Spiral Dynamics Test - where can you find them ?

[ValiantSalvatore]

Hey!

I just wanted to ask if there is a valid test somewhere where you can see on which stage you are in Spiral Dynamics. I've been listening and reading more or less a lot or not about Ken Wilbers theory and spiral dynamics. I found some research about the validity of Jane Loveingers Ego Development test which is accepted by scientists, yet the test apparently needs a revision. There are a couple of papers about this topic. Yet, I do not have the knowledge or know-how to understand everything in there. 

 

Ken Wilbers tends to say in his audiobooks that you can find some test online and take it, first of all I only find german sites and they tend to push your results. So, I would be turquoise, integral and green. When I take a test which was in Don Becks Audiobook Spiral Dynamics to find out which stage you are at I scored differently. So, where can I find a good or somehow valid test ? Or how can I check out which stage I am at when I go through live and reflect about the stuff I heard and read I am affraid of an orange capitalist society which is status based and does everything to ensure it's status quo, abusing the efficiency of people for their own benefits while it does benefit others to a degree. I tend to think about which stages my professors are at and if that makes sense what I am reading about spiral dynamics / wilbers theory or justifies their behaviour. When I look at a healthy orange, and if Ken Wilbers theory is somehow valid/true/useful/partially true or w/e then it would play out like this. Since green is the dominant value structure every stage tends to adopt these values in their structure. So, an orange person would interpret green values through an orange pair of glasses and therefore filter it through an orange perspective. So, multi-culturism is accepted empathy and compassion is valued and opinions of other people and viewpoints are respected / accepted and tolerated. 

 

To give an example with blue.. as long as people adopt the rules that are present in their country they "can" be regarded as one group, although this does not entirely work imo. 

 

So, I want to give a personal example since I can't find any tests which seem good/valid, I worked in a post-production company in London which is a financial city and worked there near Soho ( where most banks are ? (orange move)) and worked there 10 m away from the Tower Bridge. The post-production company was very orange success and achievment driven, equality was based on the fact that women have the same capacity to be as succesful as men and people where treated fairly. ( not like green where gender roles and ideas are perceived as a social construct). My boss seemed to be or have some integral tendencies, this guy liked chaos was super unassuming, enjoyed Allan Watts and was not the slightest authoritative, only to the degree where it was neccesary and really enjoyed listening to perspectives while not listening to them since he has to and this is culturally accepted now. He just seemed to be in a constant flow. Yet, he was also quite materalistic since this was the film industry, so he had to adjust his behaviour to other people who seemed to only care about their status and success and making some business deals which benefit them and he was quite good at it and also still quite young. So, I can't tell if this guy was orange or integral. Yet, walking through the city and doing some small errands since it was a classic shitty internship. I could see how money orientated and self-interested these people were they would do anything even use racism or sexism to advance their position, so reverting back to red or some other stage ( unconsciously?) only to gain an advantage over other people and ensure their success. When I meet orange people at Uni they seem similar as long as they have some blue tendencies pure orange is pleasant, yet the coldest most rational driven persona you can meet. 

Anyway where can I find a test ?? 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2018 by ValiantSalvatore

[Zega]

You can try this one

https://www.sdtest.ru/en/result.php?res=8455

You don't need to give your actual email if you don't want.

 

it tells you what % of each color you are-

mine said

13%purple

20%blue

13%orange 

6%green

26%yellow

20%turquoise 

(0% for the ones not mentioned)

 

 

no idea how accurate this is; I thought I would be a lot more green. I think the best way to know for sure where you are is to do more research on spiral dynamics, think of good examples of each color, and then decide for yourself where you fall. 

[ValiantSalvatore]

@Zega I took this test I don't think it is valid I choose things that I do not fully embody. Some personal examples of green / yellow or turquoise value emobdiment would be cool. When I read about it I feel quite integral and since I tried psychedelics I feel that I sometimes access turquoise "consciousness" where everything just makes sense without me trying to think in a systematic way or seeing the interplay of interactions and needing to conceptualize them in order to understand that everything is a integrated network. It just automatically makes sense why certain things happen and it is a deep "intuitive" knowledge you just know without needing to think. Some one else on the forum posted this link and I found sometime ago research about this WUSCT since I was tired of hearing wilber talking about research and I did not find it  . This test is scientifically valid ? As far from what I have read and I read through the papers, also that iq.. is correlated with higher levels of ego development and the WUSCT is based on Jane Loveingers Ego Development Theory. It was a 0.4 correlation with verbal intelligence and overall iq one of the two aspects had a higher correlation, I don't remember which one anyway. Here is most likely the best test for ego development for 1k . 

