Integral Review

A Transdisciplinary and Transcultural Journal For New Thought, Research, and Praxis

Vol. 10 No. 1 Mar 2014

Editorial

Jonathan Reams

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The Complexity of the Practice of Ecosystem-Based Management

Verna G. DeLauer, Andrew A. Rosenberg, Nancy C. Popp, David R. Hiley, Christine Feurt

Abstract: In the United States, there are more than 20 federal agencies that manage over 140 ocean statutes (Crowder et al., 2006). A history of disjointed, single sector management has resulted in a one-dimensional view of ecosystems, administrative systems, and the socio-economic drivers that affect them. In contrast, an ecosystem-based approach to management is inherently multi-dimensional. Ecosystem-based approaches to management (EBM) are at the forefront of progressive science and policy discussions. Both the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (USCOP, 2004) and the Pew Oceans Commission (POC, 2003) reports called for a better understanding of the impact of human activities on the coastal ocean and the result was President Obama’s National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, our Coasts, and the Great Lakes (2010).

EBM is holistic by seeking to include all stakeholders affected by marine policy in decision-making. Stakeholders may include individuals from all levels of government, academia, environmental organizations, and marine-dependent businesses and industry. EBM processes require decision-makers to approach marine management differently and more comprehensively to sufficiently require a more sophisticated conceptual understanding of the process and the people involved. There are implicit cognitive, interpersonal, and intra-personal demands of EBM that are not addressed by current literature. This research seeks to understand the mental demands of EBM. A constructive developmental framework is used to illuminate how decision-makers reason or make sense of the ideals and values underlying EBM, the mutual relationships that must be built among natural resource management agencies, and the personal experiences and emotions that accompany change.

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Correcting Improper Uses of Perspectives, Pronouns, and Dualities in Wilberian Integral Theory: An Application of Holarchical Field Theory

Kevin J. Bowman

Abstract: This article uses my pre-existing extension of Wilberian metatheory, holarchical field theory, to diagnose and work towards overcoming the confusion within attempts to analyze action, events, and communication using Ken Wilber’s AQAL model. In holarchical field theory, holarchical fields become the fundamental component of reality. These fields comprise 1) holons in relation to one another and to their potential, and 2) their interpenetrating forces engaged by their interactions. In light of the theory, problems in the Wilberian literature have included inconsistent uses of certain dualities (subject-object, interior-exterior, and inside-outside) as well as person perspectives and pronouns. Previous attempts to overcome these issues without precise diagnoses suffer from a conflation of the dual definitions of the subjective-objective duality, one a philosophical definition, the other grammatical. State versus action language is classified within the dualities of holarchical field theory.

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Beyond Social Exchange Theory: An Integrative Look at Transcendent Mental Models for Engagement

Latha Poonamallee and Sonia Goltz

Abstract: In this paper, we develop an integrative conceptual framework capturing the underlying mental models that guide engagement in relationships at work and elsewhere. Specifically, we are looking at mental models that go beyond egocentrism and social exchange, which have served as the basis for most frameworks found in research on organizations. The goal of this paper is to present a more complex picture of human cognition and behavior that suggests that egocentrism is not an exclusive motivator. We view this more integrative framework as a set of concentric circles of increasingly inclusive and expansive identities. Although the mental models used by individuals may be static over a shorter time frame, they are thought to be more dynamic over a relatively longer timeframe, in adaptive response to changing conditions. Movement between these mental models can be triggered by changes in cognitions as well as by events that arouse affect.

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A Developmental Behavioral Analysis of Dual Motives’ Role in Political Economies of Corruption

Sara Nora Ross

Abstract: This paper is a developmental meta-analysis of behaviors that contribute to political economies of corruption, deploying bioneurological dual motive and behavioral development theories. Together, these systems of analysis enable a developmental perspective to illustrate and analyze a progression of dual motives’ variations as humans and their conditions change. The progression of examples indicates that there are multiple evolutions of political economies that vary in their complexity, with different behavioral features at each level. Dual motive theory helps in identifying and understanding the complex linkages and layers of socio-political and economic behaviors as they become more complex. Increasingly complex horizontal and vertical stacks of social networks, like lattice-works of dual motives, enable individuals and groups to develop and maintain sturdy yet adaptable social systems of patronage, brokerage, and clientelism. These so-often informally structured relationships underlie corruption-like transactions long before, and long after, they are regarded as the enduring institution of corruption.

Three hypotheses under gird the development of that thesis. The first is that dual motive theory facilitates meta-analyses of social networks’ often hidden layers of complexity. A second hypothesis is that analyses using dual motive theory can explicate more complexity when the theory is integrated with developmental behavioral theory. The third hypothesis is that analyses made possible by that integration offer substantive contributions to understanding socio-political-economic behaviors, including multiple political economies of corruption. Three strategies are employed to develop the paper’s thesis. First, the concepts of social ties, networks, reciprocity and dual motive theory are introduced to set the context. second, a behavioral task measurement theory is introduced: the model of hierarchical complexity. Scoped for this paper to introduce only the most common adult-level tasks, that model’s orders of increasing complexity describe developmental differences in the performance of individuals’ and social systems’ behaviors. Third, a series of international examples shows the hierarchically different ways the behavioral tensions of dual motives manifest in human exchanges. The hierarchical complexity of the examples’ settings is correlated with the hierarchical complexity of adults’ behaviors in those settings.

The results of the analysis indicate that (a) individual and system behaviors are continuously shaped and constrained by complex interrelations that can be explained in terms of the hierarchical complexity of dual motives; (b) there are predictably difficult transitions and breaches when systems of different hierarchical complexity disrupt pre-existing systems for managing behavioral tensions. The application of dual motive theory indicates its analytical usefulness for interpreting social, political, and economic phenomena. Political economies of corruption can be more thoroughly understood as enduring institutions through a developmental behavioral application of dual motive theory.

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A Brief Overview of Developmental Theory, or What I Learned in the FOLA Course

Jonathan Reams

Abstract: This article describes the history and development of developmental theory from a lay person perspective. It covers some of the main strands of how developmental theory has grown, focusing on ego stage theories and dynamic skill theory as the main examples of soft and hard stage models. It also touches on how measures of these models relate to the theories. Reflections on the relative merits of each strand are considered, as well as implications for broadening the scope of awareness of developmental theory among the larger population of integrally informed practitioners.

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An Exploration of the Meaning-making of Vehement Hardliners in Controversial Social Issues: Reactions to Youth Unrest in Suburbs of Gothenburg Sweden

Thomas Jordan

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Review of Gafni

Zachary Stein

On Spiritual Books and their Readers: A Review of Radical Kabbalah by Marc Gafni, 2012

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Review of Turak

Jonathan Reams

Review of Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity, by August Turak, 2013

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Born in the Middle: The Soteriological Streams of Integral Theory and Meta-Reality

Bonnitta Roy

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