This is a follow on from a post about Graves’ research methodology and part of a series of posts about Clare Graves’ values psychology and Spiral Dynamics.

While Graves’ research methodology was avant guard given the general standard for psychology in the 1950’s it was not without it’s problems.

His blinding was good, but not perfect. The people who were trying to categorise the values conceptions did not know who had written them. Ideally Graves would not have been a go between for the conceptions and they would have been dropped off anonymously at a point that the reviewers could pick them up without Graves intervening, but this is a minor point.

He did, to an extent, fall into the trap that nearly all psychologists of his age did; he tried to extrapolate a grand unified theory out of his data. As a result there are several aspects of his overall theory that are not backed up by strong evidence.

• His theory that there is a fundamental difference between the ’subsistence’ levels and the ‘being’ levels, and that the gap from FS to GT is larger than in gaps between previous systems. I will cover this in more depth when I explain the GT system.
• The HU conception is very poorly represented, Graves acknowledged this¹, but it is important to remember that this system is essentially just speculation. He apparently only had two examples of HU conceptions developing out of GT and no one else has seen them. It is equally likely that these two conceptions were examples of people descending to FS.²
• AN and BO are also poorly represented and come almost exclusively from library research, the extent of this research is left undefined.

By demonstrating to his students that he would not bias their grades as a result of the conceptions they submitted and instead graded them on internal consistency, he will have biased peoples conceptions towards constancy when human values may not be consistent. Also, once the conceptions had been evaluated he concentrated on those conceptions that were consistent and does not seem to have explored the inconsistent ones. I will speculate on some of the ramifications of this at a later date.

The population from which his samples came was not very representative. They were biased towards young white middle class males.³

Once he identified the various value conceptions, he grouped them together to investigate how groups of people with the same conception worked together and how they organised, but he did not investigate how mixed groups operated, this is unfortunate as this information would have been much more useful for application in real world situations. He also only explored how small groups operate and did not investigate what would happen as these groups scaled up.

Graves asked his subjects to describe their ideal values. There is difference between the values we wish we could live by and those that we do live by. I intend to explore the ramifications of this at a later date.

He did not peruse any longitudinal studies beyond a year. This might throw up new data that contradicts some of his findings.

In addition to his methodology there are further valid criticisms of his research, including:

His raw data has been lost (As his health was deteriorating, he decided to throw it out to make room for harnesses from the barn).⁴. This is a great shame and perhaps one of the most important issues in bringing his work to the notice of a wider range of people.

No major peer review has been conducted to date ⁵. The various Spiral Dynamics organisations continue to do their own research, but other than a few minor papers and a book aimed at the business world⁶ their data remains proprietary and unpublished.

His work is out of date, in particular his understanding of biopsychology and evolutionary psychology often does not reflect modern findings. I intend to explore some of the new potential that these fields bring to Graves’ findings at a later date.

I have further criticisms of his work that are specific to his interpretation and findings, I will leave these until I have explored the necessary issues.

With all these issues with his research, why do I spend so much time blogging about it? For several reasons.

Firstly it is very hard, if not impossible to conduct perfect research into psychology and I think that Graves did the best that he could with the means that he had available to him. His methods were superb for his time.

Secondly, while not perfect, I find that applying his findings to real world situations a very useful tool. I am particularly interested in tools that help to explain the global geopolitical environmental and economic situation and Graves’ research provides the best model I have found to date. It can be used to draw relationships between many of the diverse aspects of society that interact to create the problems that we are facing, such as climate change, and suggest potential solutions to them.

Third, I want to encourage discussion on the subject and encourage people to look into it. I particularly want to encourage further research into the subject.

Fourth, I want to compare and contrast Graves’ research with the various Spiral Dynamics interpretations to highlight the differences.

Fifth, I am building a framework onto which I hope to explore new research in areas that overlap with Graves’ to see which parts of his theory stand up, and which need to be adapted.

Understanding how our values have evolved, why they have done so, and where they might be going is to me a fascinating subject. The practical implications that such knowledge can bring in designing new systems that can cope with the stresses that we are placing on society and the ecosystem is invaluable.

Note to self: Add links to this post as I write about specific examples.

Notes:
1. Clare W. Graves. 2005. The Never Ending Quest. ECLET Publishing p viii
2. Chirstopher Cowan explained this on the SD1 and SD2 training course.
3. The Spiral Dynamics groups claim to have addressed this, I will examine this claim when I review Spiral Dynamics.
4. Clare W. Graves. 2005. The Never Ending Quest. ECLET Publishing p v
3. As far as I am aware.
6. Which I will review at a later date

This post is part of a series, see the introduction to Gravsian psychology and Spiral Dynamics for an ordered list of posts.

