Levels of Development

Great introductory explanation of Spiral Dynamics by Anne McQuade.  :)

from www.integralnews.com

Levels of Development - Anne McQuade

Despite popular notions that development ends in adolescence, scholars have shown that many adults can and do continue to develop across their entire lifespan. Research has shown, time and again, in various settings, with various populations, across gender and across culture that the human mind develops toward increasing complexity.¹ Indeed this research shows that there are patterns or levels of development—from childlike, magical thinking, to complex, non-linear, systems-oriented thinking. At each level the individual begins to think in qualitatively different ways. This process is not about accumulating facts or stories, or what we think about, but a fundamental shift in how we think. Yes, it’s true; it’s possible to grow wiser. As the mind grows toward wisdom it is able to consider and organize various—even competing—perspectives. Different researchers call these increasingly complex and flexible levels of development, this ability to inhabit and organize different perspectives by different names, yet one constant remains true, developmental psychologists agree: development happens.²

Spiral Dynamics is one of those developmental maps, and it studies how and what people value.³ This map points to eight basic stages in value development (I will only discuss seven, as the eighth represents such a very small percentage of the population). These stages develop partly in response to the circumstances the individuals find themselves in. Each stage has potentially healthy and unhealthy manifestations. Just like your body, your mind has healthy and unhealthy ways of relating to the world. The first six stages are called First Tier, and although they each approach their values in qualitatively different ways, all First Tier values have one thing in common: they are marked by the belief that their particular values are the only “right” values.

But after the sixth stage, an interesting shift happens. People jump to what is called Second Tier values. Individuals moving into Second-Tier value structures suddenly come to appreciate the contributions of all preceding levels (particularly in their healthy manifestation). Yet they also retain their right to organize those contributions according to the bigger picture and the circumstances at hand. Second Tier understands that each and every level of development serves a useful, but limited, role in this world. Once an individual has reached Second Tier values, they realize that the “right way” may change depending on the task, the circumstances, and the people involved.

Let’s take a quick look at these levels and I’ll explain a bit about each.

• Survival/ Beige

• Security/ Purple

• Power/ Red

• Authority/ Blue

• Progress/ Orange

• Harmony/ Green

• Integration/ Yellow

Survival/ Beige

If you function primarily at this level you value survival, and behave in ways to secure your life, maybe even just for one more moment. Examples of this are people under extreme stress or shock and those on the streets, though none of those roles guarantee that you function primarily at this level. If you are reading this you value far more than just surviving, but you can still connect with the feel of this energy. Imagine yourself in Post-Katrina New Orleans, up to your knees in water, with dead animals and cars floating about you. Very quickly you will come to value stealing bread and clean drinking water. If you become aware that your chances for survival are better if you band together with others, and you’re capable of doing so (i.e., not mentally ill) then you may evolve to the next level.

Security/ Purple

If you function primarily from this level you value creating security and satisfying basic needs. Because you still do not understand the mysterious world you find yourself in, you attribute cause and effect to magical powers and spirit forces that are out of your control; forces that must be placated and appeased. Good days are the result of a God in a good mood; bad days are the result of an upset God that lashes out at those that displease him (it is almost always a him). Because you don’t always know what will anger your God or other mysterious forces, you rely on rites, ritual, folklore, and taboos. You may not even fully understand these rites and rituals, but you know that they have worked for your tribe and your ancestors in the past, because you’ve heard of their success and practice through generations of folklore and myths. You could be the mentally ill on the streets, a member of a hunting and gathering tribe, a community voodoo practitioner in Haiti, though none of those roles guarantee that you function primarily at this level.

Power/ Red

If you function primarily at this level you have begun to value your freedom and long to dominate the forces around you, so you may break free of your group’s values and rituals. At this level you now see the world as a jungle in which the strong prevail and the weak submit. The “other” is your adversary, and only by becoming tough, and fiercely independent will you prevail. Impressed with your new found power, you demand respect and attention. Your motto is “me against the world,” or “my way or the highway.” At this level you seek to dominate and control others through sheer will, conquest, and power. A healthy example of you is a child at the stage of the terrible twos. The book Lord of the Flies depicts an unhealthy manifestation of you in the behavior of the shipwrecked boys. You appear in the mafia and street gangs, though none of those roles guarantee that you function primarily at this level.

When given free reign, your impulsiveness and will create a good deal of chaos, because you are self serving and seek to gain all that you can. Coming face to face with the consequences of your values and behavior are what might prompt you to evolve to the next level of development.

