This document discusses adult cognitive development and its implications for transcultural communication networks. It summarizes theories of Piaget, Kohlberg, Habermas, and Commons on stages of individual and societal development. These stages impact communication as people at different stages think qualitatively different. Discourse requires post-conventional thinking. Failure to consider stages may explain communicative failures promoting democracy in some societies. Stages are important network features affecting relations between nodes like people and organizations.

1. Photo: wallpaperstock.net
Bringing social psychology back in: Transcultural
communication networks and adult cognitive development
Uwe Krüger
„Networks of transnational and transcultural communication“
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DGPuK Dortmund November 22-23, 2012

2. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Stages of individual development (Piaget, Kohlberg)
3. Stages of societal development (Habermas, Commons)
4. Implications for transcultural communication networks
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3. Motivation: What can social network analysis
learn from psychology?
 Social network analysis primarily addresses the “outer”
characteristics of human interrelations
 Hardly considers the inner processes of humans, which is
the subject of psychology
 Inner processes of humans may have an important impact
on the outer characteristics of their relations
 For describing networks of transcultural communication
approaches of adult cognitive development are important
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4. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Stages of individual development (Piaget, Kohlberg)
3. Stages of societal development (Habermas, Commons)
4. Implications for transcultural communication networks
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5. Jean Piaget: Cognitive development proceeds in
stages
 Humans of different ages think in
qualitatively different ways
 mental structures, used to perceive and
interpret the world, dramatically change
 Successive decrease of egocentrism
 Capacity for abstraction and for
complex views and actions increases
 Simple actions are combined, integrated
and differentiated
Photo: en.wikipedia.org
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6. Jean Piaget identified 4 stages of cognitive
development
1. Sensorimotor stage (age 0-2):
 Simple actions: Sucking, Watching, Grasping, Pushing
 Combination and coordination
2. Pre-operational stage (age 2-7):
 Mental representations of physically absent objects
 Unable to take others‘ perspectives
 Magical and animist thinking predominates
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7. Jean Piaget identified 4 stages of cognitive
development
3. Concrete-operational stage (age 7-11):
 Ability to solve practical problems through trial-and-error
 Sound, general conclusions based on concrete observations
(inductive logic)
4. Formal-operational stage (age 11 and older):
 Deal with abstract concepts and hypothetical problems
 Deductive logic
 Systematic search for answers to the big questions
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8. Lawrence Kohlberg: Cognitive development is
connected with moral judgement
 Conscious perception is the basis for
moral weightings
 Kohlberg distinguished 6 stages, grouped
into 3 levels: pre-conventional,
conventional, post-conventional
 Decreasing egocentrism
 Increasing acceptance of abstract,
universal principles
Photo: http://psy.buu.edu.cn
 Increasing ability to solve moral dilemmas
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9. Lawrence Kohlberg identified 6 stages of moral
development
A Pre-conventional level
1. The Stage of Punishment and Obedience: Avoiding negative
sanctions
2. The Stage of Individual Instrumental Purpose and Exchange :
Seeking for benefit
B Conventional level
3. The Stage of Mutual Interpersonal Expections, Relationships, and
Conformity: Good boy/good girl attitude
4. The Stage of Social System and Conscience Maintenance: Law
and order
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10. Lawrence Kohlberg identified 6 stages of moral
development
C Post-conventional level
5. The Stage of Social Contract and Individual Rights: Laws can be
changed by majority
6. The Stage of Universal Ethical Principles: Dignity and justice
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11. Piaget‘s and Kohlberg‘s strong hypotheses
 The stages form an invariant, irreversible, and consecutive
sequence of discrete structures: Skipping stages is impossible,
regression is impossible
 The stages form a hierarchy: Structures of higher stage
transcend those of the lower one
 The stages are universal: They can be observed in the African
jungle as well as in an American Suburb or in the Swiss
mountains
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12. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Stages of individual development (Piaget, Kohlberg)
3. Stages of societal development (Habermas, Commons)
4. Implications for transcultural communication networks
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13. Jürgen Habermas: Communicative action
depends on the stage of development
 Rational, self-reflexive discourse requires a
moral stage on the post-conventional level
 Human development involves a „change of
attitude for the transition from action to
discourse. A child growing up, and caught
up, in the communicative practice of
everyday life is not able at the start to
effect this attitude change.“ (Habermas
Photo: wikipedia.org
1999: 125)
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14. Jürgen Habermas: Communicative action
depends on the stage of development
Stages of moral Types of social interactions
development (Kohlberg) (Habermas)
Pre-conventional (1 + 2) Authority-driven interaction +
cooperation driven by self-
interest
Conventional (3 + 4) Interaction driven by norms and
social roles
Post-conventional (5 + 6) Discourse
(Habermas 1999)
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15. Jürgen Habermas: Individual and societal
development are tightly connected
 The individual‘s development depends on and can be fostered
by education and demands from the social environment
 Society can learn from above-average individuals: „(…) social
systems can form new structures by utilizing the learning
capacities of their members in order to cope with systems
problems which threaten the maintenance of the self.”