The earliest value system that Graves defined is the AN system. He summarises it as “Express self as if just another animal according to the dictates of one’s imperative periodic physiological needs (and the needs of the environmental possibilities.)” and sums up AN behaviour as Autistic, Automatic and Reactive.¹

Graves did not identify this system through his research studies on his students, he based it on library research. It is a value system that is rarely encountered in modern life. ² He theorises that it was dominant 40,000 or more years ago. When it is encountered in the modern day it is pathological. ³

Essentially he describes this system as based on humans reaction to the presence or absence of physiological tension and they just react to this tension in a manner that will remove it. ⁴

People centred in this system have no sense of self and are not emotionally engaged. As a result they cannot differentiate their self from others, distinguish actions from environmental consequences and are only aware of space and time local to their current place. ⁵

AN describes humans as animals, rather than human beings. Graves goes as far as to say that people with centralised AN values do not make use of tools.⁶

He identifies this as an ‘I’ centred system by suggesting that AN centred people are essentially operating under the premise that ‘I am in need and if I am to continue to exist, then you must adjust to my signals’.⁷

At the time of his research Graves thought that there were still a few examples of genuine AN as a dominant healthy culture in some remote parts of the world. He theorises that they have not moved on from the AN system because their life conditions have never made it necessary. For example, Graves comments on the Tasaday of the island of Mindanao in the Philippine Archipeliago. Claiming that due to the verdant conditions in which they live, with many caves for easy natural shelter and food that is relatively easy to gather, they have never been motived to move beyond AN.⁸

Graves details the possibility of people in modern culture living an AN existence due to illness or mental disability. He goes on to explore other examples of how the AN system can exist in modern society, exploring both a first world war German soldiers experience and a woman living in a decrepit apartment block. What he identifies as N mind conditions includes an absence of “volitional behaviour”. People living in this state essentially run on automatic, it being very hard to think things through or imagine a different way. ⁹

The AN system is amoral. ethical thinking requires concepts that are beyond this state.

Criticism
Graves demonstrates a poor understanding of evolutionary psychology, although this is understandable as the field was only getting started towards the end of the time that Graves’ was conducting his research. Graves’ description of AN, essentially removes emotion¹⁰, yet emotion is in an integral part of the mammalian brain and has been developing for many millions of years. I think it is likely that there are a multitude of systems between AN and BO that have been lost to history and that the true AN state as Graves describes it never really existed as a human culture, if at all.

Graves Mixes up healthy early social structure with the disabling states of mental illness and old age. I can understand that there may be similarities, but this does not mean that the two states are equivalent.  To his credit, Graves does explore the artificiality of modern versions of AN, he theorises that perhaps the AN system as we see it today is artificially created by later systems, in particular DQ, which enables people who would otherwise have died to survive without enabling them to develop to more advanced values.¹¹

The evidence for the AN system is rather week and circumstantial an requires substantial further research.  This however would be very difficult to conduct. Genuine healthy AN culture is likely extinct and so only existing studies can be cross examined. There has been a great deal of research into mental illness and autism, understanding how society deals with these problems as societies values develop would be useful, but I do not think that this verifies AN as a system.

Notes:
1. The Never Ending Quest p199
2. IBID
3. IBID p200
4. IBID
5. IBID
6. IBID p203
7. IBID p201
8. IBID p203
9. IBID pp204-208
10. IBID p208
11. IBID pp208-211
12. IBID
13. IBID
14. IBID
15. IBID

Spiral Dynamics is a theory that developed out of Clare Graves’ work. There is a lot written about Spiral Dynamics on the web but  very little about Graves’ original research. Graves published very little during his career. That which is available and in the public domain is available on this website. Graves was in the process of writing his opus magnum when he had a debilitating heart attack and several years later died without publishing his book. This work was lost for twenty years until two of his students, Christopher Cowan and Natasha Todorovic gathered together all they could find of his unpublished manuscript, edited it together with Graves’ writing from others sources to fill in the blanks and published The Never Ending Quest.

