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initiated. Behavioural entrepreneurship is about self-initiating behaviour change.
Yet, whether acting individually or in groups, these entrepreneurs will need the
capacity to envision, craft and then initiate responses all while functioning within a
radically changed context.
13.5 Capacities-First Approach
Given that today we cannot fully know the behaviour patterns needed later this century, we must instead ask what are the conditions under which future citizens can
respond with competence and equipoise. There is an innovative means of extracting
these conditions. It employs a method used within psychological discussions of
intentionality (Baumeister et al. 2011; Mele 2001) and is referred to as a capacitiesfirst approach (Seligman et al. 2013). This approach is a form of envisioning
(Meadows 1996) and is wholly unlike our current tendency to construct interventions that are primarily past-driven.
A past-driven approach is a leveraging of traits, decision-making tendencies,
knowledge, norms and motives from people’s immediate and distant past. For
instance, we assess whether an individual holds an eco-centric, ego-centric or
social-centric value orientation and then create an intervention that leverages their
dominant orientation. Another example starts with individuals who are inclined
toward a specific environmental stewardship behaviour but lack the necessary procedural knowledge to carry out that behaviour. The intervention would then focus
on providing the needed behavioural skills and strategies. A third example is making more salient an existing social norm using a public service announcement. In
each instance, we, the experts, assume the role of creating interventions that manipulate existing factors to promote conservation behaviours among citizens.
In contrast, a capacities-first approach is future-centric. Citizens are imagined as
actively coping with the challenges in that future context having successfully recast
their behaviours into forms that fit that future ecological situation. Perhaps most
significant, these future citizens are in no particular need of expert designed and
managed interventions. However, perhaps we, the experts, could be of some help in
the present. Although we cannot assume to know the specific future behaviours that
citizens will be pursuing, we may assume that how they go about identifying and
self-initiating those behaviours will be much the same as they do today. They will
be using the same mental processes, cope with the same social challenges, be
affected by the same emotions and need to develop skills well matched to the future
context. Therefore, employing a reverse-engineering metaphor, we can imagine, in
the present, what general capacities those future citizens must be in possession of,
and the support they will come to rely upon while creating and initiating specific
future behaviours. Providing for the development of those capacities now and supporting them in the future becomes a necessary, although perhaps not a sufficient,
pre-condition for supporting future sustainability.
R. De Young
initiated. Behavioural entrepreneurship is about self-initiating behaviour change.
Yet, whether acting individually or in groups, these entrepreneurs will need the
capacity to envision, craft and then initiate responses all while functioning within a
radically changed context.
13.5 Capacities-First Approach
Given that today we cannot fully know the behaviour patterns needed later this century, we must instead ask what are the conditions under which future citizens can
respond with competence and equipoise. There is an innovative means of extracting
these conditions. It employs a method used within psychological discussions of
intentionality (Baumeister et al. 2011; Mele 2001) and is referred to as a capacitiesfirst approach (Seligman et al. 2013). This approach is a form of envisioning
(Meadows 1996) and is wholly unlike our current tendency to construct interventions that are primarily past-driven.
A past-driven approach is a leveraging of traits, decision-making tendencies,
knowledge, norms and motives from people’s immediate and distant past. For
instance, we assess whether an individual holds an eco-centric, ego-centric or
social-centric value orientation and then create an intervention that leverages their
dominant orientation. Another example starts with individuals who are inclined
toward a specific environmental stewardship behaviour but lack the necessary procedural knowledge to carry out that behaviour. The intervention would then focus
on providing the needed behavioural skills and strategies. A third example is making more salient an existing social norm using a public service announcement. In
each instance, we, the experts, assume the role of creating interventions that manipulate existing factors to promote conservation behaviours among citizens.
In contrast, a capacities-first approach is future-centric. Citizens are imagined as
actively coping with the challenges in that future context having successfully recast
their behaviours into forms that fit that future ecological situation. Perhaps most
significant, these future citizens are in no particular need of expert designed and
managed interventions. However, perhaps we, the experts, could be of some help in
the present. Although we cannot assume to know the specific future behaviours that
citizens will be pursuing, we may assume that how they go about identifying and
self-initiating those behaviours will be much the same as they do today. They will
be using the same mental processes, cope with the same social challenges, be
affected by the same emotions and need to develop skills well matched to the future
context. Therefore, employing a reverse-engineering metaphor, we can imagine, in
the present, what general capacities those future citizens must be in possession of,
and the support they will come to rely upon while creating and initiating specific
future behaviours. Providing for the development of those capacities now and supporting them in the future becomes a necessary, although perhaps not a sufficient,
pre-condition for supporting future sustainability.
R. De Young