How do we test Spiral Dynamics?

[Scholar]

How do we verify whether Spiral Dynamics is an accurate model? Did anyone here look at the actual research done by don beck and clare graves?

 

It seems to me that it is hard to make the case that SD is a scientific model.

[Rilles]

How scientific does it have to be? Its a psychological model, no model is 100% true, but its a good model. Have you read the book?

Edited July 15, 2020 by Rilles

[Boethius]

@Scholar First of all, I think we need to keep in mind that SD is a model of human beings rather than physical objects. That is going to change the standards for "scientific accuracy". Second of all, there are many other models for the development of human beings, with theorists including Robert Kegan, Lawrence Kohlberg, Jane Loevinger, James Fowler, Jean Piaget, etc. So yours isn't a question that has a simple answer...

[Rilles]

5 minutes ago, Boethius said:

@Scholar First of all, I think we need to keep in mind that SD is a model of human beings rather than physical objects. That is going to change the standards for "scientific accuracy". Second of all, there are many other models for the development of human beings, with theorists including Robert Kegan, Lawrence Kohlberg, Jane Loevinger, James Fowler, Jean Piaget, etc. So yours isn't a question that has a simple answer...

Yep, and humans are complex creatures with multi-faceted personalities. SD is good at seeing basic level values but it obviously wont tell you everything about a person or a society. 

[Scholar]

Well when I try to make the case for SD to people who are scientifically literate, they seem to object to pretty much all of it. No peer reviews, Don Beck being a little bit dubious and the way some of the studies were designed were also not very robust.

In the end I can only appeal to intuition and how in practice this model seems to match well what I see happening in the world. But this could just be bias, so it is very unconvincing. All of the spiritual concepts that have been attached to SD seem to also make it more difficult for people to embrace.

 

SD is and the research of Clare Graves is not really accepted by academia, and saying that it is because Graves died before he could publish it doesn't make a good case for it either. If Graves research wasn't publish, how do we know it was valid? Was it peer reviewed? Were the results reproduced indepentendly? Etc. etc.

[Rilles]

7 minutes ago, Scholar said:

Well when I try to make the case for SD to people who are scientifically literate, they seem to object to pretty much all of it.

What kind of scientists? They do tend to rely pretty heavily on mainstream ideas of what is "correct" science...

No peer reviews, Don Beck being a little bit dubious and the way some of the studies were designed were also not very robust.

How is he dubious? 

In the end I can only appeal to intuition and how in practice this model seems to match well what I see happening in the world. But this could just be bias, so it is very unconvincing. All of the spiritual concepts that have been attached to SD seem to also make it more difficult for people to embrace.

The most important thing is if its helpful for you, no? 

SD is and the research of Clare Graves is not really accepted by academia, and saying that it is because Graves died before he could publish it doesn't make a good case for it either. If Graves research wasn't publish, how do we know it was valid? Was it peer reviewed? Were the results reproduced indepentendly? Etc. etc.

Those are good questions, will dive into that. 

 

[Boethius]

@Scholar What do you mean by "scientifically literate"? Are we talking about physics, chemistry, biology, math or are we talking psychology, sociology, philosophy? And are we talking about academics or laypeople?

As I mentioned, Robert Kegan is a developmental psychologist who came up with his own five part scheme for human growth, he is an advocate of the SD model himself, and I believe he is the chair of a psychological department at Harvard University. So it's not true that developmental psychology in itself is not peer-reviewed, though that is more likely to be true of SD than of other developmental models given that Clare Graves died before his work could be published.

[TrustTheProcess]

@Scholar https://www.clarewgraves.com/articles_content/1974_Futurist/1974_Futurist.html

 

[Artsu]

Look at the universal metamodel. There are like 10 different systems all saying a similar thing. That should count for something.

[Scholar]

1 hour ago, Artsu said:

Look at the universal metamodel. There are like 10 different systems all saying a similar thing. That should count for something.

What do you mean my universal metamodel? What Wilber is referring to in his books?

Edited July 15, 2020 by Scholar

[Artsu]

9 minutes ago, Scholar said:

What do you mean my universal metamodel? What Wilber is referring to in his books?

https://medium.com/@info_5244/development-frameworks-viewpoints-of-a-universal-metamodel-a13043d26f19

That. There are other variants I know of that aren't listed.

There are several systems with a lot of overlap that look at stages of human development. SD might have some errors but the general idea comes up so much that I'm sure there must be a lot of truth to it.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Artsu

[Forestluv]

One thing Graves did was to ask incoming freshman students to write an essay on “What is a mature individual?”. (Some examples are available on line). These essays revealed the worldviews of students and Graves categorized them according to the color hierarchy of his model. He also used the essays to create his model. My understanding is that he followed up with the students evolution for years and that students evolved up the spiral, yet not down the spiral. In the field of psychological science, this would be considered empirical data. Even though there is some qualitative aspects in categorizing grey areas, it still has an “objective” quality since Graves gave specific characteristics of each stage. As well, many fields of science have a mix of semi-quantitative, semi-qualitative mixes while scoring. 

For example, one student entering college might write “A mature individual is someone that obeys the rules of god and serves god. Someone that understands a person chooses to live a moral life or chooses to live an immoral life”. . . Five years later, the same student may respond “A mature individual is a person who is true to themself. They set goals for themself and strive for personal achievement without harming anyone else”. This would be a clear example of evolution up the spiral from blue to orange. Now imagine having a sample size of 1,000 people in which 68% of people evolved up the spiral, 30% of people were stagnant and only 2% of people de-evolved down the spiral. This would be empirical evidence supporting the SD model. Yet I don’t know the details of Grave’s studies, such as the specific sample size and experimental design. 