 

http://cook-greuter.com/SCTi-MAPForm.htm

[ValiantSalvatore]

Maybe it is somehow valid https://www.sdtest.ru/en/result.php?res=8455 and that is why wilber says take a test online yet I sometimes doubt that everyone is so highly developed. And that people want to make money of it as long as there is not an institute behind it I can imagine that it is somehow valueable or useful to take an online test

Here would be my results:

Red %6

Blue 13%

Orange 13%

Green 20%

Yellow 33%

Turquoise 13%

Although it feels that either green is sometimes very strong in me or yellow it is difficult for me to say that I am yellow since I do know many people who could be yellow besides 2-3 people that I know. One studies a.i the other one political sciencies/sociology and one is some random fker from my uni lol. So, I am looking forward to the mega threads of examples of the other stages.

Edited June 21, 2018 by ValiantSalvatore

[lmfao]

I'm not sure I fully agree with mine. Being yellow and turquoise is too self developed for what I really am. Took it from here https://www.sdtest.ru/en/result.php?res=8455 . 

Edited June 21, 2018 by lmfao

[ValiantSalvatore]

@lmfao I listened to an audiobook yesterday to just think about and refresh the knowledge that I have about integral theory. Meditation and learning about the theory can move you up two stages in 10 years on average if you are age range is between 25 and 50 on average, also development stops when you are 25 years old or somewhere around 26 or 27 and after that start peeking again around the ages 50 - 60. So, you can move up two stages in four years under the age of 25 or till 27 and he also mentioned someother things that move you through the stages like journaling, psychotherapy, and potentially psychedelics, although Wilber did not try them some of his friends tried it, some of them can move you up 0.5 stages, yet he mentioned nothing really about psychedelics, by his tone of voice though it sounded quite promising to him, since they let you access states of consciouness or some meditative states and these states help to develop through the stages and/or stabilize a stage. The audiobook is called cosmic consciouness from ken wilber, here is a pdf incase you are interested. This is pretty much a comprehensive overview of all the researches who make up the integral theory and it's subcomponents, like Don Beck' with Spiral Dynmaics and Jane lovingers ego development theory, I also found this which seems interesting and is also mentioned in the pdf. I did not read it yet. Still, psychdelics are no joke they can mess you up.

https://integralwithoutborders.net/sites/default/files/resources/Overview of Developmental Levels.pdf

http://www.cook-greuter.com/Cook-Greuter 9 levels paper new 1.1'14 97p[1].pdf

[lmfao]

@ValiantSalvatore woah looks like you've got the good stuff. I believe you when you say that meditation will accelerate your development. It's the only consciousness work I do. Psychedelics sound like fun as well. How would learning integral theory would move you up stages (which analogous to developing yourself)?Is integral theory theory related to spiral dynamics? I skimmed over the content in that first pdf you sent and it looks like a slight variation of the spiral dynamics model. IS that right? 

Edited June 22, 2018 by lmfao

[ValiantSalvatore]

@lmfao This is quite complicated, so I do not understand everything about integral theory not even remotely. The pdf is about self-identity and values mainly and they are described as an overview of development with the term consciousness which is used as loose term imo, to describe or categorize the stages there. You can read it in the second paragraph.

Yes, it is related to spiral dynamics in the sense the wilber incoperated it into his theory, spiral dynamics focuses on values, wilber on everything  .

I can speak from my personal perspective how integral theory helped me to develop, yet I will describe it or paraphrase wilber. It helps you in the sense that it move up stages since you have a map which gives you an overview of a territory. Without the map you would not be able to have an overview over the territory and find your destination let's say.

So, it is like language when you are a native speaker you can speak your native language, yet you do not see the structure of the language or in this case the map, adverbs, grammatical tenses, nouns, verbs etc. You just know how to use it since you are a native speaker, yet you are not aware of the structure behind it, first when you learn about it you can think about it's structure. In the same sense spiral dynamics or any model from this theory let's you introspect and see the structure which makes up different compartments of whatever reality is aka what you think about.., let's say. So, having a map, theory or model let's you see the system / development or structure behind the thing which you can not see through contemplating it. When I spin this analogy further even when you can find your way through the territory without a map, you still do not know how the big picture or the overview of the territory looks like. You can't get a total birds eye perspective. Even with a map, a map would simply be a tool to show you the birds eye perspective / the big picture of the territory or enviroment, that has been made. Learning about the map let's you see what you otherwise would only experience and there would not be the neccesary knowledge, literature, structure some shit written down that explains things in order to understand what is happening. 

