Evolving the future: Toward a science of intentional change

Humans possess great capacity for behavioral and cultural change, but our ability to manage change is still limited. This article

has two major objectives: first, to sketch a basic science of intentional change centered on evolution; second, to provide examples of

intentional behavioral and cultural change from the applied behavioral sciences, which are largely unknown to the basic sciences

community.

All species have evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity that enable them to respond adaptively to their environments. Some

mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity count as evolutionary processes in their own right. The human capacity for symbolic thought

provides an inheritance system having the same kind of combinatorial diversity as does genetic recombination and antibody

formation. Taking these propositions seriously allows an integration of major traditions within the basic behavioral sciences, such as

behaviorism, social constructivism, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and evolutionary psychology, which are often isolated and

even conceptualized as opposed to one another.

The applied behavioral sciences include well-validated examples of successfully managing behavioral and cultural change at scales

ranging from individuals to small groups to large populations. However, these examples are largely unknown beyond their disciplinary

boundaries, for lack of a unifying theoretical framework. Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, they are examples of managing

evolved mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity, including open-ended processes of variation and selection.

Once the many branches of the basic and applied behavioral sciences become conceptually unified, we are closer to a science of

intentional change than one might think.