Hi, Ryan,
great to hear from you. I am also a big fan of "why questions" in
particular because I come from career counseling and career designing
research areas.
In career studies, the most crucial questions are - how people make career
choices? Why they land in this job/situation and not the other. Is it a
last minute choice guided by pure luck or random chance, perhaps by
intuition or because of thorough planning of the entire extended family
years in advance?
I personally am amazed and thrilled by the most recent and most
revolutionary career development theory - theory of career gravitation by
the Lithuanian professor Kestutis Pukelis
https://slideplayer.com/slide/6838943/ Some may find it very radical I am
afraid :)
In the most basic terms this theory claims:
- humans have the inheritance of a unique genetic code (which is consistent
of recent studies in biology and genetics)
- our genetic code predetermines our unique talents, character traits most
basic inclinations in our abilities
- this code is so strong, that it makes humans (unconsciously) gravitate
towards situations, happenings, and choices, as well as other people (who
are likely to be the sources of information, choices, barriers and/or
possibilities) - so that we can, in the end, realize our internal genetic
composition.
- in traditional thinking, the external environment is believed as a very
strong force which can correct/be an obstacle/be an advantage to our
internal plans, inclinations, or forces. However, recent studies show that
environmental influences are not random or accidental. The environment
seems to be also influenced from within of our human genotype/"our human
nature". What is really revolutionary, to my mind, is that research shows
that *often, environments are correlated with genotypes.*
- this genetic composition and gravitation towards realization is sometimes
labeled as a "calling" for a profession and may signify a perfect match of
talent and his/her profession.
- some skeptics of this theory say: what about human will power or "agency"
in sociological terms, which is a capacity of individuals to act
independently and to make their own free choices. It seems that even our
will power and sense of agency could also predetermined by the genetic code.
What do you think of this theory? Does it feed into the "why needs occur"
framework?
Looking forward to your ideas.
Best wishes,
Jolanta
On Mon, Mar 18, 2019 at 3:45 PM Ryan Watkins <rwatkins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Last week I was reading Judea Pearl’s book “The Book of Why”, which
discusses causal paths as a tool for examining causal relationships. The
book led me down several paths on his work about estimating the
“probability of necessity” and “probability of sufficiency” — two key
concepts to needs and needs assessment of course.
Here is one article that applies of this logic, I enjoyed it and thought
that I would share with this group:
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/Parameters/issues/Summer_2018/5_HillGerras.pdf
There are some more technical pieces with complex logic and Bayesian
probabilities... but I am still working my way through those.
Talk to you soon,
Ryan
Ryan Watkins, Ph.D.
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