Focus on The Process, Bro

Solving climbing ethics using the idea of process.

A popular cliché in climbing is to tell one’s frustrated friends to “focus on the process, not the goal”. This is often a useful reminder; goal fixation can have a negative effect on performance, while focussing carefully on the steps required for completion can increase the chances of success.¹ But this is only one reading of this familiar phrase. Another interpretation is that the instant you top-out the crag, match the jug or clip the chains — i.e. the moment you meet your goal — is but a mere snapshot of what may have been a long process of coming up with a method, working the moves, trying and failing, day after day, week after week and so on.² As such, the process of a successful ascent does not begin when you pull on to the route for the final time, but in fact starts much earlier than that. Indeed, it also starts long before you pull on to the route for the first time.

Ned Feehally, after climbing Trust Issues in the Rocklands, South Africa, reflected on this in an interview with Dan Cheetham.³

Usually, you’ll go out and do something that you’re pleased with. And then that instant people will ask “how was that?” You don’t really know, you’re just pleased you’ve done it. I did think about that when I was in Rocklands this time because I flashed quite a hard thing. I kind of went up there, had one go, and climbed it — which took what like 30 seconds? But you’re always asked for your opinion on this sort of thing at the very instant that you’ve done it. It misses out on the 20 years that have led up to that point. Which is, well, a lot more of it.

As Feehally indicates, his ascent was made possible and determined by his 20-year-long climbing career. In turn, his climbing career is now also partly determined by his ascent. So while individual ascents are processes, they exist within a larger process comprising a persons’ climbing career.⁴

However, career processes are not the highest level of analysis. The process of Feehally’s climbing career is just one process within his life. In turn his life is a constituent process of those contextual environmental, family, community, society, nation, country, and indeed world processes within which he lives and participates. One could even conceive of a grand, universe-sized process containing all processes that have ever been, or ever will be.⁵

Hopefully you’re still with me here. Maybe this sounds plausible, but perhaps also a bit New Age. Is there anything a bit more reputable or concrete that can back up this view of things?

Process in Science, Science in Process

The dominant scientific paradigm within the academic study of physics is one of process. Newtonian physics — where forces act upon static substances or ‘things’ — is a useful fairy tale taught to secondary school children to help them with the first steps of studying physics.⁶ Physics taught at undergraduate level quickly dispenses with substances and moves swiftly onward to a physics of quantum processes in fields of relation to other quantum processes.⁷ Under this paradigm, static, unchanging, decontextualised ‘things’ simply do not exist.⁸ What appears to be a ‘thing’ is in fact an abstract snapshot of an infinite number of interrelated processes.⁹ In other words, reality is composed of verbs, which ‘verb’ of their own accord without dependence on any nouns.

Other sciences, such as chemistry,¹⁰ biology,¹¹ neuroscience,¹² and psychology¹³ are also at various stages of paradigm-shifting away from ‘things’ as they discover they are better able to explain their respective phenomena using a process framework.¹⁴

Identity and Change

Processes also allow us to solve the classic paradox of Trigger’s Broom.¹⁵ In this thought experiment Trigger’s old broom has, over time, had its head replaced 17 times and its handle replaced 14 times, leaving no original components. Yet as far as Trigger is concerned it is the same old broom that he’s always had. Under a substance framework a new ‘thing’ must come into being every time a component is replaced, which is at odds with common sense, and thus this yields a paradox. However, under a process framework the identity of Trigger’s Broom is maintained despite its changes because the identity of the broom lies in the processes of continued maintenance and utilisation by Trigger.¹⁶ Similarly, over the course of our lives most of our cells die and are replaced by others,¹⁷ but we obviously do not think this means we regularly lose our identity and become something else.¹⁸

Stated concisely, a process framework allows for the persistence of an object’s identity in the face of significant material changes to it. This is, of course, common sense to climbers. Holds fall off and are sometimes glued back, holds are chipped, plastic holds are bolted on, buttresses fall down or are blown up, entire crags are vandalised, but despite such radical changes the identities of crags and routes persist. Their identities are sustained by the continued geological and social processes that make them what they are. We can also imagine an entropic force, such as the complete destruction of a crag, which terminates many of the crag’s processes and thus annihilates its identity.

