How Do Highly Gifted Adults Show Developmental Potential? Part 3
Part 3: Dabrowski Levels II/III and III
This is the third guest post in the series from Dr. Deborah Ruf. Here are the first two posts: Part 1 and Part 2.
Once again, we visit Gifted Adults in Their 40s and 50s during the 1990s — from Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies. Also published in the peer reviewed book, Morality, Ethics, and Gifted Minds.
We’ve already looked at the earlier Dabrowski Levels in Part 1 and Part 2.
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For readers who are interested in learning more about this topic, I recommend you read this: Full PDF of the Ambrose and Cross Morality, Ethics and Gifted Minds book is here. My contribution is Chapter 20. http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/30241/1/26.Don%20Ambrose.pdf
For the current discussion, it is necessary to review the thoughts that went into decisions related to how the adult subjects were initially ranked by their emotional and moral development. It’s important to be aware of the thoughts of others who have studied the topics, too. See Part 2 of this series for more background.
Four subjects exhibited attitudes and behaviors found in both Levels II and III. Level III people are summarized as follows:
Level III: Personality Transformation
Inner conflict, hierarchy of values, positive maladjustments, inferiority toward one’s ideals, feelings of guilt and shame, independent thinker, moral framework believed but inconsistently applied.
The behaviors, attitudes, and written thoughts of subjects in this section indicated that they were leading fairly stereotypical, society-approved lives but were entering a mid-life reassessment.
Because there are only four cases in this crossover stage, it’s simpler to highlight the areas where they still have concerns and behaviors like Level II subjects while showing how they appear to be opening themselves to the inner changes more related to Level III.
Although #21F did not mention receiving therapy for herself, she had extensive background in counseling psychology. She wrote that she wanted to grow and find meaning in her life and seemed determined to figure it all out for herself. She was much like #22M and #23M, from the previous group, in her level of effort toward inner growth and finding purpose in her life. Her educational background was a clear example of an intensive and extensive search for answers: she studied history in undergraduate school, earned master’s degrees in counseling psychology, social work, and biblical studies, and completed all but her dissertation for a doctorate in counseling psychology. Following the definition of Searcher, however, means more than just looking for the answers; it means being open to change. Intellectually knowing an answer does not automatically translate into an emotional, internalized understanding.
#21F admitted to being somewhat lonely.
I feel people like me — but I think I may in some sense be hard to get close to. I never thought about that before just this moment. I think I’m pretty guarded in respects — even while being superficially friendly and outgoing. I’m afraid, I think, of intimacy, while at the same time I very much want it. I often feel very alone in the world.
She belonged to a church and had a considerable spiritual life that was highly important to her. She wrote of her spiritual journey:
I see the need to be God-centered as opposed to centered on man as the single most important issue there is. And I’ve not said one thousandth of what I’d like to convey — because it is not something that can be explained in a few words or understood in a short time. It’s an understanding that requires years to even begin to acquire.
Her DIT score was in line with other subjects who indicate a belief that there are correct answers to life’s questions. Her advice to a troubled young gifted person reflects that she still had many open issues on her agenda, more representative of Level III thinking:
I think I’d have trouble with this one. I’m often so close to not feeling it’s worth it myself. When I focus on growing, self-perfection … then I don’t worry about whether it [life] is worth it. I think we have to accept it, do the best we can and trust that there’s a greater meaning to our lives than we can understand.
Like subject #21F, subject #37M followed an extensive path to search for answers and help work out past problems. He mentioned being more spiritual than religious. Another subject who studied counseling and became a therapist, he spent 3–1/2 years studying at a Catholic seminary, as did several emotionally abused subjects including #21F, #22M, and #23M.
