The Development and Initial Validation of the Paradigm of Systems Thinking

摘要

'Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static "snapshots." ' -Peter Senge. The current research examined the psychological construct of systems thinking alongside other established psychological constructs of intelligence, personality, cognitive complexity and creativity to distinguish systems thinking as an independent psychological construct. Across two studies, results suggest that, while systems thinking may overlap with some of these constructs, notably intelligence and cognitive complexity, these constructs did not fully explain obtained variance in systems thinking scores and suggest that systems thinking may indeed be a distinct, perhaps foundational, psychological construct that may exist as an individual difference dimension. This exploratory study discusses the theoretical implications of systems thinking as well as further psychometric validation of the Systems Thinking Scale. (c) 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.