Two Minds Blog

  "Wicked problems" are seemingly intractable societal issues that affect many areas of everyday life -- some common examples are how to educate people, how to handle climate change, and how to respond to a pandemic. The term was coined by systems theorists Horst Wittel and Melvin Webber in 1973. Some important characteristics of a wicked problem are that: they have no single definition, so that different people can see the problem in different ways. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic was viewed by some people as an imminent health threat, by others as an economic threat, and by still others as a fundamental conflict between government regulation and personal liberties. Applying any proposed solution to a wicked problem (e.g., people should wear masks to prevent transmission) often creates other problems (e.g., what about people who have trouble breathing, have anxiety, rely on perceiving others' facial expressions, just don't feel like wearing a mask, use the anony...

This post is dedicated to my friend and mentor Dr. Paula Meek, who passed away on July 29th. Dr. Meek was crucial to the development of the model described below, and it was she who suggested the "shape shifter" metaphor as its name. Dr. Meek was also a coauthor of my 2018 paper describing Two Minds Theory, and had a major impact on my thinking during her tenure at CU Nursing. I join her many students and trainees in saying that Paula will be deeply missed. Does your mental state cause your behavior, or does your current physiology (influenced by behaviors like sleep, diet, and exercise) cause your mental state? The answer to this question is of course "yes." Or it's "both/and," as we Lutherans like to say about many of life's mysteries. My colleagues and I addressed questions of biology and behavior in a 2012 paper describing the "shape shifter" model for biobehavioral research . Although originally intended as a tool specifically for un...