#37M still seemed to be searching for meaning and satisfaction in his life but wrote that he feels good about everything, career, family, marriage, self-acceptance and self worth. There were inconsistencies more typical of Level II behavior, though, when he also wrote that he had difficulty relating to one of his children and wished he had more patience for parenting in general; he and his wife were not intellectually compatible; he had few friends and no one really to confide in; and he said he was lonely. In Dabrowski’s Levels, this subject was on the line between Levels II and III. His low Tone possibly indicated that he was not emotionally ready to abandon the relative safety of Stereotypical Roles in order to experience the positive disintegrations of Personality Transformation.
#38F had a Tone score of 4 because she was depressed and unhappy about her past and lonely in her adult life. She earned a 64.4 on the DIT which put her well above the mean and the mode for the study group. She was categorized as Not Clear because although she had analyzed her background and was clearly introspective, she wrote one tell-tale sentence:
“I’m trying to learn to be happy with what people will give and not to want or need more.”
Such a viewpoint indicated Level II thinking in that she felt she could control her wants, needs, and feelings more so than people who are Searchers or self-actualizers.
She had not resolved her childhood anger. The subject was in her late forties when she wrote the following painful descriptions:
“I never felt loved or approved of. I often felt that if I’d only been a bit more perfect or good, then they’d love me, but they never did.”
#38F’s views on both her career and the state of education in our country are summed up in this observation:
“I hate all the wasted time and stupid things people demand that use them and me up. It’s hard when I can foresee how disastrous some new reform is going to be and knowing I can do nothing about it. I think we like to jump on bandwagons of bright ideas for reform that no one looks at the long term or actually sees why a program works for one group. There’s too much going with the latest fad and no real thought. I’m in despair that it can change.”
#38F felt suicidal throughout her life. She associated the beginning of those feelings with the onset of sexual abuse when she was seven years old. Her feelings of “disconnection and desolation, a weight and a heaviness in my body, a sense of despair things can ever be different” did not take away her desire to help and encourage others. Here, and in several other places, she outlined a plan for change that indicated the beginning of Level III thinking.
I’d probably tell him or her [a troubled young person] that I’ve had similar feelings when I was their age and that a lot of very gifted people feel like this because they see so much more than most other people and have trouble with standing the fact that others who can’t see are in charge of the world. I’d say that things do change slowly and they can work to make them change and that even small changes are worthwhile for the people involved. Eventually they can become bigger changes. I’d give some examples of civil rights and world hunger changes. I’d also discuss the problem of relationships because a troubled young person also feels disconnected from people and needs to find some ways to feel a part of something.
Although some of #1F’s intellectual reasoning showed the openness to change that is part of the criteria for categorization at Level III, she listed several inconsistencies in her questionnaires, behavior that is more typical of Level II. She wrote that there were several factors in her life that helped her feel both a connection and a place in the world. Although she mentioned numerous times that nothing she did as a child ever seemed to be good enough, she also said,
“I was very fortunate. I never had a doubt that I was loved and wanted in my home. I don’t remember if anyone actually told me they loved me but I knew they did.”
Subjects who reported feeling loved by their parents tended to show a general lack of resentment in their questionnaire responses.
Subject #1F was one of a handful of subjects who was in a full-time gifted program through most of her schooling. In answer to the question “Have you experienced much confusion or uncertainty in life regarding whether or not you really are smart compared to the majority of people?” she showed Level III reasoning as she more correctly interpreted past events and herself than subjects categorized at lower, less developed levels. She finally understood her unusual intellectual ability, for example, and realized that it was difficult for her to accept as it ran counter — in her own mind — to the humility taught to her as a child. She wrote,
Perhaps because I spent my growing up years surrounded by very bright people [over 135 IQ ability grouped classes throughout school for her], I never really thought of myself as unusually bright. Smart, yes — exceptional, no. I assumed I was successful because I worked hard (which I did, much of the time). It was not until graduate school when I figured out that, no, this was not going to be the place when finally everyone was smarter than I was, that I became consciously aware that my abilities were quite unusual. Even now it makes me extremely uncomfortable to write that. I wonder why?
