The role of agency in social tipping processes

Gaupp, Franziska; Constantino, Sara; Pereira, Laura

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533

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https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533

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11 Jul 2023

| 11 Jul 2023

The role of agency in social tipping processes

Franziska Gaupp, Sara Constantino, and Laura Pereira

Abstract. Positive social tipping processes – nonlinear, transformational change that improves long-term sustainability and well-being of people and planet – have recently witnessed growing interest in socio-ecological research. In addition to structural and systemic changes, shifts in prevailing social norms and worldviews are key for accelerated societal transformation. Enabling conditions include human agency – the capacity or ability to influence the outside world. Drawing on literature from different disciplines, we present an agency in social tipping framework that examines the notion of agency and its determinants, the relationship between individual and collective agency, and how collective agency can trigger social tipping points, potentially leading to large societal transformation. We use the framework and a case study of the shift to plant-based diets to illustrate the role of agency in positive social tipping processes. And finally, we identify and discuss a range of intervention points that might increase perceptions or feelings of both individual and collective agency, potentially overcoming the knowledge-action gap that is preventing large-scale societal action.

Received: 06 Jul 2023 – Discussion started: 11 Jul 2023

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Franziska Gaupp, Sara Constantino, and Laura Pereira

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2023-1533', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Sep 2023

This manuscript addresses the timely and important topic of the role of agency in social tipping points. The authors identify and seek to fill a clear knowledge gap by engaging with multiple disciplines and perspectives that are not usually brought into conversation to generate a nuanced understanding of the complexity of agency in this context guided by a novel analytical framework that addresses both the individual and collective aspects of agency and critically interrogate questions of transformation. This manuscript has potential to make a strong contribution to advancing this line of research, but in my view it needs some revisions to make that contribution clearer and more explicit.
My main concern is that the authors do not always make it clear whether/how the different discussions in sections 2 and 3 were engaging with the framework. I would suggest editing and reorganizing so this is more explicit. Based on the introduction, I had expected the section on plant-based diets to be the main empirical part of the paper. Instead, it serves as a brief illustration of the conceptual framework outlined in section 2. I suggest revising some of the earlier text so other readers aren't equally as surprised and again making the links to the framework more explicit in the discussion. Why did the authors select the four practices to enhance agency in section 3.1 and who is the audience they are speaking to? Again, I think it would be helpful to talk about these strategies as specific points of intervention and to clarify where they occur within the framework.
A final minor point: on p. 5 there is a brief paragraph on the study's limitations. Here I think they are too quick to dismiss how agency can also be used as a negative feedback mechanism. Rarely will agency be so clear cut; even those actors that seek to advance some forms of social change may do so in ways that seek to foreclose other types of opportunities.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-RC1
- AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Franziska Gaupp, 29 Nov 2023
  
  We thank Reviewer 1 for her/his helpful comments. We have considerably restructured the manuscript according to the reviewers’ suggestions. This also affects how discussions in section 2 and 3 link to the framework. We trust that the new structure makes it easier for the reader to follow our argument.
  We have made clear that plant-based diets are an illustration of our framework and not an empirical study.
  We have added a justification for the selection of the practices and have added a sentence on the potential audience of our framework.
  We have added a sentence on how agency can potentially serve as a negative feedback mechanism as well.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-AC2
CC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2023-1533', Karen O'Brien, 17 Sep 2023

