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Keith E Rice's Integrated SocioPsychology Blog & Pages

Aligning, integrating and applying the behavioural sciences

paradigm’

RED Thinking is not up to 21st Century Crisis Leadership

The RED vMEME is strong in the vMEME stack of most politicians. Granted, there may be a sense of calling to public duty (BLUE) for some while others may see becoming a politician as personal career progression ORANGE); but there will almost always be strong RED. The schemas in the selfplex that I am important…that I have the answers…that I can make a difference…. This RED drive will enable these people to put themselves forward, to shout louder in a world of noise where he or she who shouts loudest is the one most often others listen to. It will literally drive them to work long hours, cajole potential allies and bully enemies, and build power networks with ‘subservient lesser beings’ dependent on their favours. Strong RED, lacking any real anticipation of consequences, will make promises it can’t keep and tell lies it can’t possibly substantiate to avoid the immediate shame of seeming powerless under pressure from ‘challenging lesser beings’. RED is usually mediated by BLUE and ORANGE in most politicians. Such strong RED gets out of hand from time to time so politicians tell stupid and indefensible lies, get caught having sex with someone they shouldn’t, fail to declare a… 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

Online Censorship: where do we draw the Line?

by Carla White  I am delighted to publish this ‘guest blog’ by Carla White. Carla is an experienced writer and blogger who describes herself as “passionate about looking deeper into the world around us”. She writes ‘alternative’ news posts for numerous websites and also has experience running and maintaining websites. She says: “You can always find me at my laptop, with a cup of coffee!” You can email Carla to find out more about her work. Social conditioning has a considerable effect on crime. It was Émile Durkheim who first noted the existence of a values consensus when, in 1893, he wrote about a collective consciousness that defines societal norms and makes certain acts unthinkable to conforming citizens. This idea is one regularly used by governments as justification for censorship. By reiterating the taboo nature of certain topics, they hope to reduce mass indulgence in these things. Admittedly, this tactic has seen success. Child pornography, bestiality and cold-blooded murder are just some examples of topics that incite shock and terror in the hearts of most. However, whenever information is restricted on a national scale, an ethical question is raised. At what point does information control become an active manipulation of the collective conscience? A brief… Read More

Modernisation Theory vs Stratified Democracy #4

PART 4 Stratified Democracy Stratified Democracy, as defined by Don Beck (2000b), shifts the focus from economic development to cultural mindsets, with the understanding that the prime area for ‘development’ is sociopsychological rather than economic or fiscal. The aim of ‘development’ in this paradigm is not to become a consumeristic society along the lines of the Western model – though that may well be what some developing countries eventually become. The aim is for the country to be ‘healthy’ in itself – ie: the sociopsychological well-being of the peoples and the inter-relations between the different internal groupings of whatever type – and to have ‘healthy’ relations with other countries of whatever type. Achieving these healthy states at whatever level a country is at facilitates it moving on to whatever is next on the Spiral. In terms of governance, Stratified Democracy proposes that a core element of Democracy – representative government – be implemented in such as way as to fit with the values and norms – the culture – of the people to be governed. In 4Q/8L terms, this means constructing the Lower Right (the form of government) to match the Lower Left (culture of the people to be governed). As Elza Maalouf… Read More

Value Systems as Foresight Frameworks

by Marcus P Barber Summer 2005 Marcus Barber, CEO of Looking Up Feeling Good Pty Ltd, is a leading Strategic Futurist in Australia. His work straddles academic, commercial and governmental operations. This article, in which he hypothesises about vMEMETIC (value system) perceptions of time, was first published in ‘Futures Research Quarterly’ (Summer 2005) and is republished here with the kind permission of the author. Contact Marcus by e-mail to learn more about his work. The hypothesis of this paper proposes that value systems, as initially identified by Clare W Graves (1970) and subsequently developed by Don Beck & Chris Cowan (1996) into the Spiral Dynamics model, provide clues as to how people approach the subject of time. By identifying someone’s central values system (VS), we are able to anticipate their likely approach to time, their orientation toward the future (and, therein, foresight) and their potential expectations of the outcomes of planning. We are also made cognoscente of the fact that varying life conditions demand alternative methods of resolution. As such, the ability to consider the future for each of the value systems is influenced by differing factors of importance; and foresight practitioners and strategic planners will benefit greatly from being aware… Read More

