Spiral Dynamics empirical flaw?

[Carl-Richard]

I know, I know, I haven't read the Spiral Dynamics book , but for the people who have, how exactly did Beck & Cowan address these points? (I know they did, but I can't find anything on it):

Quote

Graves's primary data set, which produced the CP-B'O' levels, consisted entirely of students taking his "Normal Psychology" course, raising concerns of sampling bias and lack of diverse life perspectives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graves's_emergent_cyclical_levels_of_existence#Criticism

 

This is not a critique of Graves in particular. Most empirical research in Western psychology has a "WEIRD" bias:

Quote

They found that people from Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) societies — who represent as much as 80 percent of study participants, but only 12 percent of the world's population — are not only unrepresentative of humans as a species, but on many measures they're outliers.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/05/weird

 

The extent of the problems caused by WEIRD bias depends on what is being studied, but for Spiral Dynamics in particular, which delves into cross-cultural analysis, the bias is more concerning. For example, how well does SD apply to somebody in China? What about cross-cultural persons, especially Third culture kids (TCK), i.e. growing up as a child in two or more different countries?

What if cognitive development is a bit more orthogonal to specific value systems than SD likes to portray (especially in the case of Blue and Orange), maybe as a result of WEIRD bias? For example, it seems unfair to label a cross-cultural Muslim scholar pursuing a doctorate in philosophy at a Western university as "underdeveloped" for having more traditionalist values than a comparable American.

[SonataAllegro]

You have to look at these models not as precise observational data points, but as general trends and characterizations of different stages of development. Every individual is a complex amalgamation of many different stages, operating in a society that is also a complex amalgamation of many different stages.

To label this muslim scholar as "underdeveloped" is to use SD improperly. That muslim scholar is exactly where they need to be. You can be muslim/christian/buddhist and be Turquoise. Just as science doesn't disappear after Orange, religion (morality systems) doesn't disappear after Blue. It's not the contents of the beliefs but how much one clings to them as the absolute truth.

Think about each stage like this:

     Purple: person develops connection and belonging to family/tribe

     Red: person develops sense of individuality and ability to exert their will

     Blue: person develops morals that help them get along with society

     Orange: person develops sense of agency and ability to raise in social ladder

     Green: person develops refined ethics and a desire for meaningful contribution

     Yellow: person uncovers their authenticity and speaks their truth fully

     Turquoise: person develops true holism and love from within

See how when you frame it like this, it doesn't matter so much if SD is "scientifically verifiable"? It's a metaphorical model that helps you look into your own development. It will have tremendous benefits if you use it for what it's designed for, but will get you into trouble if you use it to create an ideology.

[Carl-Richard]

@SonataAllegro The stages were derived from empirical data. If the data only consists of American college students, it's at best an American developmental model, and therefore you can't apply it to non-American individuals or cultures without justifying that somehow (which is what I'm asking for).

[Michal__]

5 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@SonataAllegro The stages were derived from empirical data. If the data only consists of American college students, it's at best an American developmental model, and therefore you can't apply it to non-American individuals or cultures without justifying that somehow (which is what I'm asking for).

I'm in a non American culture and it still fits pretty well.

[Carl-Richard]

8 minutes ago, Michal__ said:

I'm in a non American culture and it still fits pretty well.

It fits pretty well for me too, which is not surprising coming from a Western culture. I'm mainly interested in how they justify applying it to non-Western cultures (and cross-cultural people).

[Happy Lizard]

7 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

@SonataAllegro The stages were derived from empirical data. If the data only consists of American college students, it's at best an American developmental model, and therefore you can't apply it to non-American individuals or cultures without justifying that somehow (which is what I'm asking for).

So would you say that applying the same method of query to other nations would yield a different model ? it'd be interesting to see what that could look like in other countries. I personally think it will be the same with some small deferences.

the problem is that I'd probably be difficult to find highly developed people outside of the Americas and Europe, however it's possible, for example I've watched this video about spiral dynamics in Egypt, I think this might be insightful and goes to the point your talking about in this thread: 
 

 

[BipolarGrowth]

It would be really weird if the results were sampled from students who took an Abnormal Psychology class. 
 

This is why I’m not a comedian. 

[Carl-Richard]

5 minutes ago, BipolarGrowth said:

It would be really weird if the results were sampled from students who took an Abnormal Psychology class. 
 

This is why I’m not a comedian. 

That's a WEIRD joke 

[Raphael]

I live on a small tropical island. From what I see around me - and even though I don't follow politics that much - it does apply while including the limitations and particularities of the environment of course.

Edited January 31, 2022 by Raphael

[Carl-Richard]

59 minutes ago, Raphael said:

I live on a small tropical island. From what I see around me - and even though I don't follow politics that much - it does apply while including the limitations and particularities of the environment of course.

It's one thing to take a model and try to verify it in a particular environment (a flawed process, especially on the level of personal anecdotes and self-report from memory; confirmation bias etc.). It's another thing to reconstruct the model based on that environment.

[Leo Gura]

Developmental psychology models have been tested a lot more than just in the West.

[Carl-Richard]

11 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Developmental psychology models have been tested a lot more than just in the West.

