Ego Development: Cook-Greuter

Nine levels of increasing embrace: how a person makes sense of self, others and the world, from preconventional through conventional and postconventional to ego-transcendent.

The stages, earliest to latest

1. Impulsive 2.0Needs and impulses drive; others are sources of gratification or frustration.
2. Opportunist (Self-protective) 2/3The world is a dangerous, competitive place; win or be exploited; blame lies outside.
3. Diplomat (Conformist) 3.0Identity comes from belonging; the group's norms and approval define right and wrong.
4. Expert (Self-conscious) 3/4Distinguishes self through competence and being right; one best way, craft logic.
5. Achiever (Conscientious) 4.0Self-authored goals, results and accountability; linear cause and effect.
6. Pluralist (Individualist) 4/5Everything is relative to context and perspective; interest in inner experience and multiple voices.
7. Strategist (Autonomous) 5.0Systems thinking; integrates perspectives over time; holds paradox and interdependence. The self and its theories are taken as real things to understand, integrate and fulfil.
8. Construct-aware (Magician/Alchemist) 5/6The meaning-maker itself becomes the object: sees the ego, its maps and even its striving to grow as constructions, watches them operate, and feels the limits of reason and language.
9. Unitive 6.0Witnessing experience as a flow; universal compassion; no fixed separate self. Constructs are seen through and no longer fought; the sacred and the ordinary are one.

Sources

• Cook-Greuter, S. (2013). Nine Levels of Increasing Embrace in Ego Development: A Full-Spectrum Theory of Vertical Growth and Meaning Making.
• Cook-Greuter, S. (1999). Postautonomous Ego Development (doctoral dissertation, Harvard).
• Loevinger, J. (1976). Ego Development: Conceptions and Theories.

Stage descriptions are paraphrased summaries for orientation, written for Worldview Lens; they are not the official scoring manuals. Example sentences were written to illustrate each stage.