BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

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COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR 4)

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A similar and simultaneous behavior in a numerous group of individuals of a same species.

Collective behavior can be observed in all societies, from amoebas to human groups. Coordination of moves or other activities results from some specific factor as for example pheromones, or reciprocal visual perception (in fish shoals, for example), or gestual or spoken language.

Normally collective behavior is reinforced by repetitive action that works as a positive feedback. This can even lead to exponential or massive effects (swarming, communal building, in insects… and people, panics, etc)

Curiously, in some cases some unfavorable factor, a negative feedback can lead to the reduction, or even the suppression of some behavior. C. Defrain and J.K. Deneubourg give the example of ants trails abandonned when a source of food is nearly exhausted or if some obstacle or danger intervenes. (2000, p. 147)

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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