Let's say you are highly developed in self-identity (Jane Loveinger) you know it since you can introspect , think or/and contemplate about your identity. Therefore, you are able to distinguish that you are somehow different than others, think differently, act differently etc. When you have a map, like typology or even some research at best behind it, you now have an overview. It is possible to read about different ways for example how humans interpret their reality, self, values, world . By reading about it you now have a map and now have a tool which can help you navigate through the jungle of human madness and relate to people better, find people who are thinking differently or to look out for contrarian viewpoints. You are able to develop since you have the know how and  the knowledge of where to go or what to potentially expect or where you are at fictitiously speaking.

A map is not the territory in the sense that when you walk through the woods the map does not walk through woods and is only an abstraction/generalization of how the territory looks like and you can use it as a tool while walking through the woods. In that sense it is never the territory. The finger pointing to the moon is not the moon is also a cool example for the same concept. Hope this useful in terms of why one could learn about a map or integral theory. Imo this has potential for growth, espcially when there is some research behind it, yet I can't prove it for it's validity  although I would like to.

 

 

 

[ChimpBrain]

I got 13% blue, 13% orange, 6% green, 33% yellow and 33% turquoise.  Unfortunately this isn't an honest assessment because I'm already aware of spiral dynamics and know to some degree what answers will land me a higher score.  I WANT to think these are my honest answers, but would they be if I hadn't watched Leo's videos and read Spiral Dynamics?  Probably not.  Then again, I guess it's possible that this material has changed the core "me" to some degree.  After all, one of the criteria for stage yellow is recognizing the other stages.

[Elisabeth]

I got 13% both blue and orange, 20% green, 33% yellow and 20% turquise. 

We have to keep in mind their levels are probably defined differently than how Leo teaches the levels. I've got the feeling that their "turquise" basically fits into Leo's green. They call it "global view" but it has nothing to do with transcending concepts as Leo suggests. Their "yellow" might be just an advanced orange - after all they call it "win-win" behavior. 

I'm sure I should have much more orange  

Edited June 22, 2018 by Elisabeth

[ValiantSalvatore]

@ChimpBrain Yeah, I had the same thought when I took the test that I WANT to think these are my honest answers somehow they are , but I do not live that way not at all. Even, though I try to think of how I could embody this, it is there and not. Although I would highly value people who act like this or if I can work with them yellow sounds awesome, since competency and knowledge are valued over status, rank and power and integrated into a hierachy, not like green where group sensitivity is valued and nobody wants to make a choice, till someone makes it and everyone finds something better later and implements it, then only to complain about how this and that is wrong now and how we can fix it. At least that was what I thought while working with green people.

Blue is horrible, they wait for a command and do not think about the other person till they open their mouth although they do care, green thinks about other people automatically regardless if the people who are present created a group first it just flows into a group or rather community when you work together and I feel you can be very creative at this stage more methaporical thinking and also political, I can express my feelings as a "man"/cisgender masculin w/e and not be laughed about instead I am respected or it is appreciated and you can have fun expressing a part of yourself, that is vulnerable, and not this orange kind of ohhh are you hurt? Then someone laughs at the expens of your feelings or your persona and makes fun of you, or just say it since it was the appropriate response to that situation, but internally they do not care. Imagine the passive-aggresive modern person working in the corporate world talking to you that makes fun of other people only to maintain their sense of self-esteem or status. Or a very secular person not seeing his own bias towards things, yet having a world centric perspective, seeing the injustices of religion, being xenophile and curious about other peoples cultures, yet mostly out of personal interest to learn something or to equip oneself with the status of being a culturally ( and I mean status -> I am better since I have been to xxx countries) educated. Although you can work on your ego this is what the typical modern person looks like without mentioning materalism. Still this is imo. 

