Understanding the Work of Robert Kegan
Key Concepts for Understanding the Work of Robert Kegan
Jennifer Garvey Berger
General Rationale and Approach
In over our heads: Robert Kegan believes that the constantly changing demands of modern life may be developmentally inappropriate for many—perhaps even most—adults. We should no more blame or punish adults for their inability to meet the challenges of their lives than we would punish an infant for not being able to turn over, or a five-year-old who had not mastered abstract thinking. Instead of blaming adults for simply being unable to meet these demands, Kegan asks that we learn how to support development—and have the patience to wait for it to come. He says, “The expectations upon us…demand something more than mere behavior, the acquisition of specific skills, or the mastery of particular knowledge. They make demands on our minds, on how we know, on the complexity of our consciousness” (Kegan, 1994, p. 5).
Constructive-developmental: Kegan is a constructive-developmental psychologist. This is a term which joins together two different schools of thought. Constructivists believe that the world isn’t out there to be discovered, but that we create our world by our discovery of it. Humans make meaning of their surroundings, and that meaning is the surrounding; two people who see the same picture differently may actually, in their seeing of it, be creating two different pictures. Developmentalists believe that humans grow and change over time and enter qualitatively different phases as they grow. Cognitive, moral, and social development, however, unlike physical development, isn’t a matter of simply waiting for nature to take its course. Development can be helped or hindered (and in some severe cases arrested) by the individual’s life experiences. Constructive-developmentalists believe that the systems by which people make meaning grow and change over time.
Information: In-form-ation is new knowledge that you add to the current form
Jennifer Garvey Berger
General Rationale and Approach
In over our heads: Robert Kegan believes that the constantly changing demands of modern life may be developmentally inappropriate for many—perhaps even most—adults. We should no more blame or punish adults for their inability to meet the challenges of their lives than we would punish an infant for not being able to turn over, or a five-year-old who had not mastered abstract thinking. Instead of blaming adults for simply being unable to meet these demands, Kegan asks that we learn how to support development—and have the patience to wait for it to come. He says, “The expectations upon us…demand something more than mere behavior, the acquisition of specific skills, or the mastery of particular knowledge. They make demands on our minds, on how we know, on the complexity of our consciousness” (Kegan, 1994, p. 5).
Constructive-developmental: Kegan is a constructive-developmental psychologist. This is a term which joins together two different schools of thought. Constructivists believe that the world isn’t out there to be discovered, but that we create our world by our discovery of it. Humans make meaning of their surroundings, and that meaning is the surrounding; two people who see the same picture differently may actually, in their seeing of it, be creating two different pictures. Developmentalists believe that humans grow and change over time and enter qualitatively different phases as they grow. Cognitive, moral, and social development, however, unlike physical development, isn’t a matter of simply waiting for nature to take its course. Development can be helped or hindered (and in some severe cases arrested) by the individual’s life experiences. Constructive-developmentalists believe that the systems by which people make meaning grow and change over time.
Information: In-form-ation is new knowledge that you add to the current form