Name what this way of knowing gives you

List the real capacities the socialized mind carries before deciding what, if anything, you want to grow beyond.

Pourquoi ça marche

Kegan’s group found that parents with a Socializing way of knowing could take in their children’s perspectives, something parents with a simpler way of knowing found difficult, and a longitudinal study of West Point cadets using Kegan’s theory concluded that for most of them the key developmental issue was establishing shared meaning, not self-authorship. Treating the stage as a deficiency invites a person to try to cut away empathy, loyalty, and shared meaning that later ways of knowing are meant to include. Naming those capacities lets growth be an addition rather than a rejection.

Comment faire

1. Write down three moments when your sensitivity to what others feel or expect served someone well — a friend you read correctly, a group you held together, a commitment you kept.
2. Name the capacity in each: taking another’s perspective as if from inside, loyalty to something larger than yourself, keeping shared meaning intact.
3. Next to each, note any moment the same sensitivity cost you — where your own view went unsaid.
4. Decide what you want to keep fully and what you want to hold more lightly. Growth here means adding a vantage point, not losing these.

Données probantes

The parenting finding, and the finding that a more complex way of knowing was not associated with greater life satisfaction (though it was associated with a stronger internal locus of control), come from Kegan’s group (NCSALL, 2001). Lewis and colleagues (2005), following West Point cadets with Kegan’s framework, report in their abstract that most entered with relatively simple ways of making meaning and that for most the key developmental issue was not self-authorship but establishing shared meaning. (observational)

The West Point study is one institution and is cited here from its abstract only; the appreciation exercise itself has not been tested.

Sources

• Kegan, R., Broderick, M., Drago-Severson, E., Helsing, D., Popp, N., & Portnow, K. (2001). Toward a New Pluralism in ABE/ESOL Classrooms: Teaching to Multiple “Cultures of Mind.” Executive Summary, NCSALL Reports #19a. Harvard Graduate School of Education / National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy.
• Lewis, P., Forsythe, G. B., Sweeney, P., Bartone, P. T., & Bullis, C. (2005). Identity Development During the College Years: Findings from the West Point Longitudinal Study. Journal of College Student Development, 46(4), 357–373.

Erreur fréquente

Reading developmental maps as a ranking of people. Kegan’s own group found a more complex way of knowing was not associated with being more satisfied with life; a later stage is a wider vantage point, not a better person.