Journal on Policy and Complex Systems
change with hindsight , and we can never know the counterfactual on any “ adaptive ” change . What might have seemed to be a good choice to make in the present and given the information at that time may turn out not to be . Looking back , all we can conclude as observers is that the change led to a bad outcome . We cannot know anything about whether it was still better than the status quo , or whether a different change would have led to better outcomes . Does that make the change — or the actor making that change — not adaptive ?
The question we are really asking when we inquire about adaptability is the following : under what conditions is it optimal to change behavior in response to environmental change , and when is it better to maintain consistent behavior ? The emphasis here is on the utility to a future self of changing behavior ( henceforth also a proxy for beliefs and genotype ) in the present .
In this lens , whether you consider biological systems , social systems , or ecosystems , the idea of adaptability itself must take into account not just the conditions under which one should change behavior , but also must evaluate the actual ability of an actor to change behavior . A firm that is seeing lower profits may adjust its marketing strategy , a lonely individual may switch to online dating , and a cougar may hunt in new territory ( wink ).
These changes may be good ( or not ), but we can only evaluate adaptability according to the circumstances when they make the change in the first place , as well as whether the actors themselves are actually capable of making that change .
This emphasis on conditions for change and ability to change relieve us of a number of complicated issues that arise when thinking about adaptability . For example , adaptability could also look like an actor adopting one flexible behavior that does well under a wide variety of changing circumstances . Alternatively , an agent could look adaptive through random drift . On the other hand , that agent could for whatever reasons simply already have a behavior that happens to work . We might wrongly conclude this last actor is adaptive , when really they are more appropriately described as exhibiting resilience : the ability to withstand hardship without changing at all . Finally , a related concept is robustness , which we usually take to mean something to the effect of the ability to be constant amidst turbulence but also adapt when needed ( Bednar , 2008 ).
A few simple examples clarify the distinction between behavioral flexibility and other kinds of adaptability discussed here . Behavioral flexibility can look adaptive , but it need not be .
a ) Pushing or waiting : In China , one gets through a line faster if one pushes one ’ s way through . In the United States , this will get you kicked out of the store . The decision of an agent to change from crowding to waiting is one that is behavioral flexibility , but is also adaptive if one moves from China to the United States . That same change is not “ adaptive ” if one goes the other way .
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