This article reviews an impressive amount of literature and presents many important points about the role of agency in tipping points. The authors also introduce a multidisciplinary “agency in social tipping framework” and include a discussion of some of the possibilities and difficulties in tipping toward plant-based diets. It is a conceptual paper that does not include a methodology or a description of how the framework was developed. Was it part of a research project on plant-based diets, or is it more of a review article or perspective piece?
The authors make a strong case for the importance of agency, but it is difficult to follow the structure and logic of the paper. As currently presented, the paper in general offers an argument for the importance of agency in positive social tipping processes linked to climate change. However, before defining agency and presenting their own framework, the introduction (1.1) contextualizes the framework within a leverage points framework and several other frameworks (i.e. a brief literature review?) then discusses agency and its limitations (1.2) and social tipping points (1.3). Yet as a set up to the core of the paper, which is a presentation of the framework, the introduction does not lay out a clear and coherent rational for why a framework is needed.
It may make more sense to describe social tipping processes first and discuss why they are important, before describing the importance of agency in these processes and then contextualizing it with a review of existing frameworks and how they address or fail to address agency. The “dimensions of agency” framing by Lawrence described on page 8 seems to play an important role in the authors’ framework, and could be described in greater detail up front. Bandura’s theories also seem to play a key role, and it would be helpful to present these theories and others as the foundation for developing the framework.
The presentation and description of the agency in social tipping framework (section s2.0) is not clear. It would be helpful for readers to describe the framework in greater detail, rather than review literature related to each component. The sections describing different aspects of the framework include discussions of diverse theories, but also examples and case studies related to climate change. This makes it difficult to identify what is significant – some paragraphs read like a collection of bullet points. There could be more text linked to the figure, including the relationships between different colored boxes, arrows and feedbacks. As presented, it is complex and difficult to follow, and I found myself constantly looking at the figure to try to understand how the different sections related to it.
There is a great amount of important information presented, but it should not be up to the reader to sift through it to identify what is important and how it relates. Interspersing the theories with examples that support or contest them in relation to climate action made the paper confusing to read. By the end of section 2, the reader is left with a lot of information but little idea of how it all fits together into a coherent framework.
In discussing psychological influences, personality traits, morals, intrinsic motivations, and emotions are presented as examples. It would be interested to consider some of the factors that inhibit the development of a healthy sense of agency, such as abuse, trauma, oppression, and so on. These psychological aspects are not really covered later in the discussion of the barriers to action, nor are the structural barriers (e.g., indoctrination, lack of information, little access to education, etc.). Forms of inaction are linked not only to emotions and social norms, but also to the political economy and jobs, identities, etc.
Section 2.1 presents plant-based diets as a social tipping point. This example was confusing, since the focus is on plant-based diets rather than agency in social tipping points toward plant-based diets. The significance of this example for climate change could be spelled out more clearly, including why a predominantly plant-based diet includes low amounts of sugar and starchy vegetables. While agency is important, there was little discussion of how it can be used to offset pushback from powerful agricultural lobbyists, disinformation campaigns from the meat and dairy industry, pricing issues related to agricultural subsidies, cultural resistance, etc. The claim that lifestyle changes can slowly shift cultural norms does not seem to be aligned with a positive social tipping framework. Would critical events, like bird-flu or mad cow disease, play any role in social tipping points? Overall, it was difficult to see how this example related to the framework and figure.
Section 3 on enhancing agency included a number of practices, but it was not clear why these were selected over others (for example, insights from self-determination theory, transformative learning, healing depression and trauma, and so on). If these are considered promising intervention points, how and why were they chosen, and where do they fit into the framework? This section does not seem to relate to the example of plant-based diets, and could be left out, with the discussion (section 4) and conclusion (section 5) elaborated on in more detail.
Overall, this paper represents a significant review of literature and many ideas about individual and collective agency, but the overall framework is not communicated and described in a way that helps others see how it can be useful to a variety of other types of social tipping processes.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-CC1
- AC1: 'Reply on CC1', Franziska Gaupp, 29 Nov 2023
  
  We thank the reviewer for her helpful comments. According to her feedback, we have considerably restructured the paper. We have strengthened the motivation to develop our agency in social tipping processes framework and have improved the rational for it. We have made clear that the paper is a review and analysis paper following similar papers such as Barr (2006) and Kollmuss (2010) who have reviewed and expanded existing frameworks. We have included a sentence to make clear why we have put agency in the centre of this framework and why this framework is important.
  Follwing the reviewer's suggestions, we have changed the order of the sections accordingly, starting with a description and justification why social tipping points matter. Then, we introduce agency and review existing frameworks with regard to agency before we introduce our own framework.
  We describe the framework in more detail including an extended explanation of the relationships between the different parts.
  We reduce the examples and focus on the description of the framework in section 2.
  We included barriers to a development of agency such as trauma and oppression as well as structural barriers.
  We edited the plant-based diet example to make clear that it is an illustration of our framework. We made it clearer how the example relates to the different boxes of the framework.
  We added a paragraph about the role of agency in offsetting pushback from lobbyism and cultural traditions in the plant-based diet example.
  We believe that the section about practices to improve a feeling of agency is important but added a rationale for the selection of those specific examples according to the reviewer's remarks. We also make clear where they fit into the framework.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-AC1
CC2: 'Anonymous Review Comment on egusphere-2023-1533', Karen O'Brien, 30 Oct 2023

Publisher’s note: this comment is a copy of CC1 and its content was therefore removed.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-CC2

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2023-1533', Anonymous Referee #1, 08 Sep 2023

