🕸Systems Engineering: Causal Map (Definitions)

"Causal maps are representations of individuals (or groups) beliefs about causal relations. They include elements, with only two kinds of properties. The first property is 'relevance'. The second  is the possibility of being in one (of two) 'influence relationships' (positive or negative) with one (of three) strengths (weak. moderate, or strong)." (Kivia Markoczy & Jeff Goldberg, "A method for eliciting and comparing causal maps", 1995)

"A causal map is an abstract representation of the causal relationships among kinds of objects and events in the world. Such relationships are not, for the most part, directly observable, but they can often be accurately inferred from observations." (Alison Gopnik & Clark Glymour, "Causal maps and Bayes nets: a cognitive and computational account of theory-formation" [in "The cognitive basis of science"], 2002)

"A causal map (also called an influence diagram or a cause map) is a directed graph in which causal concepts (or nodes) represent the important variables that make up a domain." (S Nadkarni, Aggregated causal maps: An approach to elicit and aggregate the knowledge of multiple experts, 2003) 

"A causal map is a directed graph that represents an individual’s (an agent, a group of agents or an organization) assertions about its beliefs with respect to its environment." (Nassreddine Garoui & Anis Jarboui, "Cognitive Mapping: Testing Application of Causal Algebra", Applied Mathematics Vol.3 (4),  2012)

"A causal map is a two-dimensional network of nodes and links that conveys the  hierarchical and cause-effect relationships between events or variables within a complex system." (Allan Jeong & Woon Jee Lee, "The Sequential Analysis, Modeling and Visualization of Collaborative Causal Mapping Processes and Effects on Causal Understanding", 2013)

"A word-and-arrow (or statement-and-arrow) diagram in which ideas are causally linked to one another through the use of arrows. The arrows indicate how one idea or action leads to another in a means-ends relationship; in other words, an arrow means 'might cause', 'might lead to', 'might result in', or some other kind of influence relationship." (Fran Ackermann et al, "Visual Strategy: Strategy Mapping for Public and Nonprofit Organizations", 2014)

"A visual depiction of where certain kinds of data exist across an organization. Example: we have produced a data map showing where all customer data exists across our systems." (Gregory Lampshire, "The Data and Analytics Playbook", 2016)

"A Causal Map is hierarchical in structure (linking means to ends) and built with a focus on achieving goals. The process of creating the maps is ideally a group process and this in itself will add lots of value to a collective understanding of goals around EDI, what is required to achieve these and some of the potential challenges around this." (Nicola Morrill, "Supporting Your Efforts on Diversity", 2021)

✒️John M Bryson (Collected Quotes)

"A causal map is a word-and-arrow diagram in which ideas and actions are causally linked with one another through the use of arrows. The arrows indicate how one idea or action leads to another. Causal mapping makesit possible to articulate a large number of ideas and their interconnections in such a way that people can know what to do in an area of concern, how to do it and why, because the arrows indicate the causes and consequences of an idea or action. Causal mapping is therefore a technique for linking strategic thinking and acting, helping make sense of complex problems, and communicating to oneself and others what might be done about them." (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"A statement of strategic aims is powerful when it represents the interaction between all of the goals [Strategy]: the goals are seen as a system where each goal helps deliver other high-level goals and may in turn be helped by the delivery of subordinate goals." (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"Causal mapping is a simple and useful technique for addressing situations where thinking– as an individual or as a group–matters. A causal map is a word-and-arrow diagram in which ideas and actions are causally linked with one another through the use of arrows. The arrows indicate how one idea or action leads to another. Causal mapping makes it possible to articulate a large number of ideas and their interconnections in such a way that people can know what to do in an area of concern, how to do it and why, because the arrows indicate the causes and consequences of an idea or action." (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"Causal mapping is [...] a technique for linking strategic thinking and acting, helping make sense of complex problems, and communicating to oneself and others what might be done about them. With practice, the use of causal mapping can assist you in moving from 'winging it' when thinking matters to a more concrete and rigorous approach that helps you and others achieve success in an easy and far more reliable way" (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"Causal mapping makes it possible to articulate a large number of ideas and their interconnections in such a way that we can better understand an area of concern. Causal mapping also helps us know what to do about the issue, what it would take to do those things, and what we would like to get out of having done so. Causal mapping is therefore a particularly powerful technique for making sense of complex problems, linking strategic thinking and acting, and helping to communicate to others what might or should be done. " (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"Linking focuses attention not on topics but on action: what results might be achieved by doing something, and what things needed to be done to make other things happen." (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"Positive feedback loops are very important. Even when afeedback loop is made up of competencies, because they are self-sustaining they may be very important resources for the future of the business [Strategy]. A positive loop means that each of the competencies in the loop feeds all of the others. When the feedback loop is distinctive, this will be even more important because the distinctiveness is self-sustaining." (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"The process of constructing a map thus allows you to reflect on your own thinking, or that of someone else. Mapping helps you become conscious of your reasoning and to understand clearly what another person is thinking. In turn, that consciousness and understanding can help you reaffirm what you think or else change your mind. Shared understanding and mutual agreement also become possible." (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"When an individual uses causal mapping to help clarify their own thinking, we call this technique cognitive mapping, because it is related to personal thinking or cognition. When a group maps their own ideas, we call it oval mapping, because we often use oval-shaped cards to record individuals’ ideas so that they can be arranged into a group’s map. Cognitive maps and oval maps can be used to create a strategic plan, because the maps include goals, strategies and actions, just like strategic plans." (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

