

Dr Clare W Graves (1914-
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 -
Clare W Graves [Copyright © NVC Inc]
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 -
So it was he resolved to carry out his own research project, starting completely
from scratch -
In 1984, just
over 30 years later, Graves gave his last major presentation (to the
The
Methodology -
Graves began by getting his students to write down their
conceptions of the psychological health of biologically-
He tested students in groups categorised according to the independent judges, using
a variety of then-
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He also worked on specific problem-
He conducted biophysiological tests with light and sound on the categorised groups (Graves, 1971) and tested their galvanic skin response (electrical conductivity of the skin) (Graves, 1971/2002). He even injected some of them with hormones to see what effect this would have on their thinking and behaviour in terms of his model. (Graves, 1978/2005)
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-
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 (1943, 1956), 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) -
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-
The
Results -
Early on Graves and his judges identified two basic values-
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System: |
Express Self... |
Deny/Sacrifice Self... |
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Higher sub- |
...but not at the expense of others (G- |
...to get acceptance (F- |
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Lower sub- |
...calculatedly for self- |
...for reward later (D- |
Graves identified what he later termed the G-
In 1959 Graves found for the first time a very small number of his students identifying
a level clearly beyond G-
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-
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-
In the early 1960s Graves identified an Express-
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-
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.
The
Freaky Stuff!!!!
In over 30 years of research Clare W Graves discovered some fairly
startling information about the way the systems he had identified operated:-
It seemed to Graves that there was a qualitative difference between the first 6 levels
-
The
Graves Legacy
Although severe ill health forced his retirement from Union College
in 1978, Graves continued to carry out research and to make presentations as best
he could. His health problems effectively brought to an end his attempts to write
a book about his work and the theory he had developed from it. ('The Never Ending
Quest', published in 2005, was an invaluable completion of the abandoned manuscript,
using other Gravesian materials.)
Not particularly good at promoting himself in academic circles, Graves had relatively
little material published in psychological journals during his lifetime. (He did
have several pieces published in management/business-
However, by the time of his retirement, Graves' work was being taken very seriously
indeed by a number of small networks across the United States. One particularly important
pocket of support was in Texas where Scott & Susan Myers at Texas Instruments introduced
the concepts to colleagues Charles Hughes & Vincent S Flowers. Hughes & Flowers soon
became the Center for Values Research -

When Graves died in 1986, Don Beck had already established his own remarkable project of applying Graves' model to the deteriorating situation in Apartheid South Africa. Graves and Beck consulted closely during the mission's first few years.
Beck & Cowan, of course, developed Spiral Dynamics from Graves' model.
However, while it is arguably the most powerful development of Graves' work, Spiral Dynamics is far from being the only 'build' on his work. Web sites related to some of the other builds are listed below.
In recent years Chris Cowan has worked closely with Bill Lee, the self-
Graves' model and his theory have yet to be validated to academic standards -
Chris Cowan, Clare Graves and Don Beck at Graves’ farm [Copyright © NVC Inc]
Graves Model Links
Clare W Graves
Web site devoted to promoting and publishing Graves’ work -
Graves Model Builds
(other than Spiral Dynamics)
Brainmeup (Brain Technologies)
Dudley Lynch's 'Dolphin' version of Graves informs
a range of personal and management development tools -
Systemic Solutions
The Graves Model is used here as a critical element in a broad-
emrgnc: research papers on Graves' Levels of Existence
This page containing downloads
of a number of papers exploring Graves' concepts is part of the much larger emrgnc
site aimed at applying "the many principles of integral practice towards an emergent
world"