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 Edika Quispe-Torreblanca, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Gordon D. A. Brown
Year 2026
Publisher Nature Communications
Kind of work article
Discipline Economics
Secondary disciplines Psychology
Applied false
Read it at the publisher 10.1038/s41467-026-69729-x
Well-being is linked to income. However, lower well-being among lower-income individuals may reflect either economic relative deprivation or the lower social status associated with a lower income rank. Here, using Gallup World Poll data from 109 countries and over 90,000 individuals, we test a general model that includes both relative income deprivation and income rank as special cases. In 80% of countries, subjective well-being is more strongly associated with within-nation rank of income than with absolute income or relative income deprivation. Income rank coefficients are over three times larger in the most materialistic countries, but smaller in countries with higher social capital: In countries with the highest civic engagement, the association between income rank and well-being is about 80% smaller. Results replicated in multiple survey years and are consistent with a link between income-related social status and subjective well-being that is stronger when social capital is low.
To test whether subjective well-being is more strongly linked to an individual's income rank (relative status) than to absolute income or relative income deprivation, across nations.
Over 90,000 individuals across 109 countries, from Gallup World Poll data spanning multiple survey years.
Cross-national survey analysis testing a general statistical model that nests income rank, absolute income, and relative income deprivation as special cases, with moderation tests by national civic engagement and materialism.
In 80% of countries, subjective well-being was more strongly associated with an individual's within-nation income rank than with absolute income or relative income deprivation, an association about three times stronger in the most materialistic countries and roughly 80% weaker in countries with the highest civic engagement.
Well-being depends on a relational, comparative valuation of income relative to others rather than on the absolute quantity of income, and this relationship is moderated by a national-level social property.
Patterns it shows D, R
Added 2026-09-26
How to cite this Edika Quispe-Torreblanca, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Gordon D. A. Brown (2026). Social status and the relationship between income rank and well-being in 109 nations. Nature Communications.