So in summary, contemporary physics suggests processes are the bedrock of reality; a range of sciences are moving to a process framework; the idea of process helps us solve some tricky thought experiments; and process-thinking is in line with our common sense.¹⁹ Ok cool, but what exactly does this have to do with climbing? The following sections will discuss how we can interpret familiar climbing objects under a process framework, and how when we do so, certain ethical and aesthetic norms are readily explained.

Rock climbs are snapshots of geological (and sometimes industrial) processes

The crag you encounter when you go out climbing is a snapshot of an immensely ancient geological process. As Johnny Dawes famously observed: just as when a dancer dances (a process) according to a piece of music (a process), the climber moves (a process) according to the geological processes of water and wind that have shaped the rock over millennia. Each move goes towards forming the rhythmic texture of the climb, where the reverberations of one move influence the next, much like the way hearing a musical note influences the perception of the ones that follow it. And just as even the most talented musician pales in comparison to the great composers, the most talented climber is still merely just performing what nature has yielded. This perspective is why Dawes concluded that “the rock is the star; it always has been, it always will be”.

Using a process framework to see climbs in this way helps us understand the Dawesian view of why chipping is unethical.²⁰ Yes, it’s unethical because “someone better might come along one day and climb it without any chips”. But more significantly, it’s unethical because a human being has interrupted an ancient process with their own selfish motivations and actions. So the rock and the moves lose their natural essence, the processes have been corrupted forever, as has the route’s inherent rhythmic texture, even if the artificial moves are beautiful or poetic. Chipping can be understood as like someone altering a piano concerto so that midway through the performance the pianist has to, at best, play a different song entirely or, at worst, randomly smash the keys.²¹

We can apply a similar logic to quarried rock. When you visit a quarry what you encounter is the sum of those ancient (though ongoing) geological processes and also the (now likely ceased) industrial processes of men quarrying the crag. Even though the rock is not natural, you move according to the industrial processes instead. We could imagine the difference as listening to techno instead of Beethoven. Moves yielded by industry can have a distinct and unusual beauty and poetry. The selfish and destructive impact chipping has on these processes means that it is still wrong, even if the industrial processes it corrupts are in some sense unnatural.

Rock climbs are social processes

They have histories, they have future. Some are cultural touchpoints. Some are legendary. The status of these is not established overnight, but is collectively built in the process of many hundreds, if not thousands, of ascents. Every ascent contributes to the narrative of the route. This can be literally seen in the peg-scars of old aid routes which are now used as handholds. But narrative creation also has a social dimension. The way people approach a route contributes to its social process. If people start climbing it in the wrong place, use cheat-stones, 3D-print and grind a replica of it, and so on, this contaminates the social narrative of the route. This also why some have been critical of the Wideboyz’ “diminuation of Master’s Edge” — that by climbing it in fancy dress they trivialise, disrespect and diminish a legendary, if not sacred, route. More benignly, this is why the discovery of a previously unidentified knee-bar can yield such disappointment: the discovery can mean that the social narrative has changed forever.

Similarly, this is why some perceive the retrobolting of trad routes as unethical. Doing so restricts the styles of ascent available to climbers and so permanently alters the route’s narrative. However, it is also why retrobolting a neglected trad route can be legitimate if this ensures more regular ascents and reestablishes the route as an ongoing social process. This is also why the first ascentionist’s permission carries more weight; they established the social process in the first place and so are more entitled to adjudicate whether the revitalisation of the social process is worth the reduction in style.

The social process of a route can continue on long after the geological processes that constituted it have dissipated. People still talk about the Hard Rock routes that have now fallen down, and part of what makes Dawes’ and Pritchard’s ascent of Come to Mother so well known is the fact it collapsed into the Irish Sea shortly following their ascent.²² While such discussion continues there is a sense in which these routes live on.

Ascents of rock climbs are processes

As already discussed, the moment of the ascent is only an abstract snapshot of a process. It is the steps taken in order to make an ascent that characterise it. It is the way you do things — the style — that really matters; or at the very least why it comes first and foremost. It also why some would argue that climbing is fundamentally about good stories and adventure, not about the instantaneous meeting of numerical goals, and why some are so opposed to climbing being treated as a sport.

Once you see climbing a route as a process it is easy to see why gobbling down beta from YouTube videos is so utterly facile. By doing so you truncate the process of your ascent, contaminate it with someone else’s, and achieve little to no personal growth.²³ It is like skipping to the end of a book, or looking at a crossword’s answers then celebrating after copying them in. This frame also helps explain why being sprayed with someone else’s unsolicited beta can be so frustrating and dispiriting.

