Psychological Skeleton Key
July 20, 2003 | People & Society
While Michael J. ate some lunch and Mr. Charlie mumbled about music and elastic time, I rooted around for a book I wanted to mention.
"In Over Our Heads; The Mental Demands of Modern Life" by Robert Kegan (Harvard) is an important scholarly psychology book. It is a model of adult development that posits an "advanced postmodern cirriculum" in our culture. Briefly, five stages. Stage three=seeking independence. Stage four=seeking interdependence. Stage five=creating systems of interdependence. This is an "always maturing, never mature" model of development, not tied to intelligence, age or education.
Most people struggle their whole lives to try to make it into stage four. A very few people are able to see beyond their own needs, and the needs of those dependent on them, and work toward creating new sets of related systems. An interesting aspect of the model is that those with more advanced comprehension are obligated to "slow down" and relate to others in a way that makes sense to the other. That is, a stage three person cannot comprehend the language of a stage four person. (Clinton was a stage four person. Bush is stage three.) What this means is that modifying your personal behavior to accomodate others slows you down personally, but speeds evolution of the common good.
A more practical treatment geared toward relations with those in your workplace can be found in "How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work." Both are highly recommended and were true "before and after" books for me.
Comments
Just what I need, more books to add to me reading list. Sounds excellent though. Are the associations of presidents and development stages from the book, or just from this posting?
Also, can't you operate at multiple levels? Isn't this part of what we are talking about when we want to inhabit the worldview of the listener? Bring them forward with moves withing their own rhetoric, speak to the masses, but then also continue the higher level dialogs in more advanced circles.
Posted by: Gerry at July 21, 2003 08:50 AM
Yes, you're right: operating on multiple levels is a must. You can't go "up" past your current evolutionary level, but you must go "down" to relate to others at their level. I see it as more fluid than strict.
Posted by: Michael J. at July 21, 2003 03:08 PM
Oh, and the associations are just mine, not the book's!
Posted by: Michael J. at July 21, 2003 03:08 PM