She showed Level III thinking, values she appears to have internalized, when she explains,
“My religion is an extremely important influence in my life. It shapes how I view myself, my family, my students, my life. My belief in the eternal nature and infinite potential of human beings is probably the most important factor in my priorities and decision making.”
At the same time, her survey answers indicate that she was holding on tightly to self-control, perhaps necessary due to some tremendous hurts she experienced. She endured two major grief issues, the death of a loved one through suicide and the inability to have children. Her response to the question about helping a troubled young person showed how generally advanced her perspective was, a perspective indicated by her fairly high DIT score of 65. She said she would first find out the issues, but then explain her own philosophy:
People with great intellectual strength easily become accustomed to using it to solve the problems around them. The problem is, intellect is only one part of what makes us human. Sometimes it isn’t the tool we need. If we expect the world to make sense, using here-and-now judgments as our guide, we are bound to be disappointed. Sometimes we don’t need intellectual understanding. Sometimes we need empathy, or courage, or wisdom or aesthetic appreciation or spirituality. I believe (as you can tell) that it helps enormously to have a perspective that encompasses more than this life. Even without that, I think it is possible to come to understand that the world has many dimensions. Cognitive processes are only one small piece of it. As we come to appreciate and value things that can bring joy without necessarily being understandable or highly rewarded (a colored leaf, a loving friend, the opportunity to help) life is much richer.
Subject #1F was a good example of someone who sees the big picture of advanced emotional development but is still quite careful not to rock her own world with too much questioning. Her apparent caution was the primary reason for placing her below Level III in the current study.
Dabrowski Level III
There are four subjects who fit the description of Dabrowski’s Level III, and three are highlighted here.
Personality Transformation: Inner conflict, hierarchy of values, positive maladjustments, inferiority toward one’s ideals, feelings of guilt and shame, independent thinker, moral framework believed but inconsistently applied.
A categorization of Level III
Personality Transformation, required subjects to give evidence that they could open themselves up to the possibility that not only could their lives be different, but they could be different. Life is not about someone else giving us the answers, even if those answers are good. Values and goals must come from inside the person for emotional self-actualization to occur. The first steps involve the realization that no one else can give anyone else their purpose or their life’s course. When that realization occurs to the adult, it can be unsettling, even terrifying. People at Level II development may have these thoughts, but suppress or ignore them. When someone experiences a positive disintegration, it is life-changing. The subjects in this section of the paper reveal the processes people in Level III experience.
#36M has two DIT scores; the first one, 48.5, and his childhood information come from his first participation in the study. He then quit the Study but returned after two years. He did not appear to become a Searcher until after he completed his first survey and DIT (Defining Issues Test). He began receiving counseling between the Childhood and Adulthood Inventories. His clear change from probable Nonsearcher to Searcher indicates the possibility that self-actualizers do not necessarily begin life as natural Searchers.
If they did not begin life, or even their adulthoods, as Searchers, that means something can happen to turn a person into a Searcher and increase the likelihood of self-actualization.
#36M is profoundly gifted. Lack of understanding on the part of school personnel and his parents contributed to his feelings of being different. He was nearly 50 years old before he took matters into his own hands, after a near nervous breakdown, and started to try to figure out who he really is. In response to the question concerning emotional support and guidance, he responded,
“It is painful to think about this. The environment in my home was one in which one did not talk about feelings, except anger. This has carried over into my adult life; I confide in no one. I have no friendships outside my family, except one friend with whom I correspond who lives a ‘safe’ distance away from me. I have never discussed most of the topics in this survey with anyone.”
#36M wrote, before re-entering the Study,
I feel that my career dissatisfaction has a start or a cause in growing up in an environment where I had no mentor to encourage me to make decisions and be accountable for them. Parents and schools seem to encourage dependency and letting others decide for you, encourage an authoritarian world view.
