NEW Coalition Course - March 1, 2005

Topics:  Introduction.  Four learning styles and their relevance to this course.  The role of personality diversity (the McCrae-Costa "Big Five" model).  The role of generational cyclicity (the Strauss-Howe model).

Topic 1:  Learning Styles

The way in which you best learn may have to do with the "hard-wiring" of your brain.  It is difficult to assimilate information that is coming by way of the "wrong" mode for you.  The four basic learning styles may be defined as follows:

In this class, an attempt will be made to present information in ways that are consonant with all four learning styles.  This isn't easy, but I'm going to try!

Topic 2:  The "Big Five"

The Big Five model is based on the lexical hypothesis that all important or significant personality traits or differences are "marked" linguistically (there are trait words or terms for them).  The Big Five dimensions represent five superordinate clusters of traits that are highly intercorrelated, based on massive research looking at subjects' subjective perceptions of the interrelationships between pairs of traits drawn from a master list of some 15,000 trait terms (e.g., "How likely is it that a person who is intelligent is also neurotic?")  Cross-cultural and cross-linguistic research has been conducted to attempt a confirmation of the idea that these same basic trait clusters occur in all language systems;  since there are some 7000 extant languages in the world, it will be some time before we know for sure, but the same general clusters show up with native English vs. native Chinese speakers, for instance.

Dimension I:  Extraversion

This dimension addresses a person's preference for sociability and interactivity (high Extraversion, or E+) versus solitude and privacy (low Extraversion, or E-).  E+ types tend to be quick to self-disclose, to process information out loud, to seek high levels of activity (to be outwardly busy), and to seek generalist work roles.  E- types tend to be slow to self-disclosure (or selective about self-disclosure), to process information inwardly, to seek low levels of activity (to be inwardly busy), and to seek specialist work roles.

Dimension II:  Openness

This dimension addresses a person's preference for abstract ideas and possibilities (high Openness, or O+) versus concrete realities and facts (low Openness, or O-).  O+ types focus on thinking about the world as it might be, are more theory-driven, and tend to focus on the possibility or opportunity side of change (which, depending on their core values, may make them more "liberal").  O- types focus on acting in the world as it is now, are more application- or practice-driven, and tend to focus on the threat or risk side of change (which, depending on their core values, may make them more "conservative").  Under stress, O+ types tend to obsess, O- types to catastrophize.  When solving problems, O+ types habitually try to widen or broaden the question (ask the biggest possible question first), while O- types habitually try to narrow the question (ask the smallest possible question first).  To some extent, O+ types are more nonlinear, O- types more linear, in thought processes and learning styles.

Dimension III:  Agreeableness

This dimension measures cooperative (high Agreeableness or A+) versus competitive (low Agreeableness or A-) approaches to interactions with others.  A+ types usually describe themselves as empathic, sensitive, harmony-seeking;  they like tasks and situations in which "everyone wins".  A- types usually describe themselves as impersonal, analytical, outcome-driven;  they like tasks and situations in which there are clear winners and losers.  Correlated to the above, A+ types tend to decide subjectively ("with the heart") on the basis of personal values (but may find it hard to see the dark side of something they value, or may overidealize valued persons and situations), while A- types tend to decide objectively ("with the head") on the basis of impersonal logic (but may fail to factor in subjective or emotional considerations, or may strike others as too cold-bloodedly analytical).

Dimension IV:  Conscientiousness

This dimension measures convergent, task oriented (high Conscientiousness or C+) versus divergent, process oriented (low Conscientiousness or C-) work styles.  C+ types usually describe themselves as organized, structured, systematic, early starters with steady work habits;  they lose efficiency in low structure situations (needing stability), and usually adopt a "work first, play later," serious minded stance to life.  C- types usually describe themselves as spontaneous, flexible, adaptable, "feast or famine" workers who rely on bursts of enthusiasm or energy;  they lose efficiency in high structure situations (needing autonomy), and usually adopt a "mix work and play", fun loving stance to life.  (Note:  all of us can be both serious minded and fun loving;  but C+ types tend to keep the humor inside, C- types to keep the seriousness inside.  This dimension measures what shows on the outside, which is not always the most important aspect of the person.)  C+ types tend to focus heavily on image management (how they look to others), while C- types tend to neglect or ignore such considerations.  C+ types can easily be too rigid or inflexible, while C- types can struggle with disorganization or procrastination.

