Friday, March 09, 2007

In Over Our Heads by Robert Kegan

A fascinating view on developmental psychology. Kegan describes the evolution of mental models/capacities of children, adolescents, and adults, and the dynamic relationship between capacities and cultural demands. The writing is pretty esoteric and academic at times. In the preface, he describes telling his father when his first book was translated into German and Korean. His father responded, “Great! Now when will it be translated into English?” Yeah, there’s still some of that going on, but in general, he used good examples to illustrate his points and the model he describes is definitely thought-provoking. I’ve already gone back and re-read several sections of this book – some parts more than once - and I suspect it’s a book I’ll be returning to for a while.

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