Summary of Cook-Greuter's Achiever & Individualist Action Logics

By most modern Western expectations, fully functional adults see and treat reality as something preexistent and external to themselves made up of permanent, well-defined objects that can be analyzed, investigated, and controlled for our benefit. This view is based on a maximal separation between subject and object, thinker and thought. It epitomizes the traditional scientific frame of mind that is concerned with control, measurement, and prediction. It also represents the goal of much of Western socialization. Most adults have little or no insight into the basic arbitrariness of defining the objects and are completely unaware that according to Koplowitz "the process of naming or measuring pulls that which is named out of reality, which itself is not nameable or measurable.”

They operate under the assumption that subject and object are distinct, and that by analyzing the parts one can figure out the whole. From the conventional Western perspective, the acquisition of this scientific, rational mindframe (or formal operations in Piaget’s model) is seen as the goal of socialization and defines what it means to be a fully grown adult.

Achiever:

The Achiever action logic is the target stage for Western culture. Our educational systems are intended to produce adults with the mental capacity of the Achiever stage, that is, rationally competent and independent adults. Democracy as a form of government is based on the capacity of its independent-thinking voters to make reasoned and informed choices. ersons at this action logic are interested in reasons, causes, goals, consequences and the effective use of time.

They are curious what makes themselves and others “tick” in more than a “why” way. Achievers may also become interested in the truth about themselves through feed-back and introspection. They learn to understand themselves backwards and forwards in time, and describe past feelings, personal dreams and future goals, although their emphasis is likely more future-oriented.

Achievers generally believe in the perfectibility of humankind and in the scientific method to “uncover” truth. Formal operations and abstract rationality are at their peak. People believe that the proper scientific methods of investigation and procedures will eventually lead to the discovery of how things really are, including human nature. Achievers are willing to work towards the betterment of the world according to what they deem as good for all.

They have the frame of mind where formal operations are at their peak and rationality, progressivism, positivism and reductionism have their strongholds.

For Achievers, rationality will triumph! Thus they are interested in analysis (ana-lysis = breaking up). Truth can be found. One can come closer to it by consistently applying the scientific method, by looking at things rationally, by continuously improving and refining one’s methods of inquiry and measuring tools. While Experts tend to rely on authority or received knowledge to orient themselves (book knowledge), Achievers can become skeptical. Achiever researchers are known for their intellectual skepticism towards things that are not yet proven. However, they do believe that the laws of the universe can be figured out eventually and proved.

More even than Experts, Achievers fear the Diplomat frame of mind with its dependency and submission. Blind obedience and uncritical absorption of ideas is seen as “bad-me.”

Individualist:

At the first postconventional level people come to realize that the meaning of things depend on one’s relative position in regard to them, that is, on one’s personal perspective & interpretation of them. Although the objects themselves are seen as permanent, their meaning is seen as constructed. “Variables are now seen as interdependent, causality experienced as cyclical and boundaries of objects as open and flexible” (Koplowitz, 1984) depending on one’s definition of what is to be considered within a system or outside. This view of reality is called the systems view because it allows individuals to look and compare systems of thought or organizations with distance. A main concern of postconventional adults is to lay bare underlying assumptions and frameworks.

The interpretation of reality always depends on the position of the observer. Thus the idea of the participant observer, the observer who influences what he observes, is now becoming a conscious preoccupation. One can never be as totally detached and “objective” as the rational/scientific outlook of Achievers would have it.

The same object/event can have different meanings for different observers, for the same observer in different contexts or at different times. Individuals become interested in watching themselves trying to make sense of themselves. This constitutes an important change in thought mode. Individualists abandon purely rational analysis in favor of a more holistic, organismic approach in which feelings and context are taken into account and the process becomes as intriguing as the product or outcome. Individualists also favor more relativistic or psycho-logical approaches over merely logical ones. The need to explain everything is gone, and head trips are less appealing.

Individualists distrust conventional wisdom and the hyper-rational tenets of the Achiever action logic. They need to distance themselves from all that went before. In this case, one must reevaluate the self-adopted, yet sanctioned role identities of society and redefine oneself uniquely and independently of them based on one’s own experience and conclusions. When one fully realizes that most prior meaning making was socially and culturally conditioned, scientific certainty and the judgmental frame of mind break down. Moreover, Individualists learn to consciously scrutinize their beliefs in order to test their assumptions or to relish the novel mental freedom such a maneuver allows.