Dimension V:  Negative Emotionality

This dimension measures characteristic responses to stress.  (It does not measure anxiety proneness in a clinical sense;  both poles are normal personality variants.)  High Negative Emotionality or N+ types are more emotionally labile (have a wider emotional range or more mood swings), experience and express anxiety directly (verbally), and tend to be more prone to such mood states as worry, self-doubt, and guilt.  Low Negative Emotionality or N- types are more emotionally stable (have a narrower emotional range or fewer mood swings), experience and express anxiety indirectly (they engage in "anxiety binding" or the "somatization" of anxiety), and tend to be less prone to negative mood states.  While our culture probably values N- over N+, it should be stated clearly that N+ is not only a normal variant but can be an adaptive one (it is, among other things, arguably more authentic, can lead to greater levels of compassion for fellow strugglers, and so forth).

Extreme vs. Moderate Scorers

Since the Big Five model is intended as a value-free model of nonclinical personality diversity (no better or worse types, the world needs all types), it's also true that there's no overall advantage to being either an extreme or a moderate scorer overall.  But a different pattern of strengths and weaknesses presents itself in each case.

Assets of Extreme Profiles:

Liabilities of Extreme Profiles:

Assets of Moderate Profiles:

Liabilities of Moderate Profiles:

If we assume that normality and abnormality are part of the same psychological continuum (a hypothesis we'll explore in detail throughout this course), then perhaps those with more extreme profiles are more statistically prone to struggling with mental and emotional challenges, up to and including those that we might label as mental illnesses or psychodiagnostic categories.  But this is a statistical risk only:  within the confines of the Big Five as such, all profiles are equally normal, valid, and valuable.

Enrolled members of this class qualify for a free assessment of their Big Five personality profile.  Ask the instructor for details if interested.

Topic 3:  The Strauss-Howe model

 

In their fascinating books Generations:  The History of America’s Future and The Fourth Turning:  An American Prophecy, William Strauss and Neil Howe outline a fascinating theory of generational cycles in history that has numerous implications for many subfields in psychology, including the psychology of personality, social psychology, abnormal psychology, and child development.  Below, I attempt to summarize their model and its implications.

 
The Saeculum

Strauss and Howe begin with the observation that a wide range of sociological, psychological, and economic variables -- from crime rates to attitudes about gender to vocational patterns -- are well correlated and track in tandem, in a generally predictable, cyclic fashion (see the figure below, where X = time, Y = some empirical variable of interest):

They note that the length of a cycle (e.g., from trough to trough or peak to peak) is roughly fixed over the centuries, and corresponds roughly to the length of a long human life (80 to 100 years).  They call such a cycle a saeculum (the same root word from which we get our more familiar term "secular", meaning transient, changing, and referring to the world of empirical, everyday experience, as opposed to the eternal, constant, transcendent, and metaphysical or sacred).  A human being born at the start of one saeculum might, if he or she did not die prematurely, expect to die in old age at the start of the next one.

The correspondence between the length of a human life and the length of a cultural saeculum is, they say, no accident.  The saecular turnings occur because of specific generational influences as outlined below.

