Check who validated a stage model before you repeat its claims
When a stage model is described as scientifically proven, find out who ran the validation, whether the report is public, and whether anyone outside its developers has checked it.
Pourquoi ça marche
The 2017 exchange over the STAGES model turned on how validity was described and when the supporting report was public. The critique by Susanne Cook-Greuter, Ken Wilber and Beena Sharma, as quoted in the developers’ response, said the model was “prematurely promoted as validated.” By Murray’s 2020 account the critique raised ten points in all. The response does not agree that validity was misrepresented, but accepts that it was promoted prematurely, because the statistical report was not yet available for colleagues to scrutinize; Murray (2020) reports that the response judged nine of those ten points to rest on misconceptions; the response itself counts eleven issues. A validation claim is only as checkable as the report behind it, so asking who ran the study, whether it is in print, and who else has examined it tells a reader how much weight the claim can carry.
Comment faire
- Find the sentence that says “validated” or “proven” and write down which study it refers to.
- Check whether that study is in a peer-reviewed journal or only in a newsletter, workshop, book or website.
- Note who wrote the report and whether any author developed the model or sells training in it.
- Look for an examination by people outside the developers. If you find one, check whether it re-analysed the same data or new data.
- Repeat the claim at the level the evidence reaches, for example “a study by the developers reported positive agreement,” rather than “proven.”
Données probantes
The 2017 response in Integral Leadership Review, by O’Fallon, Murray, Fitch, Barta and Kesler, acknowledges that the developer made verbal and written statements about the model’s statistical validity before a research report was available for colleagues to scrutinize. The 2020 validation study’s first author is the model’s developer (Crossref author list). Merckoll (2023) examines two empirical studies cited as validating STAGES scoring and says their verification claims “do not hold up under scrutiny”; Murray (2023) responds in the same issue. The practice applies those documented points to a reader’s own check. It has not been tested. (mechanistic)
Checking who validated a model describes the state of the evidence. It does not show whether the model is accurate. The 2020 summary is written by the model’s developers, and the 2020 special issue is, by its editor’s description, mostly supportive of the model. The 2023 critique concerns scoring rather than the theory.
Sources
- O’Fallon, T., Murray, T., Fitch, G., Barta, K., & Kesler, J. (2017). A Response to Critiques of the STAGES Developmental Model. Integral Leadership Review, 17(2), August–November 2017.
- O’Fallon, T., Polissar, N., Neradilek, M. B., & Murray, T. (2020). The validation of a new scoring method for assessing ego development based on three dimensions of language. Heliyon, 6(3), e03472.
- Murray, T., & O’Fallon, T. (2020). A Summary of Research on and with the STAGES Developmental Model. Integral Review, 16(1).
- Murray, T. (2020). Introduction and Overview: Integral Review Special Issue on the STAGES Model. Integral Review, 16(1).
- Merckoll, K. (2023). An Examination of the STAGES Scoring System. Integral Review, 18(1).
- Murray, T. (2023). A Response to “An Examination of the STAGES Scoring System”. Integral Review, 18(1).
Erreur fréquente
Treating a validation claim as settled because it is repeated in many places. Repetition inside one community is not an independent check, and a quotation on a website is not a published study.
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Plus de pratiques pour The Critiques of Adult Development Stage Theories, Fairly Stated
- Close the reading and come back to the room
Put the stage reading down, feel your feet and breath, and let the shame loosen before you decide anything about where you stand.
- Reach a person if the shame is more than a reading can carry
If the shame about where you stand starts to feel like not wanting to be here, reach a trusted person and a clinician now.
- Prefer a scored assessment to reading yourself into a stage
Do not pick the stage description that sounds most like you; if you want a level, use a scored instrument, and treat your own sense of your stage as a guess to test.
- Do not place someone at a stage from one conversation or one moment
Before you judge where a colleague, partner or child sits in a stage model, collect more than one sample and keep what you observed separate from the label you are tempted to attach.
- Check whether the people in a stage study resemble the people you are describing
Before you apply a stage description to people in another culture, class or community, find out who the original samples were and what they had in common.
- Read a gender gap against the schooling and jobs of the people measured
When a study reports that men or women score higher on a developmental measure, check whether education and occupation explain the gap before you conclude anything about sex.
- Ask whether a moral scoring scheme counts care and emotion as reasons
When a framework ranks how mature a person’s moral reasons are, check whether reasons grounded in relationships, feeling and loyalty were scored at all.
- Hold a critique next to the support the reviewers still found
When you read a critique of a stage theory, also write down what the reviewers concluded the evidence still supports, and keep both halves of the verdict in view.
- Check whether a stage claim’s evidence came from children or from adults
Before you apply a stage claim to adult life, find out how old the people were in the studies that produced it, and whether those studies tested adults at all.
Concepts associés
- Terri O’Fallon’s STAGES Model, Made Practical
Twelve stages built from three repeating questions, and how to work with the one you are in
- Ego Development Theory: What It Is and How It Is Measured
The frame you make meaning through, how researchers measure it, and how to work with it without ranking anyone
- Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development, Made Practical
Six stages of moral reasoning, how they are scored, and how to work with the reasons you give
- Carol Gilligan’s Ethics of Care, Explained
Two ways of reasoning about moral problems, what the research shows, and how to use both lenses
- The Construct-Aware and Unitive Stages of Adult Development
Seeing the self and its stories as constructions — what it looks like, how rare it is, and what it does not promise
- The Model of Hierarchical Complexity, Explained
How tasks are ranked by coordination, what the 14 orders are, and how to use the idea on a hard problem
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
Seven ways leaders make sense of pressure, how common each is, and how to work with your own
- La théorie sujet-objet de Kegan, en pratique
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