Stage-1: Causal Explanation

What is Going On?

Faced with a situation inviting or potentially demanding change, the initial response is to seek clarification. We want an explanation of what is going on!

«Explanation» is associated with inquiry, knowing and theory formation elsewhere in THEE. ClosedMore

But we do not want an inquiry. Even if there is no realistic possibility of systematic inquiry in emergent social situations, there is still this intrusive instinctive demand to "know" (or is it "understand"?) what is going on.

Somehow we imagine that knowing will tell us whether anything needs to be done and even what might be done. So, no matter how complex and unknowable a social situation is, we commonly come up with causes, often just one, but rarely more than two or three.

For example, on Monday the stock-market falls 1% and the papers say this was due to fears of recession; on Tuesday it recovers 1% and the papers say this was due to reassuring comments from the Central Bank; on Wednesday it goes nowhere and the papers say that everyone is waiting for the results of a forthcoming election in a distant country.
ClosedMore Examples:

• A friend does not get a job and you say that the employment market is tough because of recent legislation.

• A distant country imposes tariffs on a particular export item, and the Minister of Trade explains on TV that this is in retaliation for a criticism made in the UN.

• Your company decides to sell off a subsidiary against the wishes of its employees, and your boss explains that this is required due to competitive pressures.

• Your husband seems sad and you want to help. When you enquire about the situation, he says that it has been an exhausting day and lapses into silence.

A moment's reflection will surely tell you that such explanations are so superficial that they border on the meaningless or incredible. They avoid many relevant factors and may be contradictory from day to day. But such accounts are provided regularly nonetheless. They seem plausible and are often accepted at face value. Indeed it would often be regarded as rude, even unacceptable, to challenge them or criticize the speaker.

Other Labels:Closed "Plausible" is the preferred qualifier. But we might also have chosen:  superficial, reflex, conventional, or rationalized.

Nor are people willing to tolerate a response advising that causes of social events are typically not known and not knowable.

Is There an Alternative Starting Place? Closed Review of the other depiction paradigms indicates that they are not focused on causation or explanation and are too complicated for immediate spontaneous use. In addition, the Causal Mode allows for progressively increasing sophistication down the ellipse, and that improvement is the goal of improving clarity.  

Values & Assumptions

Stage-1 and Mode-1 provision of a satisfying causal explanation.

Promoting Acceptability

ClosedEssence: Plausible Explanation

Faced with a situation that might need us to make changes, we immediately and instinctively call for an explanatory account. While it is superficial, the explanation is supposed to reflect some reality. However, that is rarely the primary goal because almost any plausible explanation seems to be acceptable. The existence of an explanation appears to feel satisfying in some basic way. Perhaps it reaffirms prejudices or preconceptions, perhaps it shows that nothing can or should be done, perhaps it is just easy to accept rather than to check or challenge.

ClosedDesired Benefit: Reduced Confusion

Any messy situation which calls for engagement generates stress and anxiety because of the confusion that is engendered and because of the potential need for change—which is instinctively disliked. A minimum requirement for any explanation to be experienced as satisfying is that it reduces confusion. The sense of confusion falls most dramatically when the pressure for change is removed or the change expected is unequivocal.

ClosedMeans: Consensus on Salience

There will be many elements in the situation that could be highlighted and numerous potential perspectives that could be applied. However, certain features will be generally deemed salient. By salience, I mean directly relevant, unequivocally evident, and widely felt as important. So this is where a consensus can be easily found.

Identification of salient features creates the impression that the speaker is on top of the situation and that you are part of a group that likely supports the explanation.

Handling the Group

ClosedParticipation: Align with Beliefs

Groups are created through members sharing a reality. In order to be part of the group and have the explanation accepted, it is essential that the explanation incorporates or rests on beliefs that are widely shared. These beliefs will have contributed to salience.

ClosedCommunication: Emphasize the Obvious

The less thinking that is demanded, the easier it becomes to assimilate the explanation and share it with others. Emphasizing what seems obvious builds on salience to guide your own thinking and communicating with your group. That is why provision of clarification can be a semi-automatic reaction.

ClosedIndividualization: Assert Expertness

Explanations are most readily accepted when the person involved presents themselves as an expert, even a self-declared expert and preferably with a unique or pioneering perspective. Such people become recognized as opinion-formers because others find it easier to agree and follow rather than work things out for themselves. Repeated opinion-pieces in the media showing some degree of originality are needed to win recognition.

Academic scholars and intellectuals develop views of situations slowly and in a complex fashion. Except for those who are publicity-seeking, they avoid making rapid assessments of events, especially if they may demand an urgent response. No-one wants to hear: "this is a complex and difficult situation and I will come back to you with a view in a few months".  By that time, the situation will have evolved and concerns will have shifted.

Channeling Your Functioning:

ClosedGain Support: Preoccupation

The capacity to rapidly offer plausible explanations is developed by taking a special interest in a particular category of social situation and becoming preoccupied with it. That entails getting familiar with the usual factors that are in play, the shifting concerns and beliefs of the public, and the usual story-lines. Repeated exposure, practice and familiarity enable a persuasive response. If others are aware of your long-term interest, then your explanations are likely to be given attention and support.

Taxonomic frameworks commonly offer an explanation of particular dimensions of situations. We will follow one example taken from consultancy work through each Stage of the Spiral.

A governing board for health district services asked for help with their policy-making process. But why? On checking the situation it was evident that board members had widely varying views of what a policy was. Some said there was no policy-setting and others said there were too many policies.

A simple and satisfying explanation for the request for help was a lack of consensus on the nature of policy. Get consensus and the process would be straightforward. This finding was communicated.

Like many Stage-1 explanations, that might have sufficed, but in this case it did not.

Limitations

The clarity provided by plausible explanations provided at Stage-1 is rather limited, even if (by definition) many or most people find it acceptable or even attractive.

The fact that you and others are satisfied does not carry much weight in itself. It can often be easy to show that the explanation is a rationalization: an imposition of reason on a messy situation for defensive purposes.

Such explanations appear simple and persuasive, when they are better described as simplistic and naive. Sometimes the explanation is presented as plausible but appears to be blatantly implausible. A politician explaining the latest government fiasco can and will say almost anything and, if it is a well-crafted Stage-1 explanation, the come-back remains muted.

Settling at this Stage

The qualifier of «plausible» indicates that it is quite possible for acceptance of an account of a situation to remain at this point.

If the situation is transient or lacks significance for you, then you do not seek further clarification.

If the situation is enduring and significant, some may choose to use this simple explanation as the basis for designing a change or for deciding that no change is required. Given the widespread resistance to change, it is not surprising that politicians often settle here.

Transition

A plausible explanation, if you find it insufficient, looks like little more than an opinion. On minimal scrutiny, that causal explanation seems to oversimplify, to lack any depth or detail, and to produce multiple and often inconsistent implications. As soon as it is judged to be a poor guide to determining whether or not the situation calls for change, more clarification is required.

Provision of further causes and additional details is not sufficient or desirable because this just adds to the complexity and stokes unpleasant confusion: the opposite of clarification. Instead of more complexity, there is a need to step back from the details and simplify the situation so as to present it in a way that covers everything relevant, and reveals its distinctive nature.

This is possible by demanding an overview of the situation that offers clarity about its components and boundary. The clarity mode that naturally provides this is the Structural-L'6.

ClosedRuling Out Alternative Moves

Adopting values based on dualistic depiction-L'4 fails because there is no definite entity or framework within which opposition can develop. Nor is movement to a mode based on dynamic depiction-L'1 possible because a whole with interacting components has not been identified. Finally, modes based on outer circle methods (Atomistic-L'2, Unitary-L7, Unified-L'5) seem to require a more substantial and properly developed explanation.

Originally posted: 30-Oct-2024. Last amended: 30-Apr-2025.