Graves was an associate professor at Union when he began his remarkable project in 1952. (He became a full professor in 1956.) At the time Graves recognised the frustration of his students when trying to make sense of the differing theories of personality development and human nature he had taught them - often expressed in terms such as: "Okay, professor. Now we know Maslow and Rogers and Skinner and lots of others. Which theory is right?"
So it was he resolved to carry out his own research project, starting completely from scratch - ie: he didn't use any existing theory as a starting point. Effectively Graves started without a hypothesis and with only the broadest of aims!
In 1984, just over 30 years later, Graves gave his last major presentation (to the World Future Society) on what he had come to call the 'Emergent Cyclical Double-Helix Model of Adult Bio-Pyscho-Social Behaviour'.
The Methodology - an Insight
Graves began by getting his students to write down their conceptions of the psychological health of biologically-mature human beings. He did this on an annual basis and then had the data collated, assessed and categorised by independent panels of judges.
He tested students in groups categorised according to the independent judges, using a variety of then-standard psychological assessments for measures including:-
# Cognitive Complexity # Authoritanarianism # Deference # Affiliation
# Rigidity # Kindness # 'Religiousness' # Intelligence
# Dogmatism # Autonomy # Aggressiveness # Honesty
# Self-control # Loyalty # Creating novelty
# Speed of attaining new concepts # Integrating contradiction
He also worked on specific problem-solving exercises with the categorised groups.
He conducted biophysiological tests with light and sound on the categorised groups and tested their Galvanic Skin Response (electrical conductivity of the skin).
Some of Graves' methods would be regarded as rather dubious when set against the heavy emphasis on ethics by today's Psychology academics. He did not tell his students what his intentions were but allowed them to think the various tests and exercises were part of their standard curriculum. He also observed them through 2-way mirrors and secretly tape-recorded them.
In trying to make sense of the immense amount of data he was collecting, Graves initially tried to map it against Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, with which he had been much impressed. Besides Maslow, he also conversed regularly with O J Harvey and David E Hunt (of Harvey, Schroeder & Hunt) - Hunt had been one of his students at Union - and Jack Calhoun, among others.
As news of his work and the conclusions he was drawing began to spread in the 1960s and 1970s, Graves received invitations to work in industrial situations, educational institutions and with prison populations which enabled him to collect data from new and quite different population groups.
Unfortunately Graves appears to have entertained some short-sighted C-P (RED) in his own thinking as he threw out a large amount of the original test materials, retaining only the collated results. This has created difficulties in replicating and validating Graves' project - already daunting due to its 30-year length and the sheer amount of data he collected.
The Results - an Insight
Early on Graves and his judges identified two basic values-oriented systems and 2 sub-systems of each system:-
System: Express Self... Deny/Sacrifice Self...
Higher sub-system: ...but not at the expense of ...to get acceptance (F-S)
others (G-T)
Lower sub-system: ...calculatedly for self-gain (E-R) ...for reward later (D-Q)
Graves identified what he later termed the G-T (YELLOW) level with the characteristics of Self-Actualisation, as described by Humanistic Psychologists such as Maslow - especially - and Carl Rogers. (Rogers also used the term 'Full Function' for this level.)
In 1959 Graves found for the first time a very small number of his students identifying a level clearly beyond G-T as a superior conception of the psychologically-healthy human being: Deny/Sacrifice Self to existential realities (H-U).
This led to some theoretical debate with Maslow. How much Maslow and Graves communicated and how much they influenced each other is a matter of some conjecture. However, Graves is known to have sympathised with Maslow at a mid-1950s American Psychological Association conference when Maslow was brutally barracked and rubbished by a legion of Behaviourists. Shortly before his death in 1970 Maslow finally acknowledged 'Transcendence' was a stage beyond Self-Actualisation.
A difference between Graves and Maslow that was not resolved, however, was that of the 'ultimate state'. Maslow saw the stages of development as forming a pyramid, with Self-Actualisation - later, succeeded by Transcendence) - forming the apex. Graves, on the other hand, came to believe in the brain-mind's ability to ever expand its repertoire of coping mechanisms by creating new thinking systems as circumstances demanded. This is illustrated in Spiral Dynamics by both the nomination of the hypothetical level I-V (CORAL) beyond H-U (TURQUOISE) and the Spiral 'balloon' graphic - the latter showing how the succeeding mindsets are greater in complexity, thus forming an ever-expanding spiral. (However, there is yet to be any scientifically-reliable evidence of anyone thinking in a way beyond H-U.)
In the early 1960s Graves identified an Express-Self level less complex than D-Q: Express Self impulsively at any cost (C-P). Graves correlated this with the arrival of significant numbers of students from blue collar/working class backgrounds at Union due to changes in the funding and admission regimes. (It was the identifiication of this level which led David Hunt - terming it 'Type Sub-1' - to break from colleagues Harvey & Schroeder who were reluctant to acknowledge a level below 'Type 1' (D-Q).
(A Developmental Comparison Map illustrates how the work of other developmental psychologists and behavioural scientists like Maslow and Harvey, Schroeder & Hunt maps to the Gravesian levels.)
By the late 1960s Graves was formulating a model from his data, drawing on the work of leading anthropologists to sketch in the lower A-N (BEIGE) and B-O (PURPLE) levels. The basics of his theory were in place by 1970 when he published a paper on it in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. Several key factors had become clear to him by this time:-
# the systems developed in an upward hierarchical manner, cycling between Express Self and Deny/Sacrifice Self
# in the relationship between the internal coping mechanisms (notated N-Z) and the Life Conditions (notated A-M) in the Environment, the Deny/Sacrifice Self systems work to adapt to the Life Conditions while the Express Self systems work to overcome them
# characteristics of transitions between levels were identifiable
# the B-O to F-S (GREEN) levels in their peak manifestations defended their worldviews as being 'right' in a rather absolutist sense while G-T tolerated other worldviews and H-U regarded less complex worldviews as self-deception.
Though he admitted he personally couldn't find enough reliable and significant evidence for it, Graves thought it likely there were relationships between the levels and intelligence and temperament.
Dr Clare W Graves (1914-86) was the psychologist on whose work Spiral Dynamics and several other powerful and practical conceptual models have been built.
Although he achieved the emminent position of 'Professor of Psychology Emeritus' at Union College, Schenectady, New York State, when he retired through ill health in 1978, he was not particularly well known outside of certain academic and management theory networks and he has been largely ignored since his death.
However, his model and the theory that supports it are without doubt amongst the most powerful and certainly the most cohesive and comprehensive of all attempts to map the development of the human psyche. Those who get to grips with Graves' work tend to become decidedly passionate about it - such is the power of the model! His work is critical and fundamental to Psychology and the other behavioural sciences and is at the core of Integrated SocioPsychology .
Clare W Graves
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