Understanding the Occupational Human Being as a Complex, Dynamical, Adaptive System

Abstract

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate whether the complex occupational human being may be understood using constructs derived from chaos theory such as dependence on initial conditions, fractality, and attractor conditions (Bassingthwaighte, Liebovich, & West, 1994; Buell & Cassidy, 2001; Fraser & Greenhalgh, 2001). Quantitative and qualitative data consisting of daily activities engaged in for 21 days by nine students at the University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania, was collected using activity inventories. Data analysis revealed that although the findings need to be interpreted with caution due to a small, homogeneous sample, there are indications that the above mentioned constructs from chaos theory may be used to understand the complex occupational human being.

KEYWORDS:

• Complexity
• fractality
• occupational life trajectory
• at-tractor conditions