International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

The process of self-organization and emergence of societies.

Such a process takes place through growing interactions between elements hitherto independent. Through general evolution, sociogenesis seems to have been a process of recurrent emergence by association at successive and growing levels of complexity of elements and groups of elements: complex molecules, cells, organisms, societies of organisms.

According to B. CORBARA and A. DROGOUL, in insect societies "… the genesis of collective patterns and complex collective decisions may result from quite simple individual mechanisms, based on reciprocally competing positive feedbacks" (1993, p.835).

These authors developed a model ("COLONY") of sociogenesis in an anthill according to which:

- Each individual is dominated by a global and permanent behavioral algorithm giving it at any time the possibility to opt for one of three basic individual states needed in the anthill: caring for the brood; foraging or being inactive;

- The activity of each ant is a function of the demand for each specific task;

- The level of demand for each task is a result of the global activity at each moment.

This should be compared with P.P. GRASSÉ's concept of stigmergy.

C. DELAYE and B. CORBARA describe as follows the mechanisms of sociogenesis: "The transition from autonomous elements to integrated ones may result from two basic mechanisms: the first, that allows separated elements to gather while conserving their own closure, is aggregation; the second, which introduces a dissymmetry among the participating elements, is incorporation" (1993, p.843).

This viewpoint converges with V. CSANYI's view about the autogenesis of systems as a result of the reciprocal effects of basic interrelations rules.

Until quite recently, sociogenesis has been a spontaneous and automatic process.

It is quite more general than the shaping of human groups. In some sense, even organized groups of cells, or neurons seem to be self-generated societies. Colonial vegetals, animal groups and even biotopes can be somehow considered as societies.

Many systemic and cybernetic models have some validity for the study of sociogenesis: Social groups are regulated (or even controlled, in the case of human societies), they are generally hierarchical, they offer specific modes of growth (stigmergy and dissipative structuration for example), their behavior does not allow total predictability and is even possibly chaotic, etc…

All these models offer new proposals to sociology.

As stated by E. JANTSCH, sociogenesis "is increasingly becoming a matter of human design too, and bring culture into play" (1976, p.54).

This is surely a reason to try to use systemic and cybernetic models, but altogether a reason to be very careful in order to avoid unfounded analogies.

Another interesting comment by JANTSCH is that, in human societies, sociogenesis becomes "… the result of overlapping functional conscious, and superconscious modes of learning" (Ibid., p.56).

Remains to be seen if we can become conscious of… superconscious learning.