Critiques of Developmental Stage Theories like Spiral Dynamics

[Matt23]

These critiques come from Bonnitta Roy who's been a leading thinker in these spaces for decades now.  

I'm going to try and rehash what I got from her but in my own words, so I could leave some points out or get them wrong.  

 

Defining Values

• First, the true test of a person's values comes from their behaviors and choices, especially when faced with difficult decisions.  A person's values don't come from reasoning, feeling, or thinking about them in some abstract way.  Sure, you may think and feel that you truly value nature and that you believe in human-caused climate change.  But do you wake up every morning and try to solve this problem?  If you truly valued and believed these things you would.  You would be trying to find a job that is better for the environment.  You'd stop buying food in plastic packaging.  You only buy food from within 100 miles of your home.  But if you still drive a car instead of taking the bus, if you still buy exotic foods from around the world, if you still leave the lights on in rooms you're not in, if you rarely spend time in nature, if you aren't trying wholeheartedly to change your lifestyle to be more in nature, you don't really believe climate change is real or value nature.  

Associating Certain Values (i.e. value-memes) With Certain Developmental Stages

• One of her main issues is that developmental stage theories (DST), like Spiral Dynamics, lead people to believe that you need to have certain values in order to progress to the next "higher" set of values, and that this is a universal and linear process inherent to all human psychologies.  She claims that this is a fallacy.  

Where Do Values Come From?

• If values development doesn't come from an inherent psychological process, where does it come from?
• The Body
  • A person's values are significantly influenced by the stage of life of the person's body.  Bonnitta cites the work of Ezekiel Di Paolo who outlines several stages the body goes through (sensorimotor, linguistic, hormonal, reflexive).  Bonnitta thinks that teachers of DST have significantly, if now outright, ignored the influence of the body on people's values.  
  • For example, the body of a hormonally charged 16 year old will influence what they value very differently than how the body of a reflexive 60 year old will influence their values.  When people get older they start to experience more aches and pains.  People then pay more attention to their bodies since, well, they hurt.  This increased bodily noticing has a cognitive correlate which makes them more reflexive in general.  Thus, changing their values in ways that are drastically different from how a teen full of sex and growth hormones values things.
• The Social Pipeline
  • Bonny also considers "social pipeline" to be a huge influence on people's values.  One which, again, is significantly left out of DST discourse.  This one is pretty self-evident: the social milieu one grows up in determines and influences the values one has and aspires to (i.e. the Spiral progression).  The values associated with each level of the Spiral (and thus, which ones are, if only implicitly, deemed "higher" or "better") are reflections of one culture's value set.  If you grew up in an indigenous tribe in 13th century Indonesia, the values associated with each level of development could look very different.  
• Life Experience and Context
  • A person's life experiences and context also contribute significantly to the values one holds.  

Scientifically Agreed Upon Developmental Stages

• The developmental stages that psychology and science do agree exist are...:  preconventional---conventional---postconventional.

Confusing Value-Memes with Developmental Stages

• If you grew up in rural India and were surrounded by "Blue" values, but then went on to become a doctor and adopted more "Orange"  and then "Green" values, you'd be displaying postconventional developmental.  But if you grew up in a Scandinavian country already surrounded by "Green" values and stayed there, you'd be CONVENTIONAL AT A GREEN VALUE-MEME LEVEL.  
• The problem with modern cultures is that there are so many co-existing value-meme "attractors" and subcultures that 3 siblings can live together each with a different value-meme set yet each is still at a conventional level of development since they've simply adopted and conformed to the values of their peers and in-groups.  

The "Language Instinct"

• People have a very good language instinct which they can use (consciously or unconsciously) to make them seem like they hold certain values and to "fit in".  They can, and have, used this to "hack" the sentence completion tests used in DST to determine a person's level of development.  Bonny says some more intellectually gifted people have even admitted to doing so consciously. 

Development Still Occurs, It's Simply Trivial

• Bonny isn't saying that development, even psycho-cognitive development, doesn't occur.  People still need to be 2ft tall in order to be 5ft tall.  You still need to understand abstractions before understanding systems of abstractions.  You still have to be able to do basic arithmetic before doing algebra or calculus.  You still have to be able to stand up before you can walk.  But these are rather obvious and trivial insights.  
• In terms of cognitive and reasoning development, this also occurs.  But, when people are able to figure out how to "hack" the language instinct and use it to seem more "green" or "turquoise", what they are actually doing is going meta on certain values and ideas and then coming up with more complex reasonings.  So, Bonnitta agrees that their reasoning abilities are developing, but that this is not the same as "developing certain values in a linear progression".  

