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Systems thinking is a cognitive style involving an implicit tendency to perceive the social‐ecological world as a multitude of interconnected complex adaptive systems. Previous research has shown that systems thinkers value and care for entities that transcend the self, such as other human beings and nature, signalling a more expansive self‐concept. Similarly, individuals high in empathy have an inclusive self‐concept, a stronger proenvironmental identity and value entities beyond themselves. The present study examined the hypothesis that systems thinking would share a positive relation with components of cognitive and affective empathy. Results from an online survey of 135 undergraduate students demonstrated that systems thinking shared significant positive correlations with perspective taking, empathic concern and fantasy. However, only perspective taking and empathic concern emerged as unique significant positive predictors of systems thinking. Results suggest that systems thinkers express an elevated capacity for the allocentric components of cognitive and affective empathy. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the greatest challenges in society have emerged as a result of humans acting within complex systems without fully understanding how they work. To address this problem, scholars from diverse fields have appealed to systems thinking. To date, a psychological perspective has been conspicuously absent from scholarship on this topic-a gap that the present paper seeks to fill by situating an individual difference measure of systems thinking in relation to well-studied constructs (e.g. holistic and relational thinking) and decision-making tasks in the psychological literature. Results indicate that the measure of systems thinking captures peoples' tendency to represent and reason about complex systems. The paper helps to validate a novel measure of an individual's tendency to engage in systems thinking and to provide a conceptual foundation for the thinking about the psychological underpinning of a systems thinking mindset. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the present research was to examine the relationship between the cognitive paradigm systems thinking and an ecologically informed worldview, specifically the New Ecological Paradigm. One hundred and fifteen psychology undergraduate students completed an online questionnaire assessing systems thinking, ecological worldview, environmental value-orientation, connectivity to nature, and environmental behaviors. Results demonstrated that systems thinkers possess a stronger ecological worldview and sense of connectivity with nature, harbour biospheric environmental values, and engage in more pro-environmental behaviors than those scoring low on systems thinking. Furthermore, it was found that systems thinking both uniquely predicted and was predicted by the New Ecological Paradigm. Moreover, results demonstrated that systems thinkers are better able to acknowledge 'system membership' and possess a greater understanding of the characteristics of complex ecological systems and their mutual influence on social-economic domains. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a tension between enhancing vulnerable people's access to local nutritious food and ensuring viable incomes for local farmers. This tension arises as a result of interactions and processes scaling outward to the broad level of economic and political ideologies (Ikerd, 2005; 2012). We suggest that by conceiving of this tension as a wicked problem and employing complex adaptive systems theory, we create space in which community members are empowered to share existing knowledge and develop new knowledge as they innovate potential solutions and discuss constructive change. We introduce this space as the beginnings of a dialogue-driven, shared journey through four features of the back loop of the adaptive cycle. Drawing on this theoretical foundation as well as Block's (2009) structure for creating a community of belonging, we hosted two one-half-day-long events for 90 community members, including farmers, foodinsecure people, government representatives, and public agencies. This bottom-up, emergent approach to developing new system patterns may ultimately transform the domain of the problem and present viable alternative futures, which then may be adapted to the local reality and enhance community well being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the range and complexity of pressures on food systems across the globe, we suggest that future research on sustainable food systems can be clustered under three broad topics: the need for integration across multiple jurisdictions, and disciplines that includes different models of food systems and community visions of an integrated food system; the need for focus on tensions and compromises related to increased numbers and reach of sustainable food systems by scaling out and up; and the need for appropriate governance structures and institutions. Comparative research that works directly with communitybased organizations to co-create and apply shared research tools and then engage in common assessment projects offers ways to develop more connected scholarship. More extensive work using concept maps, participatory action research, lifecycle analysis, and urban/rural metabolic flows may help to develop, animate, and answer future research questions in more integrated ways, and will build on opportunities emerging from more inclusive, connected, and multidisciplinary approaches. Work in Ontario helps to illustrate research exploring the three themes through embedded connections to communities of food in the ongoing research project Nourishing Communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]