People Systems: A New Way to Understand the World

This chapter considers a new type of system – the people system. A people system is a biological system because it contains only biological elements, but it's a special kind of biological system because – let's face it – people are special. People systems are a kind of human activity system, since they are systems that are motivated by human activity. People systems as an approach has some common ground with disciplines such as psychology and anthropology that study people and behavior but is a unique perspective and approach. The endowment effect also shows up in family systems. The idea of human beings having a mind and a body can be extended a bit to include emotions. Speech acts can be thought of as moves in a game, or plays in an athletic competition, where an act is performed, and then someone else may perform an act in response.