An Introduction to “Ego Development Theory” by Susanne Cook-Greuter (EDT Summary)

[Davino]

I have found a brilliant summary of EDT 

Here are some quotes and images:

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What is Ego?

“It is ego’s function to ceaselessly interpret experience and to try to make coherent sense of it. If you prefer the hard sciences, you can think of ego as the central processing unit. If liberal arts are more your style, ego as the story teller names it well.”

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What is Human Development?

“Human development in general can be looked at as a progression of different ways of making sense of reality or in a sequence of stages of meaning making.”

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Language & Symbols:

“Languages divide lived experience into separate objects with distinct boundaries and evaluative attributes. We are so totally immersed in a sea of language that we hardly notice the way it lures us into a false sense of knowledge and how it molds us into very particular notions of what is real and important.”

Quote

“EDT describes a psycho-logical system with three major interrelated components or dimensions of meaning making:

1. The operative component looks at what adults see as the purpose of life, what needs they act upon, and what ends they are moving towards.
2. The affective component deals with emotions and the experience of being in this world.
3. The cognitive component addresses the question of how a person thinks and reasons about him or herself and the world. It is important to understand that each stage emerges from a synthesis of doing, being and thinking.”

 

[Sandhu]

Thanks for Sharing!❣

[Carl-Richard]

Somebody help me from my cynicism towards Western-centric models and fly Cook-Greuter out to some island people or something and study them for the model. I can't stand the facade universality that oozes from the neat graphics and flashy colors.

Edited November 21 by Carl-Richard

[Sandhu]

4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Somebody help me from my cynicism towards Western-centric models and fly Cook-Greuter out to some island people or something and study them for the model. I can't stand the facade universality that oozes from the neat graphics and flashy colors.

Sometimes I study these things and they don't seem to resonate and apply to my culture and my people. And I feel I'm consuming half-cooked dish.

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Sandhu said:

Sometimes I study these things and they don't seem to resonate and apply to my culture and my people. And I feel I'm consuming half-cooked dish.

That's understandable, because they literally don't.

Edited November 21 by Carl-Richard

[Davino]

10 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Somebody help me from my cynicism towards Western-centric models and fly Cook-Greuter out to some island people or something and study them for the model.

That is mentioned in his paper and in the first paragraph of the summary provided. If you care to read it, learn and leave your cynicism and closemindedness behind.

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I identified nine different self-stories, nine different ways of defining what is real and important in the Western world. These ways develop sequentially and represent increasing levels of individuation and integration.

The only theory which has proven to be universal is Erikson and is quite rudimentary. Sometimes you have a trade off between broadness and deepness in these models. In what ways you found the EDT to be limiting because of being a western model? Given that you are probably western isn't it useful to learn how your psyche will probably develop?

Developmental psychology is quite a field of study, there's much to be learnt despite its limitations. I have found no better field of study for human understanding and satisfaction than this one. So I kindly invite you to reconsider and to devote yourself to the understanding of these models, as they can be benefitial beyond expectation. It's only 90 pages long the whole paper, so you can read it in a few weeks and report back.

[Carl-Richard]

3 hours ago, Davino said:

That is mentioned in his paper and in the first paragraph of the summary provided. If you care to read it, learn and leave your cynicism and closemindedness behind.

“I identified nine different self-stories, nine different ways of defining what is real and important in the Western world. These ways develop sequentially and represent increasing levels of individuation and integration.”

That's exactly my point 😂. It's a Western-centric model.

If you're interested, I have looked at her samples, and based on the information provided, you can deduce with virtually full certainty that none of the samples included people from pre-modern societies.

She had UK and US samples and one "international sample". She mentioned nothing about the countries of origin in the international sample (for all we know, it could be 100% European).

And when you call it "international sample" without specifying the countries of origin, the only reasonable explanation is that you used internet surveys where you didn't screen for the country of origin (probably because you wanted to maintain participant anonymity and simplify the ethical approval process).

And of course, internet surveys skew heavily Western in general, either purely statistically based on the amount of Western internet users or culturally through Western imperialism.

And of course, there is virtually zero internet in pre-modern tribes, almost certainly zero people surfing on their free time while randomly running into a survey on Western psychology. She could in principle (I re-iterate: in principle) have targeted such people through stratified sampling, but then it would be natural to mention at least something about that.

So no, in no reasonable scenario were pre-modern tribal people included in the sample, and that is my request 😀

 

3 hours ago, Davino said:

The only theory which has proven to be universal is Erikson and is quite rudimentary.

I doubt that claim. Source?

 

3 hours ago, Davino said:

In what ways you found the EDT to be limiting because of being a western model?

