Psychological Stages of Development

October 26, 2013 8:36 PM

I am looking for a description of a theory of psychological/moral stages of development that was from a somewhat obscure psychologist/sociologist. I can't remember the name of the author of the theory but I can tell you that it wasn't: Piaget, Erikson, Maslow, Freud, or Kohlberg. The theory described multiple levels of awareness of others thinking and emotions, moral reasoning in regards to others, and very few people reached the final level of development. I know it's a vague question, but any help is appreciated. Thanks!
posted by 517 to Society & Culture (8 answers total)

Hunh, I'd have said Kohlberg's stages of moral development. If that's not it, my longshot guess is the affective domain of Bloom's taxonomy.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 8:58 PM on October 26, 2013

Carol Gilligan? Student of Kohlberg's.

http://www.stolaf.edu/people/huff/classes/handbook/Gilligan.html

http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/overview.html#gilligan

Her theory in image form:

http://humangrowth.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/chart1.jpg
posted by Pantengliopoli at 9:00 PM on October 26, 2013

Carol Gilligan?
posted by the twistinside at 9:00 PM on October 26, 2013

That sounds like "Spiral Dynamics". From Dr. Clare W. Graves.

Wikipedia explanation
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:10 PM on October 26, 2013

Are you thinking of fowler's stages of faith by chance? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fowler's_stages_of_faith_development

*Sorry, don't know how to do links when using my phone.
posted by wildflower at 9:17 PM on October 26, 2013

Best answer: Clicking around on the aforementioned Wikipedia page for Kohlberg, Loevinger's stages of ego development seems like a pretty close match too.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:18 PM on October 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I see you've found an answer, but your question immediately made me think Kazimierz Dąbrowski's theory of positive disintegration .
posted by Coatlicue at 8:31 AM on October 27, 2013

Also, Susanne Cook-Greuter extended Loevinger's work (among the gazillion other papers that reference Loevinger's WUSCT). This is a pop/woo article, but it's great:

http://www.stillpointintegral.com/docs/cook-greuter.pdf
posted by zeek321 at 11:23 AM on October 27, 2013