This manuscript addresses the timely and important topic of the role of agency in social tipping points. The authors identify and seek to fill a clear knowledge gap by engaging with multiple disciplines and perspectives that are not usually brought into conversation to generate a nuanced understanding of the complexity of agency in this context guided by a novel analytical framework that addresses both the individual and collective aspects of agency and critically interrogate questions of transformation. This manuscript has potential to make a strong contribution to advancing this line of research, but in my view it needs some revisions to make that contribution clearer and more explicit.
My main concern is that the authors do not always make it clear whether/how the different discussions in sections 2 and 3 were engaging with the framework. I would suggest editing and reorganizing so this is more explicit. Based on the introduction, I had expected the section on plant-based diets to be the main empirical part of the paper. Instead, it serves as a brief illustration of the conceptual framework outlined in section 2. I suggest revising some of the earlier text so other readers aren't equally as surprised and again making the links to the framework more explicit in the discussion. Why did the authors select the four practices to enhance agency in section 3.1 and who is the audience they are speaking to? Again, I think it would be helpful to talk about these strategies as specific points of intervention and to clarify where they occur within the framework.
A final minor point: on p. 5 there is a brief paragraph on the study's limitations. Here I think they are too quick to dismiss how agency can also be used as a negative feedback mechanism. Rarely will agency be so clear cut; even those actors that seek to advance some forms of social change may do so in ways that seek to foreclose other types of opportunities.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-RC1
- AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Franziska Gaupp, 29 Nov 2023
  
  We thank Reviewer 1 for her/his helpful comments. We have considerably restructured the manuscript according to the reviewers’ suggestions. This also affects how discussions in section 2 and 3 link to the framework. We trust that the new structure makes it easier for the reader to follow our argument.
  We have made clear that plant-based diets are an illustration of our framework and not an empirical study.
  We have added a justification for the selection of the practices and have added a sentence on the potential audience of our framework.
  We have added a sentence on how agency can potentially serve as a negative feedback mechanism as well.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-AC2
CC1:
'Comment on egusphere-2023-1533', Karen O'Brien, 17 Sep 2023

This article reviews an impressive amount of literature and presents many important points about the role of agency in tipping points. The authors also introduce a multidisciplinary “agency in social tipping framework” and include a discussion of some of the possibilities and difficulties in tipping toward plant-based diets. It is a conceptual paper that does not include a methodology or a description of how the framework was developed. Was it part of a research project on plant-based diets, or is it more of a review article or perspective piece?
The authors make a strong case for the importance of agency, but it is difficult to follow the structure and logic of the paper. As currently presented, the paper in general offers an argument for the importance of agency in positive social tipping processes linked to climate change. However, before defining agency and presenting their own framework, the introduction (1.1) contextualizes the framework within a leverage points framework and several other frameworks (i.e. a brief literature review?) then discusses agency and its limitations (1.2) and social tipping points (1.3). Yet as a set up to the core of the paper, which is a presentation of the framework, the introduction does not lay out a clear and coherent rational for why a framework is needed.
It may make more sense to describe social tipping processes first and discuss why they are important, before describing the importance of agency in these processes and then contextualizing it with a review of existing frameworks and how they address or fail to address agency. The “dimensions of agency” framing by Lawrence described on page 8 seems to play an important role in the authors’ framework, and could be described in greater detail up front. Bandura’s theories also seem to play a key role, and it would be helpful to present these theories and others as the foundation for developing the framework.
The presentation and description of the agency in social tipping framework (section s2.0) is not clear. It would be helpful for readers to describe the framework in greater detail, rather than review literature related to each component. The sections describing different aspects of the framework include discussions of diverse theories, but also examples and case studies related to climate change. This makes it difficult to identify what is significant – some paragraphs read like a collection of bullet points. There could be more text linked to the figure, including the relationships between different colored boxes, arrows and feedbacks. As presented, it is complex and difficult to follow, and I found myself constantly looking at the figure to try to understand how the different sections related to it.
There is a great amount of important information presented, but it should not be up to the reader to sift through it to identify what is important and how it relates. Interspersing the theories with examples that support or contest them in relation to climate action made the paper confusing to read. By the end of section 2, the reader is left with a lot of information but little idea of how it all fits together into a coherent framework.
In discussing psychological influences, personality traits, morals, intrinsic motivations, and emotions are presented as examples. It would be interested to consider some of the factors that inhibit the development of a healthy sense of agency, such as abuse, trauma, oppression, and so on. These psychological aspects are not really covered later in the discussion of the barriers to action, nor are the structural barriers (e.g., indoctrination, lack of information, little access to education, etc.). Forms of inaction are linked not only to emotions and social norms, but also to the political economy and jobs, identities, etc.
Section 2.1 presents plant-based diets as a social tipping point. This example was confusing, since the focus is on plant-based diets rather than agency in social tipping points toward plant-based diets. The significance of this example for climate change could be spelled out more clearly, including why a predominantly plant-based diet includes low amounts of sugar and starchy vegetables. While agency is important, there was little discussion of how it can be used to offset pushback from powerful agricultural lobbyists, disinformation campaigns from the meat and dairy industry, pricing issues related to agricultural subsidies, cultural resistance, etc. The claim that lifestyle changes can slowly shift cultural norms does not seem to be aligned with a positive social tipping framework. Would critical events, like bird-flu or mad cow disease, play any role in social tipping points? Overall, it was difficult to see how this example related to the framework and figure.
Section 3 on enhancing agency included a number of practices, but it was not clear why these were selected over others (for example, insights from self-determination theory, transformative learning, healing depression and trauma, and so on). If these are considered promising intervention points, how and why were they chosen, and where do they fit into the framework? This section does not seem to relate to the example of plant-based diets, and could be left out, with the discussion (section 4) and conclusion (section 5) elaborated on in more detail.
Overall, this paper represents a significant review of literature and many ideas about individual and collective agency, but the overall framework is not communicated and described in a way that helps others see how it can be useful to a variety of other types of social tipping processes.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-CC1
- AC1: 'Reply on CC1', Franziska Gaupp, 29 Nov 2023
  
