ON THE CLAIMS OF JORDAN PETERSON’S COMPLEXITY MANAGEMENT THEORY

Michael Barros

Abstract

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson’s ideas have been digested by millions of people around the world. He’s been described by the New York Times as “the most influential public intellectual in the Western world right now.” (Brooks, 2018) He covers a lot of ground, from Disney movies to Nietzsche to Biblical narratives, but connecting all of these is a golden thread: Complexity Management Theory. Complexity Management Theory is the name given to a neuropsychological framework for describing human perception and meaning in an overly complex world. While the name hasn’t stuck, the model itself has been refined and rearticulated several times since then. If it’s accurate, such a comprehensive framework has undeniable utility, if it’s inaccurate, then the most influential public intellectual in the Western world has based a great deal of his lectures on a false premise. This essay summarizes and critiques Complexity Management Theory as it stands today, contextualizing and critiquing its central tenets as they relate to their respective fields. The results of this inquiry indicate that Complexity Management Theory is both well-substantiated and useful, but it requires further elaboration on its views of perception.

Keywords

Complexity Management TheoryJordan PetersonSchema TheoryNeuropsychologyAd Hoc Categories

References

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[refR-2] Barsalou, L. (1983). Ad hoc categories. Memory and Cognition, 11, 211-227.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-3] Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual Symbol Systems. BEHAVORIAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES, 22, 577-660.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-4] Becker, E. (1973). The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-5] Behrmann, M., Zemel, R. S., Mozer, M. C., & Bavalier, D. (2002). Experience-dependent perceptual grouping and object-based attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 28(1), 202-217.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-6] Berhmann, M., & Haimson, C. (1999). The cognitive neruoscience of visual attention. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 9, 158-163.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-7] Brooks, D. (2018, January 25). The Jordan Peterson Moment. Retrieved from The New York Times: the cognitive neuroscience of visual attentionGoogle Scholar ↗

[refR-8] Caliskan, G., & Stork, O. (2018, November 11). Hippocampal network oscillations at the interplay between innate anxiety and learned fear. Psychopharmacology, 236, 321-338.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-9] Campbell, J. (2008). The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Novato: New World Library.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-10] Damasio, A. (1994). Desartes' error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: Avon Books.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-11] Davis, M., & Whalen, P. (2001). The amygdala: vigilance and emotion. Molecular Psychiatry, 6, 13-34.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-12] Degroot, A., & Treit, D. (2004, March 19). Anxiety is functionally segregated within the septo-hippocampal system. Brain Research, 1001(1-2), 60-71.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-13] Duncan, J. (1996). Cooperating brain systems in selective perception and action. Attention and Performance, VXI, 549-578.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-14] Emmons, R. A. (1999). The psychology of ultimate concerns: motivation and spirituality in personality. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-15] Emmons, R. A. (2003). The assessment of gratitude. In S. J. Lopez, & C. R. Snyder, Positive psychological assessment: a handbook of models and measures (pp. 327-341). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-16] Frankl, V. (2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-17] Freud, S. (1928/1991). The future of an illusion. In Civilization, Society and religion (pp. 181-241). New York: Penguin.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-18] Gordon, J. A., & Adhikari, A. (2010). Learned fear and innate anxiety in rodents and their relevance to human anxiety. Cambridge University Press, 180-191.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-19] Gray, J. A. (1982). The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-20] Gray, J. A. (1987). The psychology of fear and stress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-21] Irurita Ballesteros, C., de Olivieria Galvao, B., Maisonette, S., & Landeira-Fernandez, J. (2014). Effect of Dorsal and Ventral Hippocampal Lesions on Contextual Fear Conditioning and Unconditioned Defensive Behavior Induced by Electrical Stimulation of the Dorsal Periaqueductal Gray. PLoS One, 9(1).Google Scholar ↗

[refR-22] Ishikawa, A., Sakaguchi, M., Suzuki, S., & Nagano, A. J. (2020). Genetic Architecture of Innate Fear Behavior in Chickens. Behavior Genetics, 50, 411-422.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-23] LeDoux, J. (1996). The Emotional Brain. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-24] Lewis, C. S. (2014). The Abolition of Man. Samizdat.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-25] Little, B. R. (1983). Personal projects: a rationale and method for investigation. Environment and Behavior, 15, 273-309.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-26] Little, B. R. (1998). Personal project pursuit: dimensions and dynamics of personal meaning. In P. P. Wong, & P. S. Fry, The human quest for meaning: a handbook of psychological research and clinical applications (pp. 193-212). Mahwah: Erlbaum.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-27] Martel, G., Hevi, C., Friebely, O., Baybutt, T., & Shumyatsky, G. P. (2010). Zinc transporter 3 is involved in learned fear and extinction, but not in innate fear. Learning & Memory, 17(11), 582-590.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-28] McNaughton, N. (1997, April). Cognitive dysfunction resulting from hippocampal hyperactivity--a possible cause of anxiety disorder? Pharmacol Biochem Behav., 56(4), 603-611.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-29] McNaughton, N., & Gray, J. (2000, December). Anxiolytic action on the behavioural inhibition system implies multiple types of arousal contribute to anxiety. J Affect Disord., 61(3), 161-176.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-30] Michalikova, S., Ennaceur, A., & Chazot, P. L. (2006, July 15). Models of anxiety: responses of rats to novelty in an open space and an enclosed space. Behavioural brain research, 171(1), 26-49.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-31] O'Keefe, J., & Nadel, L. (1978). The hippocampus as a cognitive map. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-32] Peterson, J. (1999). Maps of Meaning. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-33] Peterson, J. (2003). You can neither forget nor remember what you don't understand. Religion & Public Life, 33.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-34] Peterson, J. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In P. Wong, The Positive Psychology of Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver: INPM Press.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-35] Peterson, J. (2013). Three Forms of Meaning and the Management of Complexity. The Psychology of Meaning.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-36] Peterson, J. B., & Flanders, J. L. (2002, December). Complexity Management Theory: Motivation for Ideological Rigidity and Social Conflict. Cortex, 38, 429-458.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-37] Schulenberg, S. E. (2003). EMPIRICAL RESEARCH AND LOGOTHERAPY. Psychological Reports, 93, 307-319.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-38] Siehl, S., Crombach, A., & Robjant, K. (2021, July). Systematic review and meta-analyses of the long-term efficacy of narrative exposure therapy for adults, children and perpetrators. Journal of the Society for Psychotherapy Research, 31(6), 695-710.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-39] Simon, H. (1956). Rational chioce and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review, 63, 129-138.Google Scholar ↗

[refR-40] Vecera, S. P., & Farah, M. J. (1997). Is image segmentation a bottom-up or an interactive process? Perception & Psychophysics, 59, 1280-1296.Google Scholar ↗