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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

‘social change’

Is Sexual Infidelity Inevitable? #2

PART 2 Are environmental factors important? Looking at this from an Integrated SocioPsychology perspective, we can say that the Evolutionary concepts fit with the BEIGE vMEME’s need to reproduce and the Sociobilogical identification of the role of bond-producing hormones in sex gives us a BEIGE-PURPLE link into PURPLE’s need to belong to our lover. So how does it so often go so wrong? An important clue here is provided by a 1994 study by Georg Sasse et al. Their research indicated that, from a (large) sample of 1600, only 1.4% of Swiss children were born to biological fathers not named on their birth certificates. A staggeringly low figure when set against the 10%-30% claimed for Britain. Are the Swiss genetically different from Britain and much of the rest of the Western world? The answer is almost certainly a ‘yes’ – but a very qualified and extremely minor ‘yes’ and probably not in ways which would explain such a statistical difference. So we have to look at environmental factors – the Stress side of the Diathesis-Stress equation. Swiss society is notoriously BLUE – so much so that the polite manners, conformity to rules and general mechanical nature of much of what goes… Read More

Looking Beyond the Midterm Elections

In Quest for Humanity’s Master Code by Don Beck 6 November 2018 I am thrilled to publish this ‘guest blog’ by Spiral Dynamics co-developer Don Beck which has been published elsewhere – such as Said E Dawlabani’s MEMEnomics Group – and has been sent to several media outlets.  Don is, of course, writing about the left-right extreme polarisation in American politics which has become such as dominating and divisive discourse in the United States since Donald Trump began his presidential campaign in 2016. But the Brexit ‘debate’ – and ‘debate’ may too polite a term for it! – has wrought similar highly-polarised divisions in British society. As with the US, so superordinate goals will need to be created in the UK to bring our divided kingdom together in a healing process. A great deal of what Don has to say is relevant to all societies bedevilled by polarisation. You can e-mail Don or visit the Spiral Dynamics Integral website to find out more about his work. I want you to stand 30 years in the future and tell me if the America you see is the one you envisioned in November 2018. Has the ‘us v them’ polarization disappeared? Have we become a stronger union because of it, or did one… Read More

Has Boris Johnson inadvertently done Us a Favour?

Boris Johnson has been roundly pilloried by the left-leaning press and by socialists and liberals on social media for his comments about burqa-wearing Muslim women looking “ridiculous” because burqas make their wearers look like “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”. But the criticisms have come not just from the left. Theresa May and Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis are among top Tories who have called for Johnson to apologise. The party has received so many complaints, an investigation into whether Johnson’s already- infamous article in the Daily Telegraph has brought the party into disrepute is proposed. Separately some MPs – such as Labour’s Jon Trickett – have called for Johnson to be disciplined for breaking the Ministerial Code (BBC News, 2018d). In the wake of Johnson’s Telegraph article, there has been a spike in attacks on Muslim women wearing burqas and niqabs – reported by The Independent’s Lizzie Dearden, among others. This tweet by Amanda Fleiss and posted to Facebook by Huddersfield TUC captures the indignity and distress of one such attack. As reported by The Independent’s Joe Watts (2018b) amongst others, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has demanded that Johnson is subjected to a full disciplinary investigation and that there is… Read More

The 5Ps #3

PART 3 Summary In the early days of an SDi enterprise we consider the issues, stakeholders and their intentions – and the complex environment in which they mesh. This helps us to broaden our apertures and create new understanding. As this exploration ripens, we take our enhanced understanding and transform it into new possibilities. This can take the form of developing future scenarios and/or pilot projects. To maintain momentum and deepen learning, we share stories, practice new skills and assess the outcomes of our initiatives. As we learn by doing, members of the MeshWORK endeavour continuously refine, adapt and align the 5 components to achieve superordinate goals. Practical application: An appreciation for Afghan culture played an integral role in our collaborative approach to successfully addressing socio-economic needs in impoverished villages. Close observation showed us positive deviance and culturally-relevant solutions. Brainstorming helped us discover common ground. Collaborative forums facilitated collective action. Storytelling generated momentum. A collaborative approach, embraced by our senior and junior leaders, helped build a countryside network of stakeholders. This network coalesced around mutual interests that focused on security, stability, development and governance at the local, regional and national levels. By building bridges between Kabul-based organizations and rural communities, we… Read More

The Case for a Second EU Referendum is now compelling

Even if, following the departures of David Davis and Boris Johnson (and a minor slew of lesser Tories), Theresa May can impose a workable degree of collective responsibility on her new-look Cabinet….even if, as reported by BBC News (2018b), the 1922 Committee has yet to receive the full 48 letters from MPs required to trigger a ‘no confidence’ vote in her as leader of the Conservatives…even if there are no more big name resignations…the chances of May’s compromise fudge, supposedly accepted by all Cabinet members at Chequers last Friday (6 August), forming a viable starting point for negotiating the UK’s future relationship with the European Union are minimal. As Kirsty Hughes of the Scottish Centre for European Relations explained to The National’s Emer O’Toole: “This is the cherry picking that the EU has made clear will not be allowed to proceed…[the EU] will not go for such cherry-picking of the single market and the four freedoms.” The UK leaving the EU with no trade deal will indeed hurt companies in a number of member states. However, as been widely and consistently reported – eg: Paul Withers (2018a) in the Daily Express – for Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, the integrity of the single market and… Read More

