Categories

Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

‘4Q/8L’

MeshWORKS – a 2nd Tier Perspective and Process

by Don Beck 2000 Spiral Dynamics co-developer Don Beck is occasionally prone to post what effectively amount to teach-ins or mini-lectures on the Spiral Dynamics e-lists. This is an extract from one such posting in 2000. You can e-mail Don or visit the Spiral Dynamics Integral website to find out more about his work. Introduction The term ‘mesh’ in MeshWORKS suggests a different way to connect entities, be they individuals, or structures, or interests, or functions, or people groupings of virtually any size. Some meshes will be of a static and contained nature, designed to hold together elements in some type of relationship. Other meshes are crafted to allow the movement or flow of substances, energy, ideas, stages, and sequences through conduits, cycles and spirals. A Static Mesh will be known for its strength and permanence. A Flow Mesh will be characterized by resilience, flexibility, and a morphing capacity. Our language is resplendent with such mesh-like components as blend, weave, align, integrate, stitch-together, merge, amalgamate, and embroider. A ‘melting pot’ suggests that the individual entities will lose their identities in the mixture and heat. A ‘meshing pot’ suggests that the entities contribute the best of what they are without becoming an… Read More

Is Racism Natural..?

Updated: 9 November 2015 In my past as a part-time teacher, teaching psychological and sociological approaches to prejudice & discrimination, every year I found myself confronted with this question from one or more of my A-Level students. With posters on some Internet discussion forums making statements like: “I think they [British National Party, Britain First, etc] is only saying what most people think but are too afraid to say” , it seems appropriate to me to revisit the students’ question from an Integrated SocioPsychology perspective. It was explaining Henri Tajfel & John Turner’s Social Identity Theory (1979) in relation to the formation of in-groups and out-groups that usually triggered the student’s question as to whether racism is natural. In essence, Tajfel & Turner say that, simply by identifying yourself with one group as opposed to another, your group becomes the in-group and the other becomes the out-group. According to Tajfel & Turner, this basic act of social categorisation – one group has one identity label and the other group has a different identity label – is enough to bring about prejudice and discrimination. Because we invest something of our self in the groups to which we belong, we need our in-groups to… Read More

Social Change

Updated: 25 August 2020   Social change means some aspect of society, culture or sub-culture changes. The changes may be overt and dramatic and obvious to everyone or they may be more discreet and less obvious…until people come to a realisation society around them has already changed. An example of this is the attitude of the general public in the UK towards welfare and benefits. As Elizabeth Clery shows in the results of the 2012 British Social Attitudes survey (BSA)– see graphic left – there has been an increased perception that people on welfare are over-reliant on their benefits and that cutting benefits won’t harm too many people too badly. The following 2 years’ surveys  showed only the most marginal reversal (3%) of this trend (Sarah Alcock, 2015) and the election in 2015  of a Tory government determined to cut even more could be seen as voter approval of these strategies. This was actually a major attitudinal shift in a country that, for many years, had largely prided itself on a generous attitude to welfare. Yet these more subtle changes in public perception often only become news when surveys like the British Social Attitudes annual survey pick them up. How complex… Read More

The Parks Primary School

The Meshing of Two Primary Schools written with Cathy Byrne Updated: 11 September 2004 The Parks is one of the most complete project reports on the use of the Gravesian approach anywhere in the world and many people have suggested that I must have been much more involved than the report suggests. Well, I wasn’t! This is Cathy Byrne’s story, not mine.  My RED would love to report that Cathy was on the phone to me every night asking how to do *this* and how to handle such-and-such a person. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like that. My influence, as Cathy has acknowledged widely, came through the training programme and then as an occasional adviser in the background. I like to think of the remarkable story of The Parks as being a first class example of just how much you can accomplish when you really grasp these concepts at an intuitive level. Most afternoons Cathy Byrne, Headteacher of The Parks Primary School on Hull’s Orchard Park Estate, sees her pupils off the premises with something of the pastorly air of a vicar bidding farewell to the congregation as they exit a church service. However, most mornings Cathy is also in the playground, welcoming… Read More

Aligning Neurological Levels – a Reassessment

Some Thoughts on Moving Towards an Integral NLP by Peter McNab 1999 The founder and leading light of excellence for all Ltd and one of the world’s foremost trainers in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Peter McNab has been looking at how models, theories and techniques can be integrated for a number of years. He has increasingly proposed and promoted the concept of ‘Integral NLP’. This article on Neurological Levels was written originally for the Association for Neuro-Linguistic Programming (ANLP) magazine, Rapport (issue no 43), in 1999. A year before Don Beck & Ken Wilber revealed 4Q/8L to the world, Peter was using Wilber’s 4 Quadrants very potently to provide greater insight into Robert Dilts’ model. The article is republished here with Peter’s full involvement. E-mail Peter or visit www.excellenceforall.co.uk to learn more about his work. I cannot remember the last issue of Rapport that did not contain an article or 2 mentioning Robert Dilts’ ‘Neurological Levels or ‘Logical Levels’. The concept has been taken up within the NLP world with such zeal that it sometimes feels like heresy to challenge it. But that is what I would like to do in this short article. I can still remember the first time that I… Read More