The following paragraph, written after #36M returned to the Study, excellently revealed the thought processes of someone who had entered Level III:
I would like to share with you some things that have happened since I dropped out of your study some years ago. I spent a year or so crying almost every day, then met with a psychologist for another year, but got frustrated with the psychologist because I felt he wasn’t doing anything, just listening. I started reading psychology books. I have now read about 30 books on psychology, ethics, and relationships. I do not feel depressed now. I am slowly changing my beliefs about personal responsibility, authenticity and tolerance, and integrating those changes into my life. I feel that forms of authoritarianism and intolerance have been a major problem for me. I would like to accelerate this change process, but I resist and take time to integrate one change before I take another step.
Love, intimacy and friendship were still a problem for #36M at this point. Before he began Level III personality transformation, he kept himself socially isolated. His values changed to the extent that he realized relationships provide the principal joys and meaning in life.
I am lonely. I learned from my home situation and from the community where I grew up that intimacy was bad. Especially for men. If I can change myself, I can make friendships. I am the only one responsible for fixing the problem … I married my spouse when I was 20 years old, and we have been married for 29 years. This has been a very good thing for me. My spouse is my best friend. I have not been a very communicative, open disclosing partner and I am trying to improve that. For most of our years together, I have had a very authoritarian viewpoint of our relationship, and I have changed that recently.
#36M speculated about why he wasn’t able to change earlier.
“I think that my irrational feelings, prejudices and sexual stereotypes distorted my view of the world. The taboo about discussing sex and my aversion to people meant that there were very few avenues open to changing my viewpoints and beliefs … I feel that there has always been a great variety of choices available to me, but that I have rarely had the courage to make the choices. I have let events or other people decide for me. I chose not to choose. I am changing that now and I am going to keep changing it.”
Although #36M attended a church regularly, he was integrating religious beliefs and his faith into a picture of spirituality that was compatible with his changing views, particularly his views on authoritarianism and personal responsibility. A changing view of religion was part of his overall changing world view.
#36M said that he never considered suicide. This was what he wrote about helping a troubled young person:
I would listen, I would ask them to talk, I would be present and be silent if that felt right. When it was appropriate, I would share parts of my own story of coming to understand personal responsibility and realizing that life is about caring for others. That each of us is a spiritual part of the universe. That the difficulties that we are experiencing are a gift which will develop up. That it is important to have courage. I would ask them to read a book on counseling and try to understand their problem from a counselor’s perspective.
It was in light of subject #36M’s changes that he was moved into Level III, Personality Transformation, for the study. By his own account, participation in the present study and seeing his own thoughts on paper propelled him toward radical intrapersonal change and set him on his journey toward self-actualization. He was using his intelligence and training in his career, so would appear to be self-actualized there. But, one year after completing his Adult Inventory, he left his job. As the current study ended he was viewing his entire career, his position, and his priorities differently. Such a changed perspective seemed common among those who had started to change inside. These are positive steps.
#4M reported a high level of affection and approval with kisses goodnight and good-bye and “lots of hugging” from his parents when he was a child. His parents put a great deal of emphasis on his intelligence, which bothered him somewhat. They thought he should go into physics because he had a strong interest in it from early childhood. He did not decide on his career until he was 22 years old. He made that point clearly in his questionnaires as though he was afraid it would look as though his parents pressured him. Now in his late 40s he realizes he might have found physics a more interesting career choice.
Early in adulthood he began transcendental meditation and practices it daily. He reads widely, exercised by running, and thought he made an excellent marriage choice. He stated several times that he loved his three children and dedicated a lot of time to them, but wished he had more patience. His professional work was not intellectually challenging, but he felt stuck in it primarily due to obligation.
#4M earned a low tone score of 4 because he brought up several topics that indicated he felt unfulfilled and lonely. As a small town professional he was in a fairly solitary position with few intellectual peers.
“Wife — compatible, but do not share intellectual interest; she is less intellectually oriented.”
Asked if he confided in friends, he answered,
“No except 2 old friends and wife.”