  We thank the reviewer for her helpful comments. According to her feedback, we have considerably restructured the paper. We have strengthened the motivation to develop our agency in social tipping processes framework and have improved the rational for it. We have made clear that the paper is a review and analysis paper following similar papers such as Barr (2006) and Kollmuss (2010) who have reviewed and expanded existing frameworks. We have included a sentence to make clear why we have put agency in the centre of this framework and why this framework is important.
  Follwing the reviewer's suggestions, we have changed the order of the sections accordingly, starting with a description and justification why social tipping points matter. Then, we introduce agency and review existing frameworks with regard to agency before we introduce our own framework.
  We describe the framework in more detail including an extended explanation of the relationships between the different parts.
  We reduce the examples and focus on the description of the framework in section 2.
  We included barriers to a development of agency such as trauma and oppression as well as structural barriers.
  We edited the plant-based diet example to make clear that it is an illustration of our framework. We made it clearer how the example relates to the different boxes of the framework.
  We added a paragraph about the role of agency in offsetting pushback from lobbyism and cultural traditions in the plant-based diet example.
  We believe that the section about practices to improve a feeling of agency is important but added a rationale for the selection of those specific examples according to the reviewer's remarks. We also make clear where they fit into the framework.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-AC1
CC2: 'Anonymous Review Comment on egusphere-2023-1533', Karen O'Brien, 30 Oct 2023

Publisher’s note: this comment is a copy of CC1 and its content was therefore removed.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1533-CC2

Franziska Gaupp, Sara Constantino, and Laura Pereira

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Dec 2023	47	42	3	92
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Feb 2024	23	58	0	81
Mar 2024	27	31	1	59
Apr 2024	17	22	1	40
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Jul 2024	30	17	5	52
Aug 2024	15	9	3	27
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Cumulative views and downloads (calculated since 11 Jul 2023)

Month	HTML	PDF	XML	Total
Jul 2023	95	36	5	136
Aug 2023	32	36	2	70
Sep 2023	60	16	3	79
Oct 2023	44	26	5	75
Nov 2023	25	15	1	41
Dec 2023	47	42	3	92
Jan 2024	18	27	2	47
Feb 2024	23	58	0	81
Mar 2024	27	31	1	59
Apr 2024	17	22	1	40
May 2024	16	27	1	44
Jun 2024	31	23	4	58
Jul 2024	30	17	5	52
Aug 2024	15	9	3	27
Sep 2024	14	7	0	21
Oct 2024	26	29	0	55
Nov 2024	31	18	0	49
Dec 2024	17	13	0	30

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Short summary

Large-scale, accelerated societal transformation is required to address today's global challenges and to improve long-term sustainability. Human agency, the capacity to influence the outside world, is key in achieving societal change. We present a framework that examines the determinants of agency, the relationship between individual and collective agency and how collective agency can trigger large-scale transformation. We use the case of dietary change to exemplify our framework.


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The role of agency in social tipping processes

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3 citations as recorded by crossref.