Human Flourishing from a Complex Adaptive System Perspective: Exploring the Wellbeing of Social Groups as Emergent Entities

Journal article : Review

Can qualities of wellbeing and flourishing be meaningfully applied at the level of the social group, not merely as an aggregation of the wellbeing or flourishing of its members, but on its own terms as an emergent entity? This paper proposes that this is indeed the case, over three sections. First, we introduce the notions of wellbeing and flourishing, and note that these are usually applied to individual humans, not to groups (other than as the sum of the wellbeing/flourishing of their individual members). Second, to explore whether wellbeing/flourishing can apply at the group level, we elucidate the idea of a complex adaptive system (CAS), exploring work which argues that both individuals and groups constitute CASs, albeit different kinds. Finally, we consider some qualities by which a group itself could be deemed as flourishing.

Authors: Lomas, T; Snower, D; Pawelski, JO; Case, BW; Lee, MT

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: MDPI
• Journal: Social Sciences
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 5
• Pages: 314
• Article number: 314
• Publication date: 2026-05-12
• Acceptance date: 2026-05-08
• DOI: 10.3390/socsci15050314
• EISSN: 2076-0760
• ISSN: 2076-0760
• Language: English
• Keywords: individual; wellbeing; complex adaptive system; flourishing; group
• Subtype: Review