"When people question assumptions, the map may clarify what they are. When logic is challenged, the map may help. When people want to know how goals and strategies are linked, the map may show how they are. The map does not make the decisions. Rather, it provides a record that preserves complexity, yet organizes and categorizes that complexity in such a way that people can understand and manage it. And if more mapping needs to be done, the map is there as a base on which to build." (John M Bryson et al, "Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping For Practical Business Results", 2004)

✒️Robert M Axelrod (Collected Quotes)

"A cognitive map has only two basic types of elements: concepts and causal beliefs. The concepts are treated as variables, and the causal beliefs are treated as relationships between the variables." (Robert M Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The cognitive maps of political elites", 1976)

"A cognitive map is a particular kind of mathematical model of a person's belief system; in actual practice, cognitive maps are derived from assertions of beliefs. [...] Like all mathematical models, a cognitive map can be useful in two quite distinct ways: as a normative model and as an empirical model. Interpreted as a normative model, a cognitive map makes no claims to reflect accurately how a person deduces new beliefs from old ones, how he makes decisions, and so on, but instead claims to show how he should do these things. Interpreted as an empirical model, a cognitive map claims to indicate how a person actually does perform certain cognitive operations, in the sense that the results of the various operations that are possible with the model do, in fact, correspond to the behavior of the per son who is being modeled." (Robert M Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The cognitive maps of political elites", 1976)

"A cognitive map is a specific way of representing a person's assertions about some limited domain, such as a policy problem. It is designed to capture the structure of the person's causal assertions and to generate the consequences that follow front this structure. […]  a person might use his cognitive map to derive explanations of the past, make predictions for the future, and choose policies in the present." (Robert M Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The cognitive maps of political elites", 1976)

"A cognitive map is designed to capture the structure of the causal assertions of a person with respect to a particular policy domain, and generate the consequences that follow from this structure." (Robert M Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The cognitive maps of political elites", 1976)

"A decision maker must simplify the manifest complexities of the external world. He must be able to construct a manageable representation of the external world so that he can describe and cope with his environment. The use of this representation for the purposes of making reasoned decisions requires some beliefs that link possible choices with potential outcomes." (Robert M Axelrod, "Decision for Neoimperialism: The Deliberations of the British Eastern Committee in 1918", 1976)

"A mathematical model is a tremendous simplification of what it represents. But it does not simplify everything about its object, or there would be nothing left to model. Instead, it simplifies everything that is not to be examined, and leaves in the model what is to be examined." (Robert M Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The cognitive maps of political elites", 1976)

"Cognitive mapping is one specific approach to belief systems. It focuses on causal beliefs and values and their structural relationships. Cognitive mapping is, therefore especially suitable to the study of the means-ends arguments people use when they try to evaluate the policy alternatives that they perceive are available to them." (Robert Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites", 1976)

"The concepts a person uses are represented as points, and the causal links between these concepts are represented as arrows between these points. This gives a pictorial representation of the causal assertions of a person as a graph of points and arrows. This kind of representation of assertions as a graph will be called a cognitive map. The policy alternatives, all of the various causes and effects, the goals, and the ultimate utility of the decision maker can all be thought of as concept variables, and represented as points in the cognitive map. The real power of this approach ap pears when a cognitive map is pictured in graph form; it is then relatively easy to see how each of the concepts and causal relation ships relate to each other, and to see the overall structure of the whole set of portrayed assertions." (Robert Axelrod, "The Cognitive Mapping Approach to Decision Making" [in "Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites"], 1976)

"What cognitive mapping offers is a systematic way to proceed in our search for understanding how others will act. Its real strength (especially as compared to other formal approaches to decision making) is that it is able to employ the concepts of the decision maker who is being predicted, rather than the concepts of the person who is doing the predicting." (Robert Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites", 1976)

"What difference does it make which cognitive map a person has on a policy issue? Why would we want to know about a person's cognitive map? There are two broad answers to these questions. The first is that we want to know about cognitive maps so that we can better understand the decision-making process. The second is that we want to know about cognitive maps so that we can improve the decision-making process." (Robert Axelrod, "Structure of Decision: The Cognitive Maps of Political Elites", 1976)