Characterising ascents as processes also helps explain why long relationships with climbs can feel so special and rewarding. It is why the process of trying to climb the rock is often enough, even when you don’t succeed in the end.²⁴ An ascent with a good narrative which yields a deep personal relationship with a piece of rock is far more valuable than the superficial, though much vaunted, ‘quick tick’. Approaching climbing in this way allows for the knowing of the rock in a similar way to which you know a friend. This way of knowing is distinct from being able to describe the route or knowing the method by which to climb it. In English we only have one word for knowing; but the Germans distinguish kennen — meaning “to know or be familiar with”— and wissen — meaning “to know how/to know a fact”.²⁵ Seeing the world as composed of processes rather than ‘things’ may help English speakers to escape the shortcomings of our language and relate to our world in a long-forgotten way.²⁶

Your climbing life/career is a process

As already discussed, each ascent partly constitutes a climbing life.²⁷ They are not just collectable experiences that you ‘tick-off’, they are literally making you who you are. When approached correctly each ascent has the potential to result in personal growth. With each ascent you are made sharper by having to contend with the geological, geographical and social processes of your home. Be it the North-East Wind, the North Sea, the gritstone, the Lake District fells, whatever. You and your climbing career are a reflection of them.²⁸ Equally, opting to 3D-print and climb replicas also shapes who you are.

Seeing your climbing life as a process also shows why some people prefer not to hire professional coaches. For them it is vital that their climbing life is self-directed, rather than becoming an organ grinder’s monkey or living like a robot. These people would rather attempt to live their climbing lives autonomously and authentically, even if that means suboptimal performance metrics. In the end, though, we are all unavoidably influenced by those around us. This is also why it is worth being selective about who you follow on social media in case their influence pushes your life away from where it could and should go.

It is important to never forget that climbing is just one process in the life of a human. This is one reason why living your life according to the principle of ‘Big Grade = Good’ is so damaging. For those afflicted, many valuable non-climbing life processes are sacrificed for a slightly improved chance at acquiring the big number. Other pastimes, joys, achievements, friendships, relationships, and even parenthood are all laid down upon the altar of performance.

You as a human person are a process

Human beings are social animals sustained by various biological processes. However, to reach our full potential depends on us being “persons-in-community” and this makes us inseparable from the social processes we take part in.²⁹ We can’t develop language in the absence of social relations, and so neither can we develop capacities for proper thought, agency or personhood.³⁰ Consequently, process thought is not compatible with treating and idealising people as if they are abstract, atomised, decontextualised, static individuals. Nonetheless, individual human beings are not simply swallowed up into the whole. You, as an individual, are an inextricable and indispensable piece of your family, community, nation and country, to which you contribute by virtue of your own particularlity and uniqueness. So, you constitute and shape social processes just as you are constituted and shaped by those processes.

Your family/community/nation/country is a process, as is its climbing story

Individual climbers contribute to the process of the social whole, and determine its climbing story. Conversely, the climbing story of your social groups influences and shapes you.³¹ So, it is important to know where you’re coming from, what you’re contributing to, and what direction things are going in.³² You must know the torch that you are bearing and the responsibilities associated with it, to avoid living the life of a fly of a summer and inadvertently abolishing something of vital importance.³³ Most people instinctively know this and that is why there is such interest in climbing lore and history, in tradition, in classic climbing and bouldering films, and in the lives of national climbing heroes and villains.

Like all processes, social processes are subject to change, growth and decay. Most process thinkers would argue that we all ought to be vigilant towards the forces which erode our social inheritance, though they may differ in the form such vigilance takes. Conservative process thinkers would say that we have an obligation to maintain the equilibrium of our social processes, if not aim to shift towards a more desirable equilibrium. Progressive process thinkers claim that we must consciously try to direct social processes on to desireable trajectories.³⁴

These differences in opinion explain why some people oppose the Americanisation/Mellowisation of English climbing, while others enthusiastically support it. Regardless of your position, pulling up to the crags smoking doobies, blasting gangster-rap and pointing twelve different portable fans at yourself isn’t recognisably of the same process as Winthrop-Young, Drummond and Dawes. For some people this represents progress, for others it represents entropy and decline.

