Keep maturity, intelligence and happiness apart
Treat ego development, being clever, and feeling good as three different things that each need their own attention.
Why it works
People often assume that seeing more complexity should make them smarter-seeming or happier. The research separates the three. Ego level overlaps only modestly with intelligence, and studies of life stories find that the kinds of growth linked with ego development (integrating new understanding) differ from the kinds linked with well-being (growth in what feels personally meaningful). Keeping them apart stops a person reading a hard season as failed growth, or a happy one as proof of maturity.
How to do it
- Think of a period of real change in your life — a career shift, a loss, a move, a change of belief.
- Ask three separate questions in writing: What do I understand now that I could not before? Has my sense of what matters, and how close I feel to people, changed? How have I actually felt day to day?
- Notice where the answers point in different directions — more understanding but less ease, or more contentment without new understanding.
- Decide which one needs attention now. If understanding has grown and ease has not, care for well-being directly rather than hunting for more insight.
Evidence
A meta-analysis of 52 correlations from 42 studies (5,648 participants) found weighted average correlations between ego level and intelligence of .20 to .34, and in 94% of tests ego level still predicted criterion variables after controlling for intelligence (Cohn & Westenberg, 2004). Bauer and McAdams (2004) found that integrative growth themes in adults’ stories of life transitions correlated mainly with ego development, while intrinsic growth themes correlated mainly with well-being. Bauer, McAdams and Sakaeda (2005) found mature participants emphasized integrative memories and happy participants emphasized intrinsic ones. Loevinger (1973) described ego, intellectual and psychosexual development as radically different strands. (observational)
These are correlational findings from specific samples. They show maturity and well-being are distinguishable, not that one comes at the cost of the other.
Sources
- Cohn, L. D., & Westenberg, P. M. (2004). Intelligence and maturity: Meta-analytic evidence for the incremental and discriminant validity of Loevinger’s measure of ego development. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86(5), 760–772.
- Bauer, J. J., & McAdams, D. P. (2004). Personal Growth in Adults’ Stories of Life Transitions. Journal of Personality, 72(3), 573–602.
- Bauer, J. J., McAdams, D. P., & Sakaeda, A. R. (2005). Interpreting the Good Life: Growth Memories in the Lives of Mature, Happy People. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(1), 203–217.
- Loevinger, J. (1973). Recent Research on Ego Development. Paper presented in part to the Society for Research in Child Development, Philadelphia. ERIC Document ED 078 066.
Common mistake
Concluding that growth is supposed to feel bad, or that unhappiness is a sign of depth. The studies separate the two; they do not say a later frame makes a person less happy, and a heavy stretch deserves care in its own right.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Ego Development Theory: What It Is and How It Is Measured
- Trace one shift through all four strands
Take one way you have changed and look for it in how you handle impulses, relate to people, see yourself, and think.
- Ask where each rule you live by comes from
For the rules that run your life, notice which ones you were handed and which ones you have chosen to keep.
- Journal with open sentence stems — and do not score yourself
Finish your own open-ended sentence beginnings in writing to hear the frame you make meaning from, without rating it.
- Understand what the sentence completion test actually reads
Before you trust or dismiss an ego development score, learn how it is produced and what it can and cannot say.
- Write your big goals as growth stories — for understanding and for connection
Describe your major life goals in narrative form, and check whether they include growing in understanding as well as in feeling good and close to others.
- Write in detail about the future you lost and the one you have now
After a major life change, describe both the future self you lost and the future self you are building, in vivid detail.
- Hold ego development without ranking people
Use what you learn about ego development to understand people, never to sort them by worth.
Related concepts
- 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
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- 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
- Spiral Dynamics, Made Practical
Understanding how value systems develop and how to navigate across them
- Vertical Development Practices: How Adults Grow, Not Just Add Skills
Heat, colliding perspectives, and sense-making — and what the research can and cannot promise
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