The Adult Development Theory

Developed by Robert Keagan, it states that people go through 5 stages of development.

  1. The impulsive mind (early childhood)
  2. Imperial mind (normally adolescence)
  3. Socialized mind (where most of the adult population stays)
    • we experience ourselves as a function of how others experience us.
  4. Self-authoring mind
    • we define who we are and no longer negotiate our identity to get acceptance (of course there's still concession, but not on core principles)
  5. Self-transforming mind
    • come to accept that we'll always be changing (kind of like the Buddhist idea of constant change). We can free ourselves from us, in a way

#todo maybe elaborate on stages. This got a bit confusing

Key concepts to understand the stages:

Many parts of it sound a whole lot like Stoic principles (i.e, 202105101033 The Stoic Trichotomy of Control)

[#morad-how-to-adult-1] introduced to me the adult development theory, which I came across while writing 202111020016 About leadership.

[#morad-how-to-adult-1]: Morad, Natali. “Part 1: How To Be An Adult— Kegan’s Theory of Adult Development.” Medium (blog), August 4, 2020. https://medium.com/@NataliMorad/how-to-be-an-adult-kegans-theory-of-adult-development-d63f4311b553.