More generally, this is why the commodification of climbing and its consequent professionalisation, beigeification and massification has led some in climbing cultures across the world to experience feelings of solastalgia — the pain or sickness caused by the loss of solace due to the present state of one’s home.³⁵ These processes lead to disenchantment and the unavoidable perception of cultural entropy, even as the grades climbed by top end climbers continue to go up, one way or another. The resistance made by national and indigenous cultures against the commodifying processes of neoliberal global capitalism is the subject of decolonial theory, a set of ideas recently introduced into climbing discourse by Matt Ludwig Bush.³⁶

Nature is a process

The idea that nature is a process is the basis of ecology and of environmentalism. Younger people will recognise it from being taught at school about global warming, climate change, the extinction of animal species, or damage to the ozone layer. Most of us will be vigilant of, and hostile towards, the entropic forces which are eroding our ecological inheritance. All of our lives take place within nature; we simply cannot be abstracted out of it, even though some might like us to be.³⁷ So, most would agree we have a responsibility to do what we can to ensure that ecological processes are restored and then kept as close to equilibrium as possible.

This is the underlying logic of ‘leave no trace’, a simple rule of thumb aiming to reduce your impact on the processes you interact with. However, when we see entire crags and habitats disintegrating due to bad practices, or simply under the weight of excessive traffic, we cannot help but feel sadness as we recognise we are “loving them to death”. Leaving no trace does not go far enough. We need a process framework to explain why incremental damage caused by unsustainable practices — such as by climbing on wet sandstone — is always immoral, even if the damage we personally cause is imperceptible.³⁸ Any personal disregard of sustainable practices means that you are personally responsible for the ruination of the relevant ecological, geological and social processes.

Conclusion

Hopefully introducing a process framework helps to illuminate some perennial debates around the ethics of climbing. I’m sure that I will have missed some other relevant climbing phenomena which can be better explained using processes — if you think of any do get in touch.

One last thing before we finish. Most of the readers of this essay will be British, however those few who come from East Asia might be surprised any of this even needs to be said. Indeed, the evidence indicates that the psychologies of the East and West are quite different.³⁹ Among other differences, people from the East think more holistically: they are more likely to (a) respond to the configuration of an object as a whole without regard to the parts that it is made of, (b) think about object elements in relation to their context, and (c) think about object elements in relation to one another⁴⁰ — i.e. in a way quite similar to the process framework outlined here.⁴¹

Within the West, holistic thinking is more common among recent immigrants and their children,⁴² among conservatives in comparison to liberals;⁴³ among Catholics, Orthodox Jews and Buddhists in comparison to Protestants and atheists;⁴⁴ and among the working class in comparison to the upper classes.⁴⁵ Ability to understand the world using a process framework will stand you in better stead to empathise across these divides.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly, some thinkers argue that it is only by Western countries rediscovering and embracing the process mindset that our species will be able to stave off the destruction of the Earth.⁴⁶ Food for thought.

1. Freund, A. M., & Hennecke, M. (2012). Changing eating behaviour vs. losing weight: The role of goal focus for weight loss in overweight women. In Psychology & Health.

Fishbach, A., & Choi, J. (2012). When thinking about goals undermines goal pursuit. In Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Freund, A. M., & Hennecke, M. (2015). On Means and Ends: The Role of Goal Focus in Successful Goal Pursuit. In Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Kaftan, O. J. & Freund, A. M. (2018). The Way is the Goal: The Role of Goal Focus for Successful Goal Pursuit and Subjective Well-Being. In Handbook of Well-Being.

Converse, B. A., Tsang, S., & Hennecke, M. (2023). The value of mere completion. In Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

2. Some would say that only those who are oritentated towards the processes of climbing should be called ‘climbers’, while those oritentated towards goals are mere ‘tickers’.

Sailors, P. R. (2010). More than Meets the “I.”: Values of Dangerous Sport. In Climbing ‐ Philosophy for Everyone.

Walker, D. (2000). Hard Rock or 40 Years of Puerile Ticking. In Climbers’ Club Journal.

3. Cheetham, D. (2018). 56° Underground. In Project Magazine.

4. Trying to describe this mechanism without recourse to the terminology of ‘process’ is very difficult. This shows us that processes are, at the very least, important conceptual descriptors of climbing-relevant objects. This is what Nicholas Rescher refers to as “weak process ontology”, according to which, we require the idea of process in order to adaquately describe substantial objects.

