This chapter explores stage three of adult development, focusing on how individuals are shaped by the expectations and values of their surroundings. The speaker highlights the strengths and limitations of stage three, including the development of maintaining important relationships but also the difficulty in resolving conflicting demands. They also introduce the concept of self-authorship and the self-transforming mind as ways to move beyond the limitations of the socialized mind.
Robert Kegan is a psychologist who teaches, researches, writes, and consults about adult development, adult learning, and professional development. His work explores the possibility and necessity of ongoing psychological transformation in adulthood. He is perhaps most well known as the author of The Evolving Self, In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, and An Everyone Culture.
In this conversation we talk about:
What is a good definition of an 'adult'?
The phasic vision of adult development
The variety of developmental logics in the human mind
A tour of the 5 stages of adult development
What people get wrong about his 5 Stage model of human development
Why you are almost certainly not ‘Stage 5’ if you're under the age of 40
The gap between philosophical understanding and developmental attainments
Why you might take on a Stage 5 philosophical orientation from the Stage 4 developmental level (and what that might look like)
The most important developmental stage transition for the majority of humans
What transcending the limits of the socialized mind means for our planetary culture
The Monastic Academy Awakened Leadership Bootcamp