ON THE CLAIMS OF JORDAN PETERSON’S COMPLEXITY MANAGEMENT THEORY
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.
References
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Peterson, J. B., & Flanders, J. L. (2002, December). Complexity Management Theory: Motivation for Ideological Rigidity and Social Conflict. Cortex, 38, 429-458.
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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.
Simon, H. (1956). Rational chioce and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review, 63, 129-138.
Vecera, S. P., & Farah, M. J. (1997). Is image segmentation a bottom-up or an interactive process? Perception & Psychophysics, 59, 1280-1296.
Barsalou, L. (1983). Ad hoc categories. Memory and Cognition, 11, 211-227.
Barsalou, L. W. (1999). Perceptual Symbol Systems. BEHAVORIAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES, 22, 577-660.
Becker, E. (1973). The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press.
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.
Berhmann, M., & Haimson, C. (1999). The cognitive neruoscience of visual attention. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 9, 158-163.
Brooks, D. (2018, January 25). The Jordan Peterson Moment. Retrieved from The New York Times: the cognitive neuroscience of visual attention
Caliskan, G., & Stork, O. (2018, November 11). Hippocampal network oscillations at the interplay between innate anxiety and learned fear. Psychopharmacology, 236, 321-338.
Campbell, J. (2008). The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Novato: New World Library.
Damasio, A. (1994). Desartes' error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New York: Avon Books.
Davis, M., & Whalen, P. (2001). The amygdala: vigilance and emotion. Molecular Psychiatry, 6, 13-34.
Degroot, A., & Treit, D. (2004, March 19). Anxiety is functionally segregated within the septo-hippocampal system. Brain Research, 1001(1-2), 60-71.
Duncan, J. (1996). Cooperating brain systems in selective perception and action. Attention and Performance, VXI, 549-578.
Emmons, R. A. (1999). The psychology of ultimate concerns: motivation and spirituality in personality. New York: Guilford.
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.
Frankl, V. (2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.
Freud, S. (1928/1991). The future of an illusion. In Civilization, Society and religion (pp. 181-241). New York: Penguin.
Gordon, J. A., & Adhikari, A. (2010). Learned fear and innate anxiety in rodents and their relevance to human anxiety. Cambridge University Press, 180-191.
Gray, J. A. (1982). The neuropsychology of anxiety: An enquiry into the functions of the septo-hippocampal system. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gray, J. A. (1987). The psychology of fear and stress. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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).
Ishikawa, A., Sakaguchi, M., Suzuki, S., & Nagano, A. J. (2020). Genetic Architecture of Innate Fear Behavior in Chickens. Behavior Genetics, 50, 411-422.
LeDoux, J. (1996). The Emotional Brain. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Lewis, C. S. (2014). The Abolition of Man. Samizdat.
Little, B. R. (1983). Personal projects: a rationale and method for investigation. Environment and Behavior, 15, 273-309.
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.
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.
McNaughton, N. (1997, April). Cognitive dysfunction resulting from hippocampal hyperactivity--a possible cause of anxiety disorder? Pharmacol Biochem Behav., 56(4), 603-611.
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.
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.
O'Keefe, J., & Nadel, L. (1978). The hippocampus as a cognitive map. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Peterson, J. (1999). Maps of Meaning. New York: Routledge.
Peterson, J. (2003). You can neither forget nor remember what you don't understand. Religion & Public Life, 33.
Peterson, J. (2008). The meaning of meaning. In P. Wong, The Positive Psychology of Meaning and Spirituality. Vancouver: INPM Press.
Peterson, J. (2013). Three Forms of Meaning and the Management of Complexity. The Psychology of Meaning.
Peterson, J. B., & Flanders, J. L. (2002, December). Complexity Management Theory: Motivation for Ideological Rigidity and Social Conflict. Cortex, 38, 429-458.
Schulenberg, S. E. (2003). EMPIRICAL RESEARCH AND LOGOTHERAPY. Psychological Reports, 93, 307-319.
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.
Simon, H. (1956). Rational chioce and the structure of the environment. Psychological Review, 63, 129-138.
Vecera, S. P., & Farah, M. J. (1997). Is image segmentation a bottom-up or an interactive process? Perception & Psychophysics, 59, 1280-1296.
Authors
[1]
“ON THE CLAIMS OF JORDAN PETERSON’S COMPLEXITY MANAGEMENT THEORY”, Soc. sci. humanities j., vol. 5, no. 10, pp. 2364–2374, Oct. 2021, Accessed: May 14, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://sshjournal.com/index.php/sshj/article/view/748
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