See: Rescher, N. (1996) Process Metaphysics – An Introduction to Process Philosophy. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY. Page 57.

5. Those interested in this idea may wish to read:

Buber, M. (1937). I and Thou (R. G. Smith, Trans.). T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh.

Tillich, P. (1952). The Courage to Be. Collins, London.

Cobb, J. B. & Griffin, D. R. (1976). Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Westminister Press, Philadelphia.

Bohm, D. (1980). Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.

Berry, W. (1984). Two Economies. In Review & Expositor.

Bostrom, N. (2003). Are We Living in a Computer Simulation? In The Philosophical Quarterly.

Bojowald, M. (2015). Quantum cosmology: a review. In Reports on Progress in Physics.

6. Bokulich, A. (2016). Fiction As a Vehicle for Truth: Moving Beyond the Ontic Conception. In The Monist.

7. Simons, P. (2002). Candidate General Ontologies for Situating Quantum Field Theory. In Ontological Aspects of Quantum Field Theory.

Van Dijk, J. B. J. (2021). Process Physics: Toward an Organismic, Neo-Whiteheadian Physics. In Process Cosmology.

8. This is what Heraclitus meant by “everything flows”.

Mermin, N. D. (1998). What is quantum mechanics trying to tell us? In American Journal of Physics.

Hut, P. (2000). There are no things. In Edge.

McGilcrist, I. (2021). The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World. Perspectiva, London.

9. This is what Rescher would call a “strong process ontology”, according to which process is a fundamental ontological category.

10. Stein, R. L. (2004). Towards a Process Philosophy of Chemistry. In HYLE – International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry.

11. Dupré, J., & Nicholson, D. J. (Eds.). (2018). A Manifesto for a Processual Philosophy of Biology. In Everything Flows.

12. Roy, D. E. (2017). Can Whitehead’s Philosophy Provide an Adequate Theoretical Foundation for Today’s Neuroscience? In Process Studies.

13. Bickhard, M. H. (2021). Should Psychology Care About Metaphysics? In Routledge International Handbook of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology.

14. Both complexity science and systems science are based on process frameworks. These sciences are integrated and non-disciplinary because systems of processes do not neatly keep within the traditional boundaries of a single science.

Gare, A. (2000). Systems Theory and Complexity: Introduction. In Democracy & Nature.

15. Many will recognise this as a simpler version of the Ship of Theseus.

16. Meincke, A. S. (2018). The Disappearance of Change: Towards a Process Account of Persistence. In International Journal of Philosophical Studies.

17. Sender, R., & Milo, R. (2021). The distribution of cellular turnover in the human body. In Nature Medicine.

18. Meincke, A. S. (2020). Processual animalism. In Biological Identity.

19. Process thinking is also known as systems thinking.

See: Thibodeau, P. H., Frantz, C. M., & Stroink, M. L. (2015). Situating a Measure of Systems Thinking in a Landscape of Psychological Constructs. In Systems Research and Behavioral Science.

20. Or that at the very least climbers have a pro tanto obligation not to chip routes.

For a defence of chipping holds (but that which does not consider the argument presented here) see: Ramsey, W. (2010). Hold Manufacturing: Why You May Be Wrong About What's Right. In Climbing ‐ Philosophy for Everyone.

21. One can imagine extenuating circumstances where holds are reinforced or replaced like-for-like, but this isn’t exactly allowing geological processes to continue as naturally at possible. However, sometimes maintaining the social process of the rock climb is worth trading off against interrupting geological processes. Notable examples might be the reconstruction — from sika — of the crux hold of The Cider Soak and the reinforcement of most of the holds of Mirf’s Roof.

22. See here for an account of this ascent: Heason, M. (2021). Paul Pritchard - Lost In The Broccoli Garden. In Sheffield Adventure Film Festival.

23. Levey, B. (2010). It Ain’t Fast Food: An Authentic Climbing Experience. In Climbing ‐ Philosophy for Everyone.

24. This is the topic of the traditional English song The Innocent Hare (pre-1891): the process of being out in the English countryside participating in sport with your friends is the reward in of itself, even when the hare escapes or the climb goes unascended.

25. The French (connaitre/savoir); Italians (cognoscere/sapire); Spanish (conocer/saber); Dutch (kennen/weten); Swedish (känna/veta); Polish (znać/wiedzieć); Chinese (认识 / 知道); and basically all other languages besides English also make this distinction.