It places a stereotypic, historically contigent, Western cultural phenomenon on top of the model: New Age spirituality.

 

3 hours ago, Davino said:

Given that you are probably western isn't it useful to learn how your psyche will probably develop?

Yes, and I want to know how it develops independently of stereotypic, historically contigent cultural influences. Is my ego somehow less developed if I don't watch YouTube videos of Mooji and Eckhart Tolle?

 

3 hours ago, Davino said:

It's only 90 pages long the whole paper, so you can read it in a few weeks and report back.

Feel free to read the part about the samples. Maybe I missed something 😗

Edited November 22 by Carl-Richard

[Davino]

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

That's exactly my point 😂. It's a Western-centric model.

If you're interested, I have looked at her samples, and based on the information provided, you can deduce with virtually full certainty that none of the samples included people from pre-modern societies.

She had UK and US samples and one "international sample". She mentioned nothing about the countries of origin in the international sample (for all we know, it could be 100% European).

And when you call it "international sample" without specifying the countries of origin, the only reasonable explanation is that you used internet surveys where you didn't screen for the country of origin (probably because you wanted to maintain participant anonymity and simplify the ethical approval process).

And of course, internet surveys skew heavily Western in general, either purely statistically based on the amount of Western internet users or culturally through Western imperialism.

And of course, there is virtually zero internet in pre-modern tribes, almost certainly zero people surfing on their free time while randomly running into a survey on Western psychology. She could in principle (I re-iterate: in principle) have targeted such people through stratified sampling, but then it would be natural to mention at least something about that.

So no, in no reasonable scenario were pre-modern tribal people included in the sample, and that is my request 😀

Well, that's not a point that is called the scope of a scientific study and it's always stated at the beginning of all papers. So your request is to have a study with broder scope, well maybe mine also, but when you study a model it has specific limits and constrictions which are properly stated. It's like you are surprised the food is western when you are going to a western restaurant, you expect an exotic indian dish or a buffet of all cuisines, well that requires another type of funding and research.

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I doubt that claim. Source?

Ken Wilber in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (Second Edition where he answers doubts as the ones you presented here).

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Wilber used in his theory specific developmental maps like Erikson (psychosocial), Piaget (cognition), Kohlberg (moral), Graves (values), Maslow (needs) and others

Moreover I ask myself, if you doubt that any model can be universal but then critice when models are specific for a certain type of psyche or area, what is your point?

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

It places a stereotypic, historically contigent, Western cultural phenomenon on top of the model: New Age spirituality.

Really? I didn't get that vibe at all. I'll give it another check but I never cognised it remotely that way. Could you tell me where you have seen the bias in the study or something that really stood out so that I can avoid the mistake?

Moreover, I still don't see the problem of being a western model if we are westerners. That's even better, the scope and specificity helps us in this case. 

6 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

Feel free to read the part about the samples. Maybe I missed something 😗

This is what it says about samples:

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Most publications use my dissertation numbers (N=4510) too give a sense of the overall distribution of stages. It is the most diverse sample available so far. It includes priests and prisoners, accountants and artists, and subjects spanning ages 18-82 with the middle 35-65 being the most represented.

Quote

Susanne R. Cook-Greuter's work on Ego Development Theory (EDT) is grounded in over 4,500 Sentence Completion Tests (SCTs), amounting to more than 130,000 individual sentence completions. This sample size surpasses many studies in developmental psychology, demonstrating a robust empirical foundation. The SCT itself is a well-established psychological tool, used widely in research and clinical settings, which ensures methodological credibility.

Compared to other frameworks, such as Piaget's or Kohlberg's developmental theories, Cook-Greuter’s study excels in its extensive lifespan coverage, focus on language as a universal metric, and cultural adaptability. While Piaget tested fewer participants in controlled conditions, Cook-Greuter analyzed real-world, diverse samples, making her findings broadly applicable and relevant to different populations. The rigor and scope of her data make it one of the most substantial studies in the field of ego development.

I don't understand your demand for universality and if you actually understand how unrealistic and time/money costly it is. Moreover, in the end it could even offer you less value than the current EDT specific approach, done in expertise to your psyche type, the western.

Edited November 22 by Davino

[puporing]

This is extremely rudimentary even though it may seem "complex".

And you can conceptually understand the words but not really "grasp it" in your being..

Edited November 22 by puporing

[Leo Gura]

17 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

fly Cook-Greuter out to some island people or something and study them for the model.

They will be totally tribal and conformist.

Edited November 22 by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

It's like you are surprised the food is western when you are going to a western restaurant, you expect an exotic indian dish or a buffet of all cuisines, well that requires another type of funding and research.