Authority/ Blue

When you functioned primarily at Power/Red your motto was “me against the world.” Now that you have evolved to Authority/Blue, your motto is “us versus them.” At this level your needs are again subordinated to the group’s needs. You seek membership and define yourself though others. You have a strong need to be accepted and reject those who do not conform to your group’s norms. As you see it, there are two kinds of people: “insiders” (those who conform to your norms) and “outsiders” (those who do not). You value order and stability and create rules to minimize impulsivity and the chaos it creates.

You value a “higher authority” to lead you—whether that is God, the CEO, or the head of your family. You rely on prophets and scripture (religious or secular) or any inspired authority to give direction and purpose to your life. Healthy examples of you might be found in federal or state regulatory agencies though these roles do not guarantee that you function primarily at this level. You show up as religious fundamentalism of any kind, and in your most unhealthy expression you advocate violence to enforce your interpretation of your “God’s word.”

If you begin to doubt the authority or “scripture” (biblical or otherwise) or encounter experiences and feelings that conflict with your norms, you may evolve to the next level. Usually, if you are brought up by Authority/Blue parents, you'll be warned that you will encounter such evil, conflicting feelings. As Authority/Blue sees it, these conflicting feelings that draw your values into question are not a sign of evolution, but rather a sign of betrayal of more righteous values. Therefore, evolving to the next level is challenging as you fear, even if only temporarily, that you should “stay the course” and remain “true blue.”

Progress/ Orange

Here you again break from the pack, valuing your individuality, as you once did in Red, but you are a little wiser now, and not so impulsive. If you function primarily at this stage you are driven by achievement, goals, competition, status, innovation, independence, and the chance to bring prosperity. Your motto is to “play to win.” You are committed to rationality and usually value the secular (rational) over the sacred (not rational, at least not in your mind). Although you now have the capacity to recognize that other points of view are valid, you still think that your way is the best way.

Typically you are optimistic, self-reliant, and take risks. Healthy expressions of you demand that everyone be granted the same legal protections and fair access to the market place. Liberal capitalism is a great socio-political expression of you. You were present in the rise of the middle class, scientific and technological exploration, the movements to demand equal rights for all before the law, and Wall Street. In your unhealthy manifestations, you can be unethical and greedy, with little regard for others and the future. Perhaps your unhealthy side even made an appearance in the form of the convicted former executives of Enron.

If you find that material wealth, success, and achievement alone can’t buy you happiness or peace of mind, if you develop a hankering for an inner life, or if you grow sensitive to the unmet needs of others, and the have-nots, you may evolve to the next level of development.

Harmony/Green

At this level, you turn toward your inner life and value personal and interpersonal exploration, community, affiliation, sharing, and egalitarianism. You demonstrate concern for others and resist inequality, particularly if the target is less fortunate than you are. You are concerned for others precisely because now you are able to “walk in another person’s shoes.” You take multiple perspectives and see many “right” ways of doing things. This ability to see multiple perspectives represents a giant leap forward for you and is of great value to the human race because it will do us a lot of good in our efforts to understand one another. Your limitation is that if you function primarily at this level you believe that all views are “right,” that no view is better than any other. Yet you still think your way of viewing the world is the best way. This places you in an odd and often unconscious contradiction. If all perspectives are equally “right,” then how come your perspective—that all perspectives are equal—is best? And if all perspectives are equal, at least in theory, you have no real way to judge the superiority of one way over another. As a result, you can suffer from a form of moral relativism. Though you can account for a large variety of perspectives, you have difficulty ranking them, and are often paralyzed by the confusion this creates. You have difficulty ranking because you are innately suspicious of hierarchy. Of course you are suspicious of hierarchy! So many forms of hierarchy throughout history have been unjust. After all, racial oppression and the caste system are a form of hierarchy, and we all know that that kind of hierarchy binds and chains us. But there are some hierarchies that are good (really!). To develop on the inside to the point that you care for and give to others, an internal hierarchy—one that is wise enough to value other perspectives, and empathize with others—is a good hierarchy.

Sometimes you manifest in meetings that require consensus decisions, where little is accomplished because no one can act. Although it is useful to you to hear a wide range of perspectives, even conflicting ones, if you rely on consensus to move forward, you are likely to get bogged down. Healthy examples of you can be witnessed in the recent corporate social responsibility movements, Doctors Without Borders, and self aware societies like Holland—though none of these outer expressions guarantee that you function primarily at this level. In your unhealthy form you may give rise to harsh diversity police or extreme political correctness that outlaws any difference of opinion or language, which is the very thing that you originally stood for.