26. Ruitenberg, C. W. (2009). Distance and Defamiliarisation: Translation as Philosophical Method. In Journal of Philosophy of Education.

Sundholm, G. (2014). The Vocabulary of Epistemology, with Observations on Some Surprising Shortcomings of the English Language. In Mind, Values, and Metaphysics.

In our early days particularly, we climb simply because we feel the urge to do so, and it is usually a mistake to draw deep and estoeric conclusions from each casual venture or to attempt to spin the yarn of our expeditions into one coherent thread of enterprise. Nevertheless, no matter how haphazard our course, there usually exists a continuous theme or cord, perhaps unnoticed at the time, which runs through the winding rope of our experience. Similarly the red silk thread is twisted into an Alpine rope, and though the outer strands become frayed with hard use the inner core of memory still endures — a fragile line that links all our climbs into one harmonious whole.

27. Busk, D. (1946). The Delectable Mountains. Hodder & Stoughton. Page 11.

28. The Victorian and Edwardian poets knew this well. Take, for examples, Ode to The North-East Wind (1858) by Rev. Charles Kingsley or Frankie’s Trade (1910) by Rudyard Kipling.

29. For reviews of the history of this idea in process-thought see Pugliese (2015) and in political theory see Rogan (2017, pp. 34—5). See also Marx (1844) and Dumont (1970).

30. Pettit, P. (2014). Three Issues in Social Ontology. In Rethinking the Individualism-Holism Debate.

31. To keep the poetry theme up: the mutual co-creation of rural England and the English is the subject of Edward Thomas’ poem Lob (1917). The terminating of this supposedly eternal process is teased at the end of the poem as the looming threat of economic power forces Lob to “remove [his] house out of the lane on to the road”.

A song on a similar theme is A Place Called England (1999) by Maggie Holland, a cover of which Dan Varian paired with his ascent of Bombadil at Christianbury. The character of Tom Bombadil — from Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings — has been interpreted as representing the peculiar elements of the English mind that cannot be absorbed into Britishness. Other interpretations understand Tom Bombadil as representing pre-Christian England. Perhaps Varian appreciates that escaping off into the middle of nowhere to dance with the geology is one of the last remaining ways that an Englishman can engage with and in the spirit of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic paganism.

32. Historically these facts of life were intuitively recognised and accepted by British elite climbers. Decades as recently as the 1980s featured much constructive patriotism as British elite climbers faced off directly with the elite climbers of the eternal rival: The French.

33. The idea of the trasmission of tradition and wisdom characterising a process is the subject of Sir Henry Newbolt’s poem Vitaï Lampada (1892). The English translation of the poem’s title is They Pass on the Torch of Life.

34. Process frameworks do not necessarily entail any kind of political orientation and thinkers of a diverse range of political orientations use them, such as: socialists (Heinzekehr and Clayton 2017), liberals (Dombrowski 2019), conservatives (Chapman 1967; Scruton 2013) and nationalists (Rose 2021, pp. 100—2). An exception to this might be neoconservatives (Griffin 2008).

35. Albrecht, G. (2019). Earth Emotions: New Words for a New World. Cornell University Press, New York.

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Hwang, K.-K. (2022). An Epistemological Strategy for Initiating Scientific Revolution against WEIRD Psychology. In Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science.

37. Dryzek, J. S. (1996). Foundations for environmental political economy: The search for homo ecologicus? In New Political Economy.

38. See also: Murray, D. (2010). Making Mountains out of Heaps: Environmental Protection One Stone at a Time. In Climbing ‐ Philosophy for Everyone.

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Muthukrishna, M., Bell, A. V., Henrich, J., Curtin, C. M., Gedranovich, A., McInerney, J., & Thue, B. (2020). Beyond Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) Psychology: Measuring and Mapping Scales of Cultural and Psychological Distance. In Psychological Science.

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Thibodeau, P. H., Frantz, C. M., & Stroink, M. L. (2015). Situating a Measure of Systems Thinking in a Landscape of Psychological Constructs. In Systems Research and Behavioral Science.

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43. Talhelm, T., Haidt, J., Oishi, S., Zhang, X., Miao, F. F., & Chen, S. (2014). Liberals Think More Analytically (More “WEIRD”) Than Conservatives. In Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

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