Spiral Dynamics

Last updated Feb 7, 2023

• Psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Systems thinking

Spiral Dynamics is a map of the developmental stages, value systems and perspectives of individuals, groups and societies.

From earlier stages to later stages:

• Beige (Survival Sense)
• Purple (KinSpirits)
• Red (PowerGods)
• Blue (TruthForce)
• Orange (StriveDrive)
• Green (HumanBond)
• Yellow (FlexFlow)
• Turquoise (GlobalView)

There can be healthier and unhealthier manifestations of a stage, When a stage becomes too successful in shaping their environment, it has to deal with the downsides of itself, leading to a chance to grow into the later stage, or collapse and regress to an earlier level of development.

This is a complex model with take some time to study and appreciate all nuances of it. This breif overview here (or really: nearly any web article) is leaving important parts of the model out.

…

With increasing development the following tends to happen:

• ability to take on more perspectives
• later stages can understand earlier stages, but not vice versa
• stages shift from me-entered to we-centered and back
• increasing circle of concern (my tribe, my nation, entire globe)
• greater ability to introspect
• …

People are a mixture of different stages in different areas of their life and in different contexts. When we’re speaking of someone being at a stage their general center of gravity lies roughly on that stage.