[Boethius]

It might be worth noting that theories of childhood development (like Piaget's) are pretty much uncontroversial. It is theories of adult development that generate more controversy and doubt.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Boethius

[Scholar]

44 minutes ago, Forestluv said:

One thing Graves did was to ask incoming freshman students to write an essay on “What is a mature individual?”. (Some examples are available on line). These essays revealed the worldviews of students and Graves categorized them according to the color hierarchy of his model. He also used the essays to create his model. My understanding is that he followed up with the students evolution for years and that students evolved up the spiral, yet not down the spiral. In the field of psychological science, this would be considered empirical data. Even though there is some qualitative aspects in categorizing grey areas, it still has an “objective” quality since Graves gave specific characteristics of each stage. As well, many fields of science have a mix of semi-quantitative, semi-qualitative mixes while scoring. 

For example, one student entering college might write “A mature individual is someone that obeys the rules of god and serves god. Someone that understands a person chooses to live a moral life or chooses to live an immoral life”. . . Five years later, the same student may respond “A mature individual is a person who is true to themself. They set goals for themself and strive for personal achievement without harming anyone else”. This would be a clear example of evolution up the spiral from blue to orange. Now imagine having a sample size of 1,000 people in which 68% of people evolved up the spiral, 30% of people were stagnant and only 2% of people de-evolved down the spiral. This would be empirical evidence supporting the SD model. Yet I don’t know the details of Grave’s studies, such as the specific sample size and experimental design. 

But none of it seems to have been independently replicated, so how can we call it scientific? It seems to be even hard to prove that the research was done at all, and that it had true predictive power. From what I was told, as long as these criteria are not met, this cannot be considered positive science. It seems like these criteria are hard to meet for the field of psychology in general. It was argued that this kind of model wouldn't be consider science, but rather something more akin to the humanities, history and so forth because it cannot fullfill the requirements of science.

 

2 hours ago, Boethius said:

@Scholar What do you mean by "scientifically literate"? Are we talking about physics, chemistry, biology, math or are we talking psychology, sociology, philosophy? And are we talking about academics or laypeople?

As I mentioned, Robert Kegan is a developmental psychologist who came up with his own five part scheme for human growth, he is an advocate of the SD model himself, and I believe he is the chair of a psychological department at Harvard University. So it's not true that developmental psychology in itself is not peer-reviewed, though that is more likely to be true of SD than of other developmental models given that Clare Graves died before his work could be published.

Philosophers who love philosophy of science.

 

 

The problem I have is that I basically cannot rationally justify using SD other than that it seems to work really well and that it matches my intuitions. It would be useful if I could justify it rationally because then I could convince people to adopt it. For that it doesn't have to be scientific, but atleast we have to provide evidence that it has indeed predictive power.

[Artsu]

@Scholar if it matches your intuition, but you lack empirical data, and you want to convince others, try to guide their intuition so that they see what you see.

[Leo Gura]

You test it by applying it in your life.

Of course stages Blue, Orange, and Green will tend to reject SD because they all think they got reality figured out and that they are on top.

Good luck convincing Richard Dawkins that he is stuck at Orange with his bullshit materialist logic.

And good luck convincing a Marxist like Vaush that there is something beyond Marxism.

[Jacob Morres]

well 

do note that science is still new on many topics 

like there was little scientific rigor on many things that are now "scientifically sound" before it was brought to the mainstream scientific consensus  

meditation, wim hof method, field of nutrition, acupuncture, the paranormal and psychedelics being some examples

enlightenment and existential truths are extremely misunderstood by science and isn't anywhere close to that scientific rigor 

 

that being said - i've also thought the same and have had similar thoughts about spiral dynamic's validity 

but since i am passionate about the topic i am interested in testing it on my life and in the world eventually

but should we take the models that science gives us as scientifically sound on pure blind faith? we would still need to find the limits of such models and its place in the overall structure of the psyche. otherwise we won't know - and it will be blind faith. which is fine i guess but it has its limits to growth and your potential 

 

but also - 

there are many models within science that have met scientific rigor but are poor/poorly used. 

over prescription of pharmaceutical drugs, CBT being the gold standard cure being 2 examples 

 

this is a super good question i would love to hear your thoughts - i do resonate with your question though because i don't want to go around blindly believing the model but i think it should/would go either way, science or not? how can i know for sure the quality of a model that is given to me by science? the mainstream science is not interested in self-actualization as of yet

i do think you are being influenced by your friends who do have a certain perspective of science... as do I

science is all about faith. faith in the system, in the scientists that conduct the system, in the scientists that peer review things, in the people who say what's good/bad, right/wrong, faith in the scientific consensus 

Edited July 16, 2020 by Jacob Morres

[Preety_India]

To me Spiral Dynamics makes a lot of practical sense. 

It's kinda time tested. 

You see people and societies gradually moving up and down the spiral but you can clearly see that the traits of a society at a particular stage match many of the features of spiral. 

So it kinda makes a lot of sense. 

 

[Forestluv]

2 hours ago, Scholar said:

But none of it seems to have been independently replicated, so how can we call it scientific? 

Independent replication is a feature, not a requirement, of a scientific study. I’ve published plenty of scientific papers that have not been independently replicated. It doesn’t need to be independently replicated to be science. The important thing in science is it can be independently replicated. I wrote clear instructions in the Materials and Methods about how to do the experiments. Researchers can independently conduct the experiments if they like. If they the same results are replicated, that strengthens the data. Yet it is not a requirement to be science.

In the context of Graves, it is super easy to independently do his study. We can ask 1,000 freshman students to write and essay on “What is a mature individual”. And ask them to write another essay for the same question every four years. Then we can map their progress and see if it matches Graves’ results and empirically supports the SD model.

[Jacob Morres]

@Forestluv where can I find materials and methods thing you're talking about? For running experiments