306
13.5.2 Supporting Capacity Building
As disparate as the aforementioned capacities for clarity, competence building and
emotional stability may seem at first, they share a common foundation: the ability
to maintain attentional vitality (Basu 2015). Mental clear-headedness is a precondition for human effectiveness (Kaplan 1995) and thus vital to behavioural entrepreneurship. Envisioning future situations and, more importantly, imagining groups of
behaviours that need to be adopted together for an effective response will need to be
done while in the presence of the radically changing biophysical and behavioural
contexts outlined above, the desperate needs of others and unmet personal needs.
It is here that the enormous adaptive significance of mental vitality becomes
clear. It allows for pausing to insert our own intentions between the demands of the
immediate environment and the future for which we are seeking to prepare a
response (De Young 2010). With this ability, future citizens could envision multiple
futures without undue confusion, contemplate alternate priorities and explore alternatives instead of jumping to first conclusions. In addition, and most relevant here,
it allows imagining which combinations of behavioural responses will work well
together. The importance of this ability cannot be overstated. Without this ability,
future citizens could not override automatic functioning whether based on innate
stimulus-driven patterns (e.g. inherited inclinations) or learned patterns (e.g. habitual responses). In short, the entrepreneurial thought, craft and action needed to
respond well will depend on citizens maintaining their mental vitality.
Yet, preserving mental vitality is difficult even in the best of times since handling
all the information we crave, as well as dealing with the onslaught of unbidden
information, easily leads to our being overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. The
challenge is all the more formidable under the premise of this chapter. Yet, while the
cognitive demands placed on behavioural entrepreneurs will certainly tax their mental well-being, research has repeatedly highlighted the restorative effect of time
spent in natural settings (see Marselle Chap. 7, this volume; Marselle et al. Chap. 9,
this volume; Kaplan and Berman 2010; Kaplan and Kaplan 2009). This leads to a
fascinating, if somewhat counterintuitive, aspect of the new biophysical context. It
is possible that life will become less affluent, less easily mobile and less consumerbased. At the same time, everyday life may become more locally oriented with
everyone more involved in their own provisioning. Thus, slowly over time, daily
access to nearby nature may increase. Given that such access can improve mental,
physical, social and spiritual well-being (see Cook et al. Chap. 11, this volume;
Irvine et al. Chap. 10, this volume), the very restoration needed to effectively
respond to the new context will be available within that same context.
Mental vitality is a state-of-mind essential to entrepreneurial behaviour but there
is also a need for citizens to derive a motive from such engagement. Fortunately, the
motives necessary to support behavioural entrepreneurship are embedded in the
very challenges involved and are well-studied. It turns out that humans are intrinsically motivated to pursue capacity building (De Young 1996, 2000; Howell 2013;
O’Brien and Wolf 2010; Sheldon et al. 2011; Van der Werff et al. 2013). Chawla
R. De Young
13.5.2 Supporting Capacity Building
As disparate as the aforementioned capacities for clarity, competence building and
emotional stability may seem at first, they share a common foundation: the ability
to maintain attentional vitality (Basu 2015). Mental clear-headedness is a precondition for human effectiveness (Kaplan 1995) and thus vital to behavioural entrepreneurship. Envisioning future situations and, more importantly, imagining groups of
behaviours that need to be adopted together for an effective response will need to be
done while in the presence of the radically changing biophysical and behavioural
contexts outlined above, the desperate needs of others and unmet personal needs.
It is here that the enormous adaptive significance of mental vitality becomes
clear. It allows for pausing to insert our own intentions between the demands of the
immediate environment and the future for which we are seeking to prepare a
response (De Young 2010). With this ability, future citizens could envision multiple
futures without undue confusion, contemplate alternate priorities and explore alternatives instead of jumping to first conclusions. In addition, and most relevant here,
it allows imagining which combinations of behavioural responses will work well
together. The importance of this ability cannot be overstated. Without this ability,
future citizens could not override automatic functioning whether based on innate
stimulus-driven patterns (e.g. inherited inclinations) or learned patterns (e.g. habitual responses). In short, the entrepreneurial thought, craft and action needed to
respond well will depend on citizens maintaining their mental vitality.
Yet, preserving mental vitality is difficult even in the best of times since handling
all the information we crave, as well as dealing with the onslaught of unbidden
information, easily leads to our being overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. The
challenge is all the more formidable under the premise of this chapter. Yet, while the
cognitive demands placed on behavioural entrepreneurs will certainly tax their mental well-being, research has repeatedly highlighted the restorative effect of time
spent in natural settings (see Marselle Chap. 7, this volume; Marselle et al. Chap. 9,
this volume; Kaplan and Berman 2010; Kaplan and Kaplan 2009). This leads to a
fascinating, if somewhat counterintuitive, aspect of the new biophysical context. It
is possible that life will become less affluent, less easily mobile and less consumerbased. At the same time, everyday life may become more locally oriented with
everyone more involved in their own provisioning. Thus, slowly over time, daily
access to nearby nature may increase. Given that such access can improve mental,
physical, social and spiritual well-being (see Cook et al. Chap. 11, this volume;
Irvine et al. Chap. 10, this volume), the very restoration needed to effectively
respond to the new context will be available within that same context.
Mental vitality is a state-of-mind essential to entrepreneurial behaviour but there
is also a need for citizens to derive a motive from such engagement. Fortunately, the
motives necessary to support behavioural entrepreneurship are embedded in the
very challenges involved and are well-studied. It turns out that humans are intrinsically motivated to pursue capacity building (De Young 1996, 2000; Howell 2013;
O’Brien and Wolf 2010; Sheldon et al. 2011; Van der Werff et al. 2013). Chawla
R. De Young