It's more like looking around at the selection of restaurants in the area and expressing exasperation at what you find.

Or even better, you travel from town to town and you find that all the restaurants are essentially the same, like McDonalds: seductive on the graphic, consistent in delivery, actually decently tasty, but leaves you with a weird taste in your mouth and maybe a stomach ache. And as a consequence, you become a bit skeptical of McDonalds.

It's not an overstatement: all famous linear, sequential developmental psychological theories have significant Western bias, both empirical and theoretical. What I'm most concerned about is the empirical aspect, and it's possible to work towards reasonably rectifying that.

It will never be completely rectified, but no science is perfect. There is no absolute universality, no absolute statistical significance, causal explanation, etc. But there is still a reasonable level you can try to aim at, and it's at least above zero (which is basically the current norm in developmental psychology). A couple of cross-cultural samples that also controls for assumptions like modernity is a step in that direction.

 

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

Ken Wilber in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution (Second Edition where he answers doubts as the ones you presented here).

Some point out it has individualistic assumptions that doesn't translate well to collectivist cultures (e.g. Africa, Asia) and that it applies more to "American men" than other people. What does Wilber say about that?

 

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

if you doubt that any model can be universal

Again, what I doubt is that current models are other than Western, and I think you can make reasonable steps towards rectifying that.

 

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

but then critice when models are specific for a certain type of psyche or area

Well, for one, those things are made more explicit. It's in the name ("psychosocial", "ego development", etc.). But EDT is not for example called "Western Ego Development Theory". It's called "Ego Development Theory". So again, when looking at the name and the neat graphics, it has a facade (surface appearance) of universality. And when you suggest that it essentially doesn't matter that it's not actually universal, you subtly fuel that facade.

 

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

Really? I didn't get that vibe at all. I'll give it another check but I never cognised it remotely that way. Could you tell me where you have seen the bias in the study or something that really stood out so that I can avoid the mistake?

This is a general phenomena that I believe happens when you survey Westerners about their "development" (particularly when not strongly distinguishing it from their "values"):

On the almost top of the model, you will generally have Western, highly educated, rich people and their multiplistic, self-aware systems view of reality (the "intellectual elite"). And on top of those, you will have the ones who re-discover "spirituality" within that context (so-called "Unitive"), which is virtually always New Age.

And in a sense, it is a logically "next step" in that context: people feel a bit better about themselves (stepping out from the spiritual black hole of modernity); people become more "open", "expansive", "flexible", "nuanced"; they get access to a "new" dimension of life (mysticism, "union with God"); etc. So this logically seems to place them higher.

But of course, a step into spirituality can happen at any level of "true" ego development (which history proves and which e.g. Wilber has pointed out). Therefore, if you in your sample also control for cultures where spirituality has been shown to be stepped into at lower stages, then you can expect to conclude in your construction of the model that it's not a next step of "ego development" but rather something else (which Wilber identifies as "Waking up" as contrasted to "Growing up").

All in all, with a more culturally diverse sample, you would expect to shave off (at least) the top of the model and place it somewhere else (e.g. in its own developmental line).

 

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

Moreover, I still don't see the problem of being a western model if we are westerners.

@Sandhu is not a Westerner (strictly speaking). We have many non-Westerners on the forum (again, cultural imperialism makes this more difficult, and us Zoomer internet kids are essentially all cross-cultural kids). Cross-cultural development (emphasis on cross) is also a whole other can of worms.

 

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

That's even better, the scope and specificity helps us in this case.

It makes it specific in a sense, but it also makes it incoherent in a sense or at least unelegant. Namely, is it an "ego development model" or is it a "cultural development model"?

Just look at what I described earlier: the model presents a cultural aesthetic that has been suppressed for cultural reasons at lower stages and which sometimes boils to the surface for other cultural reasons at higher stages, as the actual "progression of the psyche", rather than what it is: a cultural artefact.

Also, because it's assumed to be an "ego developmental model" and not a cultural one, these cultural dynamics are not systematically accounted for. They are indeed only mentioned as a caveat about the limitations of the model and then brushed under the rug (something which Hanzi Freinacht has helped to address).

And in this way, ironically, the model is quite Orange in its approach. Orange models routinely fail to systematically account for connections between seemingly disparate domains (and suffer accordingly).

And you can expect to get such cultural conflation problems with all the stages, not just the higher stages (like with the earlier mentioned individualistic and male bias).

 

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

I don't understand your demand for universality and if you actually understand how unrealistic and time/money costly it is.