DST Reflecting A Devaluation of Right Action

• For Bonny, DST theories are more a reflection of a devaluation of right action.  She claims that when people are unable to make the correct moral and ethical decisions in their lives, they simply bump the problem up a level in complexity and call that development.  But really, they're just avoiding making the right decisions. 

"Higher" Values

• Bonny asks "Are Industrial societies made up of "schooled" individuals who destroy the environment really more preferable to people from a small rural village who never pass beyond the conventional level of development, yet who are intimately tied and appreciative of nature and never take more than they need?"  We may say the schooled intellectuals from the West are "higher" up the values-stack... but which group of people really embodies the values of living interdependently with all the other beings and forces of nature and act in accordance with those forces and laws?  To act ecologically?  
• She asks us to have more choice around the values we espouse and fit them in pragmatic accordance with what our context requires.  As opposed to viewing them in a rigid hierarchy of universal values that cannot be change and which are viewed, even if the teachers say they aren't, as better and worse than other values.  
• DST teachers are not inclined to delve into such questions since a) they are paid to teach these models (so why hurt your business), and b) whoever studies these models feels more superior (so why let that go?).  

The True Test Of A Person's Values

• As mentioned before, behaviors are a core indicator.  Another way to realign with your actual values is to make the distinction between "social drivers" (a "push" mechanism from society that makes you feel you can't do anything but that thing) and "actual values" (a "pull" mechanism which comes from the values you actually aspire to).  
• Social Drivers
  • How much are your behaviors "pushed" by societal pressures? 
• Actual Values
  • How much are your behaviors "pulled" by your actual aspirational values?

 

 

[Leo Gura]

Yes, these are good points.

[mmKay]

Thank you for posting this. Just the first point is already worth contemplating for months

[Girzo]

8 hours ago, Matt23 said:

Bonny asks "Are Industrial societies made up of "schooled" individuals who destroy the environment really more preferable to people from a small rural village who never pass beyond the conventional level of development, yet who are intimately tied and appreciative of nature and never take more than they need?"  We may say the schooled intellectuals from the West are "higher" up the values-stack... but which group of people really embodies the values of living interdependently with all the other beings and forces of nature and act in accordance with those forces and laws?  To act ecologically

This is a very bad point. I wouldn’t want to live in rural Tibet even 100 years ago, where I could have gotten easily robbed or raped. Simple rural people burn forests to create a little bit of farmland. That and there are many other problems with this point.

[Leo Gura]

Purple people are not really ecological. It just seems that way because they haven't industrialized yet. And eventually everyone either industrializes or dies out.

Industrialization is not a choice mankind makes. It must happen.

So yes, that is an ignorant point.

Edited Monday at 08:15 AM by Leo Gura

[Nivsch]

13 hours ago, Matt23 said:

The problem with modern cultures is that there are so many co-existing value-meme "attractors" and subcultures that 3 siblings can live together each with a different value-meme set yet each is still at a conventional level of development since they've simply adopted and conformed to the values of their peers and in-groups. 

Many North Europeen are still Blue to Orange stracturally (with green content) when the true Green ones are those who challenge the conventional norms even there and behave uniquely for example strict Vegans, those who are experienced with natural health or natural medicine, 801010 nutrition etc. 

Because what determine the stage is how neurologically advanced you are not the content you believe in. This is a good measure because it cross races, genders, cultures, societies and really give each person an opportunity to be advanced regardless of his surroundings.

Edited Monday at 11:07 AM by Nivsch

[Tudo]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Purple people are not really ecological. It just seems that way because they haven't industrialized yet. And eventually everyone either industrializes or dies out.

Industrialization is not a choice mankind makes. It must happen.

So yes, that is an ignorant point.

Yes, you are right. Here in Brazil, almost everyone who lives close to the Amazon forest knows cases of indigenous people who are cruel to animals for example. They just don’t care, they do what is necessary to survive.

Edited Monday at 12:06 PM by Tudo

[carterfelder]

3 hours ago, Tudo said:

Yes, you are right. Here in Brazil, almost everyone who lives close to the Amazon forest knows cases of indigenous people who are cruel to animals for example. They just don’t care, they do what is necessary to survive.

What constitutes cruelty? Because I think buying any animal product at the store is being just as complicit in it.

Edited Monday at 03:31 PM by carterfelder

[Matt23]

11 hours ago, Nivsch said:

Many North Europeen are still Blue to Orange stracturally (with green content)

I was just using the "Green Scandinavian" archetype as an illustrative example.  Not saying this is true.