The 5Ps #2

PART 2 Process Just as careful consideration in selecting the appropriate people and place are critical factors in a successful MeshWORKS effort, the process that stakeholders use also requires thoughtful planning. From an SDi perspective, this means creating alignment and integration in the MeshWORK’s design. In alignment we gather pertinent stakeholders with diverse vMEMES to identify the root causes of the challenge and paint a comprehensive picture of what is happening in the environment. This helps us to understand what we will do with whom. This thoughtful analysis sets up for success during the integration phase where we put our strategic vision into action. W conduct pilot projects, learn and adapt, and scale accordingly all the while scanning the environment for patterns. In this phase, then, we focus on how we should support stakeholders to address their concerns. A MeshWORKS process should enable stakeholders to listen to and respect each other and to suspend judgement in order for everyone to voice new possibilities to the best of their abilities. This is not just an exercise in coming together to share information. The process evolves over time as stakeholders listen to each other and learn about each other’s concerns. This in turn… Read More

Overcoming Intractable Elements in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict through Spiral Dynamics

by Neri Bar-on I am honoured to publish this ‘guest blog’ by Neri Bar-on, one of the founders of Integral Israel. He is a professional electronics engineer with degrees from Tel Aviv University in economics and philosophy. He lives in Tel Aviv. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to become more intractable by the day: if anything, in recent years both sides are marked by increasing radicalization. Yet the advent of Donald Trump and his pattern of impatiently shattering paradigms could propel the stagnant Israeli-Palestinian process out of its paralysis. It is an opportunity to introduce the principles of Spiral Dynamics to the Israeli and Palestinian leadership, with the goal of forging a new, sustainable system based on both sides making a sober assessment of their real greater good and potential for collaboration. The Spiral Dynamics approach proved helpful before, in advancing collaboration between two seemingly irreconcilable groups in South Africa. The case of Israel and the Palestinians is different but also involves aggrieved people with radically different narratives who are locked in vicious circles of retaliation. Points of origin The strife between Israelis and Palestinians is fanned by their own internal struggles. To oversimplify for the sake of brevity: their internal battles both involve… Read More

The 5Ps

SDi MeshWORKS: how Diverse Stakeholders transform Complex Challenges by Fred Krawchuk 16 July 2018 I am honoured to publish this ‘guest feature’ on the MeshWORKS concept by the remarkable Fred Krawchuk. A former colonel with US Army Special Forces, Fred has used the Gravesian approach as a key conflict management tool in several extremely difficult and highly dangerous situations – not least in undermining the insurgency in Iraq 2006-2007. This is discussed in part in The Sons of Iraq – a Step towards Stratified Democracy? (Fred’s somewhat controversial appearance at Don Beck’s workshops at the Integral Centre in Boulder, Colorado, in March 2009 and the challenge that presented to my own thinking is discussed in the Blog post Don Beck’s got Who at His Workshop This Weekend…?!?!?!). After his military career Fred consulted with the RAND Corporation. He also began teaching leadership, negotiation, and strategy at IESE Business School. He has led high-performing teams in over 30 different countries. Fred’s feature originally appeared in  Innovative Development: Emerging Worldviews and Systems Change (Integral Publishers, August 2015), edited by the late Tom Christensen. It is reproduced here with Fred’s permission. With the exception of some minor formatting changes, it is reproduced exactly as it appeared in… Read More

Don Beck & South Africa #2

PART 2 Beck’s legacy A personal annecdote…in June 1999 I fell into conversation with a group of visiting South African students in Leeds. To my surprise, they not only knew of Don Beck but regarded him as something of a ‘political hero’. (2 of them had actually seen him speak at a university appearance.) One of them told me that, thanks to Beck’s work, race would be a dead issue in South Africa inside 5 years – and these students were from the Transvaal, hard Boer Afrikaner stock from an inherently-racist tradition! Race-as-a-dead-issue has proved hopelessly optimistic but the students’ comments give a flavour of just how much impact Beck and Clare W Graves’ ideas had in South Africa in the 1990s. In an August 1993 interview with Padraig O’Malley, archived on the Nelson Mandela Foundation web site, Hall, explains the  model Beck used in South Africa: “Donald Beck, he’s the American sort of sociologist who has been working in this country with my companies for a long time and he makes it very complicated, I simplify everything – as you know. So level one is a hunter/gatherer, level two is a tribal collectivist, level three is people that have urbanised, come into… Read More

Citizen-Driven Community and Nation Building

by Bjarni Snæbjörn Jónsson 7 June 2018 I am honoured to publish this ‘guest feature’ on the MeshWORKS conecept by the remarkable Bjarni Snæbjörn Jónsson.  His main research interests lie in large systems development through public participation.  He was a founding member of The Anthill in Iceland which organized a cross-sectional National Assembly in 2009 involving abt. 1000 randomly sampled citizens which were physically joined for a day to formulate the Icelandic nation‘s future superordinate goals, following the financial crisis of 2008 which hit Iceland particularly hard. These goals were at the centre of the drive for constitutional reform which has dominated Icelandic politics since. Bjarni’s feature originally appeared in  Innovative Development: Emerging Worldviews and Systems Change (Integral Publishers, August 2015), edited by the late Tom Christensen. It is reproduced here with Bjarni’s express permission and encouragement. With the exception of some minor formatting changes and a several links added, it is reproduced exactly as it appeared in ‘Innovative Development’. To maintain the integrity of the piece as published, I have retained Bjarni’s use of the SDi terminology. However, for the purposes of this site, readers should effectively susbstitute ‘Gravesian’ for ‘SDi’. The truth is not to be found in books, not even good books. The truth… Read More