The Eight Spiral Dynamics Levels

Let’s have a look at what comes to most people’s minds when they think of Spiral Dynamics: the stages of development it posits. This is part of my Spiral Dynamics Series, and I highly recommend you read the other articles in the series if you’re looking for a deep understanding.

If you’re new to this theory, I recommend you to identify these different coping systems in you, the people you know, and the problems we’re facing as a species. You will be shocked to discover the explanatory power of this theory.

Let’s first look at the properties of the eight levels or coping systems as a whole before picking out the key characteristics of each.

If we can successfully our basic need to stay alive, energy is freed for the move to the next level and for the more complex Life Conditions LC2.

Here we begin to form a sense of individuality, albeit a rudimentary one. More attention goes to understanding the world we’re in. We realise that events are sequential. Cause and effect are perceived for the first time and the world is seen as alive with spirits and gods dictating everything from the growth of crops to the weather.

Social needs emerge as the individual realises they coexist with other humans. In the developed world, this level is mostly visible in young children. But like all other vmemes, it never truly leaves us.

Property 1: Human Beings Can Create New VMEMEs

Though this needs to be carefully interpreted, the basic message of this property is that our psychology isn’t necessarily limited and locked forever, both in a collective and an individual sense. All value systems had to emerge in historical time and they all have to emerge for each of us throughout our lifetime.

Human beings collectively started at Beige, and newborns also start at Beige. This property also captures the potential for development in individuals – we can develop to later vMEMEs. It also suggests that we can awaken vMEMEs that are as yet unknown.

Property 2: Life Conditions Awaken New VMEMEs, Which May Emerge, Surge, Regress Or Fade In Response

This second property is absolutely critical. Graves formulated human development as a double helix, with an environmental side and an organismic side. We can think of these value systems as the coping systems we use for our Life Conditions: We move with them.

We need to take Life Conditions into account if we wish to understand the value systems active in ourselves and others. Beck and Cowan break Life Conditions down into four categories: historical time, geographic place, human problems and social circumstance.

Property 3: VMEMEs Zig-Zag Between Sacrifice-Self And Express-Self Themes

Value systems are either Sacrifice-self (Collective) or Express-self (Individual) memes. The Sacrifice-self systems (Purple, Blue, Green, Turquoise) centre around us relinquishing control to others, looking for authority from outside and accepting the world as it is. Express-self systems (Beige, Red, Orange, Yellow) have us take control, take charge and attempt to change the world.

But even then, there is a clear path of development among these two categories. For example, the motivations and values driving Orange- and Yellow-centred individuals, though both Express-self dominated, are worlds apart. According to Csikszentmihalyi:

“It is not a circular motion that returns to where one started, but rather, it resembles an ascending spiral, where concern for the self becomes steadily qualified by less selfish goals, and concern for others become individualistic and personally meaningful.”

Property 4: VMemes Emerge Along The Spiral In A Wave-Like Fashion

The developmental process isn’t a lock-step process. Old systems don’t suddenly lose their influence on us. Rather, when a new value system emerges it does so in a wave-like fashion. As new Life Conditions outstrip the capabilities of our current value systems, the next comes online.

Eventually it comes to dominate our way of being, and previous systems fade. A rule of thumb suggested by several developmentalists is that, when centred at a certain stage, 50% of our behaviour is determined by that stage and 25% by the stages either side.

Property 5: The Spiral Moves From Lesser To Greater Complexity

Each value system is more complex than the next – they allow us to deal with ever more complex Life Conditions and give us greater degrees of freedom. There is a clear direction to human development.

However, that doesn’t mean that higher systems are always better – remember the importance of Life Conditions. In certain Life Conditions, the later value systems are both impossible and unnecessary to reach.

Property 6: Different VMEMEs Dominate In Different Areas Of Our Lives

Though we’re often centred at a certain vMEME, our religious life, our professional life, our social life and our family life may all be guided by their own systems. We have several dominant systems, which come to the fore in different circumstances, along with our less active systems.

Property 7: VMEMEs Are Arranged In Groups Of Six In Tiers

Graves saw that the Yellow vMEME was wildly different from all those preceding it. This lead him to describing it as the first step in a new metastage of development. Together, the first six systems constitute the first tier of human development. The Life Conditions corresponding to them are ones of scarcity: lack of safety, lack of basic subsistence, lack of power, lack of approval, lack of belonging, and so on. Graves called these ‘animal-like needs’.

When we move from Green to Yellow, we experience a ‘monumental leap in meaning’ and move from scarcity to abundance motivation. There is a remarkable dropping away of fear, a recognition of the magnificence of existence and a desire to see it flourish. There’s also an enormous release of problem-solving capabilities. Our Life Conditions are of a new order of complexity.

To master the major stages of human development, check out my Ultimate Stages of Human Development Online Course.