Unfortunately the Never Ending Quest is an expensive academic book. Far fewer people have read this book in comparison to those who are familiar with Spiral Dynamics. This makes it very difficult to discuss Graves’ original work because there are several differences between Spiral Dynamics and Graves’ theory. In order to aid peoples understanding, this post is an attempt to surmise Graves’ Theory. In future posts I intend to highlight the differences, and critique all versions of the theory. This post is a simple summary of his research and findings.

Research Methodology

Graves was not satisfied with any of the existing models that explained human values, and rather than simply inventing his own theory to explain them, he devised a series of experiments to investigate the situation¹ and then followed this up with extensive library research to compare his results with existing knowledge. This sets him apart from many of his peers who tended to hypothesize without really testing their theories.² This is not to say there are not flaws in his methodology, there is a great deal of further research that remains undone, however I think that his key findings are very important to our understanding of human values.

It was important to Graves to ensure that his own ideas did not interfere with his studies, so he devised an experiment that allowed him to step back.³

First of all he took a group of freshman students for his psychology course, who had very little exposure to psychological theory, and asked them to write down how they believed the ideal human being would behave. He then took these papers and gave them to a second group of people and asked them to order the papers into as many consistent sets as they found necessary, and to place any papers that would not easily fit into an other pile.⁴

This provided Graves with a range of different types of values, but no information by which to order them.  He returned to his first group of students and organized the course around provoking the students to think about their values. He was careful not to bias the results by favouring a particular value system and so graded all work on internal consistency rather than by which values they expressed, he publicly demonstrated this by reading out some of the values and stating what he thought of the values before stating the grade; often the grade would be high even though Graves disliked the values.⁵ Throughout the course, he asked the students to rewrite their papers about their values. He then gave these to the second group for reordering.

The results of this study provided Graves with data about how the students values changed.

He repeated this experiment for nine years⁶. He then performed further studies⁷, including many standard psychological tests and experiments involving groups of adults who share the same conception. For several years towards the end of his research he performed library research to flesh out the edges of his theory, in particular around a couple of the value systems that he did not have a great deal of evidence for. ⁸

Basic findings

Five different value conceptions from his experiments, plus one further, largely hypothetical conception. A further two conceptions from his library research, providing a total of eight value conceptions. Each conception is defined, not by what the person thought, but how they thought, for example, it did not matter whether a person believed in God or not, but how the person related to their idea of God.⁹

The value conceptions are linearly ordered. Each value system develops out of the previous one. When peoples values change they either ascend or descend within this hierarchy. Each new conception embeds and subordinates the previous one.¹⁰

The development of the value systems are cyclical and oscillate between two sub types. One sub type is I centred, it looks to the external world for authority and tries to change itself internally to fit the world. The other is we centred, it looks internally to find a sense of authority and tries to change the world around it to fit this inner sense of authority. ¹¹

Each value conception exists in three states. A nodal state which is the ideal version of that conception. An entering state, which occurs as the value conception is settling in. An exiting state as the value conception is beginning to break down.¹²

Development through the conceptions is complex but essentially goes through six stages¹³. These six stages may be gone through many times in the process of someone’s conception developing from one conception to another¹⁴. Conceptions can not be skipped, each conception depends on knowledge gained in the previous conception.¹⁵. The six stages are.¹⁶

1. Potential : Must have the neuropsychological capability to develop the next conception.
2. Solution of existential problems : The existential problems of the current conception must be resolved before the next conception can build on them.
3. Feeling of dissonance : occurs when the persons sense of authority questions the current conception.
4. Gaining of insights : A realization that overthrows an assumption of the current conception.
5. Having properly timed or administered aid or non-interference – that is removal of barriers.
6. Opportunity to consolidate.

When people with a particular conception group together, they form a social structure that is unique for each conception.¹⁷

The value conceptions overlap and are wavelike rather than concretely defined.¹⁸

Only 60% of people have a solid conception that is identifiable (including entering, nodal and exiting states). The rest are a mixture of different conceptions.¹⁹

That human value conceptions have no end goal, they are an emergent phenomena. New and more developed value conceptions will continue to emerge. ²⁰

The development of the value conceptions progresses through a double-helix relationship between The Existential Means for Living (life conditions) and The Existential problems (mind conditions)²¹ . Mind conditions are the psychological state and capabilities of the person. Life conditions are the situation in the world that supports the person, from the societal infrastructure to the kind of relationships that are available. Each value conception is dependant on both conditions; it is impossible to maintain a value system if the societal conditions do not support it or if the persons psychological state cannot comprehend it.

