Constructive developmental framework
The constructive developmental framework is a theoretical framework for epistemological and psychological assessment of adults. The framework is based on empirical developmental research showing that an individual's perception of reality is an actively constructed "world of their own", unique to them and which they continue to develop over their lifespan.
CDF was developed by Otto Laske based on the work of Robert Kegan and Michael Basseches, Laske's teachers at Harvard University. The CDF methodology involves three separate instruments that respectively measure a person's social–emotional stage, cognitive level of development, and psychological profile. It provides three epistemological perspectives on individual clients as well as teams. These constructs are designed to probe how an individual and/or group constructs the real world conceptually, and how close an individual's present thinking approaches the complexity of the real world.
Overview
The methodology of CDF is grounded in empirical research on positive adult development which began under Lawrence Kohlberg in the 1960s, continued by Robert Kegan, Michael Basseches 1984, and Otto Laske. Laske introduced concepts from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy and the Frankfurt School into the framework, making a strict differentiation between social–emotional and cognitive development.Kegan described five stages of development, of which the latter four are progressively attained only in adulthood. Basseches showed that adults potentially transcend formal logical thinking by way of dialectical thinking, in four phases, measurable by a fluidity index. Both Kegan's and Basseches' findings were updated and refined by Laske in 2005 and 2008 respectively. In 2008 and 2015, Laske proposed that dialectical thought forms are an instantiation of Roy Bhaskar's four moments of dialectic, and that these ontological moments form a sequence M→E→L→D that underlies individual cognitive development, providing a basis for a dialectical cognitive science as well as a cognitively oriented management science. Based on the concept of 'dialogical dialectic', Laske stressed the need for a dialogical, in contrast to a monological, social science. The CDF methodology involves three separate instruments that respectively measure a person's social–emotional stage, cognitive level of development, and psychological profile. The first two tools provide an epistemological, the third a psychological, perspective on a person or team. See the list of references below.
In CDF, social-emotional, cognitive, and psychological assessment are arrived at separately, as follows:
- A person's social-emotional profile addresses the question "What should I do and for whom?"; it is evaluated based on a semi-structured 1-hour interview in terms of "stages".
- A person's cognitive profile addresses the question "What can I know and what consequently are my options?"; it is evaluated based on a semi-structured 1-hour interview in terms of "dialectical thought forms" and the fluidity of their use during the interview or in a written text.
- A person's psychological profile addresses the question "How am I presently doing?"; it is evaluated based on Morris Aderman's Need-Press Questionnaire grounded in Henry Murray's theory of personality.
Social–emotional development
Stages of adult development
According to the developmental psychologist Robert Kegan, a person's self-concept evolves in a series of stages through their lifetime. Such evolution is driven alternately by two main motivations: that of being autonomous and that of belonging to a group. Human beings are "controlled" by these motivations in the sense that they do not have influence on them but are rather defined by them. Additionally, these motivations are in conflict and their relationship develops over a lifespan.Kegan describes 5 stages of development, of which the latter 4 are progressively attained in adulthood, although only a small proportion of adults reach the fourth stage and beyond:
- Stage 1: Purely impulse or reflex-driven.
- Stage 2: The person's sense of self is ruled by their needs and wishes. The needs and wishes of others are relevant only to the extent that they support those of the person. Effectively the person and others inhabit two "separate worlds".
- Stage 3: The person's sense of self is socially determined, based on the real or imagined expectations of others.
- Stage 4: The person's sense of self is determined by a set of values that they have authored for themselves.
- Stage 5: The person's sense of self is no longer bound to any particular aspect of themselves or their history, and they are free to allow themselves to focus on the flow of their lives.
Assessing the social–emotional profile of a person
The social–emotional profile of person is assessed by means of an interview, referred to as the "subject–object" interview. In the interview, the interviewer offers prompts such as "success", "change", "control", "limits", "frustration", and "risk" and invites the interviewee to describe meaningful experiences under those headings. The interviewer serves as a listener, whose role is to focus the attention of the interviewee onto their own thoughts and feelings.The interview is scored by identifying excerpts of speech that indicate a particular stage or sub-stage. Relevant sections are chosen from the transcript of the interview and analyzed for indications of the stage of development. The most frequent sub-stage revealed by the scoring is described as the interviewee's "centre of gravity". Stages scored at below the center of gravity are described as "risk" while stages scored above the center of gravity are described as "potential". The distribution of scores is summarized by a "risk–clarity–potential" index that can be used to characterize the nature of the developmental challenges facing a person.
Cognitive development
Eras of adult cognitive development
According to Jean Piaget, thinking develops in 4 stages from childhood to young adulthood. Piaget named these stages sensory-motor, pre-operational, concrete-operational, and formal-operational. Development of formal-operational thinking is considered to continue until approximately the 25th year of life. Subsequent researchers have concentrated on the now famous question of Kohlberg: "Is there a life after 25?" In CDF, the development of post formal-operational thinking in an adult is indicated primarily by the strength of dialectical thinking measured in thought form use fluidity.Following Bhaskar, in CDF, human thinking is seen as developing in four sequential phases or 'eras', termed 'common sense', 'understanding', 'reason' and finally 'practical wisdom'. The first three phases of thinking development can be related to the different thinking systems put forward by the philosophers Locke, Kant and Hegel. Each phase includes and transcends the thinking system of the previous phase. The final phase of 'practical wisdom' loops back to a higher form of 'common sense' in that it constitutes sophisticated thinking that has become second nature and is therefore effortless. In contrast to other adult development researchers such as Fischer and Commons, Laske describes post-formal cognitive development in terms of the use and co-ordination of dialectical thought forms and thought form constellations which were described by Basseches as mental schemata.
Four classes of dialectical thought forms
Dialectical thinking has its roots in Greek classical philosophy but is also found in ancient Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, and relates to the search for truth through reasoned argument. It finds its foremost expression in the work of the German philosopher Georg Hegel. Essentially, dialectics is viewed as the system by which human thought attempts to capture the nature of reality. Building on Bhaskar and Basseches, CDF uses a framework for dialectical thinking based on the idea that everything in reality is transient and composed of contradictions, part of a larger whole, related in some way to everything else, and subject to sudden transformation. This framework therefore distinguishes dialectical thinking in terms of four classes of dialectical thought forms that can be said to define reality:- Process – constant change; emergence from absence: this class of thought forms describes how things or systems emerge, evolve and disappear;
- Context – stable structures: this class of thought forms describes how things are part of the structure of a larger, stable, organized whole. The contextualization of parts within a whole gives rise to different perspectives or points of view;
- Relationship – unity in diversity; totality: this class of thought forms describes how things are related and the nature of their common ground;
- Transformation – balance and evolution including breakdown: this class of thought forms describes how living systems are in constant development and transformation, potentially via a collapse of the previous form of organization, and subject to the influence of human agency.