Find what each side gets right before deciding
When two views clash, write down the part of each that is true before arguing for either one.
Why it works
Wilber describes his method in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality as assembling "orienting generalizations" — the points on which experts in a field broadly agree — on the premise that most serious views hold some truth and err mainly in claiming to be the whole. Applied to a personal disagreement, looking for the part each side gets right slows the urge to defend one view and makes room for a position that includes more of the situation.
How to do it
- Name a disagreement you are in, with someone else or inside yourself.
- Write the strongest version of the view you disagree with, in words its holder would accept.
- Underline the part of it you think is true, even if small.
- Do the same for your own view: underline the part you are least sure of.
- Write a position that keeps both underlined parts. Notice whether the disagreement has changed shape.
Evidence
The idea of building from "orienting generalizations" comes from the introduction to Wilber’s Sex, Ecology, Spirituality. Adjacent research supports parts of the practice: in three experiments, writing from another person’s perspective reduced stereotyping and in-group bias (Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000), and across four studies people higher in intellectual humility — recognising their beliefs might be wrong — were more open, less dogmatic and more attentive to argument strength (Leary et al., 2017). Neither study tested this exercise. (mechanistic)
The intellectual humility findings are correlational, and the perspective-taking effects were measured in laboratory tasks. Critics such as Meyerhoff argue that Wilber misrepresents or ignores some of the thinkers his generalizations rest on.
Sources
- Wilber, K. (1995). Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution. Shambhala.
- Galinsky, A. D., & Moskowitz, G. B. (2000). Perspective-taking: Decreasing stereotype expression, stereotype accessibility, and in-group favoritism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(4), 708–724. About this work
- Leary, M. R., Diebels, K. J., Davisson, E. K., Jongman-Sereno, K. P., Isherwood, J. C., Raimi, K. T., Deffler, S. A., & Hoyle, R. H. (2017). Cognitive and Interpersonal Features of Intellectual Humility. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(6), 793–813.
Common mistake
Treating "everyone is partly right" as "everyone is equally right". The practice is about finding the true part, which also means being clear about the part that is not.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (AQAL), Made Practical
- Run a five-element check-in on one real situation
Take a situation you are stuck on and ask one question for each AQAL element to find the piece you have been leaving out.
- Check whether you are flattening an inside into an outside
Notice when you explain something felt or shared only by its measurable correlates — or the reverse — and put the missing side back.
- Ask how you know it: first, second or third person
Sort what you believe about a situation by how you came to know it — your own experience, talking with others, or outside observation.
- Tell a passing state from a lasting stage
After a powerful experience, separate what you glimpsed in a state from how you actually make sense of things day to day.
- Sketch where your development is uneven
Draw a rough bar chart of your capacities — thinking, feeling, relating, moral judgment, body — to see where you are strong and where you lag.
- Separate a difference in style from a difference in maturity
When someone does things differently, ask whether it is a type — a stable style — before treating it as less developed.
- Read the critics and hold the model lightly
Before you rely on AQAL, read a serious critique of it, so the map stays a tool rather than a belief.
Related concepts
- Spiral Dynamics, Made Practical
Understanding how value systems develop and how to navigate across them
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- 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
- Shadow Work
Meeting the parts of yourself you have been ignoring
- The Enneagram
Using type as a lens, not a label
- The Big Five Personality Model
What the best-validated personality science actually tells you about yourself
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