Is Society caught up in a Death Spiral? | Prof Michaéla Schippers

Just like an army of ants caught in an ant mill, individuals, groups and even whole societies are sometimes caught up in a death spiral - a vicious cycle of self-reinforcing dysfunctional behavior characterised by continuous flawed decision-making, myopic single-minded focus on one (set of) solution(s), denial, distrust, micromanagement, dogmatic thinking and learned helplessness.

Dr Schippers uses this presentation to define and describe the death spiral effect and offer a positive way forward in terms of evidence-based solutions to escape it.

Her organisation, Great Citizens Movement (Great Citizens Movement – co-creating a new world) looks at how we can make sure to reignite critical thinking in society via "Letters to the future" and in doing so, offer ways to reverse the downward trend of society.

This presentation incorporates the following two papers:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4352765 and https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4372540

Michaéla Schippers is Professor of Behaviour and Performance Management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. She worked with Jordan Peterson for several years, and they published a paper on how setting life goals closed the gender and ethnic minority performance gap. The two also spoke in a podcast on the pandemic of narcissism.

The Covid event has revealed that it was about more than just public health and the political, economic and societal aspects of the response are of far greater significance than the virus itself. There remains a continued drive toward the transformation of our societies in ways that threaten democracy and our existing ways of life. Open Society Sessions aim to examine the political, societal and economic dimensions of our recent experience and analyse developments in the future.

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