Social Learning Theory

Updated: 1 December 2020 Behaviourism, as a paradigm, doesn’t concern itself with mental processes. In Classical Conditioning John B Watson (1919) treated the mind as a ‘black box’ that Behaviourists did not need to bother with. In Radical Behaviourism B F Skinner (1945) acknowledged that there were ‘private internal events’ but that these were merely the conscious experience of the body functioning. However, not all Behaviourists took such a dismissive view of the concept of internal mental processes. Some did allow for some cognition to influence behaviour. Foremost among these was Edward C Tolman (1932) who proposed the concept of cognitive maps – although Tolman didn’t use the term, he is clearly conceptualising what we now call schemas.  Tolman developed this concept from work he had done (Edward C Tolman & Charles Honzik, 1930) on rats learning the layout of a maze they had to negotiate to get food. In the study 3 groups of rats had to find their way around a complex maze. At the end of the maze there was a ‘goal box’ of food. Some groups of rats got to eat the food, some did not, and for some rats the food was only available after 10 days. The… Read More

Glossary P-Q

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 Paradigm: in the broadest sense, a representative model or example of a theory or methodology. According to Thomas Kuhn (1962), it is a general theoretical orientation accepted by the majority of scientists in their particular field. This can include the collective set of attitudes, values, procedures and techniques that comprise the generally-accepted perspective of a particular discipline at a point in time. For example, the paradigm of Behaviourism disallowed the notions of cognitive function in favour for forms of stimulus-response pairings Paranoia: Parapraxis: a parapraxis (aka: the ‘Freudian slip’) is an error in speech, memory, or physical action that is interpreted as occurring due to the interference of some unconscious wish, conflict, or train of thought. The concept was first introduced by Sigmund Freud (1901) is thus part of classical Psychoanalysis. Slips of the tongue and the pen are the classical parapraxes, but Psychoanalytic Theory also embraces such phenomena as misreadings, mishearings, temporary forgettings, and the mislaying and losing of objects. Parasympathetic System: see Autonomic Nervous System. Parietal Lobe: see Cerebral Cortex. Passionate Love:… Read More

Glossary I

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 Id: in Psychoanalytic Theory the Id is the innate part of the mind which operates on the ‘Pleasure Principle’ and is concerned only with fulfilling its desires, without regard to either morality or consequence. According to Sigmund Freud (1923), the Id has 2 instinctual drives:- Eros – the life instinct, the drive to express oneself as alive – Freud (1905) originally conceived the Id in terms of sex drive but later broadened it into the life drive (perhaps with sex, the creation of new life, as the ultimate expression of life) Thanatos – the death instinct, the drive to destroy self as well as others – a late addition to Freud’s theories reputed to be inspired by the wanton slaughter on the battlefields of World War I and, according to Max Schur (1972), the death of his daughter Sophie in the influenza epidemic of 1919. In Integrated SocioPsychology terms the concept of the Id is reflected in the self-orientation of the warm-coloured vMEMES on Clare W Graves’ Spiral and can be seen at its most… Read More

Glossary B

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 Back Region: any area if social context in which, according to Erving Goffman (1969), a person is able to relax from the role playing and ‘peformance’ required by the front region, to create or preserve a particular impression. Goffman’s concept of different roles in different regions fits with Robert Dilts’ Neurological Levels model (1991), in which Identity and the Values & Beliefs which flow from Identity need to be matched to the Environment for someone to cope in a sustainable manner. Backcasting: sometimes seen as the opposite to forecasting, this involves identification of a particular future scenario and tracing its origins and lines of development back to the present. Balance Theory: based on Fritz Heider’s (1946) assertion that people like to be consistent in their attitudes – ie: in a state of balance – this is the idea that people will experience cognitive dissonance if their attitudes, likings, dislikings, etc, are out of balance and so will attempt to resolve the conflict and get back in balance. For example, if people in relationships find… Read More