Ah, I forgot about the shared ontogeny aspect of SDi. I guess that limits the problem to just the value systems aspect from the original SD (vMEMEs), which is mainly what my question is about. In other words, how do we know that vMEMEs specifically correlate with other developmental models in cross-cultural contexts? Is it just sufficient to say "oh, the ontogeny seems to line up with the overall trend of the other developmental lines, so that's proof enough", or should we expect a possible deviation from that pattern? I think that might be a possibility considering how value systems might be more adaptable than say the computational complexity of cognitive processes (Piagetian or Neo-Piagetian models), hence my Muslim scholar example. Maybe I'm just way out of my depth as usual  

[Preety_India]

I am from India. It applies to my country as well. 

You're thinking too much. And adding unnecessary complexity. 

It's a universal model. 

[Carl-Richard]

19 minutes ago, Preety_India said:

You're thinking too much. And adding unnecessary complexity. 

It's a universal model. 

The response to criticizing SD shouldn't be "think less." That's a problem.

By empirical standards, it's definitionally not universal, but it might not matter.

[lmfao]

@Carl-Richard Its like quantum tunneling bro, some black people can tunnel from purple to blue to green just like that. Someone else will tunnel from red to orange. And ofc it isn't universal, Spiral Dynamics in many ways is just magnifying the rap battles between different ideologies into "psychological stages". Don't be surprised if you see massive leaps and discontinuities in the map performed by certain places and people. 

Yes, so it would appear so far from history that human groups ---> societies have had their path recorded and documented and whatever (from tribes to society to capitalism etc). I respect and see the power of the history in it yes. But it nonetheless leaves so much room for doubt in jumping the gun about it. 

But what's it really about in application? If the point of spiral dynamics was to create a hierarchy of values well then good job, its slightly weird though. Something will undeniably feel rancid about the whole scheme if you get too close to it though, an objective scheme claiming it can put different values into a pyramid of _____? Fill in the blank. Not sure, but it's pyramid valuing of values itself says something that riles me up. 

So then by that point, SD is a disguised tool of power. (Describing power and power-tools precisely, as they arise tangibly in real time conversation, is very important)


The best argument or vision overall for human development is individuation, making unconscious conscious. Which includes undoing "trauma" which green says, but there's soooooooo much more than just that. Jung essentially describes this shit perfectly in 'archetypes and the collective unconscious' book. 
--
Now if we evaluate the useful terms from SD in regular conversation. "Blue" is fairly moot since you can say "fundamentalist", "traditional", "patriotic", etc. 

"Orange" is often described fairly weirdly, and I'm not a good person to say more since I tunnelled from orange to yellow in a lot of ways. 

But tell me what seriously hardcore, rigorous philosopher vibe checks as this "green", as opposed to "yellow" or "orange". Not rhetorical, I'm just curious. Because in the entire conversation in this topic, people enter this ambiguity of rejecting reason and argument as though that's an inferior stage to green and incompatible with green. 

Following that line of reasoning, are these "green philosophers" you bring up going to be of a variety so insufferably prejudiced and venomous, with no sense for spirit or art, that you can hardly call them philosophers? 
[Real Marxists are the most materialistic, blind-to-spirituality people I've ever seen] 

Do all the great philosophers just end up calibrating as "tier 2"? 
Now that's stretchy territory for you [You can pull up Socrates, and you'd see his greatness isn't measured by SD.]


One of the very best things though about SD definitely seems to be in how it can talk about "magical" thinking in purple and red. A lot of people are completely unaware of it, because we're so far away from it historically, and that purple/blue mix up can trip some people 

Edited February 1, 2022 by lmfao

[Carl-Richard]

7 hours ago, lmfao said:

"Orange" is often described fairly weirdly, and I'm not a good person to say more since I tunnelled from orange to yellow in a lot of ways. 

I don't see how that is possible. I think of Yellow as Green 2.0.

[DocWatts]

While Spiral Dynamics does use scientific evidence to inform and give credibility to its claims (and has been successfully used in places like South Africa), I would argue that its true strength is more akin to something like Hegelian dielectrics, or Marx's theory of alienated labor.

In that it's more useful as a framework for re-contextualizing a particular set of problems in a systematic, meta-textual way.

Edited February 1, 2022 by DocWatts

[Gesundheit2]

On 31/01/2022 at 4:04 PM, Carl-Richard said:

What if cognitive development is a bit more orthogonal to specific value systems than SD likes to portray (especially in the case of Blue and Orange), maybe as a result of WEIRD bias? For example, it seems unfair to label a cross-cultural Muslim scholar pursuing a doctorate in philosophy at a Western university as "underdeveloped" for having more traditionalist values than a comparable American.

I have more than two friends who have higher cognition than me but are still religious, Blue/Orange.

So, either I'm Red, or the model is wrong.

[Carl-Richard]

27 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

While Spiral Dynamics does use scientific evidence to inform and give credibility to its claims (and has been successfully used in places like South Africa), I would argue that its true strength is more akin to something like Hegelian dielectrics, or Marx's theory of alienated labor.

In that it's more useful as a framework for re-contextualizing a particular set of problems in a systematic, meta-textual way.

I guess my point is that once you choose the empirical route, you might as well go all the way. Then again, I'm not exactly against rationalist intuition as a methodology (as with Hegel or Plato for example).

[Carl-Richard]

6 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

I have more than two friends who have higher cognition than me but are still religious, Blue/Orange.

So, either I'm Red, or the model is wrong.

Are they absolutist literalists or pluralist non-literalists? The former is Blue, the latter is compatible with Orange/Green. I guess my example doesn't take that into account.