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

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.