Graves theorizes that the value conceptions are grouped into large groups. Each group existing within a single oscillation of his double helix model, with seven conceptions in each group. The first group, which consists of most of the conceptions Graves uncovered are concerned with issues to do with survival and he calls these subsistence conceptions, the second group are concerned with existential issues and he calls these being conceptions.²²

Various psychometric aptitudes correlate with values development²³. A few examples include: IQ, beyond a very low baseline of 70 does not correlate, however cognitive complexity and behavioural freedom increases. Dogmatism and rigidity decreases. Loyalty, religiousness, honesty and kindness are all cyclic between the I and we conceptions.

Graves’ value conceptions have similarities with other developmental psychological theories, however Graves’ came about through studying adults, not children²⁴ .

The Conceptions

I’m going to leave these for anotherday so that I can get this post up as I won’t have time to work on it for another week. (Note to self: add a link in here when it is done).

Notes

All references are are for:
Clare W. Graves. 2005. The Never Ending Quest. ECLET Publishing

1. pii
2. pp11-28
3. pp33-49
4. Ibid
5. p104
6. p46
7. pp47-48
8. pp48 49
9. p135
10. p170
11. p113
12. p56
13. p104
14. p176-178
15. p104
16. pp104-105, pp170-171
17. p177
18. p134
19. p159
20. p141
21. pp161-162
22. pp162-163
23. p426
24. pp 439-473

The current New Scientist has an article exploring the human tendency to believe in God and why it has arisen.

It mentions a theory in which there are essentially two modes of perception. One is material perception, whereby we perceive everything as an object, subject to the laws of the universe. In the other we perceive everything to be animate and conscious.

It strikes me, that if true, this represents the oscillation in Graves’ values between ‘I’ and ‘WE’ systems. As the systems develop, the interaction between the two becomes more sophisticated, but still swinging from one viewpoint to the other. ‘I’ being the material viewpoint and ‘We’ being the animate viewpoint.

The more I study the EC framework and apply it, the more I think it is an inaccurate formulation of human values.

It is not that the framework does not work, it is just that I can’t help but feel there is a more accurate way of expressing it. In the same way that Relativity improved on Newtons understanding of gravity, I think there is a fuller, more accurate way of modelling human values.

I do not know what this is but I can point out the flaws and I have an idea for a way forward but do not yet know how to fully formulate it.

The main issue is essentially that the value systems do not represent people, they represent abstractions of aspects of people. A person has multiple value systems interacting and rarely expresses a strong nodal value system. Extending from this there are several of what I think of as mistakes in the interpretations that were made on the SD training that I attended. I don’t want to slate the courses, I learnt a great deal from them and as a result my understanding of FS, GT and HU has changed a great deal.

The first issue I have is with the concept of being open and closed. As described by Cowan and Todorovic on the course. People can be closed or open to the various value systems. For example, a manager can be centralised in DQ and not really understand ER, yet if they are open to ER they can work with people who are centralised at ER and manage them effectively in a DQ way even though they do not understand what it is they do. My problem with this definition is that it contains an inherent contradiction. DQ always sees ‘others’, i.e. those that do not belong to the system that they belong to, as outsiders, and thus the enemy.

One way of explaining this is to say that the manager can follow the absolute DQ law, which says that the ER people are good people who belong to a different ‘caste’. This might work if the ER people were higher up the hierarchy than the manager, but they are not, so I find it hard to believe that this would sit well.

I think there is another explanation: That the value systems do not really exist, they are artefacts of the data and the way in which our minds interpret it.

The method Cowan and Todorovic use to map a persons values is to ask them a series of questions along the lines of agreeing /disagreeing with statements that express particular value systems. They then use this as a starting point to further analyse the person through one on one conversation. The result of this is a series of graphs that show which value systems a person identifies and disagrees with. It also shows if they are closed (blind) to a value system. My problem with this method is that it flattens the complexity of someone’s values into an overly simplified top down view that I do not find useful. They, and Graves, say that this is just a jumping off point and that the experienced consultant learns how to interpret the nuances of a persons values while interacting with them. I agree with this, but it does not help in understanding the process that goes on. I want to make that process concious, to see what makes it work.

A stepping stone to a different way of interpreting the data would be to suggest we have in our minds multiple value systems and apply different systems to varying situations. Therefore a person can be centralised at DQ but have other aspects of their mind that can understand ER enough to be able to work with people who are centralised at it. In the example with the manager, he understands ER in terms of human relationship, but not in terms of business strategy and thus can work with ER people even though he can not define how they work in terms of business strategy. This is the kind of approach that Wilber takes when he discusses multiple streams. I think Cowan and Todorovic used this explanation as well, but memory does not serve me well. The problem I have with this is that the evidence for distinct multiple intelligences is very poor.