 

@Elisabeth Orange and green are both world-centric perspectives / viewpoints / lenses they differ in the sense I think the best example ( I will get to global) I can give which I read in some article some time ago, since I am assuming you are interested in feminism etc. after talking about open relationships here. ( I take the blame for this assumption). Is that an orange viewpoint would regard feminism as the capacity to be as successful and have the same rights / opportunites as men while green is more aware of the social construct of gender roles, so they concept of how a certain gender is supposed to behave, can shape their identity based on the capacity of the individual to be aware of their own subjectivity and re-create the concept of gender or rather choose their way "gender" is defined. Yeah, it is a social construct / gender identity politics.

( I am being careful , of course men and women pls spare me for using these words are biologically different and most green people do not want to integrate that idea / perspective imo.. so the social interplay is different and people still complain about the differences at green between men and women..)  

Global perspective  / view (turquoise) is mostly meant in the way that you can see the interconnectedness of everything I would like to talk about a personal example and I will do that here (beaware) . Yet, it is biased since I took psycedelics and I thought about this whole integral theory and perspectives and everything just sort of makes sense at that stage, it is more of an awarness than a value structue for this example and my experience of what could be turquoise. It is global in the sense that you are and cherish every little tiny piece of existence that is there, animals, plants, insects, cells the ground it is valued in the sense that you are not it but feel it's existence. So, it would differ from enlightenment in the sense that you are not it refering to god, consciouness, universe, buddah w/e. But value existence and see it's magnificence. 
 

I wanted to highlight that global focuses on every aspect and experience within existence there is. While yellow would be aware of networks, systems and how the enviroment is destroyed / how goverments are managed / built and the interplay of it's single units which make up the system of goverment, and has a strong motiviation to self-actualize. I still do not understand both of these stages fully or at all.

Yellow can called an advanced  stage of orange since it focuses again on the individual instead of the group like blue and green(imo). You basically break out of the desire to feel accepted and valiated by a group or the "habit" of group sensitivty although you still can use it. But, it feels more autonomous and to a degree more like an autodidact. It feels like it is possible to exercise self-expression without exploiting others, so for example an orange win-win would exploit ressources in order to further develop or be valueable to the car-indusrty / nation. While yellow would figure out a system and express their non-exploitative way of thinking in it and orchestrate it in a way that nobody is going to get hurt. This is just my personal opinion after hearing audiobooks and reading some random stuff online + booptube.

This is quite interesting incase you want to know how self-idendity is built. The german article does not need revision from a psychologist, germans are weird. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loevinger's_stages_of_ego_development

 

Edited June 22, 2018 by ValiantSalvatore

[Elisabeth]

@ValiantSalvatore Thanks for elaborating. I mostly agree and I'm not offended at any assumptions you made

My only point was, I think the test has the scales somehow shifted, that's why we all get large percentages of turquise. I may be wrong.

[lmfao]

@ValiantSalvatore So I've just read your response in which you typed your thoughts on integral theory and the usefulness of it. I'm gonna talk a bit about metaphysics here, although it might be a useless/pointless thing. 

In order to make any truth claims about reality, we have to make assumptions, and paradoxically enough I cannot construct the messages in the sentences I'm typing without making assumptions. Truth is a tricky thing, and our understanding of truth is woven into all discussions we have about things, whether it is integral theory or any model we hold about reality.

I think that if any truth does exist, it is beyond conceptualization yet I'm trying to explain that truth is beyond conceptualization by using concepts. I think that if people want to understand reality as it is, they just need to meditate and pay attention to raw experience. You reach a state of being which cant be described with words. In this state, notions of the past and future vanquish. The unfathomable depth and breath to the contents of your consciousness are irreducible in what they fundamentally are. In this state you realize that all things, whether it is your thoughts or your actions or the sounds you hear or the behavior of other people, is all just a single happening. Thoughts in your consciousness are as much you as every other aspect of your consciousness. You don't know why reality exists, you know that it just is.

Now I only typed all of that so to explain that I think that if people want to develop themselves, the most important thing for them to do is do consciousness work. Integral theory sounds fun and interesting to me, and I agree with you that it is a cool tool. But I perhaps disagree with you partially here, since I think that "personal development" ("personal development" being analogous to becoming enlightened here) is not very much helped by using these models of reality. I think people should drop all models of reality and do consciousness work. 

[brugluiz]

I have done the test here and I don't I embodied Turquoise traits. I have some Yellow and Turquoise traits in my intelect, but I don't practice them. I have also a high percentage of blue. I'm wondering if it's because I selected some phrases about truth.

