Kilkki [email protected] Otso Palonen [email protected] Anne Birgitta Pessi [email protected] John Rauthmann [email protected] Ella Rönkkönen [email protected] Esa Saarinen [email protected] Pia Tikka [email protected] Acknowledgements Cover picture “Mehuhäätä vanhainkodissa”, “Lolly pop in the old folks home”, by Riitta Nelimarkka, 1991. We thank the artist and are grateful for the opportunity to use her spirited art in our cover again. Editing assistance was provided by Mr. Ilkka Leppänen and Mr. Mikko Martela. Publisher Systems Analysis Laboratory Aalto University, School of Science and Technology P.O. Box 11100 00076 Aalto Finland Tel. +358 9 451 3056 Fax. +358 9 451 3096 E-mail: [email protected] This publication is freely downloadable at http://www.systemsintelligence.tkk.fi ISBN 978-952-60-3112-5 Contents Preface 5 Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen 1 The Originality of Systems Intelligence 9 Esa Saarinen and Raimo P. Hämäläinen 2 Psychological Aspects of Systems Intelligence: Conceptualisations of a New 29 Intelligence Form John F. Rauthmann 3 Systems Intelligence as a Trait: A Meta-Model for a Systemic Understanding of 61 Personality John F. Rauthmann 4 Measuring Trait Systems Intelligence: First Steps Towards a Trait-SI Scale 89 (TSIS) John F. Rauthmann 5 The Social System of Systems Intelligence – A Study Based on Search Engine 119 Method Kalevi Kilkki 6 Systems Thinking and Learning with the Systems Intelligence Perspective 135 Otso Palonen 7 Fredrickson’s Broaden-and-Build Theory, Chemical Engineering, and Systems 151 Intelligence Ella Rönkkönen and Esa Saarinen 8 Being Individually Together is Systems Intelligent: Lessons from Volunteerism 181 Research Anne Birgitta Pessi 9 Cinema Author’s Embodied Simulatorium – a Systems Intelligence Approach 207 Pia Tikka 3 Preface Systems intelligence, we have proposed, is a fundamental form of intelligence we all actively use when engaging with the interaction-rich systems of our everyday life. Since the launch of our Systems Intelligence Initiative in 2002, we have served as editors for a series of volumes that have addressed a wide range of themes applying a number of methodologies. The articles have discussed and elaborated a host of aspects of systems intelligence, bringing together numerous seemingly unrelated phenomena, life situations and theoretical issues. The contributors have included researchers, educators, consultants, managers and students of different disciplines ranging from decision theory, environmental studies, architecture, computer science, management, organization research, philosophy, psychology, theology and psychotherapy. The current volume is the fourth in the series published in English, following three previous volumes in Finnish. In the present volume the emphasis is on the foundational, conceptual, psychological as well as practice-oriented aspects of human intelligence. As is customary with systems intelligence, the essays represent a number of different methodologies, disciplines and topics of interest. In the opening essay, Esa Saarinen and Raimo P. Hämäläinen elaborate on systems intelligence as an original form of human intelligence paying particular attention to the origin of intelligence in the light of infant research. The paper argues for systems intelligence as an integrating framework which complements earlier work on human intelligence. In his three essays, John Rauthmann discusses conceptually and empirically systems intelligence with respect to classical conceptualizations of intelligence and with respect to certain essential psychological themes. His first article studies systems intelligence as a trait and ability, investigating the connections of the construct to previous psychological intelligence literature. In his second contribution, Rauthmann develops a new systemic meta-model of personality. In his third essay, Rauthmann proposes a trait-SI scale for operationalizing the concept. Based on his original proposal, Rauthmann goes on to report what is the first empirical attempt to measure systems intelligence. In his methodologically innovative essay, Kalevi Kilkki creates a social systems map of systems intelligence by presenting and applying a novel web search engine methodology to the construct of systems intelligence. The result is a description of the connections of the notion of systems intelligence with concepts in other disciplines and with some leading scholars in those disciplines. This is followed by an essay by Otso Palonen with a discussion of learning from the perspective of systems intelligence. In their contribution, Ella Rönkkönen and