Thread by @Meaningness

🎙 Robert Kegan explaining his adult developmental theory, with @dthorson

“If you want to be Stage 5 because all the cool kids are, that’s a Stage 3 aspiration. If you want it because Stage 5 is the Correct way of thinking, that’s a Stage 4 aspiration.”

anchor.fm/emerge/episode…

@dthorson Daniel asked Kegan about his claim that no one reaches Stage 5 before age 40. Kegan said that’s what’s in the data from their measurement process: zero cases.

This is somewhat puzzling…

@dthorson Other researchers using similar but not identical measures find “meta-systematic cognition,” seemingly analogous to Kegan’s Stage 5 thinking, starting for some in late 20s (partial intellectual understanding of it sometimes starting early 20s).

Informally I think I see this too.

The stuff I write about meta-rationality seems to appeal most to people who are ~28: having worked through the limits of rationalism, with the more complex alternative coming into view on the horizon.

Why this discrepancy? I can think of quite a few possibilities. However, it’s hard to know, because:

As far as I can determine, Kegan and his collaborators have never published their empirical work, much less made data available.

Their citation chains always eventually root in their SOI Guide, which just has some summary statistics in an appendix.

This is a self-published book. Nothing has been peer reviewed. It was written in 1988, and kept private until self-publication in 2011

amazon.com/dp/1461128803/…

Possible there’s been no serious data collection since the mid-80s, and Kegan’s “not before 40” assertion rests on that single old study. Results might be different 35 years later.

Also I see meta-rationality showing up at ~28 in STEM geeks, who were not in his sample afaik.

Alternatively, it’s plausible that Kegan &co’s instrument measures something different than other developmental theorists’. They emphasize emotional and relational complexity, where others emphasize reasoning complexity, although both include both and see them as linked.

It’s a common observation that STEM geeks develop cognitive skills fast and lag in emotional & relational skills. Developing in different domains at different rates is called “décallage” (lag) in the literature. Kegan seems less willing to acknowledge décallage than some others.

Maybe you really can’t be emotionally and relationally meta-systematic before age 40, although you can develop meta-rationality over a few years starting mid/late 20s.

(Research suggests developing cognitive meta-systematicity (= meta-rationality) takes 6-10 years to complete.)

Understanding how adults continue to develop new, deeper, more powerful cognitive skills, through their 30s at minimum, seems enormously important.

Research on this is scarce, and—to be blunt—much of it is low-quality. I’d love for this to change. Big opportunity!