Thinking about individual actor-level perspectives in sociotechnical transitions: A comment on the transitions research agenda

The 2019 STRN research agenda identifies connecting the different 'levels' of transitions processes as a worthwhile line of work. Individual actor-level processes are an example of those at the 'micro' level that are lost through the aggregation involved in high level sociotechnical transitions concepts. This short commentary discusses ways of connecting individual actor level processes to transitions concepts, where 'individual' refers to individual human actors. For this purpose, the commentary draws on social psychology and shows how this particular discipline is relevant to more than simply consumption and technology acceptance. The commentary also identifies more general strategies relevant to the bridging of levels, beyond psychology, namely: (i) the use of concepts that inherently bridge the individual and the social; and (ii) the use of multi-stage, sequenced studies that track the influence of different types of processes through particular sociotechnical systems.