PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR AND

CAUSAL LOOP DIAGRAMS

(CLDS)
PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR

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Four Major Patterns of Behavior

(A) Exponential growth

 An initial quantity of interest starts to grow,

and the rate of growth increases.

 The quantity of interest doubles in a fixed

period of time

(B) Goal Seeking

 Quantity of interest starts either above or

below a goal level and over time moves
towards the goal

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Four Major Patterns of Behavior
(C) Oscillation

 Quantity of interest fluctuates around some

level

goal  Initially appears to be exponential growth,

and then it appears to be s-shaped growth
before reversing direction

(D) S-shaped growth

 Initial lag phase, middle exponential growth

and final goal seeking behavior which
results in variable levelling off

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Few Common Combined Patterns
(A) Exponential growth with (B) Overshoot and
oscillation
Performance Collapse

Performance
(C) Goal seek with
overshoot and declining (D) Goal seek with overshoot
oscillations

Performance
Performance

Time Time

(E) S- shaped growth with

overshoot and oscillation 5
Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs)

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 Causal Loop Diagrams (CLDs)
 What are CLDs?
 Conceptualize real world in terms of diagrams
 Translate mental models of systems into qualitative diagrammatic
models
 Convert verbal discussion into sketches representing causal
relationships and illustrate circular causality (feedback loops)

 How are they useful?

 Help to understand and communicate the interactions that
determine the dynamics of a system
 Allow for easy communication of the structural assumptions
underlying a mental model
 Qualitative understanding of the possible behaviors from the
structure of feedback loops 7
Four Parts in a CLD

1. Elements or variables of a system that are

related in cause/effect sequence(s)

2. Arrows (also called as causal links) that

indicate which elements are affecting other
elements

3. “+” or “-” signs that are associated with arrow

heads to denote the direction of the
influence or “polarity” of the relationships

4. A central symbol indicating the overall

identity of the feedback loops 8
Polarity

 CLDs illustrate causal relationships

 Assume element “A” causes element “B”; What happens to
“B” when “A” is increased?

 Positive polarity: When “A” is increased, “B” also

increases (“B” changes in same direction - Direct
relationship) or “A” adds to “B”

+
A B

 Negative polarity: When “A” is increased, “B”

decreases (“B” changes in opposite direction - Inverse
relationship) or “A” minus “B”
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-
A B
Identify and Characterize Feedback Loops
 CLDs illustrate circular causality in the form of feedback loops
 Causes as Effects: “A” causes “B”; Does “B” also cause
“A”?
 Two types of feedback loops
 Positive or Reinforcing feedback loop (product of polarity within
the circular loop is positive)

+ +
A R B (or) A R B
+ +

 Negative or Balancing feedback loop (product of polarity within the

circular loop is negative)

+ +
A B B (or) A B B 10
- -
 CAUSATION VS CORRELATION IN CLDS
 Every link in a CLD must represent the causal
relationships between elements and not just the
correlation between elements

 Correlations need not represent the causal structure of

the system; confusing correlation with causality can
lead to terrible misjudgment and policy errors

 Example: Sales of ice cream positively correlated with

murder rate in a city
Ice cream murder rate
sales
+
+ +
Ice cream murder rate
sales 11
Average
temperature
 AMBIGUOUS LINKS IN A CLD
 Ambiguous links show “+” polarity sometimes and “–”
polarity sometimes

 Disaggregate the causal pathways by showing

“Multiple Links” and making “Intermediate
Concepts” explicit

 Example: link between “overtime” and “work

accomplished per day”

+
Overtime Work accomplished per
day
fatigue -
12
+
FEEDBACK LOOPS AND PATTERN OF BEHAVIOR

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Positive Feedback Loops
What are the possible assumptions of the two CLDs?

Account balance
Chickens

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Negative Feedback Loops
What are the possible assumptions of this CLD?

Chickens

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Negative Feedback Loops
What are the possible assumptions of this CLD?

Rabbit population

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 Negative Feedback Loops with
Significant Time Delay

 Negative feedback loop structures

with significant time delay produce
oscillations
Significant
delay  The time delays cause corrective
actions to continue even after the
state of the system reaches its goal,
forcing the system to adjust too
much, and triggering a new
correction in the opposite direction
Rabbit population

goal

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Summary: Reinforcing and Balancing Loops

 Reinforcing Loops:
 Produce continuous growth or continuous decline behaviors

 Balancing Loops without delay:

 Produce goal seeking behavior
 Limits the growth

 Balancing Loops with time delay:

 Oscillatory behavior
 Limits the growth

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Combining Reinforcing and Balancing Loops

 What behavior will this combined structure produce?

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 Example 1: Blood Sugar and Insulin

 Consider blood sugar level and insulin

infusion in diabetic patients. Exogenous
insulin infusion helps to maintain the blood
sugar levels in the safer level for diabetic

Blood sugar
patients. Insulin infusion lowers the high
blood sugar levels to the normalcy. Once safer
level is attained, amount of insulin infusion
will be reduced to avoid the risk of low sugar.
Draw CLD for this scenario

 Now, let the target blood sugar = 81 mg/dl;

This patient requires 15 mU of insulin to
maintain the blood sugar level at its target.
Consider two cases:

Insulin infusion
 Case A: blood sugar is > target
 Case B: blood sugar is < target

 For each of these two cases,

 How will you vary insulin infusion? 20
 How will the behavior of blood sugar levels vary?
 Example 2: Migration and Urban Behavior

 Verbal statement:

“Job availability attracts migrants to the city. New

arrivals to the city expand the labor population.
Population absorbs the available jobs, decreasing
the amount of available jobs. In the long run, as
labor creates demand for additional goods, urban
services and facilities, the number of jobs increases.
More jobs increase job availability”

Let us now construct a CLD for this!

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 Example: Migration and Urban Behavior

 Statement 1: Job availability attracts migrants

to the city

 Statement 2: New arrivals to the city expand

the labor population

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 Example: Migration and Urban Behavior

 Statement 3: Population absorbs the available

jobs, decreasing the amount of available jobs

 Statement 4: In the long run, as labor creates

demand for additional goods, urban services and
facilities, the number of jobs increases

 Statement 5: More jobs increase job availability

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What will be The Combined CLD?

 Combined CLD

 Now, identify all the feedback loops and

characterize them
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Limitations of CLDs

 Good for qualitative understanding only; not

suitable for deeper quantitative inferences

 Can only guess possible pattern behaviors from

the structure; accurate forecast of the pattern of
system behavior is not possible

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