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.
Why it works
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.
How to do it
- 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.
- Name the capacity in each: taking another’s perspective as if from inside, loyalty to something larger than yourself, keeping shared meaning intact.
- Next to each, note any moment the same sensitivity cost you — where your own view went unsaid.
- 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.
Evidence
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.
Common mistake
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.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Kegan’s Socialized Mind: What It Gives You and How to Grow Beyond It
- Notice whose reaction decides whether you’re okay
Keep a short log of the moments your sense of being okay rose or fell on one specific person’s reaction.
- Write your own read before you hear theirs
Before feedback arrives, record your own assessment so their view lands as information beside yours, not a verdict that replaces it.
- Disagree in small doses while naming the bond
Voice one small difference with someone you value, and say in the same breath that the relationship still stands.
- Bring a proposal, not just a question, to the person in charge
When you need direction at work, arrive with your own recommendation and reasoning before asking what they want.
- Trace one conviction back to the people it came from
Pick a strongly held belief and map whose voice first carried it to you, before deciding whether to keep it as your own.
- Find a group that holds you and stretches you
Join or form a steady group where you are accepted as you are and regularly meet perspectives different from yours.
- Name what growing might cost you
Write down what you fear losing if your way of seeing changes, so the fear can be weighed instead of quietly deciding for you.
Related concepts
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- Self-Authorship: Moving From the Socialized to the Self-Authored Mind
Kegan’s stages, subject-object moves, and authoring your own life
- The Immunity to Change Process, Step by Step
Why a change you truly want keeps not happening, and the step-by-step way Kegan and Lahey take it apart
- 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
- 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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