Glossary Nos
Nos A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P-Q R S T U V W X-Y-Z
1st/2nd Order Change: in the Graves Model – and its Spiral Dynamics ‘build’ (Don Beck & Chris Cowan, 1996) – 1st Order Change involves modifications to the existing way of thinking without any fundamental change in motivation – ie: still within the existing vMEME Stack. 2nd Order Change involves shifts in motivation and significant changes in the vMEME Stack. 2nd Order Change is described as ‘Evolution’ when there is a relatively orderly shift in thinking, with insight into how the new way of thinking should be. When there is initial blockage to change and then sudden eruption into the new way of thinking, this is termed ‘Revolution’. In the case of 2 or more new vMEMES being accessed more or less instantly, the term ‘Quantum Leap’ is applied. See also Bateson Learning Levels and The Process of Change.
1st/2nd Tier: Clare W Graves (1970, 1971b/2002, 1978/2005) perceived that the first 6 levels of his model had a quality of ‘subsistence’ to them whereas the 7th and 8th were substantially different, having a quality of ‘being’, and thus represented a 2nd tier of motivational systems. (These 2 different qualities reflected the work of Abraham Maslow (1943) on ‘deficiency needs’ and ‘being needs’ in his Hierarchy of Needs – although Maslow (1970) later added ‘growth needs’ between deficiency and being – his categorisations broadly reflecting the Pre-Conventional, Conventional and Post-Conventional structure of Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development.)
The 2nd Tier concept is highly contentious among some Gravesians – eg: Chris Cowan & Natasha Todorovic (2012) – because of its ‘hijacking’ by what might be called ‘2nd Tier elitists’ who disdain ‘1st Tier thinking’.
1st/2nd/3rd/4th Positions: see Perceptual Positions.
4Q/8L: the most important output (2000) of the meeting of minds between Don Beck and Ken Wilber, this runs the vMEMES of the Gravesian approach through Wilber’s All Quadrants/All Levels philosophy of spiritual consciousness and human inter-relations. Put simply, in 4Q/8L the 4 Quadrants represent:-
- Upper Right – the physical development of the individual’s brain and nervous systems
- Upper Left – the development of the individual’s thinking processes (vMEMES)
- Lower Right – the structures and systems in which people live and operate – studied in Functionalism
- Lower Left – cultures: the ways in which people think and behave – studied in Symbolic Interactionism and Memetics
The scope offered by 4Q/8L is so all-encompassing that it effectively provides a schematic for integrating just about everything to do with motivation in the behavioural sciences.
Beck produced very minor revisions to the concept in 2002. In 2016 I obtained his permission to link the model explicitly to Functionalism, Symbolic Interactionism and Memetics.
7+/-2: back in 1887 Joseph Jacobs identified that only between 5 and 9 nine distinct items can be held in short-term memory at any one time. He deduced that when the individual’s limit was reached, either new items were not retained or older items were displaced from memory. Hence many of the problems in recalling things we have just seen or heard! However, according to the classic 1956 research of George Miller, by organising information into meaningful ‘chunks’, more can be retained within those 5-9 items. For example: ‘V’, ‘B’, ‘T’, ‘C’, ‘I’, ‘B’ are 6 individual items; but, organised into ‘ITV’ and ‘BBC’, they make up just 2 chunks, theoretically allowing up to another 7 items to be entered into short-term memory. Herbert Simon found a little later (1974) that smaller chunk sizes could be remembered more easily than larger chunk sizes. NLPers tend to express Miller’s concept as ‘7+/-2 chunks in the Conscious Mind’.