A further criticism I have of Cowan and Todorovics approach, is their explanation of values memes as being meta memes and that many people confuse a meme with the value system. For example, just because someone says they are passionate about protecting the environment, which is an FS meme, it does not mean that they have FS values. My criticism of this approach is ironic, because I really appreciated the way they explained it, however I think that the explanation may be overly simplified. Perhaps this person who is passionate about the environment is genuinely FS in their passion and the life process that led them to that understanding, but their knowledge of how to protect it comes from another value system. The system could be more complex than a simple hierarchy of memes to meta memes.

With the above examples I am trying to express how Graves value system consistently collapses into complex chaos whenever a microscope is placed over a particular area. For meaningful progress to be made in the way we examine the details in the interactions of human values I think we need a new approach, one that allows us to understand the microcosm of interactions. I suspect this understanding will grow out of bio-psychology.

I’ve recently been reading On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. It is an interesting theory on how the brains neural network functions. I think it provides the beginning of a more comprehensive explanation for how human values have evolved. He explains that our brains are essentially self reinforcing pattern recognition and prediction devices. Each time we see an image, experience a feeling, hear a noise, it triggers neurons that fired the last time we had a similar experience. This pattern of experience triggers other associated patterns, so for example, when we hear the name of our mother an image of her appears in our minds eye.
I suspect that the values that Graves uncovered are explained by the increasing complexity of neural connections in the aspects of our brain that deals with social interaction.

Our values develop through these self reinforcing feedback mechanisms as an emergent property. This would explain the multiple values operating simultaneously, without fixing them into specific intelligences.

If this is true, then there is not a specific area of the brain that deals with values, but an emergent complexity in all areas. Unfortunately this may be hard to investigate and empirically verify as our brain imaging technology may not be advanced enough to pick this up. On the other hand it may be. When someone is expressing a particular set of values, a particular set of brain areas may light up because they are more heavily interconnected than others. I also wonder if this information may be useful in the development of AI. If true, it shows, for example, that the development of self aware conciousness is intrinsicly linked (at least in humans) to our oscillation between I centeredness and we centeredness . I also wonder if it is possible to make a simplified computer model of values development via simple interacting AI lifeforms that are competing for resource. Does the I/We oscillation naturally arise?

I have been thinking about why people socialise within a EC framework.

There seem to be a few basic reasons that people group together. Although the expression of these reasons morphs with each system until ultimately they have totally different meanings.

It all starts off with the need for genetic replication, which starts out at AN as sexual desire. By the time BO evolves this has resulted in several expressions that increase the chance of successful genetic replication. These are the need for group organisation, celebration of being alive, and distribution of resources.

With BO, group organisation happens in several ways, firstly though the emotion of love, and also through the unconscious hierarchy that is expressed through the elders from the ancestors. Celebration is expressed in group rituals, feasts and by keeping the knowledge of the ancestors alive. Resources are either consumed on the spot or grouped together and divided via a pecking order proscribed by the elders.

This jump from AN to BO is huge and is probably, really many smaller systems that have become lost in time.

With CP, group organisation is through a hierarchy imposed by the strongest. Celebration is through feasting and debauchery. Resources are claimed by whoever is strong enough to claim them, but they can only claim what they can hold at that time.

With DQ, group organisation is through a hierarchy imposed by the ultimate truth – a truth that evolves over many generations as beliefs are codified. These abstract set of rules are expressed as concrete absolute rules. Celebration becomes highly proscribed and ritualised by the rules of group organisiation. Resources are distributed via the laws.

With ER, group organisation is through an elected body of competing representatives. These representatives argue amongst each other to define an ever changing set of laws that everyone is governed by. Celebration is through individual expression of wealth. Distribution of resources is through trading. Everyone in the ER group competes to convert poorly valued resources into highly valued resources and to barter these for other resources that they need – In its more advanced expression this becomes the free market economy.

It is interesting that trade can not exist until ER because this requires both the understanding that others are individuals and also that they have something of value that can be traded. Yet trade has been around for a long time, showing that ER in at least this form has been around for a long time. This is good example of the values systems being abstractions of a deeper truth that has not yet been described… but I am getting off topic.

