Precondition: The brain has already figured out how the body works and some rough world model, say at the level of a small child. It has concepts of space and actions that can meet its basic needs by, e.g., looking for food and getting and eating it. It has a concept of other agents but no concept for interacting with them yet.
The brain learns to predict that other agents (parents, siblings...) will act to (help) get its needs met by acting in certain ways, e.g., by smiling, crying, or what else works.
The brain learns to predict that other agents act more reliably positively if expectations of the other agent are consistently met. We say that the child forms relationships. Parents may help children do that, but the brain is incentivized to figure it out in any case.
The brain notices and learns to predict that actions that work for one agent lead to negative results if observed by other agents (taking away something from your younger brother helps get your needs met but may have negative results if observed by parents). The prediction error of expected reward reinforces behaviors that work across multiple agents (over a suitable time). We call typical classes of behaviors roles like “being a good student/sibling/friend,” and such behaviors are fostered—but given enough group interactions, the brain is incentivized to discover and reinforce such behaviors without that.
Kegan writes that many adults get stuck at this stage. My guess is because they are not exposed to enough of the next development.
The brain learns to predict that some behaviors don’t work for some groups of people. For example, when traveling to another city or country, actions may lead to big reward prediction errors. Behaviors that work with the other group are reinforced, and the brain will learn more general strategies. A big class of these strategies are called values that work across most societies. Society tries to teach these general strategies, but the brain is incentivized to discover these—given enough variable group interactions—without education. There are failure modes like being value flexible, i.e., doing what works locally (“When in Rome do as the Romans do”) if the groups are too distinct but the convergence is toward value-like strategies.
My model of how human values form:
Precondition: The brain has already figured out how the body works and some rough world model, say at the level of a small child. It has concepts of space and actions that can meet its basic needs by, e.g., looking for food and getting and eating it. It has a concept of other agents but no concept for interacting with them yet.
The brain learns to predict that other agents (parents, siblings...) will act to (help) get its needs met by acting in certain ways, e.g., by smiling, crying, or what else works.
The brain learns to predict that other agents act more reliably positively if expectations of the other agent are consistently met. We say that the child forms relationships. Parents may help children do that, but the brain is incentivized to figure it out in any case.
The brain notices and learns to predict that actions that work for one agent lead to negative results if observed by other agents (taking away something from your younger brother helps get your needs met but may have negative results if observed by parents). The prediction error of expected reward reinforces behaviors that work across multiple agents (over a suitable time). We call typical classes of behaviors roles like “being a good student/sibling/friend,” and such behaviors are fostered—but given enough group interactions, the brain is incentivized to discover and reinforce such behaviors without that.
Kegan writes that many adults get stuck at this stage. My guess is because they are not exposed to enough of the next development.
The brain learns to predict that some behaviors don’t work for some groups of people. For example, when traveling to another city or country, actions may lead to big reward prediction errors. Behaviors that work with the other group are reinforced, and the brain will learn more general strategies. A big class of these strategies are called values that work across most societies. Society tries to teach these general strategies, but the brain is incentivized to discover these—given enough variable group interactions—without education. There are failure modes like being value flexible, i.e., doing what works locally (“When in Rome do as the Romans do”) if the groups are too distinct but the convergence is toward value-like strategies.