adolscent and Adult Cognitive Development. (New York: Praeger, 1984); John M. Rybash, William J. Hoyer, and
Paul A. Roodin, Adult Cognition and Aging: Developmental Changes in Processing, Knowing, and Thinking. (New
York: Pergamon, 1986).
University Press, 1982). Kegan describes cognitive development as the movement from being mentally embedded in
a simpler subject-object balance to a higher-order (more complex) subject-object balance. For the systemic thinker
the object is the propositions or beliefs that the subject analyzes from the standpoint of one's own system of logically
consistent beliefs. He calls this kind of thinker, the institutional self. The move from the institutional self to the
interindividual self involves a shift in subject-object understanding in which the object becomes the higher-order set
of "systems" of propositions or beliefs, with the subject viewing them from the standpoint of the evolving
metasystem. This explains why the strict systemic thinker cannot understand metasystemic relations. They simply
transcend the thought structures of the early formal operational cognitive system.
reasoning: A case for stages of reasoning beyond Piaget's stage of formal operations." Childhood Development 53
(1982): 1058-68; Francis A. Richards and Michael L. Commons, "Postformal cognitive-developmental theory and
research: A review of its current status," Higher States of Human Development: Perspectives on Adult Growth, ed.
C.N. Alexander and E.J. Langer (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 139-161; Michael Basseches,
Dialectical Thinking, (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1984); Patricia M. King & Katherine S. Kitchener, Developing
reflective judgment: Understanding and promoting intellectual growth and critical thinking in adolescents and
adults, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994); Dierdre A. Kramer, "Development of an Awareness of Contradiction
Across the Life Span and the Question of Postformal Operations," Michael L.Commons, Jan D. Sinnott, Francis A.
Richards, & Cheryl Armon (Eds.), Adult Development: Vol. 1, Comparisons and Applications of Developmental
Models, (New York: Praeger, 1989), 133-160.
Brown & Benchmark, 1995), 172. Metasystemic reasoning does not repudiate the laws of formal logic. They still
operate within systems and continue to be used to evaluate evidence, relate specific propositions, and adjudicate
truth. Metasystemic reasoning does nothing more than assume and build on formal logic, taking it into a higher
"orbit."
(and so constituting a new stage) or simply an advanced application of formal operational abilities, cf. Dierdre A.
Kramer, "Post-formal Operations: A Need for Further Conceptualization." Human Development 26 (1983): 91-105;
Rybash, Roodin, and Hoyer, Adult Cognition and Aging;Charles N. Alexander and Ellen J. Langer, eds. Higher
Stages of Human Development, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), throughout the whole book. Ronald R.
Irwin and Ronald L. Sheese, "Problems in the Proposal for a 'Stage' of Dialectical Thinking," Adult Development,
Vol. 1., M.L. Commons, J.D. Sinnott, F.A. Richards, and C. Armon, ed. (New York: Praeger, 1989), 113-132. I
personally think that metasystemic thought does constitute a higher organization of thinking, qualitatively different
enough from systemic thought to warrant the label of another stage (cf. Eric L. Johnson, "Growing in Wisdom in
Christian Community: Toward Measures of Christian Postformal Development," Journal of Psychology and
Theology 26, 366). However, it is plausible to argue that metasystemic thought is simply formal logic applied to
more complex objects of thought (systems).
assess its success or failure, and apply strategies to assist their thinking and problem-solving. See Michael Ferrari
and Robert J. Sternberg, "The Development of Mental Abilities and Styles" in Handbook of Child Psychology, vol.
2: Cognition, Perception, and Language (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998), 909-910.