Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 17, 2025

Perspectives on Neuroscience
Published on: July 31, 2007
Minds and markets as complex systems: an emerging approach to cognitive economics
Samuel G B Johnson1, Patrick R Schotanus2, J A Scott Kelso3
1Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; School of Management, University of Bath, Bath, UK; Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.
Abstract:
Cognitive economics is an emerging interdisciplinary field that uses the tools of cognitive science to study economic and social decision-making. Although most strains of cognitive economics share commitments to bridging levels of analysis (cognitive, behavioral, and systems) and embracing interdisciplinary approaches, we review a newer strand of cognitive economic thinking with a further commitment: conceptualizing minds and markets each as complex adaptive systems. We describe three ongoing research programs that strive toward these goals: (i) studying narratives as a cognitive and social representation used to guide decision-making; (ii) building cognitively informed agent-based models; and (iii) understanding markets as an extended mind - the Market Mind Hypothesis - analyzed using the concepts, methods, and tools of Coordination Dynamics.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Reason and Intuition
Introduction to Cognitive Psychology
This field emerged in the mid-20th century, following a period dominated by behaviorism, which...
Cognitivism
Previously dominated by behaviorism, which prioritized observable behaviors and largely ignored mental processes, psychology transformed in the 1950s. Cognitive psychologists argue that understanding how we think and process...
Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition
Hindsight Biases
Lazarus's Cognitive Appraisal Theory
Primary Appraisal:...