If you are confronted with moral dilemmas that your relativism can’t resolve (e.g. is it acceptable to stone a woman for adultery because that is what her culture advocates as a “right” perspective?), you may evolve to the next level. You may also evolve to the next level when and if you are overwhelmed by the economic and emotional cost of caring, or if you are confronted by the chaos and disorder that emerges from making decisions by consensus without clear leadership.

Remember that leap in perspective that I spoke of earlier, the one to Second Tier? Well, after Harmony/Green, you no longer exclusively identify with any particular perspective; rather you can integrate multiple perspectives and organize them based on the situation at hand, the circumstances, and the people involved. You can differentiate between the healthy and unhealthy aspects of all your previous manifestations and see the potential contributions of each unique level. You understand that each level, each person, has a part to play, and know how to squeeze the best out of everyone by first acknowledging where they are, and then communicating with them in a way that makes sense to them, without demanding that others think like you do. Now let’s look at the qualities of Second Tier.

Integration/Yellow

At this stage your focus lands squarely on integration, but let’s be clear—this is not merely a sum of previous parts. At Integration/Yellow, you include all the previous levels, and yet transcend them. You see the world as a complex integration of dynamic systems, are able to “get” the larger picture, and integrate various perspectives. You are capable of abstraction and complex pattern recognition. Your motto at this level is “both/and” because you find ways to transcend either/or solutions—which can impress, but will more likely confuse many of those around you who can’t decide whether to admire or fear you. If someone asks you whether we should encourage economic development or save the planet, you will answer, “YES,” because you are capable of integrating what seem like paradoxes to previous levels of development.

You clearly see the limits of the more junior manifestations of you, though you rarely say anything about it, because at this point you are not sure if you are sane—so few around you see the world as you do. Sometimes you wonder whether you are drinking your own KoolAid. Nonetheless you can’t help but see the limits of those more junior levels: of acting exclusively for one’s self interest and following individual impulsivity (Power/Red); the limits of relying on an outside authority (Authority/Blue); that money and science can’t buy happiness, and that achievement and the bottom line in and of itself may create personal emptiness and suffering (Progress/Orange); and that Harmony/Green is often paralyzed by moral relativism, and the inability to take action. But for the first time you can also appreciate the benefits of those junior levels—that Power/Red is a potent energy that can be used for the benefit of the individual or the group in the appropriate context; that Blue/Authority has set down rules that allow society to function (thank God for the rule of law and order!); that Progress/Orange believes in equal rights before the law (Orange wrote the constitution of the United States for goodness sake!), along with laying down amazing scientific, technological, and financial infrastructure that allow for prosperity, good health, and a longer life; that Harmony/Green has sensitized people to the needs of others and desires equality for all human kind, and wants to equalize the playing field.

You are capable of, and indeed downright interested in, integrating multiple systems at multiple scales, and crafting complex, multi-variable approaches to tough challenges. You understand that there are many valid ways to behave and think and there are also legitimate ways to judge and rank perspectives based on the situation at hand. Therefore you are ready to interact with (and enlist) various levels of development. You value flexibility, spontaneity, competence, knowledge, earned power, and are comfortable with uncertainty and paradox. In your healthiest form, you recognize that there are no final solutions, only next steps. Examples of you are few and far between. In fact, experts estimate that only 2 % of the world’s population regularly functions as you do.

Research suggests that development continues beyond Yellow/Integration, but as yet this comprises a minuscule percentage of the population and the data is relatively thin at those developmental altitudes.

3 Beck and Cowan, 1996. Spiral dynamics: Mastering values, leadership, and change. Blackwell Publishing This text is not meant to serve as an academic primer on development, but rather introduce you to the basic notion that development happens. However, if this stuff really jump starts your scooter, and you want to see some very sound studies then I recommend that you read Susanne Cook-Greuter, Carol Gilligan, Robert Kegan, or Ken Wilber. If you really want to kick the tires then read these experts for the details, arguments, debates, nuances, etc. Like I said, you will find that they all agree that development happens, though they may disagree on the number or name of stages, and the content of those stages.

~~~

Re: Levels of Development

see also

• Spiral Dynamics: A Theory About Theories [free audio interview with Don Beck available at fallingfruit.tv: Conscious Media for People Who Care]
• Mars Bars: A Guide to the Dynamic Spiral of Red Planet Nightlife
• I-Thou: Twenty-Four Hour Lament
• Causeway Collective

Re: Levels of Development

Also a collection of sweet illustrations on my blog! ;)   (clickem to enlarge)

Re: Levels of Development

Very good description of Spiral Dynamics. If someone ever want to know more about SD I'll definitely link them this.

Thanks.