Asked if he usually has friends in whom to confide,
“Yes, until into present adult situation (profession and family).” In reference to the importance of friendships in his life: “Very important; I call and write to my old best friends once or twice a month; I miss having close.”
According to his DIT score of 75, #4M was a highly principled moral reasoner at Kohlberg’s Stage 5 or possibly 6. The amount of inner strife expressed in his wish for more patience, a different career, and close friendships nearby all indicated Dabrowski’s Level III: Personality Transformation. Observers would say he’s attained career and intellectual self-actualization; he would not agree, however. His writing indicated that he was actively developing new goals and ideals for himself and would not be happy until he both reached for and attained them.
#18F is a wonderful example of someone who consciously, actively pursued change in herself. She had a conventional job for a woman; and although her questionnaires show a strong current of unresolved rebelliousness, she did not seem angry or depressed. She was among the youngest of the final group, just approaching her forties at the time of the study. Her strong Searcher behavior was indicated by ongoing positive disintegrations as she continued to redefine her world. In response to the question, “Did people know you were smart?” she reported,
Other kids thought I was smart, but I thought I did better and learned more because I worked harder than they were, and they were just lazy. It wasn’t ’til I took nationally normed tests — the PSAT, ACT, and SAT — in high school that I realized I might have a natural advantage over some of my peers.
Unlike subjects who are at Level II, #18F once interpreted her world one way, “I worked harder,” but changed her viewpoint to incorporate her new information that she might have a natural advantage. She became less judgmental, a hallmark of someone who has moved beyond Level II.
#18F was very clear on the steps of her own developmental journey:
I had my first developmental crisis at age 10 when I felt that my life had no meaning. I considered committing suicide with the shotgun Dad kept in the basement but decided not to because I thought that would make my parents sad. I resolved the crisis by deciding I had two self-chosen purposes in my life:
1) To help others.
2) To have pleasure myself.
Shallow and simplistic as these goals now seem, when I’ve had mid-life crises since then, I’ve continued to come up with these same very basic life goals.
My other major turning points were around religion and career choice. As I mentioned earlier, I “gave my life to Christ” during a Lay Witness Mission at my church at age 15. For a year I believed fundamentally, read the Bible nightly, and warned my parents they’d go to hell because they had not had a second birth in Christ and been saved.
About the time I turned 16, I decided it was unlikely and incompetent and cruel of an omnipotent god to create a world where people not properly introduced to Christ would go to hell. Since it was likewise idiotic of Him not to make clear which of the world’s religions was most accurate, and Demond Morris (anthropologist) in The Naked Ape at the library said that primates evolved in such fashion that their minds made room for a god notion, I became an atheist. For awhile it bugged me that I’d go to hell if I was wrong. On the other hand, the fundamentalists said that once I’d given my life to Christ I was always saved. So I guessed I had all bases covered.
I guess I should comment on how becoming an atheist was a turning point. Once I decided there was no god, I had no foundation for my values, which was largely Judeo-Christian-based. So I had to rethink all my moral decisions from a basis I decided myself. I’m still doing this, and it’s hard.
As mentioned, #18F was in a traditional female career field and was having difficulty getting the job, guidance counselor, within that field that she wanted. She was unusually gifted — smarter than most — for her career field. Combine that with her obvious questioning of everything, her constant striving for something better, more purposeful, and she probably did not make the people around her at work comfortable. Her emotional growth might have been jeopardized by a poor fit of her personality needs to her work environment. That may, in part, explain why she continued to be such an active Searcher and had not yet attained more of the serenity of Level IV in Dabrowski’s hierarchy.
Some Limitations
A number of issues limit the general usefulness of the current study. Included among them are the imprecision of the case study analysis approach, the lack of agreement in the wider community regarding what constitutes giftedness, the snapshot approach to the subjects’ assessments, the self-selection inherent in research with volunteer subjects, and lack of more than one rater for a number of highly subjective evaluations.