FS is a bit of a guess as we have not yet reached this as a society and so speculation and extrapolation is needed. Group organisation is via a peer based evolving set of laws, where everyone in the society has the opportunity to discuss and change the rules. This could be achieved via a net based voting system, where individuals represent themselves rather than an elected representative. The expression of celebration is diverse but has a common theme of acceptance and openness – a party where atheists and those of faith can gather together to express their shared humanity, be it a heartfelt touching ceremony or a knees up bender. Distribution of resources is via a peer based network of needs, with basic living requirements provided for all without question, and other resources divided up as peers deem. E.G. a scientist with a good reputation would have greater access to resources than a freshly qualified one.

GT as a society norm is so far off that any speculation is really guesswork and can only be expressed in the abstract. Group organisation will be via an evolving set of algorithmic processes that second guess the needs of those in the society before they are even thought of. Celebration will be through individual expression of creativity and knowledge. Resources are fairly allocated algorithmically, removing the need for people to spend time organising them. These algorithms will evolve out of the structures that the FS society creates.

Notice that by the time GT comes around, the original reason for society coming together is no longer applicable. The group has become all inclusive and automatic, giving no one a genetic advantage over anyone else. Clearly there is another vector at work here as well as genetic. I speculate that as the value systems advance they make genetic evolution redundant.

The quantum field allowed atoms to emerge, which in turn allowed molecules to emerge, which in turn allowed basic life to emerge, which in turn allowed DNA to emerge. DNA allowed self concious intelligence to emerge though the systems Clare Graves uncovered.

Clare Graves proposed that AN to FS represented a first tier of human values development and GT the beginning of the next tier. I do not think that there is strong evidence for this, but I do think that there is evidence for a new expression of life emerging on top of the intelligence that evolved out of DNA. There will be further development, such as HU, IV etc, but these will begin to become secondary to a new system that emerges out of the self aware intelligence that has emerged as our values have developed. What this will be I do not know, but I agree with Graves that it will have a lot to do with existential reality.

The difference between how I interpret the data and Graves is that Graves sees the second tier as a continuation of the first. I see it as evolving out of and on top of the first. The first continues in addition to this new emergent phenomena. Just as molecules continued to take on novel forms once cellular life formed.

I am involved in setting up our local transition town. I became involved because I thought it might be a good way to make a difference and meet people. 6 months later, I am still hopeful, but much of the time is spent wasted in bluster trying to sort out DQ-ER issues rather than ER-FS issues. It has really brought home for me just how hard it is to work in a genuinely FS way when the mainstream is oriented much more towards ER. For example, there has been a lot of discussion about whether we should call ourselves Transition Town Hebden Bridge or Transition Calderdale Valley. As a compromise we are currently calling ourselves Transition Hebden Bridge. This is a really good example of DQ at work rather than FS. Community at DQ is based on divisions and hierarchy, it is all about who you belong to. Community at FS is all about knowing people and as a result every person has their own community of the people they know. For some who come to the transition town meetings, they know more people throughout the Calderdale valley and so they see it as Transition Calderdale valley, for others, they mostly know people in Hebden Bridge so they see it as Transition Town Hebden Bridge. The point is that at FS, it is different for everyone and that is fine. It is more than fine. It is desired. I am not saying that a name doesn’t have importance. It is important to DQ, and many operate from DQ and need DQ structure and it is important that people forming an FS community/society include this, but it is not so important that a big issue should be made of it. It is important that the group discussing and deciding on the name understand this issue.

The whole point of the the transition town movement is to respond to global warming and peak oil. These are two meta problems have been caused by ER values though a disregard for the resource and waste stream and can only effectively be responded to through a move to FS values, which have evolved to deal with the shortcomings of ER values. The transition town movement will thus only be successful if it can embrace FS in an open way.

It might be better if the transition movement moved away from town based nomenclature. At first, this seems counter intuitive to me because using the town name allows people to reclaim their identity and it allows people to locate their town easily, this greatly aids the movement by making it seem to be spreading very quickly as more and more towns turn up on the transition town list.  On reflection though, I think these are appealing to DQ and ER values and are working with DQ-ER psychology not FS and as a result are encouraging a DQ-ER system rather than a FS one. FS spreads virally through grass roots word of mouth, it does not rely on trendy names (ER) or membership (DQ). The group still needs to appeal to ER and FS mindsets, but the way in which it does this should encourage movement to FS organisation. I am not sure how to practically realise this. A part of this would be to organise the website list via a postcode search so that the nearest transition group can be found without relying on boundaried names.

