Kegan's Levels of Cognitive Complexity

by: Paul Rosenberg

Sat Mar 28, 2009 at 09:48


Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan has developed a theoretical framework for integrating the developmental theories of Jean Piaget and later developmental psychologists, such as Lawrence Kohlberg and Erik Erikson.  Kegan argues that at each developmental stage, what was the background/context/subject of consciousness in the previous stage now becomes foreground/content/object.  The result is the table below:

Kegan's Subject/Object Schema of Cognitive Development
StageWe Are:
Subject
(structure of knowing)
We Have:
Object
(content of knowing)
Underlying Structure
1Perceptions

SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS

Impulses
Movement


Sensation
2Concrete

POINT OF VIEW

Enduring Dispositions
Perceptions

SOCIAL PERCEPTIONS

Impulses
3
Traditionalism
Abstractions

MUTUALITY/
INTERPERSONALISM
Relationship


Inner states
Concrete

POINT OF VIEW

Enduring Dispositions
Needs, Peferences
4
Modernism
Abstract Systems
Ideology

INSTITUTION
Relationship-Regulating Forms

Self-authorship
Abstractions

MUTUALITY/
INTERPERSONALISM
Relationship

Inner states
Subjectivity
Self-consciousness
5
Post-
Modernism
Dialectical

INTER-
INSTITUTIONAL

Self-transformation
Abstract Systems
Ideology

INSTITUTION
Relationship-Regulating Forms

Self-authorship
Self-regulation
Self-formation

Paul Rosenberg :: Kegan's Levels of Cognitive Complexity

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