Why Inner Growth Matters: A Discussion
Two considerations stand out as important when one evaluates emotional self-actualization. First, people who have reached levels of self-actualization feel good about themselves, their lives, and the world around them. They are generally hopeful and have positive attitudes toward others. They are not generally depressed and they have a natural drive to contribute through their efforts.
As the analysis of the case study material progressed, it became evident that there is reason to consider advanced emotional and moral reasoning levels not necessarily better or desirable for everyone. Stage theory suggests that higher is better, but judging from the kinds of lives the different subjects are leading, and the happiness and contentment often reported by subjects at lower levels, it is important to keep an open mind about what advanced level emotional growth is and is not.
Only through future research can it be determined what personal, perhaps inherent, factors may contribute to eventual self-actualization in individual people. It is clear that there are identifiable characteristics present in people at different levels of development. How early they reach a level, and whether or not they will continue to progress to the highest stages, cannot be concluded from this study.
Only one subject showed attitudes and behavior that differed significantly from his DIT results, subject #36M. He took a 2-year break before finishing the study and reported that he underwent significant internal changes. The questionnaire dealing with his childhood was completed at the same time as his first DIT, on which he received a 48.3. His clear change from probable Nonsearcher to Searcher by the time he completed the adult level inventory indicated that there are self-actualizers who did not begin life as natural Searchers. If they did not begin life, or even their adulthoods, as Searchers, that means something can happen to turn a person into a Searcher and increase the likelihood of self-actualization. What that something is did not become clear in this study.
In conclusion, the very nature of self-actualized growth and advanced moral reasoning may preclude either concept being understood well enough for teaching to children, young parents, or even teachers. Perhaps what parents, teachers, and children need to know is that there is the possibility of an emotional journey and it involves feelings of instability and struggle along the way. They can be taught what the typical milestones are, what their life goals may be, and the reasons for establishing those goals.
References
Brennan, T. P., & Piechowski, M. M. (1991). A development framework for self-actualization: Evidence from case studies. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 31, 43–64.
Dabrowski, K. (1967). Personality-shaping through positive disintegration. Boston: Little, Brown.
Dabrowski, K. (with Kawczak, A., & Piechowski, M. M.) (1970). Mental growth through positive disintegration. London: Gryf.
Dabrowski, K., & Piechowski, M. M. (1977). Theory of levels of emotional development, (Vol. 1). Oceanside, NY: Dabor Science.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity, youth, and crisis. New York: Norton.
Feldman, D. H. (1986). Nature’s gambit: child prodigies and the development of human potential. New York: Basic Books, Inc.
Josselson, R. (1991). Finding herself: Pathways to identity development in women. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of moral development (Vol. 2) San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row.
Marcia, J. (1980). Ego identity development. In J. Adelson (Ed.), The handbook of adolescent psychology. New York: Wiley.
Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality (2nd ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
Peck, R. F., & Havighurst, R. J. (1960). The psychology of character development. New York: Wiley.
Piechowski, M. M. (1975). A theoretical and empirical approach to the study of development. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 92, 231–297.
Piechowski, M. M. (2010). Rethinking Dabrowski’s theory. Citation information missing.
Random House Dictionary (1987). Definition #14.
Rest, J. R. (1979). Development in judging moral issues. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Ruf, D. L. (1998). Environmental, familial, and personal factors that affect the self-actualization of highly gifted adults: Case studies. Unpublished dissertation: University of Minnesota.
Ruf, D. L. (2009). Self-actualization and morality of the gifted: environmental, familial, and personal factors. In D. Ambrose & T. Cross (Eds.), Morality, ethics, and gifted minds (pp. 265–283). New York: Springer.
A free link to my entire dissertation: https://dabrowskicenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Ruf1998.pdf
More Writings and Information About Dr. Ruf
Books:
The 5 Levels of Gifted Children Grown Up: What They Tell Us (2023)
and Keys to Successfully Parenting Gifted Children (2022, 2023)
Professional Website: www.FiveLevelsofGifted.com
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