Seasons and Cohort Generations

They note that just as a human life traditionally has four "seasons" each lasting about 20-22 years -- the "spring" of childhood, the "summer" of young adulthood, the "autumn" of midlife, and the "winter" of elderhood -- so, too, can the cultural saeculum be divided in this way.  The parallel is that just as humans are born, live, and die, so eras or epochs in history (the saecula) have a natural life span:  they are bounded by (begin with, and end with) a time of crisis, chaos, external threat (such as a major war), or ekpyrosis.  At the end of each saeculum, the culture must, in a sense, die and be reborn -- or fail to be reborn, as when an entire civilization ceases to exist.  The transformation in a society engendered by moving from one saeculum to another is so dramatic, so radical, so much of a "quantum leap" change that one might say that the society is born into a "new world".  (Hence, Americans still use the phrase "postwar" to refer to the contemporary era or saeculum, even though World War II took place nearly sixty years ago.)  As a nation, America has experienced three such ekpyroses or saecular crises:  the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and the Great Depression and World War II.  If Strauss and Howe are right, we are due for yet another one -- the end of the current saeculum -- somewhere around the year 2025. 

As Strauss and Howe use the term, a cohort generation is a group of persons born within the same general time period (usually about 20 years), who share the same set of defining experiences.  Because of the length of a cohort generation relative to the actuarial human lifespan, there are between 4 and 6 cohort generations alive in America at any given time.  As noted below, there are four basic types of cohort generations that recur, in Strauss and Howe’s theory of history, in a predictable, cyclic fashion.

 

Social Moments

 

A social moment is a key, defining time and series of events that shapes the entire culture and, in a significant sense, ushers in a new phase in history.  There are two contrasting kinds of social moments which, Strauss and Howe assert, occur in an alternating sequence:    

Note that the lapse of time between like social moments is about 80 years, or four cohort generations, in length.  This is no accident, as we’ll see below.  It also suggests that we’ll be due for another secular crisis around the year 2020 (give or take about 5 years).  Hence we’ll soon find out how valid Strauss and Howe’s model is… stay tuned.

 

Four Generational Types

 

Based on the above concepts, we can define the four generational types as follows.    

Because of the influence of social moments as mediated by the age (phase or stage of life) during which they are experienced by the different cohort generations, the four generational types tend to take on different personalities or values.  Of course, these are generalizations that apply only to the “group persona”, not universally to every member within a given cohort generation:   

What Fuels the Generational Cycle?

Why does the saecular cycle occur?  According to Strauss and Howe, it has to do with the fact that each generation instinctively corrects for the excesses of the previous generation, and in so doing raises its own children in such a fashion that the cycle will continue to turn.  Let's take a look at how this works.

During a Crisis (ekpyrosis or saecular Winter), when the culture is faced with a catastrophic external threat of such proportions that the culture itself may not survive (e.g., World War II), those who are children during this era are understandably raised to be obedient, to be silent, to conform, to basically get out of the way and not impede their elders (young adults) as they tackle the job of saving civilization.  Assuming that the challenge is successfully met (the culture does not die, but is reborn into a new era or saeculum), the young adults who are seen as responsible for this epic victory take on a heroic persona (Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation").  But something quite different happens to their children.

Rising to adulthood in a post-crisis High or cultural Spring, this generation -- the so-called Adaptive or Artistic generation, the most recent example of which is the so-called Silent generation (born between 1927 and 1943) -- faces an intriguing paradox.  On the one hand, outwardly they experience a time of tremendous optimism about the social order:  likely a time of economic prosperity, social cooperation, and tremendous technological progress.  On the other hand, they often feel as if they were "born too late" to emulate the "great deeds" of their next-elders, and feel relegated to an "also-ran" role in which they can, at best, be maintainers of a social system they did not build.  In addition, as time goes by, the dark side of the saecular High begins to show itself, in the excessive conformism of the times, the stifling of autonomy and dissent (e.g., the McCarthy era), and in what increasingly begins to be seen as a spiritual or cultural sterility -- a society that is outwardly (technologically) sound but inwardly devoid of values and meaning.