Again, absolute universality is practically impossible, but my demand is at least some attempt at diversity, which aims at universality. It's possible to do it better than what is currently the norm (which again, is essentially zero).

And it is extremely costly, but that is the story of science. Pushing the science requires pushing the boundaries, be it on a purely practical resource level or theoretically. Maybe AI can help us with that in the future.

 

On 22.11.2024 at 9:58 AM, Davino said:

Moreover, in the end it could even offer you less value than the current EDT specific approach, done in expertise to your psyche type, the western.

It could also inform us about what human development is rather than what happens in white collar suites where people happened to drop acid once and started taking more seriously the hippie magazine they just walked past.

Edited November 23 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

They will be totally tribal and conformist.

But will some of them also be "Unitive" and "Ego-Transcendent"? 🤔

If you study these people from birth and into adulthood, you will likely find a distinctive developmental course, probably with some similarities to Western models, but maybe also some differences. But we won't know that before somebody actually does the study  

Edited November 22 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

19 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

But will some of them also be "Unitive" and "Ego-Transcendent"? 🤔

Fuck no!

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Fuck no!

Not even some of the shamans? 🤔

[Leo Gura]

4 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

Not even some of the shamans? 🤔

They can have mystical experiences, and even some awakening, but that is not the same as cognitive development.

Don't you know how corrupt these shamans are? Theft, rape, abuse, racism, sexism, genocide.

Edited November 22 by Leo Gura

[zurew]

13 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

They can have mystical experiences, and even some awakening, but that is not the same as cognitive development.

Don't you know how corrupt these shamans are? Theft, rape, abuse, racism, sexism, genocide.

Do you take cognitive development to necessarily entail some kind of moral development?

Cant you imagine a 200 IQ  systems-thinker, who is a complete psychopath and completely selfish?

Edited November 22 by zurew

[Leo Gura]

21 minutes ago, zurew said:

Do you take cognitive development to necessarily entail some kind of moral development?

There is some loose correlation but it is nothing guaranteed.

Quote

Cant you imagine a 200 IQ  systems-thinker, who is a complete psychopath and completely selfish?

Yes, rare cases of that could happen. But generally speaking that's not a trend.

These models are looking at general trends, not weird edge-cases and genetic freaks.

Psychopathy is a neurological disorder.

Edited November 22 by Leo Gura

[Carl-Richard]

46 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

They can have mystical experiences, and even some awakening, but that is not the same as cognitive development.

Don't you know how corrupt these shamans are? Theft, rape, abuse, racism, sexism, genocide.

I'm simply not convinced that Unitive or Ego-Transcendent in its essence describes anything else than mysticism or awakening; whatever word you want to put on it. Maybe the only significant difference would be that you are also cognitively complex and are able to describe your mysticism in a "complex way" (and are also unlikely to steal, rape, abuse, etc.) rather than what the state of consciousness implies in itself. Which is again, the white collar, intellectual elite spirituality.

Edited November 22 by Carl-Richard

[Leo Gura]

19 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

I'm simply not convinced that Unitive or Ego-Transcendent in its essence describes anything else than mysticism or awakening;

No, it describes cognitive complexity, which is way beyond a mere unitive experience. Be careful not to conflate these things.

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Maybe the only significant difference would be that you are also cognitively complex

That's a huge difference.

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and are able to describe your mysticism in a "complex way"

It's way more than just descriptions. It's a totally different kind of mind.

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Which again, is the white collar, intellectual elite spirituality.

Haha, now you sound like one of those lunatic post-modernists who say that objectivity and truth are white male values.

No. It's not about white collar elitism. Construct-awareness is as serious as this work gets, and no one has it.

Having mystical or unitive experiences does not give you mastery over the mind.

Just distinguish awakening from development. These are not the same thing. I thought we made this point clear long ago. Why are you still lumping these things together?

Edited November 22 by Leo Gura

[zurew]

@Leo Gura I know this is a complex question, but given that we have these two variables (one is spiritual development the other is cognitive development) and lets say for the sake of simplicity that these variables can only take on two values (low or high).

I wont define what I personally mean by spiritual development and cognitive development - use your personal definition for them ( you don't need to spell out your definitions , its more than enough if you can engage with the model)

We can create a small model like this:

Person 1) low spiritual development - low cognitive development

Person 2) low spiritual development - high cognitive development

Person 3) high spiritual development - low cognitive development

Person 4) high spiritual development - high cognitive development

 

Can you describe the differences between each person? Like what would be the difference between person 3 and person 4?

Your answer doesn't need to be extremely precise and extensive , I just want to get a general picture of how you use these concepts. 

Edited November 22 by zurew