Search results

In studying the relationship between Cybernetics and Social Science, theories and research in Sociocyber‐netics are examined. The focus is on researchers who apply Cybernetics to the study of society and its social systems and processes. References are backed by a new 300‐item bibliography of the relevant system literature, compiled for the article.

The interview is the most frequently used, but often disputed, method of data collection in the social sciences. Methodological research after the sources of response errors in interviews has borrowed concepts and insights from cybernetics. For example, interviewing in search of “subjective phenomena” like attitudes is conceived as a form of black box analysis. Computer models simulate response processes leading to response errors. The interview appears to be governed by a combination of open and closed loop control. Comparative research into response effects appears to be hampered by the self‐referentiality of the “survey industry”, and qualitative interviews can be viewed as social systems closely related to the autopoietic system of a conversation.

In a computer simulation experiment, the sociocybernetic concepts of self‐referencing control, disturbances from the environment, goal‐oriented behaviour, and morphogenesis are subsequently included in a model. With this model, a large variety of trajectories with quite different behaviours can be generated by only minor changes of initials and coefficients, which leave the structure of the model fully intact. Shows that the same trajectory can be generated by models which have a completely different structure. Thus, the “fit” between observed and generated trajectories is an insufficient criterion to warrant decisions regarding acceptance or rejection of the model, and the theory behind it. Additional criteria have to be introduced in model‐testing methodology. The sociocybernetic concept of self‐referentiality even requires a radical change in this methodology.

The purpose of this paper is to sketch the most valuable contribution of Dr Rose to the development of social cybernetics over the period 1975‐1995.

The paper is based on an analysis of the proceedings of the sections on “Social Systems” or “Social Cybernetics” of the WOSC conferences from 1978 through 1991, and on an analysis of the entries of the Bibliography on Social Cybernetics (1998).

The sections on “Social Systems” of the International Congresses on Systems and Cybernetics, initiated by Dr Rose, provided in the period 1978‐1995 the most important meeting point for social scientists aiming at the application of the cybernetic approach to social systems and social processes, and for cyberneticians wanting to use the principles of cybernetics for the analysis and solution of social problems.

The paper shows how the journal Kybernetes, founded by Dr Rose, became the most frequently used publication medium of social cyberneticians: of the 184 papers on social cybernetics mentioned in this bibliography 76 (41 per cent) were published in Kybernetes, more than in any other journal in the domain of cybernetics or social science.

Theories in sociocybernetics usually have a high degree of complexity, which may lead to methodological problems when these theories are tested in confrontation with “real world data”. From a review of the literature it appears that only a small percentage of the sociocyberneticians make an attempt to test their theory empirically. Two alternative approaches are used: the deduction from the theory of a series of univariate and bivariate hypotheses, subsequently tested with the usual statistical methods; and the reformulation of the theory into a simulation model and comparing the trajectories generated by the computer with time series of “real world data”;. Both approaches have their advantages and risks. It is shown in a simulation experiment that the inclusion of various sociocybernetical ideas (self‐referencing, goal‐referencing, morphogenesis) leads to a model with many degrees of freedom, and consequently of a large “no man’s land” in between the set of “verifiers” and the set of “falsifiers” of the theory.

The Finnish social philosopher Arvid Aulin has made an attempt to develop a theory of social progress based on cybernetic principles. In his sociocybernetics two fundamental concepts are “self‐steering” of actors and “hierarchy” in social systems. Emancipation processes are directed towards an increase of self‐steering and a decrease of outside steering of human actors. In his “Law of the Requisite Hierarchy”, Aulin formulates a negative relationship between the production level of a society and its optimal level of hierarchy; the higher the production per capita, the lower the necessary amount of hierarchy for that society; democracy flourishes as the economy grows. In this paper his arguments for and the consequences, especially for developing countries, of this fundamental law of sociocybernetics, are discussed.

The rapidly increasing complexity of modern society has given rise to a host of societal crises and problems. Efforts to solve such problems have, more often than not, demonstrated the non‐governability of the social processes concerned: Inflation, the arms race, etc. Cybernetics and GST have recently claimed that they can contribute to the analysis and solution of large‐scale social problems—as demonstrated by the often ambitious themes of conferences in these fields. In the following, “social cybernetics” is the general term that will be used for applications of general systems theory and cybernetics to the analysis of social processes, problems and structures. One should, however, realize that these applications have, over the past decade, had a feedback effect on GST and cybernetics themselves, and have caused the emergence of what is now often called the new cybernetics. “Sociocybernetics” is the term that will be specifically reserved for the applications of this new cybernetics to the above mentioned analysis.

To investigate how far sociocyberneticians have tried to meet the criterion of “empirical testability” in their publications. What changes in this respect have taken place in recent years?

Inventory of papers published in Kybernetes from 1977 to 2004, and classification of sociocybernetic papers by type, i.e. the degree to which empirical testability plays a role in the argument.

The number of sociocybernetic papers has increased. The purely conceptual, theoretical or methodological papers make way for papers in which particular social systems and processes are analyzed, using the conceptual apparatus of cybernetics. However, the percentage of papers in which empirical data are used for the testing of hypotheses and models has decreased. It seems that the testability problem of sociocybernetics is unsolvable.

These findings lead to a reflection on the way in which sociocybernetics could eventually overcome the testability problem, by more methodological sophistication, on the one hand, and a more parsimonious formulation of sociocybernetic theories, on the other hand.

Summarizes some of the important concepts and developments in cybernetics and general systems theory, especially during the last two decades. Shows how they can indeed be a challenge to sociological thinking. Cybernetics is used here as an umbrella term for a great variety of related disciplines: general systems theory, information theory, system dynamics, dynamic systems theory, including catastrophe theory, chaos theory. Also considers the emerging “science of complexity”, which includes neural networks, artificial intelligence and artificial life, and discusses the methodological drawbacks of second‐order cybernetics.

In survey interviews information is transferred to the researchers via a communication process between interviewers and respondents. This process is controlled directly by the interviewers, and indirectly by the researchers who constructed the questionnaire and instructed and supervised the interviewers. In spite of these control activities, errors occur. This paper investigates the sources of these errors.

In order to investigate the sources of these errors, transcripts of 200 interviews were analyzed using a detailed coding scheme.

In 30 percent of all question‐answer sequences interviewer and respondent stick to the “script” designed by the researcher. In these “paradigmatic” sequences the open loop control by the researcher works well. In 25 percent of the sequences this control is not sufficient, but additional closed loop control, via “repair” activities of the interviewers, appears to be successful. In the remaining sequences both the open loop control of the researcher and the closed loop control by the interviewer failed.

The recently developed systematic analysis of question‐answer sequences in survey interviews, employed in this research, offers detailed insight into the errors occurring during the interview process, and illustrates the need for improved question design and improved training of interviewers.