(Habermas 1975: 294)
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16. Jürgen Habermas: Societies go through an
evolutionary learning process
 from paleolithic societies with magical-animistic world view
(parallels to the pre-operational stage) and traditional societies
with a mythical-religious world view to modern societies with
rationalized world view (parallels to formal-operational
thinking and post-conventional moral)
 Different societies can be put into a hierarchical order, not by
content, but by form, i.e. by structure of consciousness and
organizational complexity
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17. Michael Commons: Scoring societies with
mathematical methods
 „Model of Hierarchical Complexity“
(MHC) offers a standard method of
examining the universal patterns of
evolution and development
 It refers to tasks and the performance of
people on these tasks (and tasks can
contain any kind of information)
 quantitative principles – independent from
Photo: Dare Association
mentalistic, cultural, or other contextual
explanations
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18. Michael Commons: How complex is a
behavior?
 Higher-order actions are defined in terms of lower-order actions
 organize and transform those lower-order actions
 organize lower-order actions in a non-arbitrary way
Figure: S. N. Ross, as cited in Commons 2008: 309
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19. Michael Commons postulates 14 orders of
hierarchical complexity
0 – Calculatory 8 – Concrete
1 – Sensory or motor 9 – Abstract
2 – Circular sensory-motor 10 – Formal
3 – Sensory-motor 11 – Systematic
4 – Nominal 12 – Metasystematic
5 – Sentential 13 – Paradigmatic
6 – Pre-operational 14 – Cross-Paradigmatic
7 – Primary
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20. Michael Commons applies the MHC also to
societal development
Concrete stage societies: „focuses on events, people, and places
that are personally known. (…) dominated by subsistence
concerns and demonstrate short time horizons. Social
behaviour is characterized by reciprocal exchanges involving
concrete goods and services, and simple social rules.“
Abstract stage societies: „group associations begin as
memberships in political parties, trade associations and unions,
and religious organizations. In contrast to the concrete stage,
one can feel that one is in a social relationship with others and
be loyal to it, even without proximity to other members. (…) the
beginnings of the concept of roles are learned, such that people
understand that different individuals may fill and later leave the
same role.“
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21. Michael Commons applies the MHC also to
societal development
Formal stage societies: „(…) develop empirical interests in
increasing productivity, training, and wealth distribution, which in
turn lead to formal economics and laws. (…) Truly bureaucratic
governments form, with extensive written laws and regulations
that are implemented in ‚letter of the law‘ fashion.“
Systematic stage societies: „(…) systems of relations are
coordinated among the legal, societal, corporate, economic, and
national spheres. (…) Applications of laws are more ‚in the spirit
of‘ than ‚the letter of‘ the law. (…) At this stage, more highly
abstract concepts appear, such as transparency, accountablity,
social justice, and sustainability.“ (Ross/Commons 2008: 484-487)
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22. Michael Commons: Not all members of a society
operate at the same stage
 Individuals operate at multiple stages of development in
various domains
 Political cultures and social systems display concurrent
operations of several different stages
 Political entities “vary widely in their performance within and
across domains” (Ross/Commons 2008: 481)
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23. Outline
1. Introduction
2. Stages of individual development (Piaget, Kohlberg)
3. Stages of societal development (Habermas, Commons)
4. Implications for transcultural communication networks
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24. Implication I: Communication problems in
binational partnerships
 Partners might operate at different developmental stages
 Example: Mrs. X from Germany and Mr. Y from Iraq – a
divorced couple fight a custody battle before court
 Extracts from the psychological expert advice (2012):
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25. Implication I: Communication problems in
binational partnerships
 “During the examination, Mrs. X appeared (…) self-critical and
reflected. (…) The psychological needs of the child are
perceived by her adequately. Mrs. X appeared reflected on the
child’s emotional situation. Towards the father of her child, Mrs.