In reaction to this, Adaptive/Artist parents raise their children (the generation that comes of age during the High or Spring of the culture) to be inward-looking, value-driven.  The children are usually overindulged, at a time when economic prosperity is such that concerns about survival seem remote and rising expectations for each succeeding generation a given.  Coming of age, these individuals then respond dramatically, even violently, to the perceived value sterility and mindless conformity of the culture (they never experienced the cultural Winter that made these traits once a necessity and a virtue, and now only see their outmoded excesses).  The result:  a sudden values transformation, often explosive, pervades the youth culture in a time of Awakening or Summer (the Consciousness Revolution, the Summer of Love -- in a word, the 60's).  This is an Idealist or Prophetic generation (most recently, the Boomer generation, born between 1943 and 1960):  intensely inner-directed, value-driven, autonomous, idealistic, otherworldly, and generally contemptuous of "the Establishment" erected half a saeculum ago by their grandparents and so assiduously tended by their parents.

Committed to the values of individualism and inner-directedness, Idealist/Prophetic parents raise their children even more autonomously and permissively than they were raised, often to the point of neglect ("latchkey children"), partly because they are so preoccupied with the inner search for values and for social transformation of the value landscape of society that they can fail to be good parents, and because (raised in a time of economic prosperity when thrift and planning for the future begin to seem redundant and needless) they tend to focus on the now and/or the eternal, neglectful of the intermediate future of the next generation.  The result:  a time of increasing neglect of, if not outright hostility to, children (it is no accident that abortion became legal around this time), and as a result, a dramatic rise in social pathologies.  This generation of "neglected" or "abandoned" children, a Reactive or Nomadic generation (most recently, Gen X, born between 1961 and 1981), too young to remember the cultural sterility to which their parents were reacting, grow up in a world that seems to them an unsafe, amoral jungle in which only the strong and the pragmatic survive.  Certainly they feel that they receive little or no help, financial or otherwise, and have to learn to make it on their own.  Seeing the excesses of idealism, they often become tough, cynical, hard-bitten pragmatists and adventurers.

Naturally, having experienced a childhood of neglect, these individuals become determined to raise their children very differently, protectively and nurturantly -- at a time when their next-elders reinforce this trend because of alarmist concerns about the breakdown of society, as society's external structures appear to be splintering or falling apart (an Unraveling or Autumn, e.g., the "culture wars" of the late 80's and the 90's).  As the trends started in the Awakening begin to "go too far" and begin to be perceived as rampant individualism, hedonism, and amoralism, society clamps down and begins to look for ways to protect children and to foster collectivism, cooperation, volunteerism and the like.  The result:  a generation of valued children (a Civic or Heroic generation) that grows up believing in the value of order, structure, teamwork, and responsibility in the face of a society that radically needs fixing.  Currently, the Millennial generation (born after 1981) is the current Civic generation, the first wave of whom are just beginning to reach young adulthood.  The last such generation was the generation (born between 1901 and 1927) who, as young adults, fought and won World War II:  Strauss and Howe note many similarities between the young people of the Great Depression and today's Millennials.

Why does the cycle keep turning?  Why another Crisis, Winter, or ekpyrosis?  In part because aging Idealists or Prophets -- intensely value-driven as ever, with the natural inflexibility of idealism, and prone to see the world in black/white uncompromising terms -- are likely to respond to the social Unraveling by means of one last-ditch effort to respond to external threats in terms of a catalysmic, even apocalyptic, moral struggle:  the North versus the South (the Civil War), the free world versus the totalitarian menace (World War II), or... just maybe... America versus the terrorist axis of evil (the pending Crisis of 2025)?  At some point, these trends take on a life of their own, reach a point of no return, and society has little choice but to mobilize in the face of another impending crisis that threatens to engulf the entire culture.  We aren't there yet;  current events, sad and sobering as they are, are a mere harbinger of the Winter to come, if Strauss and Howe's model is correct.  It is late Autumn, not Winter.  But Autumn is a time to prepare, for Winter may soon be here.

If the Heroic generation of that era can rise to the challenge, the cycle will turn yet again and another saeculum will be born.  If not (as has happened, of course, repeatedly throughout history), that particular culture will die.  Cultures almost always fall to ruin, Strauss and Howe argue, during a badly managed Winter or time of Crisis -- the ekpyrosis point of a saecular turning.  Again, stay tuned for the year 2025 (give or take a decade).

