[https://meaningness.com/misunderstanding-stage-theory]
Lagging emotional and interpersonal development is common among the STEM-educated. STEM education teaches you systematic cognition, i.e. rationality. Unfortunately, it doesn’t teach you how to systematize your emotions and relationships. It’s common for the STEM-educated to explicitly denigrate and ignore those domains as inherently irrational. Those who say “I skipped stage 3,” meaning actually “I am emotionally and interpersonally underdeveloped,” are often smug or defiant about it. STEM education may produce a quasi-religious identification of the self with rationality: rationalism.
https://vividness.live/developing-ethical-social-and-cognitive-competence
| Stage/Mode | 3: Communal | 4: Systematic | 5: Fluid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Objects | Egocentric desires | Relationships | Systems |
| Subject | Relationships | System of principles and projects | Meaning-making |
| Relationships | Symmetrical, unstructured | Asymmetrical, formal roles | Meta-systematic |
| Ethics | Compassion, consensus | Procedural justice, responsibility, principles | Nebulous yet patterned; collaborative improvisation |
| Epistemology | Can put oneself in other’s shoes | Can take perspective of structured social system | Can relate systems to each other |