Comparison: a key to archetype discovery

Juan C. Rocha

slides: juanrocha.se/presentations/archetypes

archetype | ˈɑːkɪtʌɪp |


noun

1. a very typical example of a certain person or thing: he was the archetype of the old-style football club chairman.
   

• an original which has been imitated; a prototype: an instrument which was the archetype of the early flute.
  

2. Psychoanalysis (in Jungian theory) a primitive mental image inherited from the earliest human ancestors, and supposed to be present in the collective unconscious.

3. a recurrent symbol or motif in literature, art, or mythology: mythological archetypes of good and evil.

The Oxford Dictionary

• Jay Forrester proposed that generic structures in system dynamics exist: “probably twenty basic structures would span 90% of the policy issues that most managers encounter” (Forrester, 1980).
  
  • E.g canonical situation models (equations), abstracted micro-structures (stock and flows), counter intuitive system-archetypes (CLDs). Building blocks of more complex systems
• In 1960-70s: urban dynamics, World3 & The Club of Rome
  
  • Limits to Growth; Senge, P (1990) Fifth Discipline; Meadows (2008) Systems thinking

Lane, DC. 1998. “Can We Have Confidence in Generic Structures?.” JPORS 49 (9): 936–47.

As equations

# parameters
a <--8/3;b<--10;c<-28  
# Initial conditions
yini <- c(X = 1, Y = 1, Z = 1)  

## Lorenz function:
Lorenz <- function (t, y, parms) { 
    with(as.list(y), {
        dX <- a * X + Y * Z
        dY <- b * (Y - Z)
        dZ <- -X * Y + c * Y - Z 
        list(c(dX, dY, dZ)) })
}

As diagrams

As diagrams

Lane, DC. 1998. “Can We Have Confidence in Generic Structures?.” JPORS 49 (9): 936–47.
Wolstenholme, EF. 2003. “Towards the Definition and Use of a Core Set of Archetypal Structures in System Dynamics.”
Richardson, GP. 1986. “Problems with Causal-Loop Diagrams.” System Dynamics Review 2 (2): 158–70.

two sides of the same coin

“Islamic sliver coin ‘Derham’” by alazaat is licensed under CC BY 2.0

From structures to patterns

Toward Understanding the Dynamics of Land Change in Latin America: Potential Utility of a Resilience Approach for Building Archetypes of Land-Systems Change

Rocha et al. 2019. Ecology and Society
Biggs et al. 2018. Ecology and Society

Rocha, et al. 2019. Ecology and Society

From patterns to structures

Mapping Social Ecological Systems Archetypes

Rocha, et al. 2020. Environmental Research Letters

Caveats and open problems

Conclusions

1. Leveraging comparison can enable archetype discovery
   Comparing: causal structures | data driven patterns
   

2. Causal structures can be compared with structural equivalence
   Rocha, et al. 2019. Ecology and Society

3. Recurrent patterns can be compared with clustering methods in space and time
   Rocha, et al. 2020. Environmental Research Letters

4. QCA | causal recipes: What makes Arctic communities resilient?
   Rocha et al. 2022. Global Environmental Change

5. Be aware of limitations
   Ground your theory with empirical data…and ground your data analysis in theory

Tack | Gracias

Questions?


email: juan.rocha@su.se
twitter: @juanrocha
slides: juanrocha.se/presentations/archetypes


Stockholm Resilience Centre
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