A Multilevel Incentive Theory of Group Integration

This paper explores commonalities between two bodies of work: Social Interdependence Theory (SIT) in social psychology, and Multilevel Selection Theory (MLS) in evolutionary biology. These two fields have each created theories of group integration, or how elements of a system become so coordinated and coherent as to take on the properties of a single entity in their own right, but with SIT tackling human groups and MLS looking at biological and cultural systems that evolve through natural selection. In this paper, drawing on the Anticipatory Systems view of Robert Rosen, I offer an abstract systems language that can unite these two approaches as special cases of a broader theory of systems integration in learning systems. This approach offers a new lens that bridges social and natural sciences, and has profound implications, particularly for economics and political science