X seems to be realistic-distant on the one hand, and on the
other hand unable to cope with his behavior and structure of
personality. Mrs. X is able to name positive features of the
father’s personality, and able and willing to tolerate his
relationship to their common child.”
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26. Implication I: Communication problems in
binational partnerships
 „Mr. Y showed (…) very little self-criticism during the
examination. Towards the mother of his child, he appeared
disappointed-aversive and unable to cope with her personal
outlook on life. He is not adequately aware of his own share in
the failure of the partnership. It is difficult for him to name positive
features of the mother’s personality. (…) The child’s need for an
unstressed relationship to his mother is perceived not
adequately.“
 clear differences in self-reflexivity, tolerance and awareness of
the child‘s needs (that might indicate different cognitive stages)
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27. Implication II: Communicative failure of the
West when promoting democracy
 Democracy is an operation of abstract-stage societies or
higher (Commons)
 Building of a democratic nation in Afghanistan or Iraq might
overstress a concrete society, because stages cannot be
skipped or rushed
 Stages have to be considered for strategic communication of
governments or NGOs
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28. (Ross 2008: 533)
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29. Implication III: Discoursive transcultural
communication
 Discourse according to Habermas requires the highest stages
of cognitive and moral development
 If participants cling to magical or mythical thinking, a
rational, self-reflexive discourse is hardly possible
 This may effect communication networks within transnational
media players (media corporations, International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists, Reporters without Borders) as well as
media content and its reception
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30. My argument in terms of social network
analysis
 the developmental
stage is an important
feature of the nodes
(e.g., persons,
organizations, states)
that has impact on the
edges (e.g.,
communicative
Photo: s.media / pixelio.de
relations between
them).
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31. References
Commons, M. L (2008): Introduction to the Model of Hierarchical Complexity and its relationship
to postformal action. In: World Futures, Vol. 64, pp. 305-320.
Habermas, J. (1975): Towards a Reconstruction of Historical Materialism. In: Theory and Society,
Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 287-300.
Habermas, J. (1984): The Theory of Communicative Action. Volume 1: Reason and the
Rationalization of Society. Boston: Beacon Press.
Habermas, J. (1999): Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press.
Kohlberg, L. (1976): Moral development and behavior. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Piaget, J. (1970): Genetic epistemology. New York: W. W. Norton.
Ross, S. N. (2008): Postformal (Mis)Communications. In: World Futures, Vol. 64, pp. 530-535.
Ross, S. N./Commons, M. L. (2008): Applying hierarchical complexity to political development.
In: World Futures, Vol. 64, pp. 480-497.
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32. Contact
Dr. Uwe Krüger
Universität Leipzig
Institut für Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaft, Abteilung Journalistik
Burgstr. 21 / 04109 Leipzig / Germany
Phone: ++49-341 / 97-35756
Fax: ++49-341 / 97-35799
E-mail: uwe.krueger@uni-leipzig.de
URL: www.uni-leipzig.de/journalistik
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