Mapping the circle of people you feel close to
List the people you feel most responsible to and close to, and mark which of them hold a belief or value that differs from yours.
Why it works
Mallery and Mallery (2022) report social-horizon factors (groupings of questionnaire items about how far a person’s responsibility and closeness reach) that separate responsibility to people inside one’s own group, valuing difference within a group, and feeling close to people whose views are very different. This practice makes that spectrum visible in your own list, so you can see where closeness sits and where it stops.
How to do it
- List the ten people you feel most responsible to.
- Beside each name, write one belief or value on which you differ, or write “same”.
- Count the “same” answers and notice whether they cluster around one group.
- Choose one person whose difference you have not talked about, and write one thing you actually value in how they see things.
- Write one sentence about what you noticed regarding closeness and difference.
Evidence
The social-horizon distinction comes from the factor structure in Mallery and Mallery (2022). Using it as a personal map is an inference, and the factor associations are correlational. (mechanistic)
The authors note that the line between the value-difference and close-to-different-others factors was not strong. The map is a prompt for reflection, not a measure of anyone.
Sources
Common mistake
Counting agreement as closeness, then reading a long list of “same” answers as evidence of maturity or of failure. The associations with stage come from questionnaire responses, and the authors say further longitudinal data is needed to identify whether these styles develop sequentially.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for James Fowler’s Stages of Faith, Made Practical
- Faith timeline: mapping what you trusted at each age
Draw your life as one line and mark, age by age, what you trusted to make sense of things and where that trust changed hands.
- Centers of value: answering the four questions in writing
Write down what you give your life to, who you are committed to in life and death, what you hope for, and who you share your most sacred hopes with.
- Master stories: naming the story you were handed about how life works
Write the story you live by, and name who or what you picture holding the final say when things go wrong.
- Retelling one disagreement from the other side
Write your position on one unsettled disagreement, then write theirs well enough that they would recognise it as their own.
- Holding two frames at once without picking a winner
Name the two ways of making sense of one question that both feel partly true right now, and write what each one still gets right.
- Talking with someone about a conviction you do not share
Ask someone who holds a conviction you do not share what it protects for them, repeat their answer back until they say it is right, then say what you still hold.
- Asking whether an old frame still fits this moment
When you notice yourself reaching for a belief you were raised with, ask whether it fits the situation in front of you, and write what the situation actually needs.
Related concepts
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- 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
- Spiral Dynamics, Made Practical
Understanding how value systems develop and how to navigate across them
- The Self-Transforming Mind: Kegan’s Fifth Order, Made Practical
When your own way of seeing becomes something you can look at, question, and let be changed
- 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
- Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory (AQAL), Made Practical
Five elements for catching what your view of a situation leaves out, held as a map rather than a truth
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