What does it mean to be part of a greater whole? How does our
worldview, or model of reality, impact what we understand about who we
are and how we relate to others? And how can we become more aware of all
the ways we are part of an interrelated, global community?
Recently my colleagues and I explored these questions in a report
titled “Worldview Transformation and the Development of Social
Consciousness” for the
Journal of Consciousness Studies
(Schlitz, Vieten, and Miller; 17, no. 7–8 (2010): 18–36). Based on
decades of research on consciousness transformation, IONS researchers
have developed a theoretical framework for understanding social
consciousness. In this way, we have sought to understand the ways in
which people are both conscious and unconscious about the world around
them. And, more importantly, we seek to understand the powers and
potentials of individual consciousness to move toward collective
well-being.
It’s clear that we are social beings from the very beginning of life.
Social relations impact every aspect of our being. Of course, there is
developmental variability in the extent to which each of us is aware of
culture’s impact on us. It takes a level of perceptual acuity, for
example, to realize how all those car commercials impact what we drive
and how we feel about it.
The complex dynamics of our social identity unfold through five nested
levels of social consciousness. These in turn relate to transformations
in worldview.
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The first level of social consciousness is what we refer to as embedded.
Here consciousness is shaped without our awareness by social, cultural,
and biological factors. It’s a kind of presocial consciousness that
serves as a baseline for our own development. Social factors interact
with our cognitive and biological processes, limiting our ability to
know what shapes our inner experiences. Studies of inattentional
blindness by psychologists, for instance, illustrate how our human
brains are often “hard-wired” to exclude information that does not fit
into our current meaning system. We see what we expect to see – and can
consistently miss things we are not anticipating or that don’t support
our belief system.
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With greater human choice and creativity, we may begin to express our
human spirit in the face of on-going social and political influences.
This leads to Level Two, which we call self-reflexive social
consciousness. Here people gain awareness of how their experiences are
conditioned by the social world. This can be accomplished through
personal reflection and contemplative practices such as meditation.
Scientists and spiritual teachers alike are working together to broaden
our awareness of the world and our place in it. Psychologist and
religious historian Louise Sundarararajan emphasizes that it is the
capacity for self-reflexivity – the ability to step back and reflect on
our thought process – that stimulate shifts in our mental
representations. From insight meditation to the confessional in the
Catholic tradition, to taking inventory of one’s behavior in the 12-step
programs, each practice can help us to become more self-aware. In this
process, we can begin to analyze our own biases and remove our
perceptual blinders.
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Level Three is what we term engaged social consciousness. At
this stage, we are not only aware of the social environment but begin
to mobilize our intention to contribute to the greater good. There is a
movement from “me” to “we” as our awareness moves us to actively engage
in the wellbeing of others and the world. There is also an expansion of
perspective-taking, in which we get better at seeing things from another
person’s point of view. Scientific data from interpersonal neurobiology
suggests that our brains develop through our connections to others.
Additional data point to built in drives within us that lead us to
search for purpose in our lives, suggesting that our brains are social
organs.
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Level Four involves what we call collaborative social
consciousness. Gaining greater awareness of ourselves in relation to the
social world may lead us to participate in co-creating solutions with
others. Here we begin to shape the social environment through
collaborative actions. Within education, for example, we find an
increasing focus on participatory learning, service learning, and
project-based learning – each was developed to enhance the nature of
collaborative social consciousness through discourse and conversation.
Wisdom Cafes, Open Space Technology, and Bohmian Dialogue Groups offer
collaborative explorations and life-affirming actions.
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Level Five is what we call resonant consciousness. At this
stage of development people, report a sense of essential
interrelatedness with others. They describe a “field” of shared
experience and emergence that is felt and expressed in social groups.
Mystical states of interconnectedness, deep rapport, unspoken
communication, have all been expressed by spiritual teachers, educators,
and psychologists alike, as a stage in social consciousness. These
notions are further developed by research, such as that conducted at
IONS, that speak to measurable links between one person’s intention and
another person’s physiological activity, revealing an underlying
entanglement between us. Such studies are evocative and provide an
empirical basis for connections that lie beyond our physical relations.
Scientists, scholars, and contemplative teachers are finally beginning
to work together to explore the ways in which people are conditioned by
the biological, social, and physical world in which they are embedded,
and in so doing to recognize a broader picture of our collective human
potential.
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