Economics, Psychology, and Professional Coaching I: Three Worlds

W Berquist 1900

The mid-21st century is filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, turbulence, and contradiction (VUCA-Plus). The conditions of VUCA-Plus have left us gasping for breath and seeking some stability (Bergquist, 2025). In the midst of these challenging times, we are living in a world of mini revolutions. A digital revolution is found in the domain of Artificial Intelligence. The revolutionary reframing of democratic processes is found throughout our world. One of these revolutions is more cerebral in nature. It concerns the recent interweaving of economics and psychology. Called behavioral economics, this emerging interdisciplinary field introduces new perspectives regarding the way in which we, homo sapiens, make decisions, solve problems, and basically frame and interpret the world in which we live. I have prepared a series of essays that build on the implications for professional coaching of these behavioral economic principles, and specifically the way in which we anticipate and interpret our near future. In this first essay, I lay the foundation for this series by considering the shifting economic nature of the society in which we live and, more basically, the shifting way in which we view reality.