Esa Saarinen take the bold step of applying chemical engineering to an analysis of the Broaden and Build Theory of positive emotions developed by Barbara Fredrickson, and then link Fredrickson’s insights with systems intelligence. Anne Birgitta Pessi uses systems intelligence to analyse volunteerism, presenting a fresh conceptualization of that domain. The final essay by Pia Tikka reflects cinema as an intersubjective neuroscientific experience. The concepts of embodied simulation and the 5 cinema author’s mental workspace simulatorium are discussed in their relation to systems intelligence. We hope the essays in this volume, along with those of the previous books, will inspire researchers and practitioners from different backgrounds and disciplines to find new insights on their own field, practices and themes of interest in the light of systems intelligence. Espoo, Finland 25 March 2010 Raimo P. Hämäläinen Esa Saarinen Systems Intelligence volumes: Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen, eds. 2008. Systems Intelligence – A New Lens on Human Engagement and Action. Espoo: Helsinki University of Technology, Systems Analysis Laboratory. Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen, eds. 2007. Systems Intelligence in Leadership and Everyday Life. Espoo: Helsinki University of Technology, Systems Analysis Laboratory. Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen, eds. 2004. Systems Intelligence - Discovering a Hidden Competence in Human Action and Organizational Life. Espoo: Helsinki University of Technology, Systems Analysis Laboratory. All of these books and the individual articles can be freely downloaded at http://www.systemsintelligence.tkk.fi. See also these recent papers: Jukka Luoma, Raimo P. Hämäläinen, and Esa Saarinen. Forthcoming. Acting with systems intelligence: Integrating complex responsive processes with the systems perspective. Journal of the Operational Research Society, advance online publication, 13 January 2010 (DOI 10.1057/jors.2009.175). Esa Saarinen. 2008. Philosophy for managers, Philosophy of Management, vol. 7 supplement. Raimo P. Hämäläinen and Esa Saarinen. 2008. Systems Intelligence - The way forward? A note on Ackoff's "Why few organizations adopt systems thinking", Systems Research and Behavioral Science, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 821–825. Jukka Luoma, Raimo P. Hämäläinen, and Esa Saarinen. 2008. Perspectives on team dynamics: Meta learning and systems intelligence. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 757–767. 6 Essays on Systems Intelligence 7 Chapter 1 The Originality of Systems Intelligence Esa Saarinen and Raimo P. Hämäläinen In their groundbreaking essay ”Emotional Intelligence” (1990), Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer define their new concept “as the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” (Salovey and Mayer 1990, italics in the original). The theory of emotional intelligence advances the work of Howard Gardner (1983) in his theory of multiple intelligences and that of Robert Sternberg (1985) in his theory of “triartic” (three part) intelligence. All these approaches draw attention to factors in human performance not captured by previous proposals and, in particular, in traditional IQ tests (Gerrid and Zimbardo 2010). We have proposed that the work on emotional, social and multiple intelligence has missed a key form of human intelligence that we have called “systems intelligence.” By “systems intelligence” we mean “intelligent behaviour in the context of complex systems involving interaction and feedback. A subject acting with Systems Intelligence engages successfully and productively with the holistic feedback mechanisms of her environment. She perceives herself as part of the whole, the influence of the whole upon herself as well as her own influence upon the whole. By observing her own interdependence in the feedback intensive environment, she is able to act intelligently” (Saarinen and Hämäläinen 2004, p. 3; see also Hämäläinen and Saarinen 2006, 2007a, 2007b, 2008). As the phrase suggests, systems intelligence relates to systems. As is customary in systems approaches, systems for us are complex wholes, the functioning of which depends on its parts and the interaction between those parts (Jackson 2003). Like Salovey and Mayer, we focus upon intelligence as something that “guides one’s thinking and action”. Key features of the “systems” of systems intelligence include the following aspects, familiar from the systems literature (Senge 1990, Jervis 1998, Jackson 2003, Ramage and Shipp2009): 1) The behaviour of the system displays