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Clare W. Graves (December 21, 1914-January 3, 1986) was a professor of psychology and originator of the Level Theory of Personality. He was born in in New Richmond, Indiana.
Education
Graves graduated from Union College in New York in 1940 and received his master's degree and a Ph.D in psychology from Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.
In the mid-twentieth century, Clare W. Graves taught psychology at Union College in New York. There he developed an epistemological model of human psychology. Graves claimed that the inspiration for so doing came from undergraduate students in his introductory psychology course. He acknowledged that he was unable to answer the frequently asked question as to who from among many competing psychology theorists was ultimately "right" or "correct" with their model.
Development of Theories
In an attempt to answer the students’ question, Graves ultimately created an epistemological theory that he said reconciled the various approaches human psychology. To obtain the data he needed to develop his hypothesis and test his theory, in the seven years from 1952 to 1959, Graves collected pertinent data from his psychology students (who were a diverse group of people from all over the world). His analysis of this data became the basis for a theory that he called "The Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence Theory" (ECLET).
In brief, Graves theorized that in response to external conditions, humans develop new bio-psycho-social coping systems to solve problems. While these coping systems were dependent on evolving human culture, they were manifest by individuals. Graves believed that tangible emergent self-assembling dynamic neuronal systems evolved in the human brain in response to evolving existential social problems. He theorized "man's nature is not a set thing, that it is ever emergent, that it is an open system, not a closed system." His work observes that the emergence within humans of new bio-psycho-social coping systems in response to external conditions follows a hierarchy. Furthermore, each level in the hierarchy alternates as either the human trying to make the environment adapt to the self, or the human adapting to the existential. He saw this process as continuous and never ending.
Death
Graves died at his home in Rexford, New York at age 71.
See also: Spiral Dynamics
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