Note that once every four generations, the seasons of human life (one generation's youth or Spring, young adulthood or Summer, midlife or Autumn, and elderhood or Winter) match the seasons of the saeculum or wider culture (High or Spring, Awakening or Summer, Unraveling or Autumn, and Crisis/ekpyrosis or Winter).  For this generation -- always an Idealist or Prophetic generation -- old age coincides with the (potential) death and (hopeful) subsequent rebirth of the culture.  Is this poised to happen again within the lifetime of most who are reading these notes?  Time will tell.

Resulting Generational Archetypes

Thus, each generation finds its core values defined by the unique experiences of its own youth:

Generational Opposition

The notion is that every generation tends, in many ways, to have opposite characteristics to the generation that is two cycles (seasons) distant.  That is, Civics and Idealists should have opposite characteristics, as should Adaptives and Reactives.  Bearing in mind that these are statistical trends only (not all individuals in a generation share these characteristics to the same extent, and some may not relate to them at all), the following patterns would be expected based on the Strauss-Howe model.

Civics vs. Idealists

Adaptives vs. Reactives

Enantiodromia

This fundamentally means "reversal", or more technically, the tendency of each generation, in midlife and beyond, to increasingly begin to assimilate elements of the opposite generational archetype (to gain additional balance).  Hence, the "midlife transition" tends to run in opposite directions for each archetype (Idealists begin to belatedly discover Civic virtues, Civics to belatedly discover Idealist virtues, and so forth).  This often means that, in old age, each generation looks (to those younger) quite opposite to what they looked like in youth (to those older).

Evidence in Favor of the Strauss-Howe Model

Many historians and social commentators, from Haynes Johnson (Sleepwalking Through History) to Mary Pipher (Another Country) to Thomas Friedman (The Lexus and the Olive Tree) to Richard Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class) to Samuel Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order), have remarked in their own way on this same sort of historical cyclicity -- without (in most cases) evincing any awareness of Strauss and Howe's model.  For instance, Johnson notes that the pursuit of "conspicuous consumption" has emerged three times in recent American history:  in the Gilden Age of the 1880's, during the Roaring Twenties (pre-Depression Era 1920's), and during the "Me Decade" of the 1980's.  In each case, first-wave Reactives or Nomads were entering adulthood, and the first stirrings of a cultural Autumn or Unraveling were beginning to take shape.  Or note Huntington's assertion that, once every four generations, American culture experiences a time of "creedal passion" (always corresponding with the rise of young Idealists or Prophets).  Summarizing Huntington's thoughts on the matter, Robert Kaplan writes, "Despite all the drugs and sex, Huntington viewed the 1960s demonstrators as essentially Puritans, upset that our institutions were not living up to our ideals. It is the very promise of those ideals—which cannot possibly be fulfilled in any age—that accounts for the 'central agony' in American politics."  Summer is always a time of idealism;  Autumn is always a time of a backlash against idealism, of stark realism, materialism, hedonism, selfism, and survivalism.  All these models and more can be subsumed nicely within Strauss and Howe's model.

Does This Model Imply Historical Determinism?

Not necessarily, but it does suggest the truth of Santayana's famous dictum, "Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it."  Because most of us extrapolate from our own (necessarily brief and limited) experience and presume that life will unfold similarly from that point on, we are often distinctly surprised when the seasons of the saeculum change.  (For instance, those too young to remember firsthand the Vietnam era -- who grew up during the "Long Peace" of 1973-2003 -- may be distinctly surprised to find America suddenly becoming threatened and militaristic.)  The Strauss-Howe cycle is not deterministic in the sense that physical laws of nature are.  But as long as our culture remains historically blind (note:  human history did not begin with the birth of Britney Spears) and prone to excessive overcorrection, the cycle may well continue to turn.

See also my recent essay, "A Social Psychologist's Search for Purple America".

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