[ValiantSalvatore]

@lmfao When I understand correctly. In order to explain any sort of truth about reality, we have to make an assumption and form a concept about it and that it is impossible to do this without making any assumptions paradoxically. I can see what you mean with, that every truth that a person experiences is wovern into the fabric of someones speech, in terms of how one experiences reality, or explains /discusses smth.

I agree with you that I also "believe" that truth is beyond concepts and that we have to use concepts in order to understand what is happening or to point to something, even if that includes pointing to a truth that is beyond concepts. I do understand that "conceptionally", yet I do lack the meditative experience to be in such a state for longer periods of time. I see glimpses of it weekly and ocassionaly daily, where everything just is an interwoven mesh. Sights, sounds and your conceptualizing perception of things stop. Silence drops in and tranquility emerges. That state can't be described with words ? , yet possibly the emotional feeling of it, by using the concepts of language ? Everything turns into a simple happening since you are the witness and see the interplay and beauty of reality, without having a tarnished point of view. Your field of being able to witness sensory experience expands and what is there is irreducible. I don't know. That is  how it feels like for me when everything turns into a single happening or chaos beautifully untangles itself, till it is reverting back to it's status quo. There is peace regardles if there is order or chaos or both. It is not a knowing even though I know what you mean by knowing  imo. But, it just there. 

I disagree with you that the most important thing is personal development in terms of becoming enlightend, yet I also agree to the point that it is one of the most fundamentally intriguing things there is and that it is somehow above personal development. Just being (at best without concepts). Although I watched some videos about how enlightenment is not what people usually expect I can't talk from experience since I never had one really. Besides some weird meditation things, where I asked the teacher  aftwards what happend, and he just said you dropped very deep and was silent and that I lost consciousness because of going so deep. But, I know my ego could not take the depth of consciousness and I lost consciousness of myself, till my apprehensive ego just came back within seconds. I did not ask him what that was, since he was so silent I just did not want to say anything. And one psychedelic experience/trip.

I can understand that learning about integral theory takes time and I never really read the literatue(till now), just a couple of audiobooks about the practices and contemplated the overall map of development ( for a bit over 2 years) . Another member which is gone now ? Send me .. the superhuman course from ken wilber where he explains everything about the integral theory. But, I will just make this point and stop writing.

Imo, this is important since you can develop yourself, your values, identity and consciousness and even your sex life. And become a honorabel human being by your own standards without needing to boast about it, or that you become enlightend and do not care morally about your actions. I sometimes dislike the model, since it is sadly only a model / concept and not reailty and I just would like to meditate and become free. Also, I like it extremely and think it's cool that there is research behind some of the stuff, also that you have a map where you can see your value structure and therefore enables you to see what is possible, when you grow yourself further and what to expect when you reach a certain altitude, also it feels quite cool to reach new stages in terms of how you reality and perception of reality changes. I love green german people, the most big hearted fun crowd I meet so far. And trust me xenophobic blue looks different  /feels different / acts different. Also, the way how enlightenment is experienced is the same at any stage, yet the way you interpret it and most likely what you can make out of it changes, this is what I know from listening to Ken Wilber. You can just become enlightend at orange and simply do what ever the ultimate individual can do ( not a joke) and have fun and make money. Live a hedonistic lifestyle and enjoy the pleasures the world has to over to you, tons of food, girls / boys / trees/ cats exotic places and still not have the capacity ( according to this model) to be at green and enjoy the beauty of human relationships in terms of the compassion level. I can't tell what happens when you are enlightend and at blue with regards to how one would experience compassion, in comparisson to an green/orange world centric enlightenment.

I never meet enlightend blue people or an enlightend person in my life. So, this is a long written form of explaining reasons why integral theory is worth it, I'd like to add one thing that when you are at turquoise / yellow / blue / orange / green and you are enlightend these stages woud fluctuate and are never truly static, through out your day, would you be enlightend through and at all stages ? 

Edited June 25, 2018 by ValiantSalvatore

[SaaraSabina]

okey so what now then? This dosent change anything

[lmfao]

@SaaraSabina It's time to worship this enlightenmened being. Only a true sage could be 26% turquoise and 20% yellow. 

[ValiantSalvatore]

@SaaraSabina The question was if there is a good test for spiral dynamics somewhere on the net. All of them seem rubbish till now.

[Thomas Lansbergen]

I made this test.

https://www.flexiquiz.com/SC/N/2ed67260-b78a-4c20-b51d-5bed546b738a

[Codrina]

@Thomas Lansbergen what if I want to choose two or three answers?