Society FAQs

Click the question to go to its answer… 1. How is the MeshWORK approach superior? 1. How is the MeshWORK approach superior? Updated: 17/05/2015 Most partnerships (in whatever sector) are built on aligning the ‘partners’ around power plays, answering questions such as:- Who’s got the power  Who wants to do what? Who will back me/us doing what I/we want to do and what will I/we give in return? These kinds of partnerships are usually characterised by sub-alliances, back-biting and horse-trading. Partnerships built on genuine consensus are usually considerably more sophisticated but can be slow in the extreme to build. They are then often characterised by some form of consensual dogma to which all the ‘partners’ are locked in, whether the dogma is effective or not. What distinguishes the MeshWORK approach is that the partnership is built on what might be described as ‘meta-principles’ which are universal. The point of a MeshWORK is to address the needs/wants of all levels of the Spiral in all ways for the good of the Spiral as a whole. At a partnership level, this produces two key questions:- What needs to be done? Who is most suited to do it? Using the vMEMES of the Gravesian… Read More

Theory FAQs

Click the question to go to its answer… 1. What is the relationship between the Gravesian approach, Spiral Dynamics and Spiral Dynamics integral? 2. What’s the difference between 1st Tier and 2nd Tier in the Gravesian approach? 3. What’s the difference between Integrated SocioPsychology and Integral Psychology and where does Integrated SocioPsychology fit in with the concepts of Integrated Spirituality? 1. What is the relationship between the Gravesian approach, Spiral Dynamics and Spiral Dynamics integral? Updated: 16/05/16 Just as the ‘Freudian approach’ is to do with the work of Sigmund Freud himself and/or developments of Freud’s work which adhere very closely to the principles of his theories, so the ‘Gravesian approach’ is to do with Clare W Graves’ research and/or developments of it. Spiral Dynamics was developed by Don Beck & Chris Cowan (1996) from Graves’ work by linking it with the new science of Memetics developed by the likes of Richard Dawkins (1976) and Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1993). They coined the term ‘vMEME’ for the Gravesian systems of thinking and saw them as attracting memes pertinent to the vMEME’s motivation. Thus, they extended Graves’ concept of his systems (themas) having preferred schemas. Beck & Cowan also colour-coded the levels to make them easier… Read More

Selfplex

Updated: 19 December 2016 ‘Selfplex’ is the term used by Susan Blackmore (1999) to depict ‘self’ effectively as the key confluence of schemas – ‘the ultimate memeplex‘ – which provides the concept of ‘I’, the cognitive awareness of who I am, how I think, what I feel, what I believe…why I am the way I am. Someone’s sense of identity or identities. The term ‘ego’ is widely used in Psychology and the other behavioural sciences as a cipher for ‘self’. It has even entered mainstream popular language in usages such as: “That’s egocentric” or “He’s got a lot of ego”. The very diversity of usages makes it too vague to use as a term for ‘self-concept’ – though it is often used in that context – which is why ‘selfplex’ is preferable. Sigmund Freud (1923b) used ‘Ego’ in a very specific yet cohesive sense. It is a force which attempts to balance the motivations of the Id and the Superego where they compete for dominance and restrains the more socially-unacceptable demands of the Id. This latter function can be seen in the way the PURPLE vMEME submits to the family or group to gain acceptance. Yet Freud also perceived the Ego as… Read More

Articles

The articles on these pages explore the concepts of Integrated SocioPsychology, vMEMES, Neurological Levels, Dimensions of Temperament and related Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Psychology and Sociology models from theoretical and general standpoints. Features dealing with the particular practical applications of the concepts and models are posted in the Lifespan, Society, Global and Mental Health sections of this site. Features on application of the concepts outside of those topic areas are included in this section. Thanks to those leading psychologists, sociologists and Gravesian/NLP practitioners who have generously allowed their work to be published here alongside my own. The articles appear in ascending chronological order – ie: the newest are at the top of the list below and the oldest at the bottom. Graves: Systems more than Stages      30/08/20 Piece examining the nature of stage the nature of stage theories and how the Graves Model is so much more than a stage theory Citizen-Driven Community and Nation-Building Article by Bjarni Snæbjörn Jónsson dealing with community engagement in large-scale change and using the drive for constitutional change in Iceland as application How the Plutocrats are waging War on the Bureaucrats… Piece using sociopsychological theory to explain the rise of nationalistic populism in the West The Trouble with… Read More

Symbolic Interactionism

Updated:  19 May 2017 Symbolic Interactionism is an Interactionist approach in Sociology – although it also has a strong influence in Social Psychology, particularly in the use of phenomenonology to exolore the unique experience of the individual. It contrasts with approaches like Marxism and Functionalism which seem to suggest that people are like puppets controlled by the relations of  production or the pattern variables,  Rather than people slotting into their respective slots in the structure of society, Interactionism sees ‘society’ as being created by people actively working at relationships and thus morphing and changing as the dynamics of those relationships morph and change. Symbolic Interactionism is about creating and responding to symbols and ideas (memes). It is this dynamic that forms the basis of Interactionists’ studies. Sociological areas that have been particularly influenced by Symbolic Interactionism include the sociology of emotions, the sociology of health and illness, deviance and crime, collective behaviour/social movements, and the sociology of sex. Interactionist concepts that have gained widespread usage include definition of the situation, emotion work, impression management, looking glass self and total institution. Symbolic Interactionism derived initially from the writings of George Herbert Mead (1934). He argued that people’s selves are social products –… Read More