Uncovering insides: we grow like a set of Russian dolls!
How we understand the world around us changes in radically different ways as we grow.
Our thinking-patterns result in very different approaches towards addressing crises like climate change.
Perspectives
How we interpret and make sense of climate change shifts as we mentally grow.
Compare
Everything is unusually green for this time of year, but is not supposed to be like this at this time.
and
My grandmother, Juana 83 years old, says the change is substantial, she says that before, during these months there would already be rains. Now, we can see the rain clouds form in the sky, but the rainstorms are falling in other places.
There is more nuance and a deeper understanding of change over time in the second quote. That is not a random observation. What lies beneath these perspectives goes a long way to explaining why we have such diverse views on complex things like climate change.
The quotes are extracts from El Salvadorean people asked to explore climate change through photos and three questions:
- What is climate change to me?
- What are the impacts of climate change for me and my community?
- How am I adapting?
Conformist
Earlier ways of making sense of ourselves and the world around us use physical analogies such as color and connecting physical concepts:
It’s unusual for storms during these months of the year. Everything is unusually green for this time of year, but is not supposed to be like this at this time. Obviously things are changing and I can see this right in front of my house and in the mountains surrounding the community.
is the full quote from Gail’s research. The picture the participant took to illustrate the statement is below/right. They titled it A Storm in May.
Pluralist
Later stages of adult development, steps we may all take, show deeper insight and more subtly connected concepts over longer timescales. The picture, below/right, is titled They Passed By Here. The research participant says:
I felt when I took the photo that I was doing a good job with this theme, I had actually seen and observed the changes taking place in the majority of photos I took. For example, there was a well that previously was always full with water—a 74 old man told me that these wells always have water in abundance—so I was very surprised to see that the heat was drying the water in these very wells. My grandmother, Juana 83 years old, says the change is substantial, she says that before, during these months there would already be rains. Now, we can see the rain clouds form in the sky, but the rainstorms are falling in other places. I realized this when I was taking the pictures; I realized what was happening. Now, I think I have more knowledge about climate change. Nothing is like it once was. My grandparents passed by here. I think a lot about if we don’t take care of this mountain, what I am seeing today is going to disappear.
Russian dolls
A good way to think of our mental growth, our adult development, is that it is like nested Russian dolls, matryoshkas. Gail says:
The Russian doll metaphor describes how humans develop from baby matryoshkas to elder matryoshkas, as each concentric sphere of meaning-making transcends and includes earlier ones.
We can all move through these developmental patterns. This matters for many things including our climate crises.
For example, at an early stage, such as conformist above, our thinking patterns tend to constrain interventions to immediate behavior changes.
Later thinking patterns, such as pluralist above, see more abstract concepts. There is an understanding, not present in earlier thinking patterns that climate change is a socially-constructed and context-dependent phenomenon. We raise ethical questions, look at responsibility and the different vulnerabilities around the world (and across income levels). However, the local concrete focus of earlier matryoshkas, sucha as conformist, is still present too.
The term matryoshka encapsulates the nested and embedded, or the transcended yet included, aspect of these meaning-making frames.
Go deeper
There is a depth of resources on the importance of these development stages.
A developmental journey: power, perspectives and passion, is an introduction to adult developmental stages and the relevance of these to climate change. It is here>
Gail Hochachka’s full paper, On matryoshkas and meaning-making: Understanding the plasticity of climate change, is available here>
For a great read on self-complexity and its business importance see Jennifer Garvey Berger, Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World here>.
For the research background on sustainability stages see Simon Divecha & Barrett Brown’s Integral Sustainability: Correlating Action Logics with Sustainability here>.
To analyze how people make sense of sustainability, with respect to adult development stages, see chapter 4 of a Climate for Change here>
Pictures from wikimedia commons and On matryoshkas and meaning-making: Understanding the plasticity of climate change
Key & Peele – School Bully
Enjoy the multiple perspectives!
One clear challenge of climate change adaptation is to take into account values that correspond to diverse human needs and multiple perspectives and worldviews—Karen O’Brien
Stages reference chart
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