There are other things that give me cause for concern, such as the identity of the transition town movement being fixed in a set of rules rather than being a flexible evolving peer group discussed and edited identity.  Membership requiring filling in a form that is decided on privately rather than openly by a peer group of interested people. There are also many good things about the transition town movement, it encourages grass roots networking and the organisational methods described in the handbook lean strongly towards FS. The website is even based on a wiki. Only time will tell if the movement can resist the urge towards codification and top down organisation.

(See spiral dynamics introduction to understand DQ, ER, FS terminology.)

I am planning[1] on this being the first of several posts taking a critical look at Graves’ research into E-C theory, commonly known as Spiral Dynamics. While I think that Graves’ research methodology was superb for the era it was performed. In a time when most psychological researchers developed a theory and then tried to fit evidence to that theory, Graves designed an experiment that removed his ideas from the research and only developed the theory after many years of research [2]. However there are known flaws[3] and further academic research (and peer review) would be wonderful.

The issue I want to look at today is one that lies at the heart of his theory. Graves developed his theory after gathering written descriptions from freshman students about their ‘conception(s) of psychologically mature human behavior’ [4]. He then has a second group of students categorise these conceptions. This on its own is a wonderful idea; rather than try to impose his own order on the conceptions, he had many different groups of students categorise them for him. The categorisations that were developed were markedly similar, although there was some variation.[5]

My criticism is that because the students needed to be graded and in order to incentivise his students to be honest he developed a set of criteria that would be used for grading.[6]

1. Breadth of coverage of human behaviour
2. Concurrence with established psychological fact.
3. The internal consistency of the conception.
4. The applicability of the conception.

I can see issues with several of these criteria but today I am going to concentrate on just the third.

Graves states that 60% of conceptions where considered to be consistent by the judges [7], but by incentivising consistency he may well have inadvertently introduced artificial consistency into the conceptions where there is none, or at least biased the degree of consistency. I can think of reasons for Graves wanting to keep the conceptions consistent. For example, this allowed him to ask his students for an updated conception at the end of the course and use this data to work out how conceptions evolve over time, this is very useful knowledge, but it may be the case that peoples conceptions are rarely consistent.

Further to this. Whilst using students to create the categorisation prevented Graves from artificially creating categories, it did not address the potential problem of biases within human perception of others values. In other words, the conceptions that are identified could be artificial constructions of human perception and language rather than points that are inherently unique.

Several vectors were identified when peoples conceptions evolve that I do not think are effected by this issue. (although further research would be needed to confirm this.)

1. Increased evolution brings an increasing complexity of conception.[8]
2. Increased evolution brings a greater degree of behavioural freedom.[9]

Other issues are, I think, more likely to be effected. For example, that conceptions, when consistent, oscillate from ‘I’ systems, with an internal sense of authority and an external locus of control to ‘we’ systems with an external sense of authority and an internal locus of control. When the conceptions are inconsistent this may no longer be the case. Inconsistent conceptions may not centralise on an ‘I’ or a ‘we’ state in the same place as the consistent conceptions when looking at the complexity of conception or the degree of behavioural freedom.

This brings into doubt the even, ordered nature of the way peoples conceptions evolve. For example, in not looking at the inconsistent conceptions, he may be missing conceptions that are not easily categorisable because they consist of a mix of easily identifiable conceptions. For example, someone might express a mixture of DQ and FS (pairing in Cowan and Todorovic language) with low ER and yet have the behavioural freedom and complexity of conception of someone with a consistent ER conception.

Further study would be needed to confirm this and unfortunately Graves’ many years of raw data has been lost so it would need to be done from scratch. Some longitudinal studies are ideally needed to identify how all peoples conceptions evolve and not just the consistent conceptions. A good starting point would be to identify an up to date methodology for identifying the degree of complexity of the conceptions and the degree of behavioural freedom expressed by people.

Notes

1. I say ‘planning’ because I have about ten ideas for posts for every one I have time to write.

2. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. pp38-39.

3. We looked at several on Cowan and Tordovics SD1 and SD2 course. In particualar the poor sample that 1950s American colledge students made.

4. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. pp44-46

5. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. p47

6. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. p45

7. The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. pp56, 92

8. cognitive complexity – Graves used a modified version of George Kelly’s REP test. http://www.clarewgraves.com/research_content/CG&OJH/2.html

9. behavioural freedom was measured by the student judges – The Never Ending Quest. Clare W Graves. p114

With world markets dropping like a stone, crucial resources such as oil depleting and pollution in the form of global warming threatening our very habitat, I still have hope. Why?

Strangely, five years ago, when nearly everyone else was partying, I was afraid. I strongly suspected the credit crisis was coming, I was investigating peak oil and was raised to be concerned about our environment. I was a doomer.

Today I am optimistic. I do have concerns and things could certainly go down the pan, we have a long struggle ahead of us. Now that the problems are largely being recognised I feel a sense of relief and am able to focus on what needs doing more clearly.

Perhaps I just like to be contrary, but there is reason to my madness. As anyone who has followed this blog will notice I find Graves’ E-C theory fascinating. It is popularly known as Spiral Dynamics and deals with how humans value their lives and the world. Although his theory predicts some reasons to fear, my reading of the current situation is hopeful. Here is why.

Graves studied how people value the world and how that impacts on their behaviour, I have written about it elsewhere on the site, so will not go into a lot of detail here. It is complicated to sum up the whole theory in a sentence without oversimplifying, but essentially the way humans value the world is evolving.

For the last few hundred years a values system known as ER (orange) has been growing in strength as more people embrace its ideology. This system is characterised by an ‘express self’ attitude, where we put our selves and our own needs first. Yet it is a system that does so through planning rather than immediate gratification. It is a rational, thought out value system, but one that is reductionist and tends to have tunnel vision. For all ER’s ability to create an economy that can produce unparalleled wealth and freedom it is useless at seeing the side effects of its externalisations. It does not equate the waste or resource streams into its economic model because equating them is not in its foundational interests. As a result we have major economic crashes, depleting resources and an eco system that is becoming unfit for civilisation as we know it. This value system has brought us many great things from democracy through to the scientific method, it is not that the system is bad, just that it has had its day. It is time to develop a new way of valuing the world that takes on board the best that ER offers us, yet also has inherent appropriate responses to the problems it has caused.

For all its flaws the ER system has many benefits over the previous dominant value system, DQ (blue). DQ is an absolutist, dualistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic value system in which it is believed everyone has their place. This was a world of caste systems, an absolute belief in how life works that is handed down from superiors without question. DQ is still around today, it is still a strong value system that many embrace whole heartedly, there are even more primitive value systems around to a lesser effect. The world is a complex place.

It is important to stress that these are systems in people, not people in systems. A person is not in the DQ system. DQ is a system that is operating in a person, often at the same time as other value systems. People are complex.

If we have overshot our resources to such an extent that the ER system is no longer viable then it is very likely that the dominant system will descend back towards DQ. There is a very good historical example of this happening before. 1930s Germany. ER science with DQ values is not a pretty sight. As I said, I am not without my concerns.

However, I have hope, and it is with reason.

Over the last 100 years a new value system has been evolving in response to the shortcomings of ER. It is known as FS (Green). FS takes Newtonian physics and relativises it. FS takes a colonial anthropological perspective and pluralizes it. FS takes modern art and post-modernises it. FS takes the scientific method that ER created and runs with it, transforming it into a multiperspictival tool. Rather than looking for a single formula that explains all existence, it conceptualises a formula to its environment. Someone with FS values cares about the environment beyond their back yard, they care about peoples happiness and ability to live life to the full regardless of their cultural origins. FS inherently develops economies that care about the resource and waste streams and it is capable of doing so without abandoning all the benefits that the ER economy brought about.

FS is a ’sacrifice self’ value system as was DQ. However the sacrifice is not to an omnipotent dictator or creator, but to the equality of all. DQ develops a strong sense of community but where everyone outside of that community is an evil ‘other’. Everyone with FS values appreciates community, but that community is different for every person, it extends to everyone that touches that persons life, no matter how far away that person is or how culturally different they are. A purely FS system of government would be inherently anarchistic, but not in the sense of the barbaric CP value system, it is a peaceful, peer reviewed, consensual seeking anarchism. It is democracy as it truly could be, with everyone having a say.

FS brings its own problems, it can take a long time to find consensus, but solutions to these will be found, in fact they are already on the horizon. Lets not race ahead, ER loves to get to the top of the pile and when ER looks at the system after FS (GT) it sees something it wants to be, but it can

I recently sent this open letter to George Monbiot in response to his Identity Politics in Climate Change Hell article

………………

Hi George

I