Journal on Policy and Complex Systems
best utility “ threshold ” below which I should change strategies ? An exciting part of this paper is that it also allows us to evaluate group outcomes of individual flexibility : If everyone changes strategies all the time , is that good for the group ? What about when the environment is highly variable ? What about when it is not highly variable ?
The paper is also one in a series of papers on the topic of adaptability — what does it mean to be adaptive in a complex system ? Does it mean to change behavior ? To change goals ? To be able to change or willing to change , or both ? Does it imply optimization or matching ? Alternatively , just flexibility ? The paper is certainly not the first to take on such topics , but a discussion of adaptability is requisite for any inquiry into whether and to what extent adaptability serves an individual or the group in a complex system . This has direct application to policy choices : Policies are implemented into complex social , biological , and ecological environments that are turbulent and in which others implement other policies . As circumstances change , even the best policies may stop working . How flexible should we design policies to be ?
This question is deeper than simply making choices over uncertainty . It is about fundamentally changing type — which means changing preferences . It is deeper than the question of , if I am trying to maximize A should I be doing more of action X or action Y ? Rather , the question in this paper is , right now I am trying to maximize A , but should I instead be maximizing B ?
To give an example , if a person is in an unhappy marriage , this model is about whether a person should be married or not — as opposed to the “ within type ” choice over whether a person should have more date nights or seek couples ’ counseling . Or in the world of higher education , this model is not about trying to answer the question of whether we might make college more affordable by reducing tuition or providing more scholarships , but instead is about questions like who should universities be targeting ? On the other hand , should all students go to college ? From the student ’ s perspective , this might take the form of shifting the choice from , “ what college should I go to ?” to “ Am I the type of person to go to college ?” It ’ s about the decision to switch from one decision tree to another altogether , which is effectively about changing the payoffs to your choices , which is about changing preferences .
In addition to being about whether one ’ s preferences are the “ right ” ones for a particular circumstance , the paper is also fundamentally about the question of satisficing . A central component of the paper is thresholds . It is one thing to conclude that one is willing to change type given the realization that the current behavior is not working . How poorly do things need to be going before one switches ? 2
I do not pretend that the agent-based model I present in this paper has the
2 For a definitely not scientific article on this topic that is wildly depressing and highly controversial — but does a great job of underscoring the fundamental logic described here — see Gottlieb ( 2008 ).
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