Robert Kegan

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Robert Kegan (* 1946 ) is an American developmental psychologist and author. He was Professor of Adult Education and Professional Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education , where he taught for forty years until his retirement in 2016. He is a licensed psychologist and practicing therapist , has given numerous lectures to professional and lay circles and is a consultant in the field of professional development.

biography

Born in Minnesota , Kegan attended Dartmouth College , graduating summa cum laude in 1968. He described the civil rights movement and the movement against the Vietnam War as formative experiences during his student days. In 1977 he received his PhD from Harvard University . He is the William and Miriam Meehan Professor in Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard University. Together with Lisa Lahey he founded Minds at Work , a counseling facility for people and organizations in change processes.

Development of the self

In his seminal work The Evolving Self (1982; Eng .: The stages of development of the self , 1986) Kegan examines the problems of human life from the perspective of a single process, which he describes as the creation of meaning , the creation of meaning .

In his considerations, he is based on two main ideas: first, the idea of constructivism , i.e. the conviction that people construct and shape their own reality. The second idea is that of development: according to Kegan, phases of stability alternate with phases of change in the development of people. In his view, human development takes place in phases; In every new phase, on every new level, a state of equilibrium is established, which is later canceled by a crisis. The consequence of the crisis is that a new equilibrium is established in the course of the production of meaning. For him this is a lifelong activity, the development progressing towards ever higher levels of meaning formation.

Each new stage of development is both an achievement and a limitation in the finding of meaning and has both strengths and limits. And every new stage of development offers a new solution for the lifelong tension between integration and differentiation , i.e. the way in which people are connected to others and how they are different, independent and autonomous from one another .

Kegan describes cultures of inclusion through three processes: affirmation (holding on), contradiction (letting go) and continuity (maintaining inclusion). For him, man is more than an individual, and developmental psychology is the study of the development of incorporated cultures, not the study of isolated individuals. Kegan shows that mental stress (including depression and anxiety) can be thought of as crises that arise when the conditions of equilibrium for development need to be renegotiated and a new culture of inclusion needs to emerge.

Kegan presents a sequence of six states of equilibrium in development: integrative, impulsive, sovereign, interpersonal, institutional and supra-individual. The following table is made up of several tables in “The Developmental Stages of the Self”; the object (O) of each stage is the subject (S) of the previous one. You can see that Kegan tries to relate his own approach to others. Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg can be seen as those in whose tradition Kegan sees himself.

Development equilibrium Inclusive culture Analogy with Piaget Analogy with Kohlberg Analogy with Loevinger Analogy with Maslow Analogy with McClelland / Murray Erikson's analogy
(0) Incorporating
  • S: reflexes (sensations, movements)
  • O: none
 Maternal culture. Mother or main caregiver (s). sensorimotor - pre-social Orientation towards physiological survival - -
(1) Impulsive
  • S: impulses, perceptions
  • O: reflexes (sensations, movements)
 Parental culture. Usually the parents' tripartite relationship. pre-operative Orientation towards punishment and obedience impulsive Orientation towards the satisfaction of physiological needs - Initiative vs. Guilt
(2) Sovereign
  • S: needs, interests, desires
  • O: impulses, perceptions
 Culture that recognizes roles. School and family as institutions of authority and role differentiation. Group of peers who require role-playing. concrete-operational Purpose thinking opportunistic Orientation towards security Power orientation Factory sense vs. Feeling of inferiority
(3) Interpersonal
  • S: mutual, interpersonal relationships
  • O: needs, interests, desires
 Culture of reciprocity. One-to-one reciprocal relationships. formal-operational (beginning) Agreement with others conformist Orientation towards love, affection, belonging Orientation towards relationships Bond vs. Being left behind
(4) Institutional
  • S: self-authority, identity, mental management, ideology
  • O: mutual interpersonal relationships
 Culture of identity or self-creation (in love or work). Typical characteristics: belonging to the professional group, step into public life. formal-operational (fully developed) Orientation towards society conscientious Orientation towards respect and self-respect Performance orientation Identity vs. Identity Diffusion
(5) Super-individual
  • S: super-individuality, exchange between different self-systems
  • O: self-authority, identity, mental management, ideology
 Culture of intimacy (in love and work). Typical characteristic: real adult love relationships. post-formal-dialectical Orientation towards principles autonomous Self-actualization Orientation towards intimacy -

reception

In the English-speaking world, Kegan's theory of the development of the self has received a great deal of attention. In the German-speaking area, only his basic work The Evolving Self is available as a translation ( The stages of development of the self ); The interested reader has to receive the further development of his theory in In over our heads: the mental demands of modern life (1994) and Immunity to change (2009) in the original. Nevertheless, Kegan's theory is included in August Flammer's fundamental work Development Theories: Psychological Theories of Human Development (4th edition, Bern 2008).

See also

Fonts

  • The evolving self: problem and process in human development . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 1982. ISBN 978-0674272316 .
  • The stages of development of the self. Advances and Crises in Human Life . Munich, Kindt Verlag, 1986. ISBN 978-3-92541200-4 .
  • In over our heads. The mental demands of modern life . Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1994. ISBN 978-0674445888
  • (with Lisa Laskow Lahey): Immunity to change: how to overcome it and unlock potential in yourself and your organization . Harvard Business Press, Boston 2009. ISBN 978-0787963781
  • (with Lahey, L. and Souvaine, E.): From taxonomy to ontogeny: Thoughts on Loevinger's theory in relation to subject-object psychology . In P. Westenberg, A. Blasi & L. Cohn (Eds.) Personality Development (pp. 13-26) . New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum 1998.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jennifer Garvey Berger: Robert Kegan at Harvard: The end - and beginning - of an era . In: cultivatingleadership.co.nz. April 24, 2016, accessed November 20, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Claus Otto Scharmer: Grabbing the Tiger by the Tail. Interview with Robert Kegan . In: Presencing Institute. March 23, 2000, accessed November 20, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Robert Kegan, The Levels of Development of the Self , 1986, pp. 28 ff.
  4. ^ Robert Kegan, The Levels of Self , 1986, p. 55
  5. ↑ Robert Kegan, The Levels of Development of the Self , 1986, pp. 165 ff.
  6. ^ Robert Kegan, The Levels of Development of the Self , 1986, p. 140
  7. ↑ Robert Kegan, The stages of development of the self , 1986, pp. 122 f., 160 ff., 181 ff.
  8. ^ Robert Kegan, The Levels of Self , 1986, p. 157
personal data
SURNAME Kegan, Robert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American university professor, psychologist professor
DATE OF BIRTH 1946