Geeske Scholz

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology

The need for more attention to the social and human dimensions in global change sciences and natural resources management requires in-depth understandings of transformative approaches and processes. More inclusive and systemic approaches are needed that embrace complexity and support transformative learning, shifts in power relations, collective an...

Path-breaking transformative change is needed in human-environment relations to move towards more sustainable development trajectories at local, national and global scales. Crises may trigger transformative change and learning in the short and in the long term. However, in particular, a short-term response to crises may also be reactive, strengthen...

Wijermans, N., Scholz, G., Paolillo, R., Schröder, T., Chappin, E., Craig, T. and Templeton, A. (2022) Models in Social Psychology and Agent-Based Social simulation - an interdisciplinary conversation on similarities and differences. Review of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 4 Oct 2022. https://rofasss.org/2022/10/04/models-in-spabss/

Rapid population growth along with increased rates of economic growth around the globe are placing valuable natural resources, water in particular, under unprecedented stress; this in turn drives the pursuit of innovative tools to support integrated Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus management. This paper presents a framework for the integrated managem...

A key challenge in social simulation is how to represent human behavior, specifically in its social context. The Social Identity approach (SIA) reflects a promising potential as it describes how people behave while being part of a group, how groups interact and how these interactions and ‘appropriate group behaviors’ can change over time. SIA is us...

Social learning in natural resource management is considered important for addressing complex problems by supporting multi-stakeholder interactions in problem framing and co-construction of solutions. Despite the considerable progress in the social learning discourse, few scholars have empirically examined relational features in social learning int...

Since learning plays a key role in sustainability transitions, it is not surprising that it is frequently mentioned in the related literature. Studies in this respect are often conducted in the context of specific governance approaches. Learning is key to strategic niche management, transition management and the functions of innovation systems appr...

The COVID-19 pandemic is causing a dramatic loss of lives worldwide, challenging the sustainability of our health care systems, threatening economic meltdown, and putting pressure on the mental health of individuals (due to social distancing and lock-down measures). The pandemic is also posing severe challenges to the scientific community, with sch...

The agricultural sector of the Western Cape is highly affected by climate change and thus requires fundamental change to move to a more resilient path. We analyze the development of a climate change plan to obtain a better understanding of what is needed to make such a strategic intervention meaningful in terms facilitating a sustainability transit...

Profound societal transformations are needed to move society from unsustainability to greater sustainability under continually changing social and environmental conditions. A key challenge is to understand the influences on and the dynamics of collective behavior change toward sustainability. In this paper we describe our approach to (1) understand...

While higher-order predators like wolves (canis lupus) serve important ecological roles within socio-ecological systems, prior studies indicated differences in the acknowledgement of these roles by specific stakeholder groups. As diverging underlying mental models may cause these differences in the societal valuation of the species, there is a need...

Social learning in collaborative processes is considered important for addressing complex natural resource dilemmas and for supporting multi-actor interactions in joint problem framing, and the co-construction of solutions. While social learning is often presented as a normative approach for stimulating shared understanding among multiple actors, l...

In transboundary river basin management, social learning is relevant to support collective understanding and problem framing, addressing conflicting perspectives, and in co-production of knowledge. Still, little is understood about the relational dynamics of social learning processes. This paper examines the relational dynamics of social learning p...

We discuss our experiences with the energy transition game (ETG) in Groningen, Tokyo, and Osnabrück, all in educational settings. The ETG is an agentbased game in which roles that can be played are energy companies and political parties. A unique aspect is the inclusion of an artificial population of simulated people. In the ETG the simulated consu...

The method of agent-based modeling is rarely used in social psychology, but has the potential to complement and improve traditional research practices. An agent-based model (ABM) consists of a number of virtual individuals – the “agents” – interacting in an artificial, experimenter-controlled environment. In this article, we discuss several charact...

Raising awareness through social learning is one important strategy to deal with today’s challenges. Social learning is a complex and dynamic process, thus modeling may help to explore key dynamics. In this chapter I present a model of a Social Learning Community (SLC) which is not based on a network approach, but rather connects actors to differen...

We introduce a systematic method to compare externalized mental models with a group model resulting from a group model building (GMB) process. To this end, we categorize the various concepts included in the models, and propose Venn diagrams and matrices to demonstrate the composition of the group model and identify the overlapping categories. We th...

Social learning among different stakeholders is often a goal in problem solving contexts such as environmental management. Participatory methods (e.g., group model-building and role playing games) are frequently assumed to stimulate social learning. Yet understanding if and why this assumption is justified is quite limited. Difficulties arise from...

our model, CollAct is built around the question how people gain a shared understanding and reach consensus in an interactive group setting. This is an important question which is rather difficult to analyze within case studies. We model agents in a cognitive way, including substantive and relational knowledge in mental models, which may change thro...