Social Scientis Brian Lowery’s Lessons for 21st Century Designers

Our identities are in a perpetual state of development, continually shaped by ongoing interactions of diverse qualities within our social contexts.

The other day I came across an episode of The Next Big Idea podcast where Dan Pink provocatively introduced a new book by author Brian Lowery. Pink went on to mention that the book had caused him “existential crises” on several occasions during his reading. Dr. Brian Lowery is a professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University, and the book in question is titled Selfless: The Social Creation Of You.

Lowery is keen on the idea that the construction and nature of our selves is always in relation to other people, communities, and context at large. This notion struck a chord with me, as it closely aligns with the ideas I discussed in the Double Helix Design Patterns. Here are several aspects of the Double Helix Design Patterns that carry similar themes as Brian’s related to interconnectedness of individuals and their environments.

Selves are Constructed from Interactions

To begin, according to Lowery, it’s essential to clarify that there is no existence of a deep, unchanging, romantic core self waiting to be uncovered. On the contrary, our identities are in a perpetual state of development, continually shaped by ongoing interactions of diverse qualities within our social contexts. This is similarly described in Double Helix Patterns as:

These interactions with the environment… allow agents to adapt and adjust their behaviour in response to changes in their context and to continue creating value while also conserving their resources, ensuring their ongoing survival.

Interactions help the agent to assign meaning and identity to the elements of the environment related to the intention-based-value the elements create for the agent. We call this sense-making.

Sense-making allows the agent to develop the sense of self — its own identity.

Selves Exist in Relationships within Communities

The key concept is that our selves as identities, or social identities are inherently embedded within relationships and communities, rather than existing in isolation. One can not assume identity is isolation. Assuming one’s identity needs to satisfy two conditions: that a person identifies as such, but also that their social context recognize and acknowledge that identity. This closely corresponds Double Helix Design Patterns that an agent‘s sense of self is tightly coupled with its environment.

However, it’s important for this self-identification to be recognized and correlated with the identification of the agent by the environment. This is an important factor in the agent’s ability to adapt as it helps the agent understand its place in the environment and the role it plays within it.

I argue that acknowledgment of the agent’s identity by its environment comes from actual or perceived value the agent creates for the environment, be it social, corporate, or any other kind.

Selves Limit Freedom for Coherence in Social Chaos

This can also be read as: the selves avoid the anti-pattern of narrow self-centered value creation and instead extend their value creation to encompass the broader contextual environment in which they exist and with which they interact. Agent becomes a node in densely connected networks of its environment — in not dissimilar way our cells are nodes in densely connected networks that constitutes our bodies. This process is the first hint of how self transcends it’s narrow boundaries and gets to extended self, which again is a hint of fractal nestedness of the various kinds of agents.

Value created in and for the environment directly correlates with the agent’s extended sense of self, or extended identity, but only when there is an ongoing feedback from the environment to the agent.

Previously mentioned fundamental feature of care — a combination of care for agent’s own survival and the care for use of the resources that enable that survival — now also includes the care for the immediate environment.

Selves Provide the Possibility of Transcendence

Professor Lowery delves into experiments that confirm the psychological benefits of moving beyond narrow, individual selves to embrace the extended selves of family, tribe, or nation, among other examples. In these cases, individuals often experience a profound sense of deeper meaning.

Consequently, self-transcendence, whether in Brian’s framework or within the Double Helix framework, is far from being esoteric. Instead, it reflects a natural process of the profound coupling between an agent or self and its environment at various scales of existence. Deeper the coupling, more profound the agent’s sense of meaning, purpose, and mutual care.

This feedback loop allows the agent to maintain a sense of connection with the environment and a sense of continuity between herself and the value she creates. Hence, it helps to extend the agent’s sense of self and identity. It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean that the agent’s self blends or merges with the extended self, but rather that the agent has awareness of both.

Life is often symbolized by the DNA’s double helix, therefore, I used it as a label for this model — Double Helix Design Patterns. Two strands of DNA tightly coupled, dancing together, represent in a way an agent and its environment tightly coupled, dancing together, connected by care for mutual existence and meaning.

I was surprised how closely my Double Helix notes aligned with “controversial and provocative” Brian Lowery’s ideas–which didn’t seem provocative to me at all. They provide an some important ancient truths’ reminder for 21st century designers that any given problem needs to be assessed with deep consideration and respect of agents in relation with social, economical, physical, normative, and narrative aspects of his environments, rather than simplistic, narrow, and usually profit driven narratives.

In addition, we also need to be reminded that a social fabric, as a sensitive distributed network, is in continuous process of becoming and that the only design interventions that can contribute to sustainable future are the ones that enable value creation for both agent and their environment in the long run.

Any one of us can assess if our current design projects align with this line of thinking.