The Universal & Atomic Elements of Organization
A falsifiable scientific theory proposing that the same irreducible structures organize both thought and reality — from the quantum to the social scale.
O-Theory proposes that four irreducible structures — Distinctions, Systems, Relationships and Perspectives (DSRP) — form the universal grammar of organization. Rather than being merely useful ways of thinking, these structures are hypothesized to be the atomic elements from which every organized phenomenon emerges, whether in cognition, biology, physics, mathematics, society, or the cosmos.
| D | S | R | P |
| Distinctions | Systems | Relationships | Perspectives |
| Identity ↔ Other | Part ↔ Whole | Action ↔ Reaction | Point ↔ View |
| D := (i ↔ o) | S := (p ↔ w) | R := (a ↔ r) | P := (ṗ ↔ v) |
This is a living scientific evidence compendium: an open, continually evolving collection of independent empirical research, formal theory, mathematical proofs, cross-disciplinary analyses, applications, critiques, and proposed falsifications. Every entry is included because it supports, refines, challenges, or attempts to falsify the theory.
Scientific theories are strengthened not only by evidence that confirms their predictions, but also by surviving attempts to falsify them. This compendium brings both together: independent evidence from researchers who were not testing DSRP and proposed counterexamples evaluated against the formal theory.
One counterexample is enough to falsify O-Theory. Until then, the question remains: do the same four structures organize everything from quantum systems to human thought?
Independent convergence is one of the strongest forms of scientific evidence because researchers arrive at the same conclusion while investigating different questions for different reasons.
The number is not the point. Researchers in different fields, studying different questions with different methods, repeatedly arrived at the same structural predictions—almost always without testing DSRP or using its language.
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This compendium began as the peer-reviewed literature review “A Literature Review of the Universal and Atomic Elements of Complex Cognition,” published in the Journal of Systems Thinking with 109 studies. That paper is the peer-reviewed foundation. What you see here is its living, continuously updated version . New studies are checked before they are added, and the collection now holds and keeps growing. Open any card to see what the researchers found, why it bears on DSRP, and where the original review discusses it, the fuller account.
The collection is updated continuously, so the citation carries the date you consulted it rather than a study count — the count changes weekly, and putting it in the reference would make the same collection look like a different work to everyone who cites it. To cite a single claim or study, use its own address: every one has a permanent link.
This is the adversarial half of the compendium. Where the evidence track asks what converges on DSRP, this one asks what would end it: a single organized phenomenon whose structure needs a fifth pattern, a ninth element, or a fifth structural dynamic. It holds written up from candidates across territories, and resolutions — the general answers those cases settle against. Every case is published whether it held or failed, including the ones still open.
Cite this rather than the evidence collection when the point is what survived attack. The two are separate works with separate addresses: one asks what converges on the theory, the other asks what would end it, and a reference to the first does not support a claim about the second. Case and resolution numbers change when the record is revised, so cite a case by its own permanent link rather than by number.
This collection is meant to keep growing. Send us a study, paper, book or critique that bears on DSRP, whether it supports the theory or cuts against it, and we will read it and decide whether it belongs.
Authors Anke Tresch, Line Rennwald
Year 2026
Publisher Swiss Political Science Review
Kind of work article
Discipline Political Science
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.1111/spsr.70036
This study analyses the success of populist radical right (PRR) parties in the 2023 Swiss elections using reference group theory. While existing literature emphasizes the influence of objective and subjective group membership on electoral choice, it often overlooks voters' feelings toward groups they do not belong to and their perceptions of parties' associations with these groups. We argue that this framework is key to understanding PRR voting. Like their European counterparts, Swiss PRR parties – particularly the Swiss People's Party – mobilized group-based resentment through a campaign stigmatizing asylum seekers and migrants, and by promoting an anti-gender agenda. Using data from the Swiss Election Study (Selects), we show that negative feelings toward migrants and feminists influenced PRR voting, beyond political preferences and socio-structural factors. This resentment also helped attract new voters who had initially leaned toward centre-right parties. The study highlights the importance of group feelings in electoral behaviour.
To explain the 2023 electoral success of Swiss populist radical right parties using reference group theory, focusing on voters' feelings toward groups they do not belong to rather than only their own group memberships.
Survey data from the Swiss Election Study (Selects) on the 2023 Swiss federal elections.
Survey-based analysis testing whether negative feelings toward out-groups (migrants and feminists) predicted populist radical right voting, controlling for political preferences and socio-structural factors.
Negative feelings toward migrants and feminists predicted voting for populist radical right parties beyond the effect of political preferences and socio-structural factors, and this out-group resentment helped draw new voters who had initially leaned toward centre-right parties.
Electoral behavior is shaped by how voters position themselves relative to groups they do not belong to, a comparative, other-directed vantage point, and this relational stance toward out-groups drives voting choices.
Patterns it shows R, P
Added 2026-09-26
How to cite this Anke Tresch, Line Rennwald (2026). Explaining the Populist Radical Right's Success in the 2023 Swiss National Elections: A Reference Group Perspective. Swiss Political Science Review.