Wayshaping

Wayshaping is a principled approach to behavior change that focuses on shaping the processes that shape us. Rooted in complex systems science, phenomenology and embodied cognition, it recognises that individuals are collective intelligences, embedded within dynamic, interdependent systems. Meaningful transformation, therefore, requires working with the natural flows and rhythms of these systems to shape new alignments that can be sustained over time.

The project has three points of emphasis:

Wayshaping as phenomenon – the study of how agents act on local-present conditions so as to cultivate more favourable future conditions for preferable actions, identities, and outcomes.
Multiscale alignment as theory – an account of the diverse intelligences that constitute human life across biological, psychological, social and existential scales, understanding personal change as emerging from their ongoing coordination and negotiation.
Wayshaping as practice – the refinement of methods and practices that support more skilful engagement with these dynamics, enabling agents to stabilise conditions that make desired forms of action easier to enact and sustain.

You can view some of the outputs of our efforts below and their conceptual precursors. There are also several publications currently under review or in press.

For more about the practice of wayshaping (e.g., workshops, courses, coaching), see https://wayshaping.org/

Wayshaping: A Multiscale Framework for Behaviour Change – Presents behaviour change as a multiscale, complex, and anticipatory process, arguing that lasting change depends less on isolated decisions than on reshaping the conditions that organise action across time.

Wayshaping: A Multiscale Framework for Behaviour Change – Presents behaviour change as a multiscale, complex, and anticipatory process, arguing that lasting change depends less on isolated decisions than on reshaping the conditions that organise action across time.

Can Enaction Design Account for Psychotechnologies – Uses Wayshaping to argue that psychotechnologies are not merely tools we use, but relational interventions that can organise and redirect experience through the conditions they create.

Can Enaction Design Account for Psychotechnologies – Uses Wayshaping to argue that psychotechnologies are not merely tools we use, but relational interventions that can organise and redirect experience through the conditions they create.

The Generative Role or Noise in Shaping Social Habits – Shows that noise, such as desynchronisation, perturbation, and surprise, is not only disruptive but can also be a productive force in the emergence and maintenance of social habits.

The Generative Role or Noise in Shaping Social Habits – Shows that noise, such as desynchronisation, perturbation, and surprise, is not only disruptive but can also be a productive force in the emergence and maintenance of social habits.

4E Cognition and the Intention-Action Gap: Conceptual Resources for Behaviour Change – Reinterprets the intention-action gap through 4E cognition, treating habits, identities, and narratives as dynamic, multiscale autonomus organisational forms rather than merely internal dispositions. Explores the implications for of each E for the dynamics of behaviour change.

4E Cognition and the Intention-Action Gap: Conceptual Resources for Behaviour Change – Reinterprets the intention-action gap through 4E cognition, treating habits, identities, and narratives as dynamic, multiscale autonomus organisational forms rather than merely internal dispositions. Explores the implications for of each E for the dynamics of behaviour change.

From Tech to Tact: Emotional Dysregulation in Online Communication – Examines how online communication can become a precarious form of emotional regulation, and how breakdowns in infrastructure, use, design, and tact can destabilise affective life.

From Tech to Tact: Emotional Dysregulation in Online Communication – Examines how online communication can become a precarious form of emotional regulation, and how breakdowns in infrastructure, use, design, and tact can destabilise affective life.

Do Digital Hugs Work? Re-embodying our Social Lives Online with Digital Tact – Explores how care and connection might be partially restored online, arguing that meaningful digital sociality depends less on simulating touch itself than on cultivating forms of digital tact.

Do Digital Hugs Work? Re-embodying our Social Lives Online with Digital Tact – Explores how care and connection might be partially restored online, arguing that meaningful digital